In summoning the undead attendants, Felix didn't need to imbue them with the fire of the soul. These spirits from hell were already powerful souls.

Felix's task was merely to find a physical vessel in the material plane for them. The ogres, with their naturally large bones and considerable material strength, were suitable.

Both ogre corpses bore traces of death's power. All Felix needed to do was channel magical energy to stir the free-floating negative elements in Felendia, turning them into skeletal warriors.

The altar for the undead attendant summoning ritual was located in Felendia's basement, a place where the mysterious Gamma Master stored failed experiments.

This area was steeped in a heavy aura of death and dark energy, and, of course, an overwhelming stench of decay.

Performing the undead attendant summoning, as per the original pact, required a living sacrifice. This meant killing a living humanoid at the heart of the altar as an offering to the Reaper.

However, Felix was short on resources and had to offer up the blade ogre warrior instead. Now that one ogre specimen had completed the semi-undead transformation, the blade ogre warrior was temporarily redundant. Felix anticipated a second batch of ogre specimens for the next phase of mutation and stimulation modification.

After igniting the thirty-six massive skull candles surrounding the altar with magical energy, Felix plunged a silver dagger into the heart of the blade ogre warrior.

Blood gushed along the blade's grooves, flowing into the inch-deep magic grooves on the altar. A struggling soul was extracted by the flickering flames.

"Rulers of hell, masters of the exiled spirits, I, Felix, a Gamma Master, in the name of the Shadow Queen Christie, wish to strike a deal with you. I have offered the sacrifice," he proclaimed.

After the blade ogre warrior's soul was extracted, Felix began to chant the summoning ritual for the undead attendants from a scroll. This summoning wasn't coercive; it was more like a trade, evident from Felix's ritual words.

A Gamma Master invoking the name of the Shadow Queen Christie was his bargaining chip and proof of identity. He then offered the sacrifice to the Reaper Thralls in exchange for the exiled souls.

There is only one Reaper, but many Reaper Thralls, mostly scythe demons from hell, beings between energy and matter. Similar to ghosts but far stronger, they were recruited over the ages by various Reapers to help manage the souls in hell.

Felix aimed to trade with such Reaper Thralls. As he chanted, an energy storm gradually arose at the center of the altar. The thirty-six soul flames drifted out of the skull candles, and above the altar, they coalesced into a demonic phantom wielding a scythe.

The materialized Reaper Thrall first glanced at Felix, then focused on the extracted soul of the blade ogre warrior.

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It nodded in satisfaction at Felix and, after taking the blade ogre warrior's soul, waved its scythe toward Felix.

That single motion almost made Felix lose his balance. His face turned deathly pale, as if the Reaper Thrall's distant scythe had drained all his strength.

Offering the soul of a blade ogre warrior and exchanging his life force as an equivalent price, Felix followed the ritual to obtain two exiled souls.

The toll of summoning two undead attendants was slightly beyond his expectations.

Fortunately, the crystal shard left by the God of Pestilence provided him with a substantial life force, so this level of expenditure wouldn't cause irreparable damage to his body.

When the Reaper Thrall phantom, formed from soul flames, vanished, two struggling, wailing souls were hooked from a pitch-black void by a deathly scythe.

These souls had clearly lost their memories over the long years, as their faces showed nothing but pain and struggle. They had even forgotten speech, only able to emit primitive wails.

As the two lost souls were expelled, Felix quickly sliced open his left index finger with a silver dagger. Two drops of blood, merging with the chant of his spell, slowly infused into the struggling, wailing souls, eventually forming two red marks on their foreheads.

Since they were to be undead attendants, there was no room for mercy. He had signed the strictest of enslavement pacts, an evil contract allowing him to control the life and death of his servants' souls at will.

After Felix completed the enslavement pact, the Reaper's scythe began to hook the two souls, flinging them onto the skeletal ogre skulls placed on the altar.

Felix lacked the ability to anchor souls; only Reaper Thralls and extremely powerful necromancers could wield such unique powers.

Therefore, the final step of placing the souls into the ogre skeletons was assisted by the Reaper Thrall with whom Felix had made the deal.

Once the souls were placed into the ogre skeletons, the two massive skeletal warriors on the altar stirred.

Deep purple flames of the soul appeared in their huge skulls, and the two undead attendants awkwardly stood up, then humbly bowed their heads to Felix below the altar.

“What are your names?” Felix decided to test the intelligence of the two undead attendants.

Remembering their names was a straightforward test. If they remembered, it meant they hadn’t lost their sense of self and still knew who they were. If they had forgotten, it would mean they had completely lost themselves over time, becoming a form of unconscious soul.

If a soul entered this state without subsequent spiritual support, it might not be long before it would completely dissolve into the ether and become part of hell. In other words, the soul would dissipate.

The left ogre skeletal warrior opened its mouth and, after speaking disjointedly for a while, finally managed to say a complete name.

As for the right one, it opened its mouth but couldn't produce a complete sound, only emitting an unconscious noise.

The left undead attendant still retained some intelligence and memory, whereas the right one had clearly lost itself over the long passage of time and needed time to regain its memory.

After having his life force drawn out by the Reaper Thrall, Felix was extremely tired. After assigning the two undead attendants their designations, he went back to his room to rest. He needed time to recover his spent energy.

Last night’s semi-undead transformation had already drained much of his magical power, and the summoning ritual for the undead attendants had nearly depleted what was left.

The undead attendants moved to the second-floor laboratory, taking over the work of the golden golems and caring for the ogre specimen that had completed its semi-undead transformation.

The intellectual growth of undead attendants was rapid. After all, they were once evil spellcasters skilled in black and necromantic magic.

Even though they had been dead for a long time, some instincts buried deep in their souls remained. With the stabilization of their souls and some external stimulation, they might soon return to the intelligence level of a normal person.

Only then would they truly be able to assist Felix in his black magic experiments. For now, they needed to reacquaint themselves with their basic instincts.