Karnak, Monarch of Death

“Huff... huff...”

Luke ran desperately while gasping for breath.

“Why... why is this happening...?”

He couldn’t stop. If he hesitated for even a moment, that terrifying monster would catch up and devour him whole.

This can’t be real. It’s a nightmare... this isn’t happening...

But no matter how much he tried to deny reality, the darkness chasing him didn’t disappear.

“Ugh... ugh...”

The entire alley was soon swallowed by black shadows, leaving him no place to run. Luke’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to his knees.

“Oh, my goddess...”

He crumbled, mumbling a desperate prayer to the goddess who watched over the world. Yet, as he faced the horror before him, his hope wavered. From within the roiling darkness, a young man with jet-black hair emerged. His expression was one of disbelief.

“Hey, do you really think you have the right to call on the goddess?”

Luke, trembling, raised his hands and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Begone, you wretched demon!”

Shadows surged up on either side of him, forming malevolent spirits that lunged toward the young man.

The man—Karnak—sneered at the sight. “Who’s the real wretch here, hmm?”

Luke wasn’t just any man. He had killed thirty people, violated twice as many women, and even sacrificed children to spread terror throughout the Delad region. But now cornered, he acted like an innocent civilian.

“Is this what they mean by perspective changing everything? Or maybe this is something else entirely. Either way, I’ll never understand how ordinary people see things.”

Karnak tilted his head in mock curiosity and flicked his fingers casually. With that simple motion, the spirits dissolved into nothingness. Luke’s face crumpled in despair.

“My... my evil spirits...”

From the other end of the alley, another figure stepped into view.

“Man, this guy’s fast. Who knew a necromancer could run like this?”

“Apparently, he used to be a petty thief. Makes sense he’d be good at running away.”

Having surrounded Luke from both ends of the alley, Karnak gestured dismissively.

“Just grab him already.”

“On it!”

Varos leapt forward. Luke tried to summon more spirits to resist, but it was useless. Karnak’s necromancy had already bound his powers. Now, Luke was no more than a common thief again, and a thief had no hope of standing against a well-trained knight.

Thud!

With one heavy blow, Varos knocked Luke unconscious. The knight grabbed him by the back of the neck and looked to Karnak.

“Shall we drag him there?”

Karnak responded with nonchalance.

“Yeah. We’ve got to extract the Shadow of Doom.”

***

In the past, Karnak would have extracted the Shadow of Doom from a necromancer on the spot and refined it into chaos magic over time. But now, having developed a more efficient method, he operated differently.

In a shabby warehouse on the outskirts of Derath City, Luke hung suspended in midair, stripped to the waist.

“Ugh...”

Below him was a large water barrel, and Varos stood holding the rope that kept him aloft.

Karnak’s voice echoed in the dim space.

“Dunk him.”

The rope unraveled, and Luke plunged headfirst into the barrel with a loud splash.

“Guh! Gugh gugh!”

Luke flailed desperately, but his body was bound too tightly for him to free himself. When he was just on the verge of drowning, Karnak spoke again. “Pull him up.”

Varos yanked the rope, and Luke’s head emerged, gasping and coughing for air.

“Dunk him.”

Splash!

“Pull him up.”

“Cough! Hack! Haaack!”

Luke coughed violently, his breath ragged as tears welled in his eyes.

“Why... why are you doing this...?”

They had captured him, brought him to this warehouse, and now subjected him to relentless water torture. He had braced himself for interrogation, ready to spill every secret he knew. But there were no questions. Just the unending torment.

“What... do you want?” he sobbed.

Ask me anything! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!

Karnak’s response was as cold as ever. “Dunk him.”

“Guh! Gugh gugh!”

No matter how much Luke struggled or pleaded, Karnak paid him no attention. The process continued, with Karnak calmly uttering phrases that made no sense to his victim.

“See? This method is much more efficient.”

Efficient? What the fuck is he talking about?

Before Luke could make sense of it, he was plunged back into the barrel. In truth, Karnak wasn’t torturing Luke at all.

“The impurities are draining out nicely.”

No, what Karnak was doing could best be described as laundry. Thanks to Alius, Karnak had learned the basics of purifying malice using divine power. He had even developed a method to substitute artifacts for priests and stocked up on a supply of holy water.

