Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 212

Chapter 212: Saving Mentor Orlin

Vepice’s mouth hung open as the two of them emerged from the dungeon into the pale light of the eclipse. The fog, once heavy and suffocating, had thinned into tendrils that snaked around the barren rocks. Dozens, no, hundreds, of the warped beasts that had hunted them on their way in stood at the periphery.

They didn’t lunge. They didn’t even growl.

Instead, they lowered their grotesque heads, some of them so malformed that their skulls scraped against the rocks. Their multi-jointed limbs bent awkwardly, insect-like, in a gesture that could only be interpreted as reverence.

Vepice stiffened beside him, one hand instinctively going to the enchanted knives at her waist. Her eyes darted from one twisted creature to another.

“They’re… bowing?” she whispered. Her voice was barely audible over the faint groaning of the wind. Then her gaze shot to Kai’s head. Her pupils shrank.

“The crown! It’s gone!”

Kai’s fingers flew to his temple. The crown hadn’t left him since he’d pried it from Andorath’s bony hands. If it had truly vanished… they would be forced to cut through this sea of monstrosities the hard way.

But when his fingers slid across his hair, there it was—resistance. The jagged, icy edges, cold enough to bite at his skin. Still present, still locked to him like a parasite.

He exhaled and, with a thought, reached into his shadow space. His connection flowed back as smoothly as it ever had. Relief washed over him like cool water.

Pulling a shard of polished silver—his makeshift mirror—he inspected himself. No crown. Not a single hint of the blackened metal or its pulsing veins of power. To anyone looking, his head was bare.

Kai’s lips twisted into a smirk. “Clever. It hides itself.”

With a subtle flicker of mana sense, the truth became clear. The crown burned like a miniature sun in his perception, a vortex of necrotic and arcane energy so dense it made the dungeon beneath them feel like a mild inconvenience. Its oppressive weight pressed on his senses, a reminder that, despite his willpower, he was not its master yet.

“Incredible,” he murmured, almost to himself.

When he moved forward, the creatures parted without a sound, creating a wide path for him. Vepice followed, her knives at the ready. A few of the warped things snarled when she got too close, their disjointed maws opening wider than they should, but none dared to strike. Not while he walked among them, wreathed in the invisible authority of Ebonbrand’s Crown.

The descent down the mountain and the long journey back to Mirth was, for once, uneventful. The road felt too calm, too still, for what they had just endured. The only sound was the rhythmic creak of the carriage and the distant crash of the sea as they traced the coast northward.

It wasn’t until the third night, when Kai finally allowed himself a moment of true sleep, that the calm shattered.

—

[Ebonbrand’s Crown is invading your sense of self.]

Kai’s consciousness twisted violently. He wasn’t dreaming—he was falling, deeper and deeper into something cold and hollow. A tide of death and rot swept over him. The smell of decayed flesh, the whispers of voices he couldn’t understand, the pulse of something vast and alien hammering against his soul.

And then an absence.

Nothing.

It was subtle, but undeniable. Something inside him, an old memory, a fragment of who he was, slipped away like smoke through his fingers. He didn’t even know what was gone. Only that there was now a hole where something had once been.

His scream ripped through the night.

Vepice was at his side instantly, shaking him awake, her wide, fearful eyes illuminated by the flicker of the small campfire Kai had conjured earlier.

“Kai! What’s happening?!” she hissed.

He sat up, his body trembling despite himself. The protective barriers he had woven around their little camp flickered briefly before stabilizing. The air was thick with tension.

“It’s… the crown,” he muttered, voice low, almost growling. He pressed a hand to his head, feeling the invisible weight there. “It’s not content just sitting there. It’s digging into me.”

Vepice knelt closer, her brows furrowed. The foggy breath that escaped her lips in the cold night carried a sharp edge of frustration.

“And you’re acting like this is nothing?”

Kai’s lips curled into a smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “If Orlin can’t help, we’ll just have to do what we can.”

