Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 113

Chapter 113: Hunting the Brain
Kai pressed forward, his boots echoing wetly against the pulsating floor. The fleshy walls contracted with every step, responding to his movement like a living thing. Cladeus’ chamber, surreal and whimsical as it was, faded behind them. Now, only one mana source pulsed ahead. Strong, and of the same nature as the environment.

With the mimic’s creatures temporarily silenced and Cladeus no longer distracting them, following the trail was easier. His army marched in step: Joe, his skeletal knight, still blackened from fusion; Joran, the brawler-type revenant with one arm barely hanging; and Ralts, silent and unreadable, trailing just behind.

Merri, Kael, and the rest hung back a little to protect the rear.

They weren’t alone for long.

From the moment they stepped beyond Cladeus’ bubble of influence, the mimic’s biology responded with renewed aggression. Shrieking organisms bubbled up from pores in the wall, limbs and teeth folding out from within folds of wet tissue. Kai’s undead didn’t hesitate.

With blade, claw, and spell, they tore the mimic’s guardians apart. Bones shattered teeth. Necrotic flame charred skinless horrors. Even without fresh mana to sustain them, Kai’s troops moved with the cold grace of efficiency, until the chamber began to change.

The corridor widened, then ballooned, until they stood within a colossal chamber, lit by bioluminescent tendrils hanging from the ceiling like glowing vines. In the centre stood the brain. Four-legged. Huge. Breathing.

And then… eyes.

Thousands.

Opening in the walls, floor, ceiling, every inch of flesh stared at them. A wave of vertigo washed over Kai as the mimic fully focused its will upon them. He stepped forward and the swarm came without warning.

But instead of attacking, they stopped, huddled up in a group.

All of them.

Frozen in place, twitching.

And then… they began merging.

“Copying me? Well, I guess you’re a mimic…”

Each creature twisted inward, collapsing into itself. Others sprinted toward the writhing mass, throwing themselves into it willingly. Limbs and torsos blended into one another. Teeth lined joints. Bones bent backward. Flesh thickened into armor.

Kai’s eyes widened.

“Back! Everyone back!”

Too late.

The fusion was complete.

A colossus of warped flesh now stood before them, large enough to fill the entire chamber from floor to ceiling. It stood on four malformed legs, with a hunched back covered in twitching eyes. Dozens of tendrils slithered from its spine. Its mouth, one gaping wet hole, stretched from shoulder to hip, screaming a soundless scream that made Kai’s ears ring.

Kael charged.

Joe followed.

The fight began.

Kael’s sword bit deep into the creature’s leg, but the wound instantly began to seal. Joe leapt and slashed into its rib-like plating, driving necrotic force into its core, but was immediately swatted aside by a limb thicker than a tree trunk.

A single strike cracked Kael’s helm in two and sent him crashing into the wall, limp.

Joe held on longer, but three tendrils pierced his gut, lifting him like a trophy.

Kai’s fists clenched.

“No! Back, both of you!” Kai yelled. With a motion, he called them back into his shadow space before they collapsed completely. He clenched his fists.

He looked at his remaining undead. Each one was strong in their own right, but two of his strongest melee fighters got taken down without leaving so much as a scratch on the enemy.

“Enough of this-”

Ralts stood in front of Kai and she touched the edge of his shadow.

Her gaze was cold. Focused.

Without a word, she raised her arms and whispered a chant in the language of the Forebearers.

The shadows shook violently.

Two skeletal liches rose behind her, their hollow eyes burning blue.

And then twenty-eight skeleton magisters followed.

Each one clad in shimmering spectral robes. Each one clutching a staff of dark bone. Each one perfectly silent as they fell into rank behind their queen.

Kai stared, wide-eyed.

“Ralts… what are you-”

“They’re yours,” she said. “But this is my war, too.”

She raised her hand.

“Incinerate.”

Thirty-one spellcasters lifted their staves in perfect unison.

And the world turned red.

Flames howled across the chamber, interweaving in spirals and spheres, in comets and columns, painting the mimic beast in alchemical fire. It screamed.

Not in pain, but in terror.

Its regeneration slowed. Then halted. Chunks of it blackened, curled in on itself, and flaked into ash.

It surged forward in a desperate lunge.

It never reached them.

Thirty-one arms raised again. A second wave of fire fell upon the monster. Every limb buckled. Eyes popped. Its massive form shuddered, spasmed and collapsed.

A mountain of rotting, molten biomass hit the floor with a splash. Boiling goo spread across the tiles. Only silence remained.

Kai stepped forward slowly, staring at what was left. His heart thundered in his ears.

‘I’ll have to remind her that I am her master, and soon.’

