Chapter 17: The curse of the dark

Chapter 17: The curse of the dark

I charged at the necromancer, stomping down to launch myself at him, cracking the stone floor in the process. I held back from using my [Shadow apparation], because my dark alignment was a trump card that could win me this battle instantly. Before I did that though, I wanted to figure out what kind of defensive measures he had. If he had another shield, my apparation would just be another wasted opportunity, after all.

The necromancer countered my charge by finishing his spell. The tome in his hands covered the room in darkness as the fool shouted something at the top of his lungs.

[MASS RAISE UNDEAD]!

I startled as the ground around me started to rumble, skeletal limbs breaking through looser patched of dirt around the chamber. A moment later a group of around fifty undead dug themselves out of the earth around the chamber. They were wearing an assortment of items, most just being tier-less. I did a quick check and found two skeletons that had enchanted equipment. One was wearing a red, torn rag and wielding a wizard's staff that glowed red, the other had no equipment at all, save for a great sword that looked far too expensive to be your standard run of the mill weapon. It didn't have any clear indication of an enchantment, but I kept an eye on it all the same.

"How do you like that? Quantity is a quality all its own!" the necromancer cackled.Read latest chapters at novelhall.com Only

Quickly, I found myself surrounded by a swarm of mindless undead. I deliberated wasting my element of surprise to attack the necromancer again, but decided to hold off until the situation became dire. Revan took advantage of the chaos to sneak up behind the demon baby. The demon was flying near the necromancer, only to be bowled out of the sky by a very hungry bone crocodile. Revan and the demon started screeching and clawing at each other while rolling on the ground. It reminded me of a cat fight.

"Yeaaach! Let me go, you overgrown dinosaur! I, the great Rickardo, am a cherub demon of immense status! You will obey..."

His cry was interrupted by Revan biting down on his arm and making a turning motion. It would have been enough to tear the limb off normally, but demons had a frighteningly strong constitution.

Soon, the necromancer would notice that Revan was an undead, that fought as my familiar. The figurative cat would be out of the bag when he realised that I also had a dark affinity, so if I still wanted to surprise my opponent, now was the time. I used my apparation to appear above the necromancer, thrusting down in a movement that was starting to feel familiar at this point. No one ever bothered looking up, after all.

Still, it seemed like I was destined to fail every time I tried that tactic, because right as my sword pierced him, his body turned hazy. It turned into a black smoke, not dissimilar to my own apparation skill. Yet, while it did allow him to dodge my strike, he only recovered a few paces away, signifying that it was a defensive skill, rather than a mobility based one like mine.

"What! [Shadow apparation]? Did that bitch send you to kill me? She was never going to pay up in the first place, was she..? Of course not. Why would she offer her staff for some poison? What a fool I was to believe her!"

I didn't let him finish his monologue, because a second later I was on top of him, charging up my augment at full blast.

My core drew in mana from the surrounding area, slowly increasing the amount of mana that it pumped out. My [Battle meditation] fed it more and more mana, while my [Mana physique] further amplified the incoming amount. My sword became pitch black as it was covered in black mana. I could feel power return to my muscles, giving me at least twice as much strength as usual. Dark mana started to swirl around me in a cone, rushing past my skin like wind.

I wasn't going to overload quite yet, but I was ready to do so if I found a weakness in the alchemist's defence.

When I reached him, I swung for his tome, which he countered by sending a ball of grey smoke at me. I was forced to block his magic, and deflected it into the crowd of skeletons that was desperately trying to reach me before I apparated away. It hit one of them, which turned him into ashes almost instantly. Even parts of his bones that hadn't been hit directly crumbled and lost their structure, turning to dust.

"How do you like my [Death magic], false hunter? It took me quite some time to reach these heights of power! Death magic works just as well against a fellow dark affinity user. Among tier 3 warriors, no one can defeat me anymore, not even you!"

I attempted to shut him up with a strike, but was again faced with a barrage of grey orbs, forcing me to deflect each one. I wasn't confident enough in my healing capabilities to tank them. Thankfully, a few deflected orbs hit his own servants instead, thinning out the squadron of skeletons a bit.

Apparently one of the two aberrant skeletons found this to be the perfect opportunity to show their hand, since I was kept in place by the necromancer's spells. The wizard skeleton lifted his staff and summoned a giant ball of fire, which kept growing. I looked for the swordsman, but that skeleton was just sitting down casually on top of a rock a small distance away. I decided to focus on the skeleton caster first.

I apparated next to it and killed it with a charged up swing, decapitating it in one blow, but not before it released its fireball. Luckily, the giant fireball was incredibly slow, for some reason only traveling at the speed of a normal person's walking speed. I dodged it easily and diverted my attention to the necromancer, hoping he would run out of mana soon. Sadly, I had no such luck, because even when I got close to him, my attacks would just phase through his smoky body.

I lifted myself up from the ground slowly. I couldn't feel the pain of losing a hand, so I was ready to finish off the necromancer right then. As I stood up, my charred forearm started writhing, slowly regenerating my hand by using the immense amount of dark mana coursing through my body. I expelled most of the rest, which left my core near empty again. I hadn't had a choice, really. The large amount of mana would either need to be expelled or it would destroy my organs. I didn't heal fast enough to counteract that kind of damage yet, so entering the overloading state was something I could only do temporarily. Overloading on mana actually tired out your core a lot, limiting the amount of mana you could store there for a while, as well. All of those limitations made overloading a very unreliable and situational strategy. It didn't help that you needed a large amount of a very specific element of mana to do it either, which is why it was considered an unusable strategy by most.

Still, it had saved me from an unwinnable fight this time, showing how lucky I was.

With the dust settled, I could see the necromancer laying down. He had propped himself up against a rock with his remaining arm, having lost the other one. When he saw me approach, he smiled.

"Happy now? A priceless artefact, reduced to dust."

"If you cared as much about people as you do about artefacts, maybe you wouldn't be in this situation."

"You are... a peculiar one. I've never heard of a sorcerer that uses a sword and no spells...and that core of yours... a work of art..."

"How did you become like this?"

"Like what?"

"A criminal? A psychopath."

"Don't tell me... you're still resisting your curse? Incredible... I gave up almost instantly."

My curiosity was piqued by now. The curse? Was he talking about the mental skills that made dark casters go insane?

"Tell me about your curse."

"Well, why not. I'm dying anyway, I don't have resistance to overload like you, so it was all for naught in the end. I was the son of an artefact dealer, something I quickly gained a passion for as well. I wanted to succeed my father in the business, but it was not to be. When I awakened, I received the class [Novice necromancer] and with it, the skill [Fixated insanity]. From then on, I started my true journey to greatness! My hunt for artefacts of all kinds! It eventually led me to find my grimoire in a tomb somewhere. I could have been great, if it weren't for you."

"So [Fixated insanity] forced you to disregard everything and everyone, focusing only on your fixation on artefacts."

"Bah, chicken or egg, egg or chicken, it makes no difference. The system assigns us a class, forcing us down a certain path regardless, whether that's insanity or not."

At this point, the necromancer was bleeding out. His voice was becoming strained and occasionally he coughed up blood. He was nearing his end.

"The system decides our fate. No matter what, we can't escape from it. Trying is pointless torture... Remember this, false hunter. You are just as cursed as I, and you will never break your chains... No one ever has, except for Helios. And even he only traded his chains for a gilded cage. You'll come to agree with me in time..."

As the alchemist breathed his last, I lopped off his head, finally finishing him.

"Break my chains, huh? We'll see about that, old man. We'll see about that."