Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 209

Chapter 209: Duel of the Minds

Kai’s boots echoed faintly as he stepped forward, the mirrored floor giving a distorted reflection of his tense posture. Every breath felt heavier the closer he came, as though the air itself resisted him.

The presence seated on the blackened throne didn’t move. Its hollow, pale eyes, if they were eyes at all, remained fixed on him, unblinking.

And then, without warning, Kai’s body lurched upward.

Invisible force coiled around his limbs, hoisting him from the ground like a marionette. His arms locked to his sides. His legs hung limp. His stomach turned as he was pulled, slowly, almost ceremonially, toward the throne.

The lich extended one skeletal hand, and its touch, when it pressed coldly against Kai’s temple, sent a shock straight through his skull.

“Let us see,” the voice murmured, not aloud, but vibrating through his bones, his mind. “What master’s disciple has done with you. A disciple of a disciple… a creature who will inherit the finest habits… and the most dangerous flaws.”

Kai’s teeth clenched. “Good and bad habits? What do you-”

He didn’t finish.

The wave hit him.

An ocean of sensations, not just visions but feelings, slammed into him like a collapsing mountain. Images of his mother’s gentle smile, his father’s distant eyes, Kleo’s scarred face, Firra’s laughter, and even the warped visage of Orlin, his undead mentor, blurred together into a formless tide.

The pain was beyond physical. His head throbbed like it was splitting open, each memory clawed at by cold fingers, tugging, erasing.

His chest tightened as his mother’s voice grew faint. “Little Kai-Kai…” Her name for him. Then… nothing.

“No…” His own voice sounded strangled, distant. “NO!”

A surge of necrotic energy burst outward from deep within him, instinctive and wild. It detonated in all directions, the blast tearing into the psychic tether that bound him to the lich’s probing hand. The throne room shook. The mirrored floor cracked beneath him as he dropped, landing hard on one knee, gasping for breath.

The lich tilted its head, the gesture more curious than hostile. “Oh… so you can resist my master’s wards, even here. Impressive. Most crumble the instant their memories fray. You… have potential.”

Its pale eyes brightened, the faint glow intensifying like twin moons through a fog. “Yes… a strong vessel. A spare. Perhaps, when my master returns…”

Kai pushed himself to his feet, his muscles still trembling from the strain. “A vessel? I’m not letting anyone use me as-”

“Silence,” the lich hissed, not loudly, but with a tone so cold it silenced the air itself. Its fingers flexed idly, as if savoring the echo of Kai’s defiance. “This is not my task.”

Kai steadied his breathing. The necrotic energy inside him still surged erratically, like a panicked animal trying to claw free. “Then what is your task?”

The lich leaned forward slightly, skeletal hands curling over the throne’s arms. “To test your skill. To decide if you are worthy of a gift, a token of my master’s design. The Crown.”

Kai’s brows furrowed. “Crown? What crown?”

“You shall see it… if you endure.”

The lich rose from the throne. The shadowy tatters of its robes didn’t sway or ripple with motion; they simply shifted, like the darkness obeyed it rather than physics. Its presence ballooned, and the sconces along the chamber walls flared brighter, casting twin shadows for each of them.

“What you must do,” it continued, “is take control away from me. Bind me beneath your will, even for a moment. Break my master’s wards, force my soul into your grasp, and I shall submit. Fail…”

Its head tilted, almost lazily. “…and you will not die. You will wish for it. Your soul will join the chorus of others here. You will be trapped, screaming, waiting for the day my master awakens.”

Kai flexed his fingers, shadows pooling around his boots instinctively. “All I have to do is take control of you?”

The lich gave a soundless laugh, a faint vibration that rattled the cracked mirrored floor. “Just take control, he says. As though my master’s wards are trifles. As though the fire of life within you is more than a flicker. Do you not grasp what I am telling you?”

Its head turned sharply, the twin orbs narrowing to cold slits of light. “While you claw at my wards, I will smother your soul, choke your mana, and crush your flame. I told my master this would be an impossible task. But he…” The lich’s head tilted again, its voice softening into something almost amused. “…he had more faith in the living than I do.”

The ground beneath Kai’s feet trembled. Lines of glowing runes spiraled outward from the throne, forming concentric circles beneath the lich’s feet. The air pulsed with necrotic energy so thick it felt like his skin was being pricked with needles.

The lich spread its arms slightly, as though inviting him forward.

