Chapter 82

Zephyr let out a sigh after from the massive recoil or backslash. He then grabbed and drinked some health potions as he restored his health back to full.

'It seems like I should make use of the magic skills for a while instead of using the swords.'

With that, Zephyr decided that it should be better to use and cast spells in the future battles and stop using the swords in the meantime. He found this thought interesting as for the meantime, he would become a full fledged magician instead of a swordsman.

Suddenly he remembered something.

'I almost forgot about this, let's put this into a test shall we?'

[Darkness Endeavor]

Casting the skill that he had obtained from [Wise One] that analyzed the death element for the first time,

Wuahh!

Thick, heavy moans resounded out from somewhere and the same time darkness appeared out of nowhere. Zephyr was intrigued with this phenomena and watched the scene with curiosity.

Kyaahhh!

Suddenly, a horrible scream of suffering was heard and the grotesque cries grew louder and louder.

The darkness around began to take forms and began to rise from the ground in the center of the whirlwind that is made of pure darkness.

Ahhhh!

Screams of suffering was heard from the souls. The souls struggles to break free from the suffering.

"I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

Roars of the monster souls were heard. Seeing this scene, Zephyr unconsciously raised his hands and murmured.

"Obey me."

Ahhhh! ! !

Suddenly, the soul's screams, suffering and struggling stopped. Zephyr then examined the beings of darkness that is created from the souls of the dead. A new race of undead, the stygian umbra.

Zephyr stood in the middle of them, at the same time, every stygian umbra knelt down before him without him saying anything.

Zephyr's [Emperor Eye] was activated and saw some sort of a strong connection or some sort of strings connecting him and the stygian umbras.

With eyes filled with curiosity, Zephyr looked at his newly created familiars and gave an order.

"Stand up."

Ranging from simple orders.

"Do a backflip and spin around."

"Go to that hill and come back as fast as you can."

And more and more complex orders. All stygian umbras followed Zephyr's every command without any hesitation and signs of complaints.

Neither did the stygian umbras show any signs of defiance, nor express an opinion in any way. They had become Zephyr's faithful servants.

Zephyr scanned each and every one of his army of stygian umbra even it numbered thousands but with the capability of his [Emperor Eye], such thing is not hard to do.

As his eyes swept past the undeads, their names and levels appeared into his view.

[Stygian Umbra (Undead Warrior)]

Rating: Epic

Level: 74

Tier: 2

[Stygian Umbra (Undead Warrior)]

Rating: Epic

Level: 74

Tier: 2

[....]

[....]

Everyone possessed the same name and levels as the level of the stygian umbra matches his. Zephyr simply thought that their origins were exactly the same.

He then discovered a stygian umbra that is a bit different from the rest.

[Stygian Umbra (Undead Mage)]

Rating: Unique

Level: 74

Tier: 2

Among the thousands of monsters he had slain, this one should be a special as it was a unique rated. This indicates that this is a unique boss of the area when it was still alive unlike the others which were only low rated mobs.

Zephyr also knows by instinct that the lowest rating that a stygian umbra could have is epic and he thought that the common, uncommon, and rare mobs were upgraded the moment Zephyr used his [Darkness Endeavor] in them.

'To think I instantly killed a unique boss earlier which should have possessed millions of health.'

He then noticed that aside from it being a higher rated than the rest, it was the only undead mage he had unlike the rest which were all categorized as undead warriors.

'So this is the only one that could use magic from the rest.'

Zephyr had a high expectations for this skill of his.

'I heard that undead can evolve into higher tier creatures as they grow. Then maybe my stygian umbras can evolve into something something greater like death knights or liches.'

An army of undead. If he could have an army of millions of such undeads...With that in mind, Zephyr decided to convert more souls into his stygian umbras.

Zephyr decided to give a name to the sole undead mage to make it easier for individual orders for the future battles. Just when he was about to move on, a notification windows suddenly appeared in his eyes.

[You can bestow a name to a Stygian Umbra that is a unique rated or above.]

[Please set the Stygian Umbra's name.]

'A name, is it?'

Without thinking much, Zephyr immediately followed the unexpected demand and named the familiar.

"Paradox."

[Will you set the name as 'Paradox'?]

"Yes."

As soon as Zephyr sent his confirmation, system prompts appears.

[You have named your Stygian Umbra.]

[The Stygian Umbra will be given an 'identity'. It will boost the moral of your familiar.]

[You have unlocked familiar affinity.]

[Improve your affinity with the Stygian Umbras. The higher the affinity, the stronger your bond will become and they will follow your commands more faithfully.]

Zephyr felt strange at this strange situation. He didn't expect that his familiar would be delighted just from receiving a name.

[Name: Paradox]

Rating: Unique

Race: Stygian Umbra

Class: Undead Mage

Level: 74

Tier: 2

'An identity...'

The familiar's he collected did not have identities because they had lost their ego once they were killed and captured. Though the Stygian Umbras were special as they were higher tier than normal undeads, they were still unaware of who they were.

The action of Zephyr of giving a name to a familiar will grant them some sort of meaning in their existence. The result wasn't bad.

Zephye could feel the connection between him and Paradox had become stronger than before. A flash of thought came into his mind.