She sat beside him, leaning against the tent’s inner lining, her knives resting on her lap. The fire popped softly between them.

“Will you be okay until then?” she asked quietly.

Kai didn’t answer immediately. Outwardly, he gave her a faint, reassuring smile.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

But as her gaze drifted to the firelight, Kai stared at the darkness beyond the barrier. Would he?

In the quiet, with the faint hum of the crown whispering at the edges of his thoughts, he wasn’t sure if he believed his own words.

—

The rest of their journey was dull, almost painfully so.

The twisted creatures, the fog, the crawling miasma—none of it followed them past the Ironforge foothills. The road westward flattened into a monotonous trail along the cliffs, the sea murmuring below. Even the skies were clear, as if the world itself had exhaled after the chaos beneath the mountains.

No mercenaries lurking on the path, no arcane beasts or errant inquisitors to test their nerves. Only the steady creak of their carriage wheels and the occasional screech of gulls.

Over a week passed before the faint silhouette of Mirth emerged through the morning mist. The city’s skeletal skyline rose like the bones of some ancient, fallen titan. The streets were still choked with dust, the air stagnant, and the same strange stillness clung to everything—the way it had the last time they’d come.

The horses whinnied nervously as they reached the gates, but they didn’t bolt. Not this time. The animals seemed to recognize the city’s unnatural silence, their ears twitching at phantom echoes as Kai guided them through the crumbling streets.

Eventually, they stopped in front of the manor—the single untouched structure in a city of decay. Its black stone walls and polished windows looked as though it had been built yesterday, standing in eerie contrast to the ruins around it.

Kai stepped down from the carriage and tied the horses off near the same post he’d used before, running his hand over their necks to calm them.

“They’ll be fine,” he said quietly, though his eyes lingered on the dim streets around them. “Nothing dares get too close to this place.”

Vepice adjusted the straps of her knives and eyed the pristine building.

“And you’re sure about doing this alone again?”

Kai nodded once, his jaw tight. “It’s the only way. Whatever’s holding him… I can’t risk you being caught in it. I’ll do whatever I can to save him. And then-” His hand brushed against the cold, invisible weight of the crown on his head. “Hopefully, he can save me.”

Vepice didn’t argue, but the worry in her eyes lingered as she stepped back, letting him take the lead.

The manor’s front doors opened with the same effortless glide as before. The interior, untouched by dust or time, was quiet enough that Kai could hear the soft echo of his boots on the marble floors. No servants, no signs of decay, just the same hollow, timeless perfection.

Kai didn’t waste time. He made his way through the grand hall, past the spiral staircases, and down the side corridor that led to the basement stairs. The air grew heavier with each step, thick with old magic.

At the bottom, he stopped.

The barrier was still there, an intricate weave of light and shadow, humming with a power that defied the years. Inside its shimmering walls, Orlin sat slumped on his throne-like chair, his gaunt frame frozen in that same half-living, half-dead state. Time in this place moved like a wounded beast, slow, fractured, wrong.

Kai’s fingers brushed the crown again, its cold bite grounding him. He exhaled.

“Alright, Orlin,” he muttered under his breath, stepping forward into the dim glow of the barrier. “Let’s try this again.”

“Master… You’ve returned…” Orlin muttered through his decaying vocal cords.

Kai shut his eyes and raised his hand.

He felt the weight of his newly increased pool of life essence.

He’d emptied it by filling vial after vial with soul ichor until it was almost empty.

“Come on…”

If anyone could help him master this cursed thing, before it hollowed him out completely, it was the man beyond that barrier.

And if not… Kai pushed the thought aside. He didn’t want to finish it. Not yet.

He touched the barrier, and he felt the mana concealed within overwhelm him. As he dismantled it, his life essence reserves filled.

[99,328/250,000]

He kept a careful watch on the numbers.

[167,037/250,000]

They kept rising and he started to panic.

“If after all that effort, I still don’t have enough to absorb it, he might stay here for the rest of time…”