That much had gone smoothly. But when it came time to apply the process, a problem arose: the quantity wasn’t enough. Even pouring ten flasks of holy water wasn’t sufficient to purify an entire necromancer’s soul. Thus, Karnak adopted a new method.

Just as washing clothes required both soap and water to rinse away grime, Karnak diluted holy water into a larger volume of ordinary water. By submerging the entire body and rinsing it repeatedly, he could gradually cleanse the impurities.

In essence, he was literally washing Luke’s soul. The only difference was that the target wasn’t fabric but a human soul.

“Pull him up.”

“Guh! Huff... huff...!”

Luke gasped for air, on the verge of collapse, but Karnak paid no heed. The only one showing a hint of hesitation was Varos.

“Are we sure this is okay? Didn’t we agree not to live like we used to?”

In the past, Karnak had often tortured innocent people, corrupting their souls to extract necrotic energy. Varos couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t just more of the same—torturing someone to extract power.

Karnak dismissed the thought with a sharp retort. “That was when we tortured the innocent. This guy is a villain, plain and simple.”

To be fair, Luke’s atrocities had earned him a grim reputation, complete with his own title.

“...What was his title again?”

“Another Lord of Darkness, wasn’t it?”

The word another wasn’t without reason—this was the third so-called Lord of Darkness they’d captured.

“Seriously, all necromancers seem to have the same boring titles.”

“Didn’t you once call yourself the Lord of Darkness?”

“T-that was when I was young!”

“And then you were the Plague Sovereign...”

“I was still young then, too!”

“And after you turned thirty, you called yourself the Death Emperor...”

“...Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

In any case, there was no denying that this man—dangling headfirst into a barrel of water—was a notorious villain who had committed unspeakable acts. That was why Karnak felt no guilt whatsoever.

“Capturing an evildoer and making him pay for his sins is unquestionably an act of justice!”

“...I guess that’s true?” Varos replied, his expression doubtful.

The logic held up, but something about the sight of the man flailing and gasping in agony felt... off.

“He looks like he’s struggling. Should we flip him upright?”

“Varos, you really are cruel, aren’t you? If we hang him by his neck, he’ll suffocate! Tie him by the ankles.”

“Ah, good point.”

Varos nodded in sudden realization, his expression brightening.

“You really are merciful, thinking of his life even during this process. Truly a noble act!”

“Of course!”

Neither of them seemed to consider simply tying Luke by his wrists or waist. As a result, Luke remained the only one truly suffering.

“Guh! Cough! Haaaah! You... insane... cough... bastards!”

Amid his pitiful screams, Karnak’s calm voice rang out once more.

“Dunk him.”

***

Eventually, all the malice was drained from Luke’s soul. Karnak absorbed the Shadow of Doom from him, and at the same time, Luke, utterly drained of energy, took his final breath. For all their talk of sparing lives and showing mercy, once their task was complete, they ended him without hesitation.

But neither Karnak nor Varos gave it a second thought. Sparing lives had never been the point. The only reason they kept him alive during the process was to make it easier to refine the darkness. And so, Luke died slowly, engulfed by torment and despair. In a way, it was a fitting offering for those who had suffered at his hands.

Varos muttered as he glanced at Luke’s lifeless body.

“Should we notify the Church of Hatoba? They’ll probably handle it like usual, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s head back,” Karnak replied.

The two left the warehouse and made their way to their lodgings. As they walked, Varos suddenly asked, “Have you gathered a lot of darkness by now?”

It had been over three months since they arrived in Derath City, and they’d hunted down quite a number of necromancers during that time.

“Let’s see... the ones we’ve caught so far...” Varos began counting on his fingers.

“Three Lords of Darkness, two Plague Sovereigns, and one Friend of Death, wasn’t it? I swear, these titles all sound the same.”

“The FOD was kind of unique, though.”

“It just sounds weird when you shorten it like that,” Varos grumbled.

In any case, they had hunted a fair number of necromancers, collecting a significant amount of the Shadow of Doom along the way. Shouldn’t it be about time to head home?

“Any progress yet?”

“Not quite,” Karnak replied.

Varos sighed. “How much more do we need? Don’t tell me you’re planning to gather every single fragment of the Shadow of Doom scattered across the world.”

“Are you crazy? That’d take a lifetime, and even that might not be enough.”

After a moment of thought, Karnak spoke again. “There are three ways I can deal with the apocalypse.”