“Ralts…”

She looked over her shoulder.

“You’re welcome.”

He almost smiled, but the moment was cut short by the echo of something deeper. Something alive.

The brain.

Still pulsing in the next chamber.

The final enemy.

Kai turned to his undead, many now hissing with smoke from spell discharge.

“Move.”

They moved to the brain, now alone and pulsing in panic. The creature’s legs twitched as it backed away, dragging itself against the chamber’s edge.

Kai raised his hand to finish it.

As if on queue, Cladeus appeared.

Mid-step, soot-covered from scalp to heel, smelling of smoke and sulfur, blinking as though he’d just walked through a fog.

He dusted the soot from his lavish purple suit and laughed.

“Whew! Do not recommend diving into the caldera of a volatile volcano,” he said, fanning himself with his scorched top hat. “But… ah… what’s this? A bit of mind-murder on the menu?”

Kai froze. “You again?”

Cladeus frowned, genuine distress showing in his too-bright eyes. “Come on now. Mimi’s been very helpful to me. How about we strike a deal?”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “A deal?”

“I’ll give you a soul,” Cladeus said. “Of equivalent value. You leave Mimi alone.”

Kai hesitated. “Equivalent value?”

“Indeed.”

Cladeus reached into his coat.

Reality itself seemed to resist his hand, but he forced it inside. A chorus of screams echoed through the chamber.

He pulled out a softly glowing crystal and tossed it to Kai. “Here.”

Kai caught it.

The moment it touched his palm, he nearly collapsed.

His body buckled. His eyes rolled back. The crystal disintegrated.

[You have acquired: Shadow Dragon’s Soul. Sovereign Rank.]

As the crystal dematerialised in Kai’s palm, the soul within it surged forward like it had been waiting.

Not to be held, but to consume.

Consume everything.

A shockwave of heat rolled off it, not the warmth of fire or sunlight, but the choking intensity of volcanic breath, dry and ancient and utterly merciless. It didn’t burn his flesh, but it threatened to erase it.

His arms shook, vision doubled, and knees buckled.

And still, the soul pulsed in his hand.

It was not a sphere, or a flame, or any one shape. It shifted constantly, folding in on itself, tearing at its own form, bristling with jagged edges like obsidian knives. Black light spilled from it in thin, ragged filaments, coiling like smoke and tasting of iron and ozone.

Kai gritted his teeth.

His breath hitched.

Each pulse of the soul pushed against the barriers of his being, like a wild beast slamming against the cage of his mind. It was not still. It did not rest.

It didn’t want to be held.

It wanted to fly.

To burn cities in silence.

To roar in the dark and swallow the stars themselves.

He decided against consuming it there and then, and instead, stored it within his soul vault.

[Warning: a soul of this magnitude will shatter your soul vault in approximately 3 days.]

Kai felt it crawl into his blood like fire down a frozen stream. Every heartbeat pumped more of it through him, and his body responded with tremors of instinctual fear. This was no mere essence. No animal soul. This was a Sovereign level soul.

A dragon.

A shadow older than memory.

And it knew him immediately. He felt it searching through his memories like someone reading every book in a library in seconds.

He heard it whisper, not in words, but in pressure. The way mountains speak when the wind blows over them. The way oceans command the waves.

Let me out.

Let me out.

Let me out.

He bit down on his tongue hard enough to bleed, grounding himself. He squeezed his fist. Focused on control. On clarity.

“I… am not your prey,” he said through clenched teeth.

The soul laughed inside him. Not mockery. Not hate. Just interest. Amusement. Like a lion finding an ant with fangs.

Then it went quiet.

It didn’t vanish. It simply settled.

Like a storm that hadn’t stopped, but had merely moved deeper.

And even then, in that stillness, Kai could feel its heat radiating from his bones.

Kai fell to one knee, trembling.

“This-” he gasped.

“Fair trade?” Cladeus offered with a crooked smile.

“Yes-”

The world shattered.

His eyes fluttered, and the mimic’s chamber was gone.

He stood at the edge of Hollowcrag Ravine. Wind screamed past his ears. A brutal, crushing pressure squeezed at his lungs.

He turned around, and there she was.

Kleo.

Tears streaking down her soot-covered cheeks. Her shoulders shaking.

The thing crushing his chest and squeezing the air from him was her.

“You’re here,” she sobbed into his chest. “You’re really here. I felt like you were going to come back. I knew it. But it was still hard to believe… I mean… You were swallowed!”

Kai was too stunned to speak. His muscles trembled from the soul still settling within his soul vault. His arms slowly lifted, wrapping around her in return.

And for the first time in hours, maybe days, he let himself relax. Just a little. Just enough.