Black Magus

The deafening roar of the wind, distant pain, and the blurred landscape before me began to smother my senses soon after Grandpa Lich's voice echoed back to me. Fighting against nausea and pain, I struggled to manipulate air pillar after air pillar from my fingers and feet to kill my rotation.

Now stabilized, I faced retrograde to quickly scan my surroundings. And uttered a gasp of disbelief. "Fuck." I turned, staring at the magnificence of the western coastline just below me. Ahead, Corvus Tower was but a black blot on the horizon, appearing as nothing more than a stick planted into the ground. However, coiled around it was an all too familiar sight. Grandpa Lich's sky serpent. Poised like a knockoff of the Caduceus staff for a dreadfully long moment before its tail suddenly flicked.

Another bloodcurdling scream echoed to my fragile being a split second later, shaking my very spirit into spawning the armor of its own volition just in time to see the enraged face of the Necro King Grandfather consuming my vision. Screaming madly before his hammer of a fist struck against the mithral plates like a church bell.

I slammed against the Mortal Plane like a meteor that sent as much air and ichor into the air as dirt and dust. All the while the toiling bells quickened from the shower of rock and snow cascading into my little crater. A maddening cacophony, it was. And yet a subtle beat when compared to the thunderous boom of Grandpa Lich landing in the distance.

I scrambled to my feet. But he crossed the distance with but a single stride to yoke me up by my neck and pull me closer to his sneer of dissatisfaction. Sneering back, I summoned my doppelganger and sort of, threw the armor onto him before funneling death mana through my fingers and into the old Lich's wrists. His sneer turned to an amused grin at my bemusement. And then from a grin to a frown of annoyance as the loud smacks of the Phantom Knight's assault began to overshadow his barbaric heaving.

"You can try." Grandpa Lich cackled. Then paused as his head snapped to the side from the Phantom's assault. "But- you cannot- steal- life- from a necromancer- without their- consent.

"Now then." He grunted as an effortless push sent my armored clone flying dozens of meters away. Then reeled his fist away from my face.

Releasing my grip around his wrist, I gathered the ambient mana in hand and quickly flung it toward his oncoming fist like a ball of pocket sand. It expanded into a tsunami-like wave the moment it was released, completely overpowering Grandpa Lich's punch in ways that left it mangled, scarred, and scalding amidst a cloud of steam. Grandpa Lich's mouth fell in bewilderment for a split second before his face curled into a grimace. His arm bent and twisted back into shape in a near-instant. Then, he tried again. I, however, capitalized on that moment to grasp a far larger field of mana and condense it as I would air. Just as his fist was about to impact with my open palm, a pillar of dense, blue-green energy erupted from my hand like a beam. Obliterating my grandfather's arm up to the shoulder before it slammed into the ground with enough force to send soft quakes rolling down the coastline.

I couldn't help but grin as I followed Grandpa Lich's gaze to plate-sized cigarette cherry glowing on the ground behind him. Up until the moment, he turned.

I heard a roar. Then, the world tipped. Reality faded from existence for a time, and I awoke to find myself on my side. My ribs and organs pancaked between my shoulders, forcing my body fluids to equalize the pressure within in the only way physics would allow. Yet, even that didn't last long, for the world suddenly jarred once again. Time skipped, sending me to a moment where I was filled with bilious pain and looking through my hazed vision at a black boot covered in bile. An oversized, pointed, and spurred boot with my bile, pulling away from my mangled ribs after it kicked me to eye level with the Necro King. My Great-Grandfather, Everandus Cole. Leaning into a punch that I was sure contained more than enough power to end me.

'Block.'

Not even the word could be formed in my fleeting consciousness. Only the concept itself made its way through the mental fog in my mind. Nevertheless, umbral clouds condensed around my flesh in an instant. Shrouding me in my Abyssal Armor just before my forefather's fist made contact.

And so, I flew. Helplessly. Peacefully. Interrupted only by the distant toils of a bell as my velocity was occasionally slowed by the trees and rocks stretching between Grandpa Lich and my landing zone.

"Ugh. This is no fun." I heard a distant grunt not long after I landed, spurring me to act through the numbing pain. Perhaps in vain, as I was still struggling to summon both my Doppelganger and the Phantom while Grandpa Lich waddled up to me to unceremoniously deliver the final blow.

---

"You have grown accustomed to the pain. That is good."

I fluttered my eyes open to see the grayed-out belly of a forest canopy staring back at me. Without putting much thought behind my actions, I sat upright and found myself holding my belly as if I had a stomachache. And then it came back to me.

