Through his connection he could feel the Dread Knight sprinting after him. He was already in the Residential District.

‘He is fast.’

‘And pissed.’ Sedall chuckled.

‘He is always mad. That’s kinda his whole thing.’ Alaster countered.

‘Yeah, but now he is mad at you for leaving him behind.’

‘I could probably just summon him again.’

‘No need. He isn’t harming anyone and is quickly making his way over. He will be here before the Tarians even begin moving.’ Belgroth explained.

‘But when he does get here, try to make a point of showing all the enemies he will get to kill. It might calm him.’ Sedall offered.

Both Sedall and Belgroth obviously found this hilarious. Alaster less so. But the battle was going to start soon regardless. He needed to get ready.

Alaster opened his Domain with a wave of his hand, allowing his Undead to march out. As they did so, Alaster summoned his Minions. In just a few minutes, the Section was filled with nearly two hundred Undead. It was also the first time Alaster had seen the War Master Undead.

It stood resolute at the battlements, emotionlessly staring out at the assembling enemy. Its sword was pointed down and it rested both hands on the pommel. Unlike the Berserkers right next to it, who seemed excited at the approaching battle, the War Master seemed to only treat it as something that happened. Not something to dread or be excited about.

Its white leather cuirass and helmet would no doubt soon be dyed red.

‘Bel? Since I created the Dread Knight out of the Berserker spell, is it possible to do the same with other Minion Spells?’

‘Somewhat. You have to realize that the Dread Knight isn’t another version of the Undead Berserker, but instead a more advanced version. Some Minions simply don’t have a more advanced version.’

‘Will the War Master be one of those with an Advanced version?’

‘I don’t know. You would have to look at its Streams first.’

Alaster resisted the urge to roll his eyes and used Identify on his Minion. A network of faintly glowing streams of Mana extended from everything he could see. It was overwhelming, chaotic, and a headache quickly began brewing.

Alaster did not know what he was looking for. It would take countless hours to even begin figuring out what even a single Stream did. Luckily, Alaster did not need to do that, though he suspected that he would eventually. Belgroth was able to immediately see what he wanted.

‘Alright, so while you will be able to Advance the War Master, the process will be quite different, and even more lengthy.’

‘Why?’ Alaster asked, the Tarians were still forming up, and he suspected he had a while.

‘What is the defining trait of the Dread Knight?’

‘It’s rage?’

‘Correct. Rage is a very primal emotion that transcends the body. Technique and skill, which the War Master uses, does not. As such, the work will be slower and more tedious as the Streams will have to be manipulated to emulate it.’

‘So not today?’

‘Probably not. Besides, you still have the Dread Knight to figure out.’

‘Yeah but while blind rage might be entertaining to watch, Technique is more interesting.’

‘There will be plenty of situations where one is preferable.’ Sedall interjected.

‘You speaking from experience little spirit?’ Belgroth teased.

‘Yes.’ There was no humor in his voice, ‘Rage is a powerful emotion. One that, if utilized, can create impossible results. However, if the rage utilizes you, it will destroy you.

Alaster, for as long as I have been watching you; you have battled against a raging storm of hate. With each day and level that passes, it has only grown larger. You have tried to hide it from others, but it remains.

Control it. Use it. Don’t let it use you.’

Alaster stood there, surrounded by his Undead, facing off against a superior enemy in every way. He was one of the strongest fighters for the entire city. One of the biggest obstacles for the Tarian army in capturing Onigas. He was not only an Expert, a Tier that most can only hope to achieve, but one of the stronger ones.

And yet, despite that, Alaster still felt weak.

He had grown up being taught that Experts were the strongest, that he should look up to them and count himself lucky to see one. Yet even while he was still an Adept, he had met Gods, seen Monsters, and challenged Demons, all of whom saw Experts as little more than rodents to be squashed.

Even Sedall, a Demigod, an existence that saw Experts as children, Alaster couldn’t help but think of him as ‘just’ a Demigod.

But to see his sister again, to hold her once more…it would take more than power. Alaster had power, and each day, he was gaining more. What he needed was information, knowledge, and cunning.

He had already been warned several times, from several sources, that he would need to be careful and plan it through. He wouldn’t be able to simply rush in swinging. And the more he learned of the world, the more he agreed.

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Things were not as simple as he had previously thought.

So, Alaster had already decided that while he was in Onigas, he would study how the Nobles acted. With the little information he had, it was more than likely a Noble that had stolen away his sister and murdered his parents.

Unknown to Alaster, his Mana was reacting to his heightened emotions.

Black strings of Mana leaked from the gaps in his armor, moving independently and sticking to whatever it touched before dripping off like slime. The Soldiers felt sick as they saw it, like it was not meant to be in this world.

They were already apprehensive of the intimidating man and his army of the dead, now they genuinely feared him. They knew he would protect his Section, but they wondered if he would even blink before cutting down one of them.

Belgroth watched in fascination. He could feel what was happening, even see it, but he did not know what it was. That both interested him, and worried him. He had lived for millennia, watched firsthand as the Humans first arrived on his home in their metal vessal. He had seen their Gods raise in power until they could combat his people.

He knew how to warp reality, how to mold the soul, and how to shatter continents. And yet, he did not know this.

Belgroth could feel its essence. He knew that it was created from Alaster, even if the young man had no idea he was doing it. The Ancient Demon could also sense that it was not harming the boy, or himself, in any way.

If anything, it was beneficial to Alaster. It was augmenting him, making his Magic more tangible, more violent. And yet, there was more to it than even Belgroth could see. He could sense it was doing more, but he couldn’t understand what.

