Karnak, Monarch of Death

The souls of Kayle and Olt were completely absorbed into the darkness. Karnak finished up collecting the two souls, and Varos turned to him with a question.

“What should we do with the bodies, young master?”

Even though the souls had been extracted, traces of necrotic energy still lingered in the corpses.

“Should we drain the remaining energy and burn them as usual?”

“That would be the simplest option...” Karnak replied, pausing briefly before making a decision. “For now, let’s take them with us.”

Corpses held great utility for necromancers, especially ones saturated with death energy.

“There’s still one enemy left.”

According to Prince Lloyd, the cultists on Alford’s side numbered three: two men in their forties and one in his mid-fifties. The older man had yet to make an appearance.

“I assumed he’d sent these two as bait while observing the situation from a distance...” Karnak muttered, his sharp gaze scanning the surroundings.

“Maybe he missed his timing to intervene?” Serati suggested while glancing around cautiously.

The fight was already over. Any attempt at an ambush now would be futile. If anything, it would make more sense for their enemy to wait and strike later, when Karnak’s group was off guard.

“If it were me, that’s exactly what I’d do,” Serati added.

Karnak nodded while gesturing toward the far side of the clearing. “Let’s move. We need to interrogate these two and prepare to welcome our guest.”

With his command, Varos and Serati each hoisted a corpse over their shoulders. They also grabbed the Lantern of Lost Souls.

Varos glanced down at the lantern and smirked. “This will make excellent evidence for the King’s Order.”

***

Detzras lay crouched in the shadows of a building overlooking the clearing.

“Damn it...”

He wore a troubled expression.

“I didn’t expect the two of them to fall so quickly.”

Just moments ago, he had been carefully timing his intervention, confident that the opportunity to turn the tide had finally arrived. But then—whack, whack! The fight ended abruptly before he could even make a move. He hadn’t been given a chance to act.

Sure, there had been opportunities to interfere earlier. Yet, he had spent the entire time simply observing. The reason was simple: he, too, had been distracted by the mop and frying pan.

Tch, how disgraceful, even for a necromancer, to resort to such absurd tricks.

From his vantage point, he watched Karnak and his group gather the bodies and leave the clearing. Detzras hesitated.

What should I do now?

If his opponents were weak, there was no need to overthink things. He could simply launch his attack and finish them off. The answer was just as clear if they were strong. He would flee without hesitation. No matter what the cult’s orders were, survival always came first.

But I can’t tell if he’s weak or strong.

His opponents had revealed almost nothing. They had defeated Kayle and Olt purely through psychological tactics, leaving Detzras with no clear basis to judge their abilities.

Still, I can’t just let them go.

Detzras began silently sliding through the shadows.

***

Karnak and his group carried the corpses into an old hall in one of the slum buildings. This was another hideout, located far from where Prince Lloyd was concealed.

As they set the bodies down, Varos spoke up, “Is it really alright to leave the prince on his own?”

“There’s no choice,” Karnak replied. “We can’t use necromancy in front of him.”

“But what if the other cultist goes after him?”

There was still one cultist unaccounted for, a detail Varos pointed out.

Karnak, however, dismissed the concern with a calm tone. “That’s fine. I left him alone for that purpose.”

In other words, Lloyd was also serving as bait. It was a contingency plan in case things didn’t go as expected.

“Regardless, we have work to do here.”

As Karnak conjured darkness, the souls of Kayle and Olt reappeared. They looked identical to their living forms.

Serati tilted her head in confusion while observing the spectral figures. “They look rather healthy. Well... can a ghost even look healthy?”

“Well, they are in a good state, that’s for sure,” Karnak replied.

Their souls had been captured immediately upon death; thus, their souls remained perfectly intact. It would ensure that there were no lapses in their memories or any degradation. Letting death energy seep from him, Karnak spoke in a chilling tone.

“Now, state your names and affiliations.”

His order was casual, almost lazy, but the necromantic control was absolute. The two soul responded without hesitation.

