The army advanced in orderly ranks across the field. They marched slowly, with no haste. They didn’t need to. From their camp, there was a good two hundred meters where the Onigarian projectiles couldn’t reach. That range was clearly marked by the field of craters.

Their numbers were formed in neat formations, keeping to their Units. As they neared the line, they gradually spread out, both individually and as Units. They each had their own area to target.

Shortly before crossing the line, they sped up, reaching their optimal speed by the time the crossed into the killing field, where countless of their fallen still littered the pockmarked dirt and mud in pieces.

The Onigarians didn’t wait until the Tarians crossed the line, releasing their Magics and siege weapons to reach them just as they did.

The result was just as fabulously horrifying as one could expect. Even atop the wall nearly three hundred meters away, Alaster was battered with pressure waves.

More craters were added, more were deepened or widened. Bodies, both living and dead, were thrown through the air. Their war cries and screams of pain were faint at that distance, but present.

From the histories he had learned and the stories Belgroth and Sedall told him, he knew that the Onigarian Siege was a fairly small affair. The Tarians were not even bringing their full military might to bear down on the city.

Sedall had told of battles numbering in the tens of thousands while Belgroth told of battles numbering in the hundreds of thousands to millions. Alaster understood the numbers, but he had not felt the impact of them.

The Onigarian Defenders numbered in the two thousands before the Siege, they currently numbered roughly half that. One thousand very tired and wounded men and women. The Tarians had brought nearly seven thousand.

Compared to those stories, the Siege was little more than a skirmish.

Still, those numbers did not have much weight behind them. Now, as Alaster watched only a small portion of those numbers in action, those numbers grew in weight. He had previously thought that Experts were the pinnacle of strength. He had thought his capability of creating an Undead Army over four hundred strong made him a threat even among the strongest of Experts.

Now, as he watched dozens, even hundreds, die every second, only to gain a mere foot of space, it seemed pathetic. He had always known that numbers decided battles, but he had not envisioned battles of such magnitude.

If this was the scale of battle between a single Independent City and only a fraction of Military Might a single Nation could bring to bear, Alaster was not nearly as powerful as he thought.

‘Don’t take it to heart lad.’ Sedall comforted, ‘Richter and Aila, even if they worked together, would not be able to fight an entire army themselves.’

‘But my entire Class is built around the idea of doing just that.’

‘No. It’s not. You are not a Necromancer.’

‘Besides just having more physical power, what else am I?’

Belgroth spoke up, ‘I don’t know much about the System. I personally see it only as a tool that has crippled your Species from achieving true power. But the terms it uses are similar to what my people used. Necromancers were people who used the remains of the dead to fight and work for them.

They specialized in numbers over power. With a single swipe of a hand, most of my people could destroy swaths of them. They were like ants. But even ants bring down elephants.’

‘What are elephants?’ Alaster asked, curious. He had never heard of the creature before, nor was it described in the Monster Manual he had.

‘I don’t know. The first Humans talked about them before. I suspect they were natural creatures from their home world. But that doesn’t matter. The idea is the same. Necromancers are powerful, but they can’t just overwhelm their enemy with might.

Even more so for you.

You are not a Necromancer. You lack the innate predisposition to summon vast legions of the dead. You are instead quite suited to using and manipulating souls, and even molding them into Minions for your use.

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That alone is vastly more valuable, in my opinion. It will take you longer to build your army, but theoretically, you have no limit on the number you can summon. Your only real limits are time and skill.’

‘I don’t know about that. Right now, having the ability to raise several thousand Undead seems pretty enticing.’ Alaster wasn’t feeling so sure, but he didn’t let it show to the soldiers behind him. Something that was easy with his armor.

‘Undead that even a stiff breeze could destroy.’ Sedall reminded.

‘More numerous Minions that are weak. Few Minions that are strong. Those are the limits that the System has set upon Humanity, and Humans have been all but too comfortable with that and not bothered to experiment with other methods. You can.

I told you before that you have the potential to be the closest thing to a true God by creating your own life. You took the very first step in the creation of the Dread Knight.

