Chapter 342
Chapter 342: Necromancer? Necro-Landlord!
A haze of blurry light swayed gradually in Viktor's eyes. He slowly opened them and looked around.
All before him was desolation. Dry wind, like withered hands, tore cracked lines into the barren earth.
Broken fragments of rock stood isolated on the ground, letting the howling wind carve them apart at will.
Endless drifts of wind and sand rolled in like great waves, burying the land beneath them.
The overwhelming, frenzied aura seemed ready to upend the entire barren earth.
Weija stood pressed tightly on Viktor's shoulder. Sensing the desolation all around, even its feathers trembled within the gale.
"You're really that comfortable letting that old man walk off with your precious princess?"
"He's her grandfather," Viktor said flatly.
He then bent down and stretched out a hand, pinching a small clump of earth from the ground between his fingers.
But the fine grains barely lingered in his palm before slipping soundlessly away.
Weija didn't seem to notice. It was busy smoothing the feathers the wind had ruffled:
"Grandfather or not, it's still a first meeting. And besides, he's from another country."
"You've been so quiet, I thought you'd gone mute today."
Viktor didn't reply right away. He simply shook his hand, as if flicking away the last traces of sand.
Though there was nothing left in his palm to flick.
"Too many words, and the guest overshadows the host."
Viktor looked down at his own palm and said lightly:
"We're here."
Weija blinked, not quite sure what Viktor meant yet.
Then, cutting through the howling desolation of the surrounding wind and sand, it heard it—a shriek that sounded like a soul in agony.
The sound was harsh and piercing. Even the churning sandstorm couldn't smother it. It came through clearly into Weija's ears.
"The Realm of the Dead?"
"No. This isn't the Realm of the Dead."
Weija knew what the Realm of the Dead looked like.
The true Realm of the Dead had a sluggishly still river of dead water that severed one shore from the other.
Swaying flowers of souls blanketed the entire realm. Shattered and sunken stones and sculptures filled nearly every corner.
And there were ferocious, savage undead—bearing all manner of weapons.
They patrolled the layered territories of the Realm of the Dead, hunting only for the lost souls that drifted witless through its depths, tearing them apart utterly.
But the scene before them was nothing like that. Here, there was only endless sand and silence.
Yet the shrieks of wandering souls couldn't be faked.
So where exactly had Viktor brought it?
At that moment, Viktor said calmly:
"This place is where the Realm of the Dead has cast off. A place the living refuse to touch."
"The Dead Zone."
In the game, only Players or NPCs who had mastered Necromancer magic could enter the Dead Zone.
Though one could also enter through the assistance of a Necromancer.
Like Auréliane's grandfather.
Festan Balo.
As the sole Necromancer in existence today, Festan Balo was also the only human who could enter the Dead Zone at will.
"Some souls, when they die, carry attachments too heavy to bear. They cannot pass into the Realm of the Dead."
"In the end, they can only remain in the Dead Zone—dissolving themselves away as time flows on."
Viktor extended a hand. The wind-blown sand swirling through the air was caught between his fingers, then released back into the gale from his fingertips.
"No matter how tightly you grasp, you cannot hold it."
He slipped both hands back into his pockets and continued:
"The Dead Zone is a mysterious domain exclusive to Necromancers. An exceptional Necromancer can shape a Dead Zone into a kingdom of undead all their own—a place where every wandering soul becomes their knight."
"And a truly powerful Necromancer possesses more than one Dead Zone."
Weija listened and felt a chill crawl through it. It shook out its feathers and looked at Viktor strangely.
"I'm genuinely puzzled. Knowing about the Realm of the Dead I could understand—but how do you even know something like this?"
"You're not a Necromancer."
Then again, thinking it over, Weija reminded itself that Viktor knowing things he shouldn't wasn't exactly new.
It really should have gotten used to this by now.
So Viktor paid no mind to Weija's bewilderment. He only gazed forward with deep, steady eyes and said lightly:
"The land we stand on is one among Grand Duke Balo's countless territories."
