After studying advanced spells for raising the undead, Vallynor realized that there are three types of spells for creating the undead: low-level, mid-level, and high-level spells.
The low-level and mid-level spells create mindless undead that are controlled solely by instincts and obey the commands of the necromancer. However, one must be cautious as each mage can only create a limited number of undead that will obey them. Overdoing it can result in the loss of control by the undead's owner, making them food for their dead slaves.
Vallynor doesn't have to worry about losing control, as he has been blessed by death itself and death is the "father" of the undead. Whether the intelligent undead will attack him remains to be seen.
There is also high-level magic that creates intelligent undead such as vampires and liches. But their creation requires not only a tremendous amount of energy but also special ingredients such as the blood of an ice demon to create a lich or a lot of blood for a vampire. However, one must also be cautious as intelligent undead may not be as loyal and obedient as low-level and mid-level undead.
Moreover, the quality of the created undead is affected by the ingredients used. For example, when creating a vampire from the blood of traitors, thieves, and deceivers, the new vampire inherits some of these qualities. So one must be careful in choosing the ingredients.
"For now, I don't need to worry about it," Vallynor thought, closing the book. "But I must know all the details. When I want to create first-class slaves, I'll need good materials. I must gather everything good, even if it doesn't seem necessary at first."
He looked at the skeleton in front of him, contemplating his next move. Learning more about the classification of the undead, Vallynor realized that mid-level undead are a mixture of qualities from low-level and high-level undead. They inherit loyalty from low-level undead but do not possess intelligence and are easily created. However, the cost in terms of energy is several times higher.
With high-level undead, everything is different: they can use additional materials to enhance or add qualities to their slaves. This is like the first prototype for high-level undead.
Thus, beginners in necromancy can gain experience and experiment by combining different materials to see what will result.
Vallynor searched the room for interesting items, but unfortunately found nothing. He quickly pulled out the corpse of a butterfly and tore off its antennae, then returned the body back into the ring.
Approaching the hunched skeleton, he inserted the antennae into the skull and glued them in place using necro energy, creating two small holes where the largest horns were. Then he inserted the butterfly antennae.
Examining the skeleton, he nodded. If everything was done correctly, as Vallynor thought, then after the skeleton became undead, it would fuse with the butterfly antennae and gain the ability to shoot them, just like the former owner of these antennae.
Finishing this task, he was about to start reading the spell when he heard various sounds behind the doors. It sounded like someone was fighting with spiders. Also, if he listened carefully, he could hear a faint cry of various tones and intonations, merging into one loud scream.
Vallynor felt that this creature was coming straight towards him, so he took the skeleton in the ring, preparing for the attack. Fortunately, the whole temple was filled with necro energy, and the book itself, like a sponge, absorbed it, while he himself found mana.
But then he remembered that this creature could have come towards him because he was gathering necro energy and mana. He shrugged, realizing that he hadn't thought about such a possibility. He couldn't have guessed that there were still living creatures in this temple. What bad luck.
Listening carefully, Vallynor heard spiders screaming in pain. Then came a muffled thud against the wall or floor, as if they had fallen dead. However, the culprit was silent.
"Could it fly or have the ability to be soundless? What kind of creature is this? And I just recently fought with Farfalois. Damn it," thought Vallynor.
After a few minutes, a shadow appeared at the door, growing larger. Out of it came... Annino?
"Annino!!" exclaimed Vallynor and rushed to hug the wolf, who was now bigger than a regular wolf, but very important to Vallynor.
Annino licked Vallynor once, then pulled himself and his owner into the shadow. The door turned to ash, and black hands appeared from the exit, filling the room. Everything they touched turned black and slowly dissolved before their eyes.
The black monster angrily hit the floor where Annino and Vallynor had been standing, then turned towards the shadow, which quickly moved away from that spot.
Letting out a strong cry, Annino and Vallynor emerged from the shadows. The cry was very strange, as if it didn't belong to the creature alone. It was a mixture of many children's screams, filled with pain and suffering, which together turned into a strong howl.