Looking around, I saw we were at the inner edge of the Tower's Dead Zone. A line of broken trees, cracked rocks, and displaced snow stretched for leagues upon leagues; unpopulated by a single animal. To my front, Grandpa Lich was leaning against a tree. Staring at the colossal structure a few hundred meters away from us. Melancholia bleeding from his eyes like the death mana from his body.

As for me, I was healed, but not healthy. Able to fight, but still plagued by aches and pains throughout my body. That became apparent once I pulled myself to my feet and approached Great Grandfather to accept his healing.

"You took far less time than your Father did." He commented over his shoulder. But you still have yet to reach his level."

"Seriously?" I asked in disbelief. "He's that good? I heard he uses needles?"

"Annoyingly so," Grandpa grunted, turned away from the tower, and began stroking his beard. "You may think of your father as helpless, Amun. However, he is anything but. He is quick and efficient. You." He lazily pointed to me. "Are flashy and experimental."

"Aesthetics are important." I shrugged.

"Aesthetics will get you killed." He quipped back. Then gestured to the Tower after assuming the Wrath Form. "Now then, what do you know of crime?"

"Is that rhetorical?" I snorted.

He stayed silent while guiding me through the walls and ground below the train station. We phased and phased through what felt like dozens of meters of solid stone before arriving in a wide, curved, and horrendously bland corridor, wherein he canceled the spell and turned his expectant look in my direction.

"Despite the prosperity of the empire, crime still exists," I said. "That's what I read, at least. But I'm sure it's a lot worse. Even with your undead lurking in the shadows, people will kill and rape and kidnap."

"It prides me that you aren't naive like your counterpart." Grandpa chuckled a soft, thunder-like rumble down the hall.

'My counter- oh.' I wondered, then mentally slapped my brain a split second after. 'The princess.'

"It's true that my undead act as a security force for the Empire. But even then, some still test the waters. Thus bringing us here." Spreading his arms like a show host, he guided me into a glass-walled lounge filled with rows upon rows of seats bearing both our family crest and what I assumed was the House of Deapou Crest. A massive, black mountain with lava leaking from the crater to settle into the shape of a claymore with a guard forged to mimic ox horns, standing on edge. "You see, we Maruleans crave violence." Grandpa Lich paused to lean against the glass and peer down with the same look in his eyes as before.

Following his actions, I saw what could only be described as an underground colosseum. A 90-by-60-meter ovoid arena of volcanic rock formed a pit around black marble bleachers packed to the brim with roaring citizens. The field beneath them was littered with stone outcroppings, pools, streams, and several crates of oil; all contained by a 10-meter-high wall serving as the foundation for a thick dome of enchantment-studded glass. The same type of glass found in our skybox and the ones just like it, I presumed, for the other bigwigs of the Empire.

"As much as society tries to convince us otherwise, it is true. It is inescapable. A factor of our creation in this realm. It is part of what it means to be Marulean; not just human: to have a natural inclination- a natural hunger for violence. Some wish to view it from afar. They passively observe violence from a safe place or read milder descriptions of it in tales of adventure. Others." Grandpa Lich wordlessly gestured to the masses gathered below. "Others wish to experience it for themselves. They are the ones who go off to join militaries, mercenary companies, and guilds. Regardless of the type, our need for conflict is comparable to our need for sustenance, Amun. The problem is." He sighed. "Society gives us morals. In turn, we make excuses to justify our actions against those morals. Differences in species, class, beliefs, magical abilities. Any and everything can and will be used as an excuse to end another's life. The denizens of the other realms need no such excuses. Those in Betrarth kill because it is their nature. Those beyond the White Wall kill indiscriminately. Those in the Inner Reaches kill for pleasure. Those from Youtera kill out of necessity. We kill for all these reasons and more.

"Thus it is places like these where we can satiate our bloodlust. Here, and in every city in the Empire, are fight clubs, magical tournaments, and in some cases, deathmatches. Here, those who love the fight can prove their mettle. And most importantly." Grandpa turned to lean towards me, a grim and maniacal grin spread across his sculpted face. "Here is where even the scum of the planes can die with some dignity. In this way, we can kill an entire flock of birds with but a single volley."

'That's not how the saying goes, but I get your point.' I sighed under the cover of his boisterous laughter and waited for him to calm down before asking, "I assume I'm to fight here?"

"correct." He quickly nodded. "You are to be the executioner of five. Here are their charges." He threw me a stack of papers; a stack I immediately sat on the chair beside me.

"I only need to know the rules," I said. "Them being after my life is reason enough for me to fight."