“Begin, then. Prove to me that Orlin’s little apprentice is more than a scrap of meat waiting to rot. Prove… or become another voice in the dark.”

“I’ll prove it!” Kai roared, shadows spilling out from beneath his feet like ink bleeding into water.

The lich tilted its head, and the runes beneath its feet ignited, casting the chamber in a harsh, white-green glow. “Then let us strip away your body and see what remains of you.”

The world snapped.

One moment Kai stood in the throne room, Vepice somewhere behind him shouting his name, the next, he was weightless. Suspended. The walls, the sconces, the lich, all dissolved into a white void. There was no ground. No sky. Just emptiness stretching infinitely outward.

And then, something else.

Pressure. A wave of foreign will clawed at his mind, trying to dig through the cracks in his thoughts. A distorted voice echoed everywhere and nowhere at once.

“This is the battlefield. Your body remains outside. Your flame, the true measure of what you are, is here. Survive, or flicker out.”

The space quaked, and shapes began to form.

Kai’s first instinct was to conjure a weapon, but instinct alone didn’t work here. This wasn’t magic. It wasn’t a spell. It was raw thought, raw will, given form.

“Create,” the lich’s voice echoed. “Destroy. Survive.”

‘Like rock paper scissors…’

Kai clenched his teeth, focusing hard. Metal screeched into being, rippling outward from beneath him. A massive war machine, tank-like, rolled forward on heavy treads, its barrel aimed squarely at the silhouette forming across the void.

From the haze, the lich’s creation emerged.

Not a tank. Not anything mechanical. A thing.

A towering, grotesque creature covered in overlapping plates of bone and sinew, its mouth stretching across its chest in a horizontal maw, filled with spinning teeth. Each lumbering step cracked the void beneath its feet, even though the plane had no true ground. Its roar was a sound like metal tearing.

Kai’s tank-like creation fired. The shell was the size of a house, streaking across the emptiness and detonating in a burst of flame. The creature staggered back, then lunged forward on all fours, impossibly fast, its mouth gaping wider.

Kai imagined again, harder this time. The tank folded in on itself and split into dozens of hovering drones, each spitting streams of plasma. They circled the monster, pelting it with energy.

For a moment, Kai felt confident. “Got you-”

The void shifted.

Behind the creature, the lich’s next creation began to rise. A serpent the size of a skyscraper, its scales like shards of glass, each one reflecting distorted copies of Kai’s face. Its tail split into barbed tendrils tipped with screaming skulls.

Kai’s jaw tightened. He could feel his thoughts fraying, his control slipping, not because he lacked imagination, but because every summon, every construct he willed into existence, cost him focus. And the lich didn’t seem to tire.

A scream reached him.

Not from the void. From beyond it.

“KAIIII!” Vepice’s voice, muffled, distant. Her fear threaded through his chest like a needle. He couldn’t see her, but he felt her, her hands shaking his shoulders, her panic bleeding into his thoughts. He was still tethered to the physical plane, even as his mind was locked here.

The distraction nearly cost him. One of the serpent’s tendrils shot forward, piercing through a dozen of his drones before curling toward him.

Kai snarled. “Fine. Big things? I can do big things.”

The drones merged, twisting and stretching into something massive: a towering humanoid construct made of black steel and writhing chains, its arms tipped with spinning blades. It stomped forward, intercepting the tendril and yanking the serpent into a brutal clash.

Still, the first creature, the behemoth, barreled toward him, jaws opening wide. Its teeth churned like a meat grinder.

Kai took a breath and pushed harder, his mind straining. The ground beneath him (or what felt like ground) cracked open, releasing shadowy tendrils that looked alive, with mouths chomping at the ends of the chains, latched onto the behemoth’s limbs, holding it back just long enough for his steel construct to decapitate it with a single, brutal swing.

Blood, or something like it, spattered across the void before evaporating into smoke.

The lich’s voice returned, calm, unbothered, as if none of this taxed it at all.

“Impressive. But your flame flickers. Each creation drains you. And your connection to your world… is unraveling.”

Vepice’s fear spiked again, stabbing through his chest. He could almost feel her hands shaking him, her voice breaking. “Don’t leave me here, Kai! Please!”

Gritting his teeth, Kai let the construct crumble, pulling the shards of his will back into himself. His breathing was ragged, even here in this unreal space.

“I’m not done yet,” he growled.