While Vallynor was trying to extract the enemy's soul from his body, Experavit unexpectedly flew out of the wall. He was filled with wounds and scratches, but not even his astral body could stop him. At some point, he slowed down in the air and then flew straight towards Vallynor.

Behind him, black roots came out of the wall and lunged at Experavit and Vallynor. However, at some point, they all stopped and, like the blind, began turning their roots in all directions. Soon, two dragon heads were caught by the ashen hands, like sharks sensing blood.

"What's going on here?" Vallynor began to ask, but Experavit interrupted him, saying: "The forest turned out to be stronger than I expected. I can't die here for you, but I must help you. I know how to hate the forest queen. That's why I came back while parts of this cursed forest were chasing me. Hmm, you want to extract the enemy's soul."

As if the dragon had awakened, he shouted, "I'm not Nevispi; I'm still willing to stick to the agreement. Help me with the enemy!" He attacked the ashen cloud while the second head was in a trance.

"This guy doesn't want to give up. If he wins, not only will you suffer, but I will too. We need to take risks, even if it's not logical," said Experavit, closing his eyes and directing his remaining strength into Vallynor's hands. He strengthened and empowered them before shouting, "Now use all your remaining strength for the final blow. Don't spare yourself and pull with all your might."

Vallynor realized that this was his only chance to defeat the enemy and end this battle. Using all his remaining strength, he pulled the old woman's and her son's souls from their bodies, feeling them slowly come out.

"No, no, no. You won't dare... Help, help, and don't give them a chance to save my mother," begged the queen's son.

After the queen's son spoke, the forest roots quickly lunged at Vallynor and Experavit. Passing through the ashes, one of the roots pierced Vallynor, who was trying to pull the soul out with all his might, while Experavit dodged the attack. Using the last drops of his strength to help Vallynor, he quickly disappeared into the lamp.

As he lifted Vallynor, the root that had pierced him quickly began to contract, while Vallynor struggled to extract the soul. The roots squeezed him, crushing his bones. The dead themselves were all caught and compressed. The entire hall was filled with roots.

Opening his eyes, Vallynor felt his strength slowly leaving him, and soon he would lose his last chance. Straining, he let out a scream. His soul hands grabbed onto the enemy's soul and, like a running dog, deeply sunk their teeth into the flesh.

"AAAAAH!" both heads screamed in insane pain, causing them both to fall to the ground.

The Queen woke up from her nightmares and saw roots that were choking her neck. Understanding everything, she shouted:

"You shouldn't interfere, no matter how much you hate me. I'll fall and disappear anyway without your intervention," she said. But even after her words, the roots continued to squeeze her and Vallynor, becoming even more furious.

The old woman realized that words wouldn't change anything, so she began to weaken the ties with her body, helping Vallynor take her soul. But her son also felt how the controlled part of his body had become numb and heavier.

"You can't! I won't give my soul to this pathetic insect!" Her son shouted, fighting with his mother and not letting her weaken their soul connection.

The ash clouds that covered the entire hall suddenly burst apart in a piercing scream that made even the roots freeze. While Vallynor was pulling the soul, he unexpectedly managed to extract it. At the same time, the old woman's head briefly came to her senses and spoke:

"Old Hag with her curses again, this time after... days... Farewell," she said, and fell to the ground. The dragon's body sat silently while the roots gathered and left the hall, leaving Vallynor abandoned on the ground.

Alexander fought against an army of crazed beasts, roots, and embittered ghosts that attacked everyone indiscriminately. They even attacked Lyu several times. All the fools who tried to attack her were quickly destroyed. As always, Lyu was dangerous.

At the same time, Alexander's son and his army fought together with a horde of fallen beasts and people who were once the wisest of their races. Now they were all just fallen beasts, thirsting to eat the souls of others.

Because they were further away from the center of the battle, the forest's roots had not yet attacked them. Occasionally, one or two ghosts attacked them, which were destroyed by the old monk.

Lia watched the battle from afar in the sky. Sometimes stupid flying beasts and ghosts attacked her. At first, she ignored them, causing them to accumulate in large numbers and fly through her, attacking her. Over time, all of this began to irritate her, and shouting "Enough!" a crack appeared behind her, from which black threads of power emerged, tearing apart all annoying "flies." After that, she was surrounded by a transparent net that destroyed every approaching enemy.