Juxtaposed with his prideful grin was a stern growl emanating from his very core as he turned to me and said. "This is a deathmatch, Amun! The only rule is that you are to be the only one left standing. Though it shall be stated. Anyone you kill shall be added to your collection. It is time you start raising the dead."

"Very well." I peered through the window to study the arena and settle upon a course of action. Once settled, I dipped into the Shadow Realm and waited for Grandpa Lich's hand to enter the umbral dimension and give me the thumbs up.

Upon stepping back into reality, I was greeted by the muffled cacophony of the crowd and the ecstatic voice of an announcer roaring above the domed ceiling. I tuned out the roar at once and scanned what I could of the arena before the bell toiled. Not spotting anyone in the vicinity, however, I picked an ambiguous direction and started walking. Waddling across the arena as if I hadn't a care in the world.

It didn't take long for someone to approach from the side, screaming like an idiot with a club held out to his side. Stopping in place, I withdrew mana from my well and pulled it through the entirety of my core before allowing the resulting energy to flood every fiber of my being. Seemingly forcing the tree-like branches of my magical mark to go through a growth spurt and spread across my body as a second skin. Much like the club making contact with my back, every molecule of air and bit of stone touching my skin at that moment simply vanished on the spot; or rather, was sent to the void. I began sinking just as my assailant spun off balance. Simultaneously, wave after wave of displacing air began cascading toward me, forcing me to cancel the spell as quickly as I could and step out of the literal hole I'd dug for myself.

By the time I recovered, my assailant was on his knees, scrambling for what was left of his weapon. With death mana in hand and a mind filled with thoughts of adding the unbridled power of his soul to my body, I bounded toward him. His face curdled with annoyance before his eyes widened with fear. He began to back away. Faster and faster as I raced closer and closer and slid to a knee to leap up and grasp his face. My hand hardly fit around his nose and jaw; nevertheless, his body froze the moment my death mana touched him. Unsurprisingly, his body refused to even budge as I tried to lift and pull, despite how relatively scrawny he was. Though that quickly changed once my death mana seeped far enough into him.

His skin quickly began paling, wilting, and stretching over his bones while the necrotic energy within him took on a blood-red hue. On my next pull, that hue served to detach my assailant's essence- his soul from his very body. Like a wailing ghost or someone Astral Projecting. Only… angrier. Burning. Raging. Screaming and whispering demands in the back of my consciousness as it melded into my body to empower every fiber of my being. Supercharging every muscle in my body, from the eyelids, down to the heart. Within seconds, lifting him by the face was an effortless, if not painless, task. Punctuating the last, rasped breath to escape his lungs as his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Unprompted, my grimoire appeared and unfurled its pages to the blank sheets following False Life, and new letters quickly began forming on the left page.

[Burning Souls] - Are stolen souls that have fallen into a state of madness after death. For a time, their unbridled rage can be channeled into you, giving you their strength. And madness. 1 = 23:59:59]

I let him fall and took a moment to get a feel for the changes brought about by this Burning Soul. Of which there were many. I felt some distant pain while clenching and unclenching my fists a few times. Both from the latent pain from my earlier beating and my overcharged muscles splitting my bones and tendons apart with each flex. It was much the same as False Strength but could be turned on or off at will. And rather than continuously increasing the amount of strength I had, additional souls only increased the time frame. Allowing me to remain at the limits of my physicality no matter how many souls I absorbed. Or, at least, that was the theory.

Eager to test said theory, I set off to find my next target. I found her after a few minutes of aimless wandering. A particularly burly woman with a low cut, hiding behind a stone outcropping with her back to me.

'Perfect.' I grinned. Lunging towards her at once. But the arena seemed to warp toward me after my initial kick off the ground. With my second lunge, the surroundings blurred and a billowing tempest blew across my frame with the third stride. Within mere moments, I was entering close quarters, kicking off the ground a final time with my arm cocked back and ready to strike.

Up until the moment my fist sprung forth, she stood her ground. Waited, and casually pulled her head aside at the last second. She jumped away in the next instant, leaving my arm with no target but the stone she'd been hiding behind.

A condescending, satisfactory grin crawled over her face upon seeing my arm implode and splinter into a web of jagged bone. Yet it quickly faded to horror once she saw me lunging after her, sweeping my splintered arm across her shoulders and neck with wild abandon. She fell on the ground without resistance and rolled as if she were on fire, screaming and clutching her face while her legs kicked childishly. Being unwilling to pass up an opening, I swept my splintered bones across her face once more, leaving her with a final scar to despair over while I activated Leech Hand in my foot, followed by False Life, and waited until my arm twisted itself back into its former shape. I continued leeching life from her until I was back in pristine condition and gave her a final stomp on the nape to finally end her. Nearly sending my foot flying with the shards of bone and clumps of gray matter raining everywhere.