With a swing of his hand, Annino flew straight into the wall, and where the blow landed, black spots appeared. Limping, Annino entered the shadow and tried to attack the enemy, who had pounced on Vallynor, catching him. The creature entered Vallynor.
Annino, who wanted to attack by leaving the shadow, didn't have time to scratch the enemy. As soon as he disappeared, Annino quickly rushed to the master, who had lost consciousness and awakened in the inner world, where the foundation for the development of his soul was created and where magic was associated with it.
In the center of the platform, where his wounded soul was, a black mass of darkness appeared, which began to attack his soul, entering the wounds already created. Thousands of memories of different children flooded his mind: how they died and what feelings they experienced when they suffered and were enveloped in an endless circle of pain.
Also, looking at the mass of darkness, he could see the bodies of different children fused together. Each child had parts of his body. One had only a hand, another a leg, a third a torso or a head. All these body parts of different children were mixed in one monster, which attacked his soul.
But it was strange, because the pain that arose from their attack was not strong. Even their actions looked as if they were chained, and something prevented them from attacking him with full force.
The pain didn't make Vallynor scared, but filled him with anger, making him understand the intentions of this creature: they want to turn him into an obedient carrier, like parasites, surviving by parasitizing on his soul and turning him into a puppet.
Shouting angrily, he created soul hands that came out of his soul, starting to attack and tear this creature apart.
The creature and Vallynor fought not only physically, but mentally as well. They fought using their souls, sending each other thousands of memories to slowly make the opponent believe that these memories belonged to them. As a result, the creature began to lose its true identity and motivation for the battle, as these memories became a part of it. Vallynor, realizing that he could lose himself, began to fight fiercely.
Vallynor began to remember everything that had happened to him during the battle, clinging to his memories and those he had acquired through studying spells. He remembered trying to forget the words of Judas, but now they could become his saving grace.
"SYSTEM!!!" Vallynor shouted with all his might.
In the next moment, demonic sounds engulfed his inner world. The sound fiercely attacked Vallynor's soul and the monster itself. The creature felt such pain for the first time and lost its advantage, slowly losing the ability to fight.
Clenching his teeth, Vallynor stood up and began to envelop the monster with his hands. Then he began to tear off parts of its body and direct them into his own soul, turning them into energy. These unclean parts polluted the creature's soul, but Vallynor couldn't harm it any other way.
The monster let out a loud howl, directed straight into Vallynor's soul. The hands that held it tore it apart. For a fraction of a second, they stopped, and then their grip weakened.
Taking the chance, the creature headed towards the cracks in Vallynor's soul. Three-quarters of it penetrated inside, filling it up. The remaining part filled its wounds, leaving only black stripes and cracks, as if a child had drawn with a marker on a vase for their own entertainment.
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"Stop the system's infernal music!" Vallynor shouted, looking at his soul with confusion and not knowing what to do. But a strange feeling overtook him, making him fall.
Looking at his soul, filled with anger, Vallynor realized what this creature was thinking. He stood up and began to fight with all his might.
Approaching his soul vessel, he thought only of stopping and destroying this creature. He didn't even notice that he had become stronger and his tolerance for mental and emotional attacks had increased. The infernal music of the system no longer seemed as terrifying as it had the first time. Perhaps he was beginning to get used to it.
Reaching his soul vessel, Vallynor embraced it and began to meditate to cleanse and process the foreign energy. "This monster wants to become one with me. But for that to happen, our souls must become one. Until then, this energy is considered foreign. It's like if I were eating live insects, or killing a person inside," he thought.
He meditated, feeling how his soul was filled with the energy of this creature. Without hesitation, he began to transform it into pure energy.
"What, bitch, you like it? I'll eat you alive," he said to his enemy, suffering from pain and strange sensations, boiling with anger and thinking about how to torture this creature.
As if hearing and understanding what this worm had said, it let out a scream filled with provocations.
***
While Vallynor and the monster fought in an unusual way, Aninno got up and started sniffing his master and then the air.