Anino and Glazik also did not miss all these battles. They, like everyone else, fought against enemies, mostly ghosts, as they were in the center of the battle. But when Expervit came out and saw the wolf pup and flying eye, he ordered the ghosts not to attack them.

Some roots fiercely fought, attacking ghosts, while others tried to destroy the wall and enter the hall. The magical dome was useless against the roots.

While they fought, the black sand filled with corpses and black blood.

Alexander cut everything and everyone off in all directions. Sometimes he looked with caution at Lia and the recently appearing Expervit. At first glance, he understood who this astral man was. A top-level necromancer, a master of souls, is the best of all, always in second place. Only the God of the Soul prevented him from being in first place.

This only made him more nervous. And so too many changes have appeared. He expected to come and take the boy, after which he would return to the city. But he never thought he would get caught in a storm, and the boy would be in the center.

"Ghhhh," ordered Expervit, managing ghosts more than fighting himself. Even so, the roots could pass through all the ghosts and attack their leader.

After receiving several blows, Expervit was able to fend them off and even cut off one root. But even so, he felt that he was slowly losing.

"This won't do," he said, becoming more active and attacking himself. And he attacked the roots that were trying to destroy the walls and enter the hall, where Vallynor was fighting now.

Lia watched all this time, watching everyone fight. Her cold, beautiful face, which never showed her emotions, raised one cute eyebrowh never showed her emotions, raised one cute eyebrow. She looked at the mountain, or rather, where Vallynor was now:

"Baba Yaga? From what I know, she's dead. How did she appear here? This is getting more interesting than expected," she chuckled, raising her hand. A chair and a table emerged from a crack in the ground behind her, and a glass and bottle appeared on the table, which poured red wine into the glass by itself.

Savoring the wine slowly, she watched the spectacle, occasionally helping Alexander and Annino with Glazik. The last two were even more interesting to her. One was artificially created, and the other was a living grimoire with its own body. They were interesting but useless to her, so she simply watched and helped prevent them from dying.

"I'll have to replenish the deposit." Lia heard a voice from the crack behind her as she looked at the table full of empty bottles.

"Am I a deposit to you? To keep all your things and even your worn-out underwear?" An angry scream burst out of the crack, scaring anyone who heard it so much that they would unsubscribe from fear.

"Yes. Ever since Tifiy, the Queen of Nightmares, turned against me And now be quiet," said Lia.

"Yeah, mistress," he quickly replied, reducing his fervor and falling silent while Lia watched as Experawit ran up the mountain. Roots followed him.

"Ugh, what filth!" Vallynor thought, looking at his destroyed body with a hole in his stomach. "It's a good thing I'm undead, although, as everyone says, I'm neither alive nor dead. But if I were alive, I would have died a hundred times already. And now... I can't even move a finger. I would like to win and stay alive. But what should I do now? I think I need to restore my body first. Huh? Aaaaaah!" As Vallynor talked to himself, pondering his next steps, excruciating pain engulfed his soul.

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The pain was unbearable. He lost control of his soul's hands, which held the soul of the defeated enemy, who was trying to break free. The enemy's soul first tried to escape, but as if struck by lightning (soul lightning?), it stopped and headed straight for Vallynor lying on the ground. He couldn't move, like a marionette without strings, and the pain that enveloped him gave him no chance of controlling his hands.

The enemy's soul easily penetrated Vallynor's body, and fragments of the cursed children's souls penetrated through the wound in his soul as they tried to stop the enemy, but they spent all their strength holding the soul from destruction.

Vallynor screamed in pain, and his mind was in complete disarray. But then he heard a familiar voice:

"Close your eyes and fight the enemy's soul, slowly devouring it and turning it into your own strength."

Vallynor clearly heard every word but could not understand their meaning. He continued to scream incessantly for more than 6–8 minutes without lowering the volume.

"Silence!" the voice's owner shouted angrily. He had been waiting for a long time, but the boy did not stop screaming and did not even try to do what he was told.

Vallynor heard the command but did not understand its meaning at first. When he felt tired, it slowly dawned on him who this voice belonged to. Eksperavit. But it was another voice, deeper and more elderly. Trying to think in agony, Vallynor unexpectedly fell asleep.

In front of him was an open book, the "Necronomicon." On once-empty white pages, a face appeared, very similar to Eksperavit but slightly older.