With her out of the way, I turned about to search for my next opponent. Only to come face to face with a miniature sun.

Without thinking, I released the void and molded the energy into a bubble around my body. Encapsulating me in a seemingly infinite domain that appeared to expand around me in all directions. On closer inspection, it felt as if I'd been reduced to an insignificant size within this... Void Egg. Like I'd been placed in the center of an immense, starless cosmos. On a tiny planet that had the arena as its sky and its occupants as constellations. To my front was the cone of fire I'd seen earlier. Dimmed to tolerable levels by the empty expanse surrounding me. I waited, watched, and listened as a few flaming barrels came flying in from my sides. Crashing against the stone to splash the black sludge into a blazing pool around me.

Subconsciously, my lips curled into an amiable grin derived from sheer pleasure at the sight. Seeking more, I gathered shadow mana in my hand and broke through the shell with a swing of an arm as if I were opening a door. Casting out the darkness in my hand to inflect the inferno with the flames of Moil. Within seconds, the deep chill pouring off the flames caused the surrounding stone to chip and crack violently. Causing the gang of three to hesitate or in some cases, flee after seeing columns of umbral mist rise and gather on the ceiling as if it were smoke.

'Let's try this again.' I infused my skin, musculature, and skeletal system with shadow mana. Not quite meeting the conditions for Wraith Form; but activating Black Armor, Black Thew, and Black Bones before I lunged at the fire-throwing bastard. Much like the woman from before, he stood in place before jumping aside at the last moment to watch me break my leg against the ground and potentially counter-attack. I, however, bounced like a tire after kicking the ground where he'd been standing. Rising more than a few meters off the ground, I thrust out my right palm, manipulating a batch of mana into a flame that was then turned into a torch with the application of an air pillar from my left hand. The resulting column of blue-white flame screeched through the arena like a dragon's roar and slammed into the top of his head like a shock wave, forcing him into a squat.

Similarly, the same force was applied to my arm, acting to halt my descent and even send me flying toward the ceiling. In an effort to fight against the force, I oriented myself into a handstand position before lowering the output. Slowly, I began to descend toward my target, still staring at me with a stick smile on his face; even as he strained to remain standing beneath my pillar of fire. His clothes curled into charred rolls of fabric as he stayed there, enduring my blast. Yet his body was fine. Because of course, a fire mystic's body would be.

Eager to add such a being to my collection, I killed the torch and dove to deftly roll to my feet just out of range. He, in turn, took a moment to relax his posture and tilt his head up to actually laugh at my failed attack.

I tried to subdue it, but the heat rose from the depths of my bowls. Before I knew it, my nostrils were flaring, my amiable grin was lost and I found myself lunging forward, grasping a far larger mass of condensed air than I'd otherwise use. With a final kick off the ground, my anger, or perhaps the soul's rage reached its peak. And I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Due to misjudging my strength, or from my rage, or perhaps both, I came in far too fast and nearly rammed him like an elephant charging a safari truck. To compensate, I widened the radius of the air cannon to cover his entire body and broke the seal. Triggering a horrendous hiss to blast the two of us apart, leaving waves of dust and shattered rock to billow out in our wake. While I was able to promptly slow my momentum with a web of manipulated mana, my opponent continued arcing across the arena until he tumbled right into an outcropping. Splitting his body into two dissimilar parts that trailed separate ways.

"Dammit," I swore under my breath, hoping that didn't prevent me from creating a shadow. But not for long, as my thoughts seemed to drift away from undead to something a little more… ghastly.

"Blood." We growled.

I noticed a sudden clarity in my mind as I turned and, almost habitually, gazed up to the cloud of darkness above to give it a Shadow Bullet. Synonymous with the thoughts echoing in the back of my mind, the mass of umbral smoke began condensing into a massive sphere that soon became riddled with lidless draconic, colored the same abyssal black and noxious white as the script in my grimoire. It began spasming at once. Darting back and forth to shift the focus of its many eyes to the various points of interest beneath it. Attempting to follow its gaze, I lowered my eyes and immediately detected movement. Then, I paused.

Through the shadow of a random stone, I saw a bird's eye view of the last two competitors, evidently arguing with each other.

"Death!" We growled- nay, screamed with pleasure at the sight, and crouched. Flexing every fiber of our being in preparations to leap; yet, such energy was wasted, as a column of umbral smoke poured over us in the next instant.