Sensing something, he looked into the darkness and began to emit threatening growls.
A spider came out of the corner. One, two... ten... a hundred. And their number increased with each passing second. They hadn't even reached half of their number when spiders appeared from the other side as well.
Aninno could no longer be so self-assured. He tried to drag his master into the shadows, but as soon as they were completely inside, they immediately came out, as if someone was holding them back and not letting them enter the world of shadows.
Because of this, Aninno dragged his master into the open room and closed the door. Getting ready for battle, he felt an itch and, turning to the source of the itch, saw black spots that were slowly increasing. In his eyes, you could read questions like "Where did they come from?" and "What are these spots?".
Looking at the black spots, instincts screamed about mortal danger and that if nothing was done, death of the body and soul would be the only result. But right now, he couldn't do anything as a spider jumped next to him, wanting to bite.
Aninno dodged and hit with his paw. One hit, and the spider fell dead. He ate its soul immediately after. After that, he felt the itch again where the spot was. Looking at the spot, he realized that it had decreased, but not by much.
I don't know how, but as he consumed souls, he was able to reduce the black spots. As long as he had enough souls, he could even get rid of these spots completely.
At first, one or two spiders attacked him, but over time their numbers increased. Anino attacked with his claws, which grew longer and darker. This was his magical skill, where he merged dark energy with his claws, making them deadlier. This magical skill was one of the first and the one that showed him the magical path.
However, not seeing great potential in magic, which he should have trained every day as the owner, he gave up on this path. Most of the time, he used the skills of his race, which did not require training like magic did.
When he was imprisoned in the time prison, he was not completely frozen. His body couldn't move an inch, but he could still think and realize what had happened.
While he was in prison, he pondered on what had happened to him. Slowly he began to realize that magic was not as weak as he had thought before. He always considered it too complicated and inaccessible, so he didn't study it and developed his skills, acquired from his race, which were based on shadows.
The time prison sealed his body, not allowing him to move. But his mind kept working. He began to analyze the owner's magic, and memories that repeatedly arose convinced him of the need to learn magic.
He thought about what he would do next to learn magic. For him, magic and skills were almost the same, so it would be very difficult.
While he was thinking, the prison suddenly disappeared. Falling on the sand, he quickly got up and began to look around. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice.
"Little demon, your owner killed Farfala to free you," said the old woman.
Hearing these words, his heart filled with joy. He understood that his owner still cared for him, and as if a stone had been lifted from his heart.
Since they found the stone building that the owner called home, he began training in magic and using various metal objects as weapons in battles against enemies, which he later learned were called weapons.
Because of this, the owner didn't spend enough time with him and spent most of his time hunting and sleeping. He began to think and fear that he was drifting away from the owner, and this idea became more terrifying with each passing day.
Upon learning that the owner had not left him but had fought and defeated a fearsome enemy, he became happy and even proud. But the next words of the strange creature frightened him.
"Little Demon, go to your master immediately. Because of the protective magic, I cannot keep track of him. I don't know what's going on there, but I feel he's in danger. Do you see three crooked trees? Go straight ahead, and eventually you'll come to a huge temple where your master is."
Before Annino could finish the conversation, she turned into a shadow and ran straight to the temple. In the darkness, only her yellow eye was visible. Annino's shadows were visible in the distance.
After that, the scene shifted to a magnificent temple surrounded by spiders, which quickly wrapped it in webs. This happened quickly and smoothly, without a leader, which was very strange unless Archana had long been planning a rebellion against Farfala.
"What's happening to this world?... Sigh, I can't even see what's happening inside. And the little demon didn't even want to listen to the end," Annino thought.
Closing her eyes, she fell asleep. Ten minutes later, in the darkness, sounds like the crunching of bones and drops on the stone floor could be heard.
***
Aninno fought the spiders using her paws, tail, teeth, and even her body as a battering ram. The spider corpses fell dead on the floor, and their souls immediately entered her body. As the spiders grew larger, it became increasingly difficult for Aninno to kill and hold them down.
