Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 98

Chapter 98: Overwhelming Magic
Kai reacted the moment the headmaster’s voice twisted into that inhuman growl. The thick, oppressive magic in the room stank of death and corruption, like blood-soaked rot sealed behind ancient stone.

He didn’t hesitate.

His arm moved in a blur, launching spell after spell toward the creature wearing Denise Lorian’s face.

“Frozen Zone!”

“Icicle Javelins!”

“Wall of Flame!”

“Gravebound!”

“Flamethrower!”

“Wither Bolt!”

Each spell crackled with power. Flames, ice, electricity, tendrils, and more hurtled through the air.

None of them landed.

The moment the spells neared her, they simply… unwove. Like threads snipped mid-air. The magic shivered, then dissolved, coming apart at the seams in a way that made Kai’s skin crawl.

“No…” he breathed.

Kleo let out a tiny whimper. Aliza covered her mouth with both hands. The room suddenly felt smaller. Tighter.

The stink of urine reached Kai’s nose, acrid and sharp. He didn’t look back, but he heard a thump as Kleo’s knees buckled. She fell backward, landing hard on her butt. Her hands trembled uncontrollably.

Aliza stood frozen, pale and speechless.

The headmaster began to approach. The pressure of her mana making Kai dizzier with each step.

“Shadow Weapons!”

Kai threw two knives that also disappeared before reaching her.

Kai gritted his teeth. He could feel the chill of sweat down his back.

‘Seal it, he told himself. Seal her. Lock it down. Like Orlin. Like before.’

He clenched a handful of his own life essence. More than he should have. It scorched through his body like acid, burning arteries of power through his limbs.

His hands danced across the air, sketching ancient sigils that glowed with pale, trembling light.

[Minor Sealing Spell One Unlocked: Body Sealing.]

The sealing magic erupted toward the headmaster in a web of ethereal glyphs, each etched from his own soul. Kai mimicked the same runes as before, with Orlin, using bone chalk in the air. They surged forward.

And vanished.

Not shattered. Not reflected. Erased.

The entire constructed spell blinked out of existence before even reaching her. As though the space around her didn’t allow magic to exist.

‘Anti-magic?’ Kai’s thoughts reeled. ‘Like Joran? No, worse. This… this is consumption.’

“Don’t even bother,” the headmaster said, her voice now a layered blend of her own and something ancient. Something wrong. “You’re out of your league by a few hundred years.”

Her grey eyes glowed faintly now, like foggy moons staring down on insects.

‘That’s all we are compared to her. Insects.’

Kai screamed and snapped his fingers.

One by one, his non-essential undead began to claw their way from his shadow. Gnarled arms, skeletal limbs and stitched horrors rising to defend him.

For a single breath, he felt hope.

Then the next moment, when the headmaster took another step, they collapsed into piles of meat and shattered bone. The glow in their eyes died. Their connection to him completely severed.

The magic was gone. Consumed. Rendered utterly inert.

“No, no, no!” Kai hissed, staggering back. His fingers were trembling now. He grabbed his chest. The life essence he’d burned was catching up with him. His heart raced, his head felt light.

He blended his magic together to weave something new and unexplored.

[Spell Learned: Arcane Flurry – Channel and disperse three or more types of elemental magic at once.]

[Spell Learned: Necromantic Fuel – Imbue undead thralls with your magic directly.]

Everything was pointless. Nothing worked.

In a last-ditch effort, he charged at her with his body magically strengthened. But his strike ended up being a normal 14-year-old’s punch. Nothing more. Nothing special.

The headmaster didn’t even flinch.

She flicked her wrist and Kai flew backwards, right beside Aliza and Kleo.

His mana wouldn’t flow. It recoiled within him, like prey hiding from a predator.

“Kai!” Aliza finally screamed, but it was already too late.

The headmaster strolled forward leisurely, no rush in her steps, no threat in her body language. She didn’t need to rush. She was entirely in control.

They were nothing to her.

Kai tried to lift his arms again, but they wouldn’t obey.

She grabbed him by the hair, roughly, and yanked him forward. He groaned in pain, but lacked the strength to resist. He summoned Shade, and with a flurry of movement, a large gash appeared on her cheek.

She cocked her head as the wound rapidly healed. She grabbed Shade by its throat, or at least where a throat might be, and with a blinding flash of light, incinerated it.

“Shade…”

It felt like a limb had been cut from his body. The connection he’d built up with Shade over almost a decade vanished. He still had control over his shadow, but that section of his shadow. The one which had always been with him.

It was gone.

“You named part of your shadow? My, my. You’re a pathetic little one. Had nobody else to play with, so you played with your own shadow?”

She dragged him like a broken puppet across the concrete floor, then flung him into a nearby cage.

The moment he crossed the threshold, he knew.

This cage wasn’t normal.

The metal was cold and humming. Strange sigils were etched into every bar. He couldn’t read them, but their effects were instant.

His mana vanished. Everything was gone.

Even his shadow, the great abyss he used to store his undead army, was now just a smear on the floor. Empty. Normal.

“W-what is this…?” he choked out.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into his cloak and began removing his belongings: his pouch of bone chalk and parchment, and his gloves of mana dampening.

And then, she took the Mirage’s Veil.

The enchantment broke with a sharp shimmer.

Kai gasped as the illusion keeping his appearance dissolved. His blond hair turned ghost-white. His tanned olive complexion faded into a sickly, unnatural pale. His eyes went from blue to became a glowing green. Unmistakable. Unnatural.

Aliza and Kleo were each thrown into separate cages shortly after. Aliza tried to scream, and tried to use magic, but nothing happened. She slammed her fists on the bars until her knuckles bled. Kleo curled up in the far corner of her cage, rocking back and forth, whispering to herself.

Kai leaned back against the bars at the back of his cage, panting.

He was exhausted. Burnt out. Every part of him ached.

And in the growing silence of their imprisonment, he spoke, not to the headmaster, not to the creature, but to his friends.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “Aliza… Kleo… I’m sorry I brought you here.”

Neither answered.

He looked toward the far wall, eyes glassy.

“Willam… Emille… Naia…” His voice cracked. “I promised I’d be there for the Crucible tomorrow. I promised.”

He stared at the floor.

“But I don’t think I’m getting out of this one.”

And for the first time in years, Kai Tensen, disciple of Orlin Mirth, felt something clawing up from the pit of his soul. The first time since coming against his master as an undead creature.

Hopelessness and fear.