The book turned towards the lamp, and the old man in bandages, slowly tapping on the surface of the book from his side, said:

"You caught a good cold. But our goals have not yet been achieved. Although I don't know what you are guarding, even if the original memory of it was erased, We will continue to take care of the boy."

The face of the bandaged old man quickly disappeared, leaving an empty page in the "Necronomicon." The book quickly increased in size enough to hide Vallynor's entire body, which fell directly onto it, quickly closing. Vallynor disappeared, leaving only the book and the dragon's corpse, as well as the treasures that emerged from the ground. Rarely, but sometimes, huge hands filled with precious stones and artifacts emerged from the ground, which, unfortunately, lost their former power. Several huge hands also emerged from the ground, filled with egg remnants, or what was left of them.

When the battle was just beginning, Vallynor secretly buried all the valuables in the ground so that they would not be destroyed by the flames of the impending collision. And now, everything that was hidden in the ground reappeared on the destroyed field.

The Necronomicon then turned left and right before falling directly onto the dragon's corpse.

***

"This boy, Experavit, can certainly be saved. I don't see the slightest chance that his soul will survive. It's full of cracks, and there are parasites inside. Chaos, complete chaos," spoke the beautiful girl in a blue dress with patterns of distorted faces of pain.

"Krina, if you don't know what you're talking about, it's better to be silent. Don't forget who this pathetic boy is to the Necronomicon. He is our refuge, which does not allow us to die and become as pathetic as those who are now living their last days," said Experavit, looking closely at the destroyed body of Vallynor.

Putting his hands on Vallynor's chest, he suddenly threw the body aside. On the table remained the astral form of Vallynor, full of cracks and black threads. And inside, a dragon-shaped sphere was flying back and forth.

While Experavit summoned his instruments and began operating on Vallynor's soul, Krina pouted and directed necro-energy at Vallynor and Experavit. While she filled the entire space with necro-energy, Krina saw two shadows rush towards Vallynor's body.

"Don't touch the boy's body." "After the operation, he must return outside," said Experavit, without taking his eyes off the operation.

"Experavit, why can't we? We haven't had a new corpse for so long, and here is a fresh body. How can we not touch it?" asked the first one.

"And I was already hoping for a new face." "What a shame," said the second, who was slightly bigger than the first.

"Tod and Chen, you can stop bothering and not interfere if you don't want to help. And don't touch his things." Experavit quickly cut and rearranged Vallynor's soul, directing neurotic energy into his body. The dead heart, which almost didn't beat, was filled with necrotic energy.

"Tod, Chen, restore the body of this newcomer. Even make him stronger. And in return, I think you can take a few corpses from the cull," said a hoarse voice from the branches of a dead tree. From nowhere, a man dressed entirely in black appeared. After looking at the two guys below, he turned his head and looked at Experavit: "What do you think?"

"If so, then I'm not against it. But don't interfere with me. And it's already very bad here. And we can't lose the boy," Experavit replied.

"Edward, did you come to help?" Krina, gathering all the necro-energy, looked surprised at the guy sitting in the dead tree.

"No. You know I'm better at understanding murder and torture. I won't be able to help in any way, only hinder," said the character.

"Your mere presence is already a hindrance. Don't forget that you're also talking and getting in the way of a friend trying to save this poor boy," replied the second character, standing far away in the mist. A tall man approached, raising his hand and filling everything around him with necroenergy.

"Count Mogil?" The character named Krina couldn't believe her eyes. Duke Mogil came to help.

"Gravekeeper, what brings you here? I thought all the famous ones were sleeping or meditating." Turning around, Edward looked at Duke Mogil, who was looking at the body of Vallynor, and then at his soul.

"I thought the same thing. But it seems we were both wrong, Eddy." Walking further, Duke Mogil approached Vallynor's body, which was slowly recovering from the actions of two fanatics. They happily restored the mutilated body, but for each change, they took one body from Vallynor's amulet or ring.

"Duke Mogil." Todd stopped working to bow upon seeing the Duke. Then he returned to his work with a smile on his face.

"Duke Mogil," Chen quickly repeated after Todd, not even looking at him. He angrily repaired the corpse so that Todd couldn't take more bodies than he himself did.

"Buddy, why did you come?" Experavite didn't stop or turn around to see who came. He knew it was the Duke. He himself restored Vallynor's soul, directing tons of necroenergy into the rotting heart, which should slowly and almost imperceptibly beat like a racing car engine.

