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‘That’s quite a tricky one. This guy’s on a high level too.’

Demonification is a technique that most necromancers can perform.

The transformation into a demon itself is relatively easy; the difficult part is reverting back to human form.

This is why demonification is often regarded as equivalent to suicide. Most necromancers who transform into demons lose their sanity and eventually go on a rampage.

However, what Olt had cast was the highest level of demonification spell, Demonic Metamorphosis. It is a high-level spell that allows the caster to maintain their sanity while only summoning the power of a demon.

“Graaaaah!”

With a roar, Olt charged at Baros.

No matter how much experience and knowledge Baros had, he was still constrained by the limits of a human, making Olt a formidable opponent.

He quickly signaled to Serati with his eyes.

[Take care of him!]

[Yes!]

She swiftly positioned herself between them.

The magical communication made it much easier to coordinate their movements in battle.

“Your opponent is me!”

A blade infused with darkness slashed in front of Olt’s eyes. He quickly tilted his head to dodge it, then sneered.

“Do you think you can face me with just that level of physical enhancement?”

His confidence was well-founded. After all, Karnak had once said, “There’s no way a normal-looking necromancer could be strong, right?” The more a necromancer strengthens their body using necromantic power, the more they lose their human appearance.

“I’ll show you the true power of darkness!”

Olt sharpened his claws like blades and began to attack with the force of a storm.

“Kahahaha!”

To his surprise, however, Serati was holding her own quite well.

“This much is nothing!”

She deflected his minor attacks and parried the powerful ones. As she continuously moved around Olt, delivering her strikes, the battle was evenly matched.

Olt couldn’t understand what was happening.

“Why—why are you so strong?”

Serati still appeared to be a beautiful woman on the outside. This meant that her physical enhancement was minimal at best.

‘But how can she display such monstrous strength?’

She chuckled to herself.

“That’s because I’m not using necromantic power to enhance my body.”

To disguise herself as a necromancer, Serati deliberately refrained from revealing her aura. She was only circulating it within her body to enhance her physical abilities, meaning she wasn’t even using a fraction of her true power.

Yet even this was far more efficient than enhancing her body with necromantic power.

As they exchanged blows, the battle between Serati and the demon grew more intense.

The sound of their clash echoed in all directions.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Frustrated, Olt once again drew upon his necromantic power.

“You insolent bitch! I’ll obliterate you with a single strike!”

The power of darkness he summoned shot out like lightning from the demon’s mouth.

Serati’s expression hardened slightly.

‘I can’t dodge this.’

She could block it if she revealed her aura, but that would expose her true identity.

So, she decided to use her secret weapon instead!

“Hmph!”

With a scoff, Serati raised a frying pan over her head. Then, with a loud shout, she swung it down hard and thrust her sword forward.

In an instant, a dark red aura erupted from the blade and collided with Olt’s attack.

BOOM!

The entire street shook as Olt’s attack was completely nullified.

His bewildered gaze naturally turned to Serati’s left hand.

‘So, what exactly is she doing with that thing?!’

***

Baros continued to face off against Kale, and the scene was the complete opposite of what was happening with Serati.

Kale was the epitome of a traditional necromancer. From a distance, he protected himself with evil spirits while using the Lantern of the Lost Souls to summon ghost soldiers. He planned to eliminate his enemies from a safe location.

The sheer number of ghost soldiers kept pushing Baros back continuously. It was a situation where he seemed like a lone leaf caught in a raging storm.

However, it didn’t mean he was at a disadvantage.

‘No matter how strong the storm is, it can’t tear apart a leaf.’

He was constantly being pushed back and deflected, only to move back in a graceful flow, using all his energy to escape into his and his enemy’s blind spots.

If anyone dedicated to the martial arts had witnessed this scene, they would have marveled at the height of his skill.

Of course, for Kale, who had no interest in martial arts, it was nothing but a frustrating sight.

“You little rat, all you do is scurry around!”

“And the fact that you can’t catch this rat is more of a problem, isn’t it?”

Baros responded with a taunt as he examined the surrounding ghost soldiers. Even though he said that, he had no intention of just running away forever.

‘I need to conserve my strength whenever I can.’

Taking advantage of an opportunity, Baros swung his broom widely and then slashed down with his sword.

Darkness erupted from the blade, engulfing the ghost soldiers.

The evil spirits, now wrapped in a dark shroud, began to scream in agony.

“Graaaah!”

“Kyaaah!”

The ghosts melted away rapidly as if they had been doused with acid.

Kale gritted his teeth.

“Damn it! That again?”

It had been like this the whole time. Whenever Kale pushed forward with his ghost soldiers, Baros would unleash that mysterious necromancy to escape danger.

And then it was back to running, running, and more running.

Despite his efforts to analyze the opponent’s spell, Kale couldn’t make any progress.

‘I just can’t figure it out!’

No matter how much he looked, it was just an ordinary broom. There was no aura of malice or evil energy. He couldn’t sense any power of darkness from it at all.

Because of that, he couldn’t predict its movements or grasp the flow of power.

But one thing was certain—Baros was definitely doing something.

‘What on earth is that spell!?’

***

On the rooftop of a shabby building in the slums, a block away from the clearing.

“He can’t figure it out, can he?”

Watching the situation through a distant-view spell, Karnak smiled faintly.

“Of course he can’t, and that’s how it should be.”

There are two kinds of good lies.

One is a realistic lie, one that’s plausible enough for people to believe it might be possible.

The other is so absurd that people think, “There’s no way they would go that far,” making it a shameless lie.

This lie was the latter.

Can’t figure it out no matter how much he looks? Can’t even read any signs?

Of course not.

Because there was truly nothing there.

It was really just an ordinary broom and frying pan.

‘And that’s the beauty of it.’