Fortunately, up until this point, Aninno had only used weak magic that relied solely on her strength and agility. But realizing the need to train, she began to use her skills that appeared to be magic but were actually something else.
Sometimes, as she killed and consumed the spiders' souls, she looked at the spot where her master should have been fighting the enemy, which was slowly disappearing.
***
Vallynor sat beneath the shower and platform, processing his enemy alive and gaining energy from its soul. Like him, his enemy was also trying to eat his soul. It was an endless cycle, and if they continued in the same way, the battle would last forever or until one of them grew tired and couldn't continue fighting.
Fortunately, Vallynor had experience in converting souls into energy, unlike his enemy. This gave him hope for victory, and he had no intention of becoming a slave to their desires.
Sitting there, Vallynor processed his enemy, and the enemy processed him. Whether he wanted it or not, the memories of that creature appeared. Fortunately, I realize that they are not mine, but belong to another. I am only observing as a person watching a movie from a first-person perspective.
I saw tragic moments of these soul fragments as I looked at these memories. Yes, it was an unusual creature, a mixture of parts of many souls that either remained or were able to break away at the last moment. And in order not to disappear completely, they found each other and merged.
How do I know? Because in each fragment I saw a child dying from some white creature or human-like albino monster. Interestingly, both of them sometimes shouted "Chosen."
After thinking it over, he was suddenly enlightened. Could it be that children lived in this temple? And once these two albino creatures came, who killed and ate their souls. There were so many children that when they ate their souls, they sometimes dropped small pieces or the pieces themselves tried to escape from their mouths. Then, in order to survive, they merged into a single entity. Perhaps they instinctively trusted each other, and their hatred of the common enemy bound them together.
This is not just one ugly creature, but a collective of mutilated children. They were like ghosts of their past selves, who had nothing but hatred for those creatures left.
Suddenly, he heard a strong cry that sounded like a dragon or demon, and made Vallynor, even if he was not in his physical form or he was undead, sweat. And everything would have been fine if after these cries there had not been heard "I am the chosen one."
Upon hearing these words, Vallynor felt mortal danger. Even meeting Farfal did not cause such instinctive reactions in him. But here the words were repeated: death, pain, death, pain.
The remaining children of the collective stopped, as if trying to figure out what was happening. But when they heard "I am the chosen one," the monster went crazy and broke out of Vallynor's soul. They did not hesitate when leaving, further injuring his wounded soul. It was even scary to look at now.
Vallynor woke up, suffering from wild pain. Through tears, he saw Annino killing spiders, and the whole temple began to shake slowly. The shaking became stronger and stronger with each passing second.
From Vallynor emerged a huge black creature, which ran out and began to destroy everything in its path. Running past, it ignored Anino, who was already ready to fight the spiders, killing those who were in its way or trying to attack.
The temple began to shake more and more. The walls cracked and collapsed, and the spiders no longer dared to attack, but began to retreat and run away.
Anino turned to the owner, who was writhing in infinite pain from a wounded soul. Taking him, they both entered the shadows and fled to the exit of the temple.
***
The yellow-eyed closed and opened. After three seconds, a huge white creature, resembling a dragon, appeared on it, attacking the spiders that were close to the temple.
Seeing this monster, the old woman was very surprised and frightened - not because he could come to her and kill her, but because of these two boys.
"Where did he come from? ... He shouldn't meet them. Otherwise, death will await them both. A long and painful death," thought the old woman.
Watching the huge white creature, she noticed how the huge black silhouette pounced on it.
Seeing each other, they grabbed each other. One was filled with anger and wanted to kill the enemy, while the other was filled with hunger and wanted to eat everyone and the enemy before him.
"Could it be ... remnants of bygone times. Children, what happened to you? ... Aaah!" Suddenly waking up, the old woman screamed in fright. Several hours had passed, and she had received a new wound. Suddenly, she fell to the floor and fell asleep. And after that, the sound of bones crunching was heard in the darkness.