“Observant one, are we?” The enshrouded man jeered, “But unfortunately—”

“AND,” Cira interrupted the aspiring aggressor, “You released the flame sprites above, did you not? That was a dead giveaway that some irresponsible amateur was down here playing around.”

“I-irresponsible?!” For a brief moment the man’s imposing tone cracked. He cleared his throat and leaned in as shadows danced behind him. “The nerve—”

“Nice one, Captain.” Jimbo nodded with his arms crossed, “So, you knew all along.”

“You… you knew?” Kuja was reeling from the appearance of a stranger to claim ownership over her home and still trying to piece everything together. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

The shadows flared up in anger at the man being sidelined so swiftly, but Cira still replied, “I could have been wrong. Afterall, organic necromantic events often look very similar to what your average amateur necromancer can achieve, especially the thoughtless type like this unsavory specimen.”

Now, Cira liked to call out negligent practice as much as the next girl, but the more this man focused on her mockery, the less he noticed Shadow Quill’s point gently drag along the floor. While she also tried to understand how, the man who suddenly appeared from darkness seethed under her ridicule. It was clear he didn’t appreciate not being taken seriously, but Cira couldn’t spill the beans yet.

“Irresponsible…? Amateur?!” It was quite jarring the way the world shook when his anger flared up, as if space itself were shuddering, but Cira could feel it was merely the surrounding shadows reacting to his will—deliberately or not. Naturally, their reaction intensified consistently as Cira failed to contain a wide grin. She couldn’t help it as she tried to discern this person’s nature. He was going for a dramatic pause for gravitas but was left with no choice but to continue anyway, “On what grounds?! You are the last one with any right to say that to me.”

All the framework for shadow-based enchantments were already laid, so Cira was able to pile a few arrays here and there to achieve somewhat impressive effects. The first thing she did was ensure the domain registered an enemy regardless of his concentration of dark mana or apparent humanity, but now she was finishing up a shadow reflection glyph for the imminent assault.

“My, my… An observant one, are we?” Throwing one’s words in their face was the natural way to irritate them, and results showed quick in the form of a quivering eyebrow or unsteady grumble. “We all know I have no aura right now, but that’s a poor excuse at best to refute my accusations. You’re a century at best from spawning a salamander, which I think we both know would be far beyond your control. Given that fact, even considering the near-perfect conditions beneath this mana well, you’ve been here for a significant amount of time.

“But we’ll get back to that. First of all, if left unchecked in such a ripe environment, the sprites will surely overcome the slimes in that same century. The goblins obviously won’t stop them, then the entire island is razed. Now bereft of a food source with a population that’s far outgrown the dark mana well, they’ll spread to nearby islands beyond the storm. There may even be more than one salamander by then, so surely there will be other territories in the mix. In other words, what you’ve created here is practically a breeding farm specifically to bring ruin to the Boreal Archipelago. A timebomb waiting to go off.” The man had lurched a little closer and could be seen clenching his fists.

“F-fool! As soon as my research is complete, I’ll be far away from these worthless skies. Why should I care what disaster flows in my wake?” As he lifted his chin and let out a smug laugh, his gaunt features came into view. There was thin stubble on his face and remnants of a beard, but it was all greyed despite his otherwise youthful complexion. He was getting dangerously close to her domain.

“People like you make me sick.” He was arrogant and inconsiderate of the world around him. These two qualities ran as contrary to the essence of sorcery as one could get. “And you would try to tell me you’re anything but a hapless novice who wormed his way into somewhere he doesn’t belong?”

“I don’t care if one of you does belong to those extinct people who left this place behind… Any rights you have over it are long gone,” Kuja visibly shuddered under his coarse tone. The mana coming off of him was intense and it appeared from everywhere at once. The crew was having a hard time dealing with it, but it was nothing like Undina in Cira’s book. “I have lived here for nearly two hundred years honing my craft so that I am peerless. Tell me girl, what do you know of true necromancy?”

“God damn am I glad you asked,” Cira was not yet done pointing out this mystery man’s failures. However, she was done creating her basic reflection array. It was single use, but it would serve its purpose. She still needed time to finish the third array to really kick off the fight and drive her point home in tandem. “But don’t get ahead of yourself, old man.” He did not like that. “You’ve been here for two hundred years?! I spent two weeks at most learning necromancy. Where’s your damn spirit swarm? Flesh golems? Why aren’t there undead bugs running surveillance on the top floor and all around the mountain? I’m talking about basic contingencies that take an afternoon to employ. How did we even make it here if you’re such a prolific necromancer? Complete amateur work you’ve done for the last two centuries. Like, what have you even been doing?”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

It was clear there was more than meets the eye here, but Cira’s plan to rile him up worked, “You… I will show you what I have been doing these two hundred years!”

A grinding echoed through the chamber and clouds of dust exploded from the ground. Cira felt herself get pulled away by the ribbons at her ankles and when she looked down, a skeletal arm was grabbing at her while another pushed against the floor.