Another wave of clarity washed over me and I found myself falling. Plummeting towards the debating duo at terminal velocity.

I was nearly to target when one of them noticed me, pointed, and screamed before pushing his companion and himself away with a burst of air. Despite missing my target, I couldn't help but regain my amiable smile as a result of my Black Bones and Skin wondrously absorbing the shock of my landing, transforming a bit of the energy of my impact into a stinging pain in the soles of my feet. Consequently, the rest of that energy was transformed into elastic potential energy that was subsequently released, rocketing me into the back of the man trying to distance himself.

We split apart just as fast as my shoulder made contact with the center of his shoulder blades, adding the percussive sound of splitting bone and the unholy choirs of horrid screams to the already chaotic ambiance of the arena. After using mana to once again kill my velocity, I approached the poor soul I violently rear-ended and picked him up by the neck to Leech enough Life to repair my shoulder. Then, I paused to subdue the whispers and finalize a revised version of this spell before the floodgates of death mana opened once again.

Like before, the soul detached as his eyes rolled back and the last, rasped breath escaped his lungs. Yet this one held a greenish-white hue and condensed into a pinpoint of light that fell into an orbit around my affinity core, cueing more ethereal white lines to morph into place in my grimoire. The book itself seemed to open wider, flattening the pages until the seam in the middle disappeared completely, making space at the top for a new name while the name of the spell I just made took its place on the right page, next to the Burning Souls entry.

[Soul Stealer] - The act of stealing souls from mortal beings and using them as either Burning Souls, for physical empowerment; or as Aegis Souls, that die in your place.]

[Aegis Souls] - are captured souls that have been met with benevolence and empathy after passing, granting them the ambition to die in place of another.]

Following the whispers, we slowly stepped toward the last participant. He, in turn, remained frozen in place. Undoubtedly terrified from the Flames of Moil still burning and the others being strewn about here and there. And yet, he courageously stood his ground with his guard up high. As expected of a man similar in stature to my Great-Grandfather.

Embracing the energy swelling within me, I sneered at him as my Abyssal Armor shrouded my body. Then, we both lunged.

Even with my arms coated in spurred plates, he swung with wild abandon. Consequently, my armor was splattered with blood as his attacks were easily blocked and parried again and again until the attacks slowed. And with a final, defiant scream, he pulled back his mangled fist to send it hurtling right at my neck.

After casually backhanding it away, I grasped the back of his head with one hand. Then ended the match with a deafening, wet squelch. While his body went limp and his skull was indeed shattered. He wasn't quite dead yet. Thus I wasn't yet finished.

Infusing my gauntlets with death mana, I grasped the man's face and began prying his soul from his body. Unlike before, an ethereal wail seemed to throb in my mind as the life left his eyes and his soul began to appear above his corpse. And once free, the throbbing seemed to intensify. The wailing grew louder and louder as the incorporeal hand seemed to merge with my gauntlets. Followed by the soul's arms with the armor's arms, the legs, and on and on until the screams scratched the very fabric of my mind. In turn, the Burning Soul raged and fought back against the intrusion until the very moment it assimilated into the armor, reducing the feral screams to but a whisper in my helmet.

With the armor now powered, a literal weight had been removed from my shoulders. A stark difference in comparison to the heavy wool it felt like earlier. Now, it was almost as if the umbral nerves and musculature were extensions of my body. Or rather, like the membrane was filled with the musculature of the corpse lying in front of me. I felt like the vital organs of some exotic insectoid. Like I was trapped inside a cocoon of umbral muscle and bound within a spurred carapace of mithral.

[Burning Soul: 1=23:59:26.]

My grimoire folded shut and disappeared as I canceled the spell. Only then, did I hear the muffled cheers of the spectators above. Only for them, did I raise my arms triumphantly before stepping into the Shadowfell and taking off my armor. Arriving in the skybox next to my grandfather a moment later, I saw only a grin mixed with both pride and frustration.

"You put on quite a show. A massacre, really." He patted me on the shoulder, looking through the window. "The crowd is pleased. But, you should've taken more souls.

"What's done is done, though." He sighed moments later, assuming his Wraith Form to phase through the walls. "You'll have the chance to get more next weekend," He said as we arrived at the edge of the Tower's Dead Zone and took on his physical form. Inviting me to do much the same. "For now, we continue your education in war!" He spread his arms wide as if he were announcing the start of a grand show. A gesture that spread a vast pool of shadow from his feet that quickly grew to span my entire field of view. Coating the powdered forest with a thick, umbral soup that rippled, coalesced, and condensed into a wall of shadow undead.

Thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands of them. All staring voraciously at me.