Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 125

Chapter 125: Wyvern Grotto
Morning came with the cawing of blackbirds and a brittle fog that clung to the earth like smoke. Kai packed their things. Kleo moved slower, quieter, as if afraid to make any noise in a place that barely tolerated their presence.

Her attitude towards him didn’t change, even after a restful night of sleep.

“Do you hate me or something?” Kai asked, bluntly.

“No. Just… Do you think I want to be free of you?” Kleo asked, looking up at him.

‘Oh.’

He patted her head and smiled.

“If you still want to hang around afterwards, you can. It’ll be bloody, though. You won’t like what you see. I can’t guarantee that people like your sister won’t become casualties of war.”

‘Just like that girl from the tome…’

“I told you. I believe in you. And maybe you’ll need someone to remind you about the important things if you stray too far.”

“It’s too late for that…” Kai trailed off.

Kai felt the souls writhe within his soul vault. Mothers, fathers, children. People who didn’t deserve to be used.

He could tell Kleo wanted to probe him for an explanation, but he slung a bag over his back and left the room.

As they stepped back onto the road, Kai noticed something.

The villagers were watching them.

Eyes peeked from cracked doorframes and foggy windows. Not curious, not fearful, but wary. Suspicious. Even the animals seemed to avoid them. A mutt by the well snarled and tucked its tail as they passed.

Kai scanned the surroundings once more. No one moved. No one waved goodbye.

Just silence.

He didn’t like it.

Maybe they sensed something about him. Or maybe they simply didn’t like travelers, strangers in dark cloaks.

Regardless, he said nothing.

Kleo followed behind, her footsteps soft on the dirt road. She glanced back only once before the trees swallowed the village whole.

They walked in silence for a long while.

It was only then Kai finally spoke, his voice low. “Halfway there.”

Kleo nodded, eyes still on the road ahead. “Okay.”

And the wind carried them forward.

—

The Wyvern Grotto was nestled beneath the Ironside Mountains, surrounded by unnatural beauty. Lush greenery spilled from every crevice, moss glittered with bioluminescence, and small flowers swayed without wind. It looked like paradise.

Paradise in a place where dangerous creatures lived, right next to a land where fauna should struggle to grow.

Then the screeches came.

High-pitched. The type that rattled your bones.

Wyverns.

Kai narrowed his eyes. “We’re here.”

He summoned his undead. Ralts, Shade, Joe, and Merri materialised from spiraling shadows.

Merri was the first to dart forward. She was death in silence, slipping through the underbrush to scout ahead. Her report came in the form of images burned into Kai’s mind through their link.

‘Fourteen wyverns. Twenty eggs. Quite a haul. A little more than I expected, though.’

A massacre waiting to happen. Hopefully not their own.

Kai felt it before it began, the tremor in the earth, the pressure in the air.

A wyvern that was in the air nearby landed in the clearing with a thunderous crash.

Its sleek, serpentine body stretched nearly fifteen feet from snout to tail, with a wingspan nearly double that when unfurled. Thick scales shimmered in the sunlight, royal purple, but not uniform. Darker ridges lined its back and flanks in jagged lines. A faint iridescence traced its wings, giving them an oily sheen like foggy stained glass.

Its head was angular and narrow, with a crown of small horns that swept back like a crest of broken daggers. Slitted eyes, the colour of fresh lavender, locked onto Kai and Kleo with eerie intelligence, calculating, cold, and hungry.

Its talons scraped across the ground as it shifted its weight, and a low, rattling hiss escaped its maw, laced with the faint scent of rot and sulphur.

And when it opened its jaws to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth and a flickering violet tongue, it made clear that it was not intimidated by the intruders in its domain.

Just… curious which one it would eat first.

‘Let’s do this.’

The first strike came fast.

Ralts tried to pin the closest wyvern down with flesh manipulation, but the scales deflected her magic. Her threads of magic coiled around its wings, useless.

Kai summoned Shade, enveloping him. It was still weak, but it would not grow without repetitive use. He shaped a large hammer from his shadows. He rushed forward, strengthening magic rippling over his skin, fortifying his muscles and bones to withstand the fight ahead.

The wyvern noticed him. It moved like lightning. Faster, much faster than Kai.

He barely managed to dodge a swipe of its claws. He needed more. More speed.

He closed his eyes.

‘Let the wind speak. Let her speak. Please.’

Angelica Trunsdale. Wind sorceress. Her memories, buried deep in the soul he absorbed back in Orrinsby, stirred to life.

—

He stood atop a jagged cliffside plateau, where the stone was cracked and pale from centuries of gales carving away its skin. The sky above burned gold with the early blush of sunset, clouds dragging long shadows across the highlands below.

Angelica Trunsdale’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. She was breathless, aching, and furious.

Her mentor, Master Edran, a stern-faced man with a long braid and storm-grey robes, stood nearby, arms folded, watching impassively. His cloak snapped wildly in the wind.

“I told you already,” he barked over the howl of the breeze. “Stop fighting it!”

“I’m not-” Angelica shouted back, strands of her dark blond hair whipping into her mouth, “-I’m trying to shape it!”

“There’s your problem. You’re trying to own it. Wind won’t be owned. It only listens when you dance with it.”

Angelica clenched her fists, jaw tight. For hours she had been pushed to the edge, literally, forced to repeat the same thing, only to be sent tumbling to the ground with each failure. Her hands were scraped raw. Her knees throbbed.

But she refused to give up.

“Fine!”

She closed her eyes.

The wind beat against her chest, tugging at her arms, her legs, her thoughts. She tried again to force her will into it, and it resisted. Wild. Slippery. Like threading a fist through a needle.

‘No. Not this time.’

She let her anger drain. Let her breath settle.

Instead of commanding the wind, she invited it.

She listened.

Listened to the tremble of leaves below. The pulse of highland air above the cliffs. The ancient echo of wind tunnels through mountain ridges.

And then she moved. She opened herself up, her gesture an invitation to dance.

The wind answered, and took her hand.

They became one.

—

[Wind Magic learned.]

Kai separated the air in front of him and launched forward like a bullet. The wyvern lunged. He knocked its claw aside, vaulted over its snapping jaws, and sent a spear of shadow directly into its chest. It pierced the scale, but only barely. The shadow hung there, flickering, before dissolving into smoke.

Ralts, on the other side, blasted a wyvern with a burst of frost and flame. She dragged up roots and vines from the earth to bind it, snarling with effort. Her magic kept it at bay.

But she didn’t see the shadow above her.

Joe shouted. Kai turned, but it was already too late.

An alpha wyvern landed behind Ralts. Much bigger than the rest.

Its jaw unhinged.

Kai saw her look up. She didn’t scream.

The beast swallowed her whole in a single, sickening gulp.

Silence.

Kai snapped.

Darkness bled from him like spilled ink. The shadow beneath him warped, twisting into unnatural forms.

He roared.

“RAAALTS!”

And the air cracked.