The ground at Cira’s feet broke and revealed a skull glaring up at her with empty eye sockets. Pristine white bone, all flesh long decomposed from it, yet there was little trace of weathering from age.

Screams to her left rang out—her crew was also getting accosted. All around them, skeletons burst from the dirt at their feet as far as they could see while slow, maniacal laughter echoed. The shadows seemed to recede to show off the vast army as it arose, while the man responsible apparently disappeared without a trace.

Gil was pulled to the ground by two such skeletons before a burst of flames made them crumble away. A rhythmic knocking came from behind as Rictor crushed them beneath heavy weights, Tawny threw fireball after fireball, and Cedric found great success in consecutive lightning strikes. Her paladins were well equipped to send them to the next life with brilliant golden blasts and even Jimbo could slash away at them without much trouble, but the brothers were reduced to swatting them with their staves.

Cira drove her needle through a skull with little resistance then bashed another with the onyx on the other end and it broke apart in a burst of darkness.

“Okay, maybe I’m a little impressed,” She was so sure he would activate her trap pretty much right away, but his skeletons were bound through unconventional means, “but these bones aren’t nearly ancient enough. They’re too weak.” Cira kicked one and its ribcage fell apart unceremoniously. Her next move was to draw another array blatantly in the air.

A quick three-glyph formation which grew alight with the color of warm sands. The mana’s light carried far through the chamber in the shadows’ absence, and every skeleton in range simply broke apart, clattering against the ground en masse.

“W-what?!” Rictor exclaimed, “No way! How?”

“At what point would you consider bones fossils?” She answered with a question. “You should be able to freely manipulate them as well, to a degree.”

All she had cast was a sorcery to deconstruct earth, which tangentially affected fossils. Granted, most of these skeletons were a few centuries old at best, so it wasn’t difficult to wrest control over them, leaving them as steaming lumps of death mana.

“You wretch!” His voice echoed as a trail of shadow made its way to the front and he appeared again dripping with anger. “You think you’ve bested me because you’ve figured out my skeletons—”

Bang!

Cira jolted back as something exploded right next to her. Jimbo was shrouded in a cloud of smoke that unfurled to show his hand resting on the barrel of his shoulder cannon. “Man, I’ve been waiting for that.” He rubbed his ear which had surely taken some abuse from the blast. “Wait… what?”

Everybody’s eyes were stuck on the infuriated necromancer with a gaping hole in his side as he glared at Jimbo exuding a vicious aura. Instead of blood, only shadows poured from the wound.

“How DARE you?! Do you seek death?” Shadows condensed in his hand and a staff of pure darkness appeared. “Perish!”

A beam of darkness so pure it shined brighter than the goliaths shot out with a shrill whistle and tried to pierce the barrier on a direct path to Jimbo’s heart. Waves of mana pulsed as the sound of cracking came from the point of impact. While the barrier rippled from the overwhelming force, a series of glyphs lit up.

Suddenly an explosion of shadows came from the border of Cira’s domain and the ray of darkness reversed itself, piercing the robed man through his own chest and continuing far beyond. Unlike the cannonball, this didn’t even disperse a hole in him.

But going by the look on his face, he was furious. Shadows danced around the ‘wound’, slowly trickling in. He absorbed them as if it were only natural, so he must have been more upset about the failed attack.

“Is… is he a spirit?” Kuja looked him up and down with wide eyes, as if scouring his soul for any hints.

“Not quite…” Cira spoke softly, unraveling him in her mind as she went. His narrowed eyes still burned with such a deep darkness. “He’s been keeping the soul forge warm for us though.”

With a gasp, Kuja finally understood. The bony knuckles of her old hands turned white around her staff, but quickly loosened. Having seen the last interaction, she had more than a little doubt.

“He has desecrated my people’s resting place, and stolen their secrets for so, so long… but I am powerless against him…” Her voice shook as she looked down, sullen.

“Hey,” Cira put a hand on her shoulder and met her with a smile, “That’s what I’m here for.”

“Pathetic girl without even a trace of aura,” The man strode toward them and stopped at the barrier. He ran his finger along it to discern its effects. “You know a couple tricks, but that is all. It may even be worth keeping you alive for a time to take them for myself. To defeat me though,” He disappeared as the world shuddered again and the shadows suddenly fell on them like a tidal wave. “I am afraid you lack the qualifications.”

The same as before, it was like being crushed under an ocean of darkness. Cira could feel her barrier buckle beneath the weight, only getting worse by the second. The man’s laughter faded in and out, in front of and behind. The broken skeletons made their way back into the earth, only to reappear moments later. This was quickly becoming a battle of attrition that Cira wasn’t sure she could win.

She knew the necromancer had more up his sleeve, but he was acting warily. At this point she had no choice but to assume he knew about her trap or was simply stalling for time. Neither option was great