"And the fact that he has permitted me to set foot here means…"
Viktor's eyes flickered faintly. The boundless desolation stretching before him seemed entirely within his grasp:
"He's willing to transfer this Dead Zone to me."
The words had barely left his mouth when, without warning, the sandswept earth began to tremble.
Skeletal arms burst from the ground like monsters from a nightmare. Seen from above, they looked like a dense forest of bone.
One by one, skeletons wrenched their entire bodies free from the earth.
The moment the gusting sand swept over them, green ghostly flames erupted across the skeletons' forms.
It looked like an ocean of white bone, swallowed entirely in astonishing fire.
Each skeleton's hand bore a gleaming, broken weapon, their bodies clad in green-flamed armor.
There were even skeletal knights astride undead warhorses.
They leveled sharp lances, trampled over the bodies of their own, and came charging straight at Viktor.
Faced with this sudden threat, Viktor didn't move.
Only the coat at his back gained a single white stripe.
A violent surge of wind element erupted around him.
A powerful gust tore upward from the earth toward the sky, lifting Viktor's coat completely into the air.
Beneath his composed expression, a brilliant silver-white light burst into being in all directions.
【4th-Tier Magic: Four-Symbol Gale Dance】
Four faint wisps of Magic Power seemed to burrow underground, racing swiftly into the undead army, spreading out toward the four cardinal points.
Behind Viktor, Formations and Runes began spinning rapidly.
The intricate Formation looked as though countless layered sub-Formations had been embedded within it, colliding against one another, constantly generating conflicting waves of energy.
An enormous surge of Magic Power flowed outward along the pathways toward those four faint points.
The next instant, the originally faint Magic Power had a torrent of boundless energy violently forced into it.
Four terrifying chaotic hurricanes swiftly took shape, their storms tearing even the ground itself upward.
Shattered rock and sand and dust tangled together, becoming dreadful great beasts that swallowed everything within their reach.
The undead army had barely appeared for a few seconds before being swept up by the surrounding storms.
Inside the rampaging hurricanes, the undead soldiers slammed into one another and shattered, some crashing against broken rock until their bodies burst apart entirely.
The undead soldiers caught between two hurricanes fared even worse.
Torn between two colossal opposing forces, their flame-wreathed forms were ripped completely apart.
The flames inside them erupted like fireworks in midair.
Blasts of fire detonated between the hurricanes in all directions, casting a green-tinged light across Viktor's eyes.
Some souls that hadn't even fully taken the form of soldiers were swept through by the gale—their entire bodies instantly scattered to nothing.
Around Viktor, traces of wind still lingered.
He simply watched calmly as the white bones were dispersed by the gusts ahead of him, and murmured quietly to himself:
"But first."
"I have to be strong enough to take it myself."
The trial for the Necromancer Class-change was something Viktor had run through no fewer than a hundred times.
There were always players who couldn't clear this kind of Dungeon but still desperately wanted to complete the Class-change quest perfectly.
Bad at the game, yet never willing to give it up.
That was when people needed someone like Viktor—a Power Leveling service—to help them push through quests like these.
Viktor had long since mastered the Necromancer's system in thorough detail.
And the very first step to becoming a Necromancer was to claim a Dead Zone as your own.
There were two ways to seize a Dead Zone.
The first: subjugate the wandering souls within the territory.
But Viktor chose the second.
He extended one hand. A stunning surge of wind element compressed rapidly within it.
Then he clenched the wind tight in his fist and slammed it down onto the earth like a thunderbolt.
"Now—rise!"
He swept his arm wide. The endless desert earth seemed to tear apart at his hand, like fabric being ripped open.
The souls that had been surging up from underground broke free of all restraints, spinning and wheeling high in the air.
Countless drifting souls nearly blotted out the sky, twisting their forms at tremendous speed around the edges of the hurricane.
Green ghostly flames blazed across their bodies, transforming them into even more terrifying undead soldiers.
Innumerable souls spread withered wings that had grown from their forms and took flight. Among them rose skeletal soldiers as enormous as mountains, hauling themselves upright like ancient giants.