'The abilities of each stygian umbra seemed to correlate to those they had when they were still alive.'

'I have to collect good souls in order to create some good Stygian Umbras. Maybe if I search the souls of the previous generation legends...'

As Zephyr was thinking, Ericson who was on the side was very surprised as both of his eyes and mouth was widened. He dazedly stared at Zephyr and even rubbed his eyes several times wondering what Zephyr has done.

He couldn't believe it at first but this was Zephyr he is talking about. Things like this shouldn't be considered impossible at all.

"Oh my god!"

Ericson exclaimed as his eyes opened wider and wider. 'Those things were...'

Looking at the thousands of undead creature of darkness, a flash came to his mind.

'Necromancery?'

Necromancy is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead. The power to utilize magic involving the dead, death-force and/or souls. Form of Magic and Dark Arts. Utilized by Necromancers.

'For him to have this power as well?'

Ericson frowned deeply. If he walked around with an army of undead and he also possessed the ultimate close-quarters combat ability, he couldn't help but shiver in the thought of it.

'For sure..'

He then imagined himself fighting a capable necromancer leading an undead army. It is certainly very difficult to find an army of undead who will attack him with complete disregard for their own lives.

If he failed to figure out how to fight them until the end or if the one leading the massive undead army possessed very high close combat abilities, then...wouldn't that be the worst of all worst nightmares?

Something he could only think about but couldn't do. Wouldn't it be possible for him to face millions of enemies and face it alone?

He couldn't help but imagine the scene of that. He was then snapped out of his daze when Zephyr called out to him.

"We have wasted enough time here. Let's go."

Without caring about Ericson's disbelief, Zephyr proceeded. After that, Zephyr made all Stygian Umbra fight against some beasts along in their way.

With an order as simple as 'Kill them', all familiars got into their positions and started fighting with decent positions and started fighting with teamwork.

At first, they didn't seem to fight well together, but as their experience grew, they became more accustomed to each other.

'They possessed high intelligence.'

Zephyr continued to observe the Stygian Umbras with an amused eyes. After the end of the day when the sun starts setting, he revived all slain monsters with [Darkness Endeavor] and added them to his collections.

It was to test how many Stygian Umbras he could currently have in his stygian army.

[Number of collected souls: 30,000]

'It seemed like 30,000 is my current limit as the skill was still at level 1. This is far less than I thought.'

If anyone would hear what was on Zephyr's mind, they would totally rage and cry seeing him unsatisfied. If it were a normal necromancer, the limit of the level 1 skill of necromancery should only allow at least 10 summoned undead.

Yet Zephyr was complaining that the number of 30,000 indestructible undeads was still few. But sadly, Zephyr doesn't know how massive the comparison is.

Well the maximum capacity of the summoned Stygian Umbra is proportioned to the intelligence stats and maximum mana pool of Zephyr but still it was limited by the level of the skill.

Satisfied with the performance of the Stygian Umbras, Zephyr dispersed the massive number of the legion of death in front of him. He then felt it was a pity that even he had already annihilated 30,000+... he still wasn't able to level up unlike Ericson who reached level 50 already and just needed to take a Tier Advancement Quest to become a Tier 2.

'The experience needed for a tier 2 to level up is really massive.'

Zephyr sighed looking that increasing his level was a hard thing to do in Tier 2. However he didn't found this strange, if it was easy to level up in Tier 2, there should be many Tier 3 or kings already yet Tier 3 were rarely seen in Tensura aside from the kings of the kingdoms and from the transcendent races.

Zephyr was only able to instantly level to 74 because of his achievement of defeating a demi-god that shouldn't be possible for a tier 2. If not, it would surely take long for him just to advance to level 51.

Zephyr no longer bothers about this as both him and Ericson continues their way to the Dragon Lair.

•~~~•

After 6 days of tediously traveling from the Hovel Canyon, Zephyr had already exited the boarders of the Astarin Kingdom. Currently he was in a mountain that several high leveled monsters were roaming around.

Looking at the Tier 4 monsters that was ranging in level 200+, Zephyr muttered to himself but it was loud enough to be heard by Ericson.

"We're near at the Dragon Lair."

High level monsters were a sign that they were at their destination. Once an area is designated as a dragon's lair, big changes will occur. The dragon's magic power will spread outwards, making monsters in the area stronger and more intelligent. It creates an environment that even Transcendents find hard to enter. Hordes of monsters and high level magic traps surround a lair.

Zephyr was reminded by the time he was still in the Great Jura Forest where the situation is the same.

He then turned around and looked at Ericson as he said.

"Let's take a rest for a while."

Ericson did not rejected him as he knows that they should be in their best shape if they wanted to enter a dragon lair. They then took out some food in the inventory that they bought in Ascalor.

[You have eaten a cuisine of the Nephilims.]

[All stats will rise by 10% for one hour.]

[Maximum mana will increase by 10% for one hour.]

"Delicious."

Aside from the unexpected buffs, Ericson mumbles in ecstasy as the taste is very good. Zephyr nodded as he agreed with him. While eating and taking more bites, Zephyr fell into a wonder.

'Will I really meet another dragon beside Hyrkan?'

A certain expectations could be seen in his eyes as he was filled with curiosity about meeting one of the member of the strongest transcendent species in Tensura.