“‘Deal with the apocalypse?’ You’re making it sound like you’re the savior of the world. Let’s not forget, this is really just you cleaning up after your own shit—”

“Shut up already. Do you always have to add your two cents?”

“Yes, yes.”

With a glare at his ever-loyal but ever-sassy companion, Karnak continued. “Option one. Ignore the whole thing and live my life as if nothing happened.”

This was impossible. The scale of the chaos he had caused was far too great for that. If ignoring it were an option, he wouldn’t be running around like this in the first place.

“Option two. Collect every single fragment of the Shadow of Doom, like you suggested.”

This was equally unrealistic. The vast amount of darkness scattered randomly across the world was impossible to recover in its entirety, no matter how long he worked at it.

“I gave up everything to try living like a decent person again. I’m not about to spend the rest of my life wandering the world cleaning up this mess.”

That left only the third option.

“Option three. Stop the source of the darkness at its root.”

Based on what he’d learned from the fragments he had already gathered, Karnak had pieced together some critical information. The darkness wasn’t being scattered randomly. It wasn’t falling indiscriminately like rain but instead had specific origins—like clouds that caused the rain.

“They say the Shadow of Doom falls like rain, but rain needs clouds to form. Think of the temporal, dimensional rifts spreading the darkness as those clouds.”

While Karnak couldn’t possibly stop the rain itself, he could try to prevent the clouds from forming in the first place.

“With the information I’ve gathered so far, I’ve identified these clouds. If I collect more details to understand how they form and appear, I can stop the Shadow of Doom from falling altogether.”

Of course, this wouldn’t solve the issue of the darkness that had already been scattered. Karnak deliberately chose to ignore that problem.

“For now, the seven goddesses’ churches can handle what’s out there. It’ll have to be good enough.”

Varos had a blank look on his face.

“Uh... sure.”

Frankly, as a swordsman, such abstract concepts were beyond him. To be honest, he didn’t care to understand them either. What he really wanted to know was this: When were they going home?!

“So how many more do we have to hunt down?”

Karnak shrugged after some quick mental math.

“About twenty more Lords of Darkness.”

In other words, they needed to capture twenty more necromancers like Luke.

How a title like Lord of Darkness had come to refer to third-rate necromancers was beyond them, but such was the state of the world these days. Varos sighed.

“So, at least another three months in Derath City, huh? The steward back home is going to throw a fit.”

Karnak had initially told his household that he’d be away for about a hundred days to visit the capital. That time had long since passed, and they hadn’t even gotten close to the capital. Realizing his mistake, Karnak’s expression turned grim.

“I should probably send word to the estate. Let them know I’ll be a bit late.”

“What are you going to tell them? That you’re still in the capital?”

“Why bother lying? I’ll just tell the truth.”

That he had come across necromancers wreaking havoc on the people during his journey. As a noble of the Zestrad Barony, how could he ignore such atrocities? It was only right to punish them as part of his duty.

For this reason, Karnak had been working under the support of the Church of Hatoba to eliminate necromancers—a task that had kept him from visiting the capital. At this rate, it seemed he’d need another three months.

“This should do it,” Karnak said after composing a letter.

“Is that really the truth?” Varos asked.

“It’s not a lie.”

“...I guess that’s true?” Varos scratched his head, unsure how to argue. After following Karnak around his entire life, Varos’s perspective had diverged considerably from that of ordinary people.

“At least it doesn’t sound like it’ll take too long, right?”

Hearing what he wanted, Varos’s face brightened.

Three more months of work isn’t so bad. Besides, food tours are a lot of fun.

Slipping into his gourmet mode, Varos’s eyes sparkled.

“How about we head to Stall Street for dinner? I hear there’s a noodle shop there that’s to die for.”

Karnak chuckled. He was feeling a bit hungry himself.

“Let’s go, let’s go.”

The two strode off with light hearts, eager for a well-earned meal after a productive day. They returned to their lodgings to change before heading out when a plain-looking boy approached them.

“Are you Baron Karnak?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Karnak replied, raising an eyebrow.

“I have a message from the Church of Hatoba,” the boy said, handing over a letter.

Since Alius often exchanged information with him this way, Karnak casually opened it. Varos peered over his shoulder.

“What’s it say? Did another Lord of Darkness show up?”

Karnak frowned slightly.

“Alius wants to meet in person. He says he’ll explain everything when we meet.”