Sedall did know it. He had even seen it before. And it made his body, trapped in an ancient prison hundreds of miles away, shake uncontrollably.

Over the eons he had been a Demigod, he had seen many others come and go. The order of Demigods usually only numbered a hundred, typically less. But at one point, it had once numbered nearly five hundred.

With their numbers they were able to monitor the entire world with ease. They kept it safe from any threat. Safeguarding it and allowing the Human Race to prosper.

It was an age of prosperity and peace. Cities were constructed, Monsters fled, the world explored. But Human Nature was conflict. With the Monsters no longer creating sufficient conflict, Humanity created it themselves.

Just because people no longer had to fear the Monsters, did not mean they no longer had to fear each other.

Without the worry of Monsters, Wars ran rampant. Everyone with power attempted to take what they could, sparking countless conflicts. The Demigods kept them all under control, but did not intervene, seeing themselves as simple overseers, not tyrants.

Countless died, but even more were born and grew to be powerful people capable of protecting Humanity.

One man, unsatisfied with the state of things, attempted to put a stop to the wars. He was fed up with the wars. He first attempted to seek peace, binding each of the numerous Rulers to treaties.

For nearly a decade he tried and failed. He had met with some success. But each Ruler that agreed was seen as weak by the others and attacked. During this time, he had personally amassed a vast amount of wealth and power.

Faced with failure after failure, watching thousands die due to the greed of a few, he had secluded himself away. If Humanity wanted to slaughter each other, he wanted no part of it.

Eventually, however, he fell in love. She was a common woman, nothing special about her. Her Class was average, her talent was average. Perhaps that is what attracted him to her. The simplicity. Though to this day, none knew the true reason.

The Man settled down in a quiet village, far from the chaos, and started a family. Years passed in happy peace, until one day, the Man came back from a hunting trip to find the village in ruin, his family slaughtered.

The Man vanished that day.

Two years later, rumors began spreading of entire villages disappearing, a few months after, an entire city.

The Demigods investigated but found nothing. That is what worried them. There was nothing. No bodies, no blood, not even any damage. The city looked as if the citizens had simply stopped whatever they were doing and walked away.

Two tense months passed in silence. Even the wars stopped. None were daring enough to send out their armies when they thought an enemy could attack them.

When the Man finally chose to reveal himself, it was to the entire world.

The Man had been an Expert, one of the weaker ones. Yet when he screamed his challenge to the Demigods, he was an Expert no longer. They couldn’t sense his power.

There were of course ways to hide their power. The Demigods were going to simply ignore the Man who had clearly gone insane. But then he revealed that he was the cause of the disappearances, and that another city would vanish if they did not stop him.

Angered by the arrogance of this puny mortal, a single Demigod stepped forward while the rest took a short break from their usual duties to watch the show. None of them could have predicted just how much of a show it would be until the Demigod’s head rolled back to them.

That was the first time Sedall had seen that sickly Mana. Alaster’s normal green Mana was simply a pale green, best described as sickly. The color you would imagine someone’s face to turn when they were ill. There were even Mana Types that appeared as black, they were rare, but present.

But the Man’s Mana itself was Black. Not the color of its effect, but the Mana. To the Demigods, the Mana was a pungent and revolting assault on their enhanced senses. Many gagged, Sedall included.

As their comrade’s head came to a stop, none dared to take him lightly. Ten more rushed forward with their most powerful attacks. Less than a minute later, ten corpses fell to the mud.

Enraged, the entirety of the assembled Demigods attacked.

Sedall truly could not remember much of the resulting battle. What little he did remember was the hardest battle he had ever fought in his life. It was also his longest. He did not know how long exactly it had lasted. All he could remember was the sun rising and falling numerous times.

Demigods were the peak of the world. The strongest the world would allow to without crushing them. They were the apex predators. Hunters that caused even the worst Monsters to cower in fear. Yet in that battle, they were the ones cowering as they died in droves.

Their sole enemy had started as a man, but as the battle progressed, he began to resemble less like a man, and more like a shapeless monster of that revolting Mana. It moved in impossible ways, dodging attacks that should have been unavoidable, absorbing strikes that would have split mountains.

The battle spread itself over the entirety of the continent as the creature pursued those who fled.

It was not entirely a one-sided slaughter. The creature was slowly accumulating damage it was not able to repair.

Historians had written the end of the battle as a great heroic victory for the Protectors of the World and end of the Monster, but reality was not so kind. The end had been horrific and not one any of the survivors could speak of without shame.

Sedall remembered watching, covered in more blood and mud than he thought possible, limping and attempting to stem the flow of blood from his side, as twenty of his peers capitalized on an opening and attacked, landing their powerful blows, sundering the earth, rippling the air, and warping reality.

But the creature did not intend to go silently. Reaping the price of the attacks, the creature exploded in Black Mana, skewering all twenty, and revealing its true body, kneeling in the midst of its destruction, already dead.

The aftermath had been eerily silent. None dared to speak, not that any was in the mood. Never before had an opponent pushed a Demigod so far, let alone their entire order.

The battle had ended with just thirty Demigods surviving, not one of them without costs that would haunt them for centuries afterwards.

Sedall remembered feeling two things after. Cold and Numb. He physically felt cold, while emotionally numb.

That battle had spelled the end of the Era of Peace. The Demigods no longer had the numbers to keep the Monsters at bay. They rushed to preserve what they could with their meager few, but much was lost.

It wasn’t until years later that Sedall learned what the Historians had decided to call the creature.

The Black Horror.

Its inky black tendrils still haunted his nightmares even several centuries later, and now, he saw the same Mana clinging to Alaster.