"You must know that he's in this state because of me?" she asked.

"Yes, I know," he replied. "But I can't understand how such a cruel necromancer like you can show such care. I think you must have a reason. But for now, it doesn't matter. I'll need necroenergy to keep the Queen of the Forest and her son's souls in check."

"Okay... "How do you plan on saving the boy?" he asked.

"See the queen's soul?" She said this, pointing to the glowing sphere. "We will forcibly merge these souls and use their cursed particles as threads to bind them together. But since it is done forcefully, not willingly, he will be forced to fight. If he wins, his soul will not be fully restored, but it will become stable. This is the first step to becoming a true necromancer or mage. And now I will heal his minor wounds, so that the merger doesn't completely destroy his soul."

Krina and Edward watched as Experavith and Duke Mogil worked, occasionally helping them direct the necrotic energy directly at them, making their work easier. The more Krina watched Experiavith, the more amazed and inspired she became.

Edward himself looked more at Duke Mogil than at Vallynor and Experavith, wondering why he had come here. He collected necrotic energy for Experavith and the boy, something Krina could do if she didn't look at them like corpses. In her eyes burned the fire of passion; clearly, she had come up with something new for her soul-torture experiments.

"Krina, don't fall asleep!" Experavith shouted at Krina, who was sitting with her eyes open, watching him.

While everyone was focused on Vallynor's soul, Tod and Chen had almost fully restored his body, even improving it, using materials from corpses taken from Vallynor's pendant and ring. Tod passionately gathered and strengthened his muscles. When he finished working on his hands, he wanted to move on to his feet but heard from behind:

"Tod, I kept quiet about your experiments on changing and enhancing the body. But turn his paws back into hands," said the Duke, almost emptying the ground within a radius of 3 kilometers from the necrotic energy. Collecting everything around Experavith and Vallynor's soul. She was so concentrated that she became steamy. Because of this, Krina, sadly leaving one eye behind, was forced to go almost five kilometers away and direct all the energy from there.

Due to the rapidly decreasing necrotic energy, many necromancers felt that something was wrong and woke up. They woke up from either sleep or meditation and headed towards the culprits.

"What's wrong with his hands? They've become more dangerous and stronger." Tod couldn't understand what he had done wrong, looking at one hand shaped like a crab claw and the other like a hoof.

"If you like it, do it to yourself. But give the guy his hands and fingers back. I don't mind if he becomes stronger, but the price for strength should be fully paid. The same goes for the legs."

"Damn it. I've been thinking about such a soldier for so long. But you ruined everything," the puffed-up Tod quickly began to change the hands on Vallynor's body.

"Chen, this also applies to you. Quickly put your stomach and lungs back in place. And put your balls back under your chin and under your feet."

"But they still don't work. So can I at least keep my balls? I think it gives me some charm," Chen protested when he heard that he had to destroy his artificial organs. He wanted to keep something.

"Put them back. It will be crowded here soon, so hurry up!" Duke Mogil barked, already tired of these two idiots, and watched as Vallynor's soul slowly changed on a fundamental level, filling with necro-energy.

"Why do you react so sharply to everything related to this child? You're our killer, who destroyed cities filled with people who turned into undead with captured souls afterwards. And there were a lot of children there, if I remember correctly. What made you defend him? Experivit, I understand—Necronomicon asked, or rather ordered. But what made you?" asked Edward, who had been looking at Duke Mogil all this time.

"Do you want to know?" Okay. "He's my student," answered Duke Mogil.

When everyone heard these words, they were shocked. Even Experavit, who hadn't turned his head or stopped working for a single second since the start of the operation, stopped and looked at Duke Mogil, asking, "Are you serious?" Then he quickly returned to work. Krina opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but all that came out was "uh, uh, uh." Tod and Chen shut down after hearing this, even though they were undead. Edward looked the calmest on the outside, but inside he was raging.

"W-why?" finally managed to ask Krina what everyone wanted to ask, yelling.

"If you didn't know, he summoned me to help kill Gara. I also gave him that little wolf pup. As payment for my help, I obtained a piece of his humanity and soul. I don't know why, but they reminded me of a god," Duke Mogil replied.

"D-Death God?" Edward asked, shocked by what he had heard.

"Not only that, but I'm not sure myself. At least our God chose him. So he must be special. Don't you think so?" Duke Mogil finished