Their entire bodies consumed in eerie flame, massive black armor clung to them.
Wave after wave of undead surged forward, trampling over one another, flooding toward Viktor.
But faced with an undead army that seemed capable of drowning the entire earth and sky alike, Viktor only gave a faint smile:
"Unfortunately. Not strong enough."
The wind element surrounding him surged abruptly to several levels higher.
Chaotic wind energy began to circulate rapidly high in the sky. The massive storm seemed to take the shape of a great dragon scaled all over, its body flashing in and out of sight.
The intermittently visible form unleashed a terrifying pressure. The fierce elemental Magic Power transformed into a sky full of razor-sharp blades, tearing the entire world apart at will.
Behind Viktor, powerful elemental magic formed into a dazzling ring of light.
The phantom at his back let out a deep, resounding roar.
Viktor raised one finger and held it to his lips, as though warning the entire undead army to fall silent.
"Shh."
【Ascension】
Snap—
In an instant, the wind element around Viktor erupted in a raging tide.
With him at its center, white mist and chaotic storm fully unfurled together, sweeping outward and crashing into the armies on every side.
The vast gusts even swallowed the green-flamed storm whole, the conjured tornadoes descending from above.
Like countless thick, sweeping tendrils swaying through the whole world, grinding every enemy to dust.
BOOM—!
Even the sky was ravaged to its absolute limit by this colossal, oppressive force. The entire world fell into boundless chaos.
Blinding white light, carrying heavy cloud and shadow, rolled over the entire earth.
When the radiance faded, every wandering soul had already vanished without a trace.
The green ghostly flames had become nothing more than scattered pinpricks of light, fading like dying fireflies as the last shapes dissolved into air.
Every soul disappeared together. The lingering breeze could no longer stir a raging sandstorm.
It could only drift gently across Viktor's face and toy with the hem of his disheveled coat.
The barren earth was no longer oppressive either. Though still empty of everything, beneath the clear open sky, it felt strangely tranquil.
Even the air had lost the chaotic heaviness of before, and carried a freshness it hadn't held.
"Finally, some quiet."
"The dead should stay silent."
Weija stood on Viktor's shoulder. The strong wind had ruffled its feathers somewhat out of place.
It watched as the coat at Viktor's back—brilliant white just moments ago—gradually deepened into something dark, like the color of night.
Only then did it fold its wings and slowly come back to itself:
"You killed them all?"
"Oh, sorry—I nearly forgot they were dead to begin with."
Pausing a beat, Weija caught itself and asked again:
"Weren't you here to learn Necromancer magic? If you're not enslaving these souls, how are you supposed to become a Necromancer?"
Viktor extended one hand. A surge of wind energy peeled back the surface of the ground, slowly blowing open a small hollow in the earth.
At the same time, he said calmly:
"They were Grand Duke Balo's servants. Nothing to do with me."
"Even if I could make them submit, they would still carry someone else's brand."
"In that case, it's better to erase them entirely."
Weija was puzzled. So what if they belonged to someone else?
Couldn't you just take them and make them yours?
But Viktor only continued:
"There are many paths to becoming a Necromancer. It isn't limited to this."
Besides, Grand Duke Balo couldn't possibly avoid teaching Necromancer magic to Auréliane.
When the time came, he could just spend a little money and learn it from Auréliane himself.
Then Viktor looked at the hollow the wind had already opened in the earth. In his palm, a stalk of golden wheat appeared from thin air.
"Besides—all I wanted was a piece of land."
Weija stared at the wheat stalk for a long moment. Its mind stalled for a few seconds.
As if realizing what Viktor was doing, it couldn't help but speak:
"Viktor, you're genuinely unhinged."
"Am I?"
The wheat stalk slipped from Viktor's hand and drifted slowly into the hollow, hovering in midair.
The wind element stirred. Soil flew through the air, filling the hollow back in.
Only a glint of gold—the single stalk of wheat—remained, planted in the loose earth, swaying in the gentle breeze.
"I think so too."