Right now, it’s just a patchwork mess of soul fragments that is reminiscent of a toddler who is having a seizure and given a needle and thread. The more time passes, and the Dread Knight experiences life for itself, its ugly mess of a soul will gradually sooth itself out, customizing itself to be its own.

As you grow more skilled, that time will be cut down.

But as the soul grows more natural, it will begin evolving, becoming just like anyone else’s soul. Even when you have a dozen Dread Knights around, they will all be their own person. Have their own personality. Now, the changes you make during their creation, as well as the purpose, will still have drastic effects. They will still be bloody barbarians who will relish a good fight.

In my opinion, that alone, is vastly superior to numbers.’

Alaster couldn’t help but find this discussion a little inappropriate considering there were hundreds of Tarian Soldiers charging through a field of death, intent on breaching the walls and conquering the city. But he had a question that just needed to be answered.

‘Will it ever be possible for me to recreate a soul?’

Belgroth hesitated before he answered somberly, ‘Resurrection is impossible. There are many spells capable of dragging a soul back into its body after death, but they all require the body to be healthy enough to sustain the soul again, and for it to be returned quickly, while the soul still has a tether to the body.

I have never seen nor heard of a tether lasting longer than a single day.

It is in fact possible for you to perfectly recreate a person’s soul, but even if the soul is a perfect copy, even if the body is a perfect recreation, even if everything goes exactly as it should. It would still not be that person.

At first, even second glance, it would appear as a normal person, but with any level of scrutiny, it will be obvious to anyone that knew the original person that the thing before them is an imitation.

There is a certain something that a natural person has, that a recreation does not. And the instinct of a living creature, just as with seeking food and water, is able to detect, as well as when something does not have it.

Over time, that creation would still adapt to become its own person, slowly becoming a natural being. But it would not be the same person. It would be its own.

Its mannerisms would be different.

Even I dabbled in these Magics. It is not pleasant for any involved. It’s like a person with amnesia. Everyone has their own idea of who that person is from their own interactions with them. But not one of those impressions are the true person.’

‘But it’s possible extract memories and implant them into another. I imagine it would not be much different to implant them into one of this soul constructs.’

Even as he spoke, Alaster could feel Sedall shaking his head.

‘Not the same.’ Belgroth denied, ‘Have you ever seen a life like doll?’

‘No?’

‘I can tell you from personal experience that it is a disturbing sight. Despite being perfectly capable of passing as an actual person, the mere sight of them elicits goosebumps. It’s a survival instinct for all living creatures. To be able to detect when something looks and acts like one of you, but is not.

When I dabbled in this form of pseudo-resurrection, I introduced a man to the soul construct of his brother. Everything had gone perfectly. Not a single mishap. It was the perfect creation. I had extracted memories from the remains from when he was only four months old.

And yet, within only a few moments, the brother was able to detect that the construct before him was not his brother. In just three minutes, he looked at it with unease. In five, with disgust. In seven minutes, he attacked it, shredding it apart with such impressive fury that none of my aids were able to recover from their shock until it was completely destroyed.

We theorized that if we recreated the experiment with two people that hadn’t seen each other in several years, it would be to a much lesser degree, but still present. Open revulsion.

However, before we could attempt the experiment, the Humans attacked us.’

‘That’s a shame.’ Sedall sighed.

‘No. That was one of the good things that came out of that horrible war. It wasn’t the only thing we were researching. Yes, it’s a shame some of them were destroyed or lost. But for others, many others, including this, I’m ashamed we pushed as far as we did.’

‘Why?’ Alaster asked.

The Tarians were getting close now, and even the Onigarian Soldiers were loosing their arrows. It would not be long now.

‘There are certain things that those of this existence should not tamper with. That was just one of them. We were attempting to tempt fate by reversing the process of death. We tried several routes, including even just copying the memories to a new body upon death.

You Humans treat Magic as bending the laws of nature, creating a desired result. But Magic is just a tool of nature. To attempt to, not just bend, but violently shatter, the laws of nature, there were consequences.

Perhaps I will describe them to you later, but now, you have to focus. Just know that it is impossible. Even your Gods will die. And attempting to escape death with only make it worse. So much so.’