Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 123

Chapter 123: Legion
The alley darkened unnaturally.

Over a dozen heads turned in unison, and then chaos broke out.

‘Take the inquisitors first. They’re the only threat here.’

“Wh–who the fuck-!” one of the bandits yelled.

The question was never finished. From the darkness behind Kai, a skeletal claw reached forward and ripped the first inquisitor from the ground by his throat. Joe flung the man into the wall hard enough to explode his bones like brittle sticks.

“By the gods!” the other inquisitor screamed, stepping back.

Ralts emerged next, her blackened flesh oozing between joints, face stitched with runes, and lips sewn in a grin. With a simple gesture, flesh from the fallen man snaked like a worm toward another thug, twisting around his legs, pinning him in place.

“Help me!” the man screamed.

His cries turned to shrieks as she clenched her fist and peeled his skin from the muscle like wet paper, letting it fall in ribbons. Blood sprayed the alley walls, and his screams became gurgles as he pissed himself in agony.

Then the death knights arrived.

A giant greatsword split a bandit clean in two. Gore rained across the stones as intestines spilled like eels. Another tried to run, but Joe caught him by the ankle, dragging him back, shrieking and leaving a trail of feces behind him as terror liquified his bowels.

Kai, arms raised, watched the slaughter with cold precision. This wasn’t rage. This was calibration. A test of his elite unit of sentient undead.

Each enemy that fell screamed until their throats collapsed. Those that fought were hacked apart. Those that begged were silenced by Ralts’ spikes of muscle and bone, piercing their mouths and eyes. One inquisitor tried to activate a holy ward, but his arm was bitten off by Joe before he could finish the incantation.

Blood turned the cobblestones slick. The smell of copper and hot bile filled the air.

A thug jumped out from the corner of the alley, with the divine dagger in hand. He charged towards Ralts, but Kai was quicker. He summoned a simple Skeleton Warrior from his shadow space, and covered it with his practiced barrier he’d prepared for divine attacks and hoped for the best.

The dagger struck the barrier, and the bandit was knocked back.

‘It works. Maybe not against raw divine magic, but at least one of their weapons won’t cut through the barriers.’

As the final few tried to flee, Kai raised a single hand.

“Wither bolt,” he whispered.

Black bolts coiled from his palm, streaking through the air like writhing serpents. They struck one by one, each bolt unraveling flesh like boiling acid, eating through skin, nerve, and bone until only ash remained.

Each fulfilling their purpose of feeding him.

One man tried to scream, but his lungs melted before the sound could escape. He dropped, twitching, as his ribcage dissolved.

The stench of liquified organs and rotting fear was intoxicating. Vomit and urine mixed with blood. The alley became a soup of human waste and sanctified failure.

And Kai drank it in.

The life essence surged into him like fire through a dry forest. The inquisitors gave the most. Their divine spark cracked like lightning in his veins. A cruel irony: holy men turned into food to fuel an undead army.

His essence meter hit max.

[Life Essence: 115,000/115,000. Phylactery Reserves: 11,500/11,500.]

The soul-stuffed items from beneath the academy remained untouched. This wasn’t exactly topping up his stock. It was indulgence.

But he wasn’t done yet. Not be far. He still wanted to add to his army.

‘Am I getting too carried away?’ he considered the possibility while he watched his prey slip away.

Not out of clumsiness, but as a hunting tactic. To watch a rabbit run back to their burrow and kill all of the pests.

He allowed one thug to flee, limping, bloodied, with true terror in his eyes. Kai activated Umbral Mantle, his form vanishing into the folds of shadow and silence. He followed the thug all the way through the alleys and streets of the citadel until they were in the west quarter.

The man led him to a crumbling building that looked like it may have once been a noble’s manor, shouting incoherently as he shoved open the doors.

“They’re all dead!” he screamed. “The dead came! They killed everyone! Even the inquisitors! We lost the sacrifices!”

Inside, crimson robes turned to greet him. A dozen, maybe more. Faces hidden beneath hoods. They formed a ring around a massive magical circle, engraved into the ground in symbols that shimmered faintly red.

Kai’s pulse quickened.

‘Not the regular kind of pests, it seems. Not bandits… Cultists.’

He slinked into the rafters, remaining silent, as the robed figures calmed the man. They dismissed him with irritation and told him to stand aside.

Kai’s attention was fixed entirely on the circle.

It pulsed. Faintly. Hungering.

After a while, another bandit brought a fresh group of bandits inside.

“What, then? Where’s this huge haul?” One of them asked.

“You’re the haul,” a cultist said, as they came up from behind them.

They struggled, confused. Some begged, others laughed, thinking it a joke.

It wasn’t.

Their throats were slit one by one. They stood no chance.

The circle drank the blood greedily. With each death, the symbols grew brighter, more frantic.

Kai narrowed his eyes and triggered his internal translation system.

[Forebearer’s Language Translation: 58%]

He squinted at the glyphs.

‘Summon. Another world. Death. Evil. Demon… or devil?’

It wasn’t a coherent phrase. But it didn’t have to be.

They were calling something horrible.

And Kai… was curious.

They raised their arms together. Chanted.

“For Legion!”

The circle pulsed.

Kai frowned. ‘Legion? What the heck is going on with this city?’

Then, as the energy reached its peak, every cultist dropped dead. One by one. No external wounds. Just lifeless collapse.

Their bodies liquefied.

A red ooze seeped from each corpse. Thick. Bubbling. It slurped them up like meat down a drain. The stench hit Kai immediately—burnt meat, sulfur, and wet rot. It was like acid had been poured over flesh, and the air filled with the hissing of slow decomposition.

They didn’t scream.

There was no time.

Their souls didn’t even rise.

Something took them. Consumed them entirely.

Kai’s blood ran cold.

He watched, half horrified, half intrigued.

Whatever it was… it felt like him. Or what he could become.

The ooze rippled, pulsed—and then stilled, before seeping into the stone.

Nothing remained. Not even bones.

“…What the hell did I just witness?” Kai muttered under his breath.

A moment passed.

He realised the loss: no corpses. No essence. No souls. No undead recruits.

With a sour expression, he stepped away from the rafters. ‘Wasted time.’

He turned and made his way back toward Kleo’s house, but halfway through the shadows, he spotted another patrol of inquisitors.

This group was smaller than the patrol of a dozen during the day. Bu they were more focused. In search of something.

‘Seven. Could I handle them?’

One of them, tall and wearing a silver circlet, looked straight at him.

Kai froze.

The inquisitor leaned toward his companion and whispered something.

‘He saw me…?’

Kai didn’t wait to hear or see more.

He fled.

He vanished into the alleys, through archways, and up walls faster than any footsteps could follow.

Kai couldn’t even hear if there were footsteps over the pumping of blood he felt in his head.

Panic rose in his throat, not from fear of death, but from the cold, rational understanding of scale.

‘It’s not enough. I don’t have enough.’

He continued until his legs burned.

‘Not yet.’

He didn’t look back for a second. Even if they weren’t following, he wasn’t going to give them a chance to find him.

‘I can’t fight the church yet.’