Throughout the battle, Karnak had been hiding himself while secretly assisting Baros and Serati with necromancy.

But since the enemy was also a necromancer, they might be deceived for a moment, but they would eventually notice the situation through the flow of malevolent and necromantic power.

So, he had to divert their attention.

Misdirection is an essential skill for any necromancer.

The broom and frying pan were excellent tools for drawing attention.

They were suspicious, but their true nature was impossible to discern, which only made them even more captivating to look at.

‘If only I could keep running into naive people like this, life would be so easy,’ Karnak thought with a satisfied smile as he observed the situation. However, he knew this wouldn’t work forever.

‘They should be catching on soon,’ he mused.

***

The first to notice something was Kale.

“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed.

Unlike Olt, who was locked in close combat with Serati, Kale was fighting from a distance. This allowed him to have a broader view of the situation and to analyze it more quickly.

“Don’t be fooled, Olt! It’s nothing!”

Olt, who had just dodged one of Serati’s strikes, raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing?”

For a moment, he didn’t understand. Serati seemed like she was trying to do something with that frying pan again.

“Yes, it’s just a trick to distract us!”

Olt, being a necromancer himself, understood the importance of misdirection. He quickly realized what was going on.

“So that’s it! Clever bastards!”

These two were just pawns. There must be a real necromancer somewhere pulling the strings.

‘No wonder we couldn’t figure out their techniques from the start!’

Olt began to widen the distance and scanned the surroundings. Kale, too, focused his attention on the power of darkness around the clearing, rather than on Baros.

Baros and Serati, sensing the change in their opponents’ demeanor, exchanged messages.

[Uh-oh, did they figure it out?]

[We need to act quickly.]

Baros lifted his broom high into the air, then swung it in a wide, elaborate arc, tracing an infinite loop before stepping forward and thrusting it straight toward the sky.

“Hup!”

Serati, too, twirled the handle of her frying pan with a flourish and swung it dramatically.

“Take that!”

The movements appeared grand and impressive at first glance.

But Kale and Olt were no longer fooled.

“We’ve already figured it out!”

“You think we’d fall for that now?”

They completely ignored the broom and frying pan, focusing solely on the flow of dark energy around them.

And in doing so, they could clearly sense it.

The real necromantic power, sneaking in like a thief from the other side of the clearing!

“Tesranak!”

Shouting the name of their dark god, the two unleashed a massive wave of darkness.

A deafening explosion echoed as the necromantic barrier that was about to be activated was shattered.

BOOM!

“Hah! How do you like that!”

But neither Kale nor Olt realized that this was exactly what Karnak had planned all along.

“Excited because you figured it out, huh? Now that’s all you can focus on, right?”

Standing at a distance, Karnak chuckled quietly to himself.

Ignoring a swinging broom like that?

“Really? Do you think an ordinary broom doesn’t hurt if it hits you?”

Baros slipped behind Kale with the broom in hand. But Kale didn’t notice, his mind still entirely focused on Karnak’s necromancy.

Seizing the moment, Baros brought the broomstick crashing down on the back of Kale’s head.

Smack!

You don’t need immense power to knock someone out. You just need to strike from outside their awareness, where they least expect it.

With that single blow, Kale’s entire body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Ughhh…”

Olt met a similar fate.

Serati, having rapidly closed the distance, swung her frying pan expertly at his skull.

Of course, Olt, being in his demonified state, had significantly enhanced defense. A simple metal object wouldn’t be enough to knock him out.

So, she coated the pan with a dazzling, red aura!

Clang~!

A clear, resonant sound rang out through the night sky, as beautiful as it was lethal.

***

“It’s over,” Karnak said as he glanced back.

“I’m stepping out for a moment, Your Highness.”

“Are you going to interrogate them? In that case, I will accompany you,” replied Lloyd, ready to follow him.

But Karnak stopped him. “It would be better if you stayed here, Your Highness. Another necromancer could be lurking around, waiting for an opportunity to target you.”

The real reason was that Karnak couldn’t let the prince witness the interrogation, but it wasn’t a complete lie. Situations like that were actually quite common.

The prince accepted this explanation without question. “That makes sense. I’ll stay hidden, then.”

Karnak left the building and leisurely made his way to the clearing. There, he saw Kale and Olt tightly bound by dark energy.

Both of them had been beaten so severely that they were still dazed, unable to fully regain their senses.

“Shall I wake them, young master?” Baros asked.

“Yes.”

Baros slapped Kale and Olt across the face several times. The two necromancers soon regained consciousness and, after glancing around in confusion, locked their eyes on Karnak, their faces contorting with fear.

‘It’s him!’

‘He’s the real necromancer!’

Even just standing there, Karnak exuded a palpable aura of malevolence. For the two necromancers, it was a chilling, bone-deep terror.

Kale and Olt exchanged glances.

‘Damn it…’

‘In that case!’

They couldn’t allow themselves to be captured. They would rather die than bring disgrace to their cult.

With grim resolve, they both glared fiercely.

“Tesranak, our lord!”

“We return to your embrace!”

In an instant, both men spewed blood and collapsed to the ground.

It was a suicide spell unique to the Dark God’s cult, a heart explosion.

No one was particularly shocked by this. They were more exasperated than anything.

“Are they out of their minds? They’re necromancers themselves, and they chose to commit suicide just to keep their secrets?”

Karnak clicked his tongue and raised his right hand. From the ground, dark hands emerged and soon revealed the souls of the two men, floating in midair.

The pitch-black hands grabbed each soul by the cheek and began to drag them forward.

“Argh!”

“Ugh!”

Karnak grinned as he threw the two souls to the ground.

“Now then, we have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

Terror slowly crept into the eyes of the two souls as they realized their situation.