“My name is Kayle Baosen, serving directly under Bishop Detzras...”

“I am Olt Gelferent, acting on orders from Cardinal Hudel...”

Through their confessions, Karnak learned a great deal about the Cult of the Black God’s operations in the Eustil Kingdom. The cult’s overseer in Eustil was Cardinal Hudel Grental, and those involved in this incident were his direct subordinate, Bishop Detzras. Detzras was placed high in the cult’s hierarchy, and he had direct ties to the cult’s upper echelons. Moreover, he was a powerful necromancer, as well as...

“A mage, you say?” Karnak mused.

Unlike Kayle and Olt, who had started as commoners before becoming necromancers, Detzras’s background as a mage had likely accelerated his rise through the ranks.

“Combining magic and necromancy... I’d like to see what that looks like,” Karnak muttered.

He himself practiced a blend of chaos magic and necromancy, so the concept piqued his interest.

“But for now, let’s get to the real question.”

Normally, one would first ask questions regarding their motive, as well as their forces. But Karnak had a more pressing issue to address.

“Tell me,” he said, his eyes gleaming as he imbued the spirits with death energy. “How did you manage to swap the souls of the two princes?”

Karnak was familiar with Soul Changeling. It was a necromantic technique he knew well enough to recite over twenty variations on the spot. But there was something he couldn’t fathom.

“Prince Lloyd was under protection deep inside the castle. How did you manage to cast a curse on him?”

It would be easy enough to exchange the souls of Lloyd and Alford if they were brought together in one place. Even Karnak could perform the ritual in such circumstances. But to extract a soul remotely—especially from someone shielded by layers of magical and divine protections—was a feat even Karnak couldn’t achieve during his prime as the Monarch of Death.

“Well, strictly speaking, it’s not impossible,” he muttered. “You’d just have to break through all the wards and hammer the curse into them.”

But the Cult of the Black God had taken a subtler route. They had swapped the souls without leaving a trace. They had employed necromancy that even the Monarch of Death didn’t know about.

Now that I’ve said it, this feels like déjà vu.

He had asked a similar question during a battle against Bishop Straph. He let out a bitter chuckle before pressing the souls for an answer.

“Explain. What technique did you use?”

Kayle replied in a dazed tone. “We cursed the prince.”

“Yes, I already know that. What kind of curse allowed you to succeed from such a distance?” Karnak snapped.

Olt, his eyes vacant, answered next. “We didn’t cast the curse from afar. We placed the prince within a designated ward and used a catalyst to enact the curse.”

“...You kidnapped Prince Lloyd? There was no mention of that,” Karnak said, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

The souls clarified.

“It wasn’t Prince Lloyd.”

“The one we cursed was Prince Alford.”

Karnak frowned as the truth unraveled. The technique they had used was a curse that swapped the souls of two individuals with the closest blood ties. The curse had been placed on Prince Alford, making him the victim of the spell.

Because of the curse’s nature, the victim required intricate wards, catalysts, and rituals to complete the process. On the other hand, Prince Lloyd, as the beneficiary of the curse, required far less preparation.

“So, that’s how they rigged the conditions?” Karnak muttered, clicking his tongue.

Lloyd was always frail and sickly. With his deep envy of Alford’s healthy physique, he had met the qualifications to become the beneficiary of the curse.

“They didn’t even need to kidnap the prince himself,” the spirit of Kayle explained. “Simply obtaining a sample of Prince Lloyd’s blood was enough.”

Varos frowned, skeptical. “Prince Lloyd’s blood wouldn’t have been easy to acquire. Wouldn’t you have needed to infiltrate the royal palace to get it?”

Varos’s skepticism would have been valid, had Lloyd been any other individual.

“But it was different for Prince Lloyd,” Kayle continued. “He was so frail that even a slight exertion would cause him to have nosebleeds. Because of that, bloodstained handkerchiefs and clothing were discarded every day.”

“It was such a common occurrence that the palace staff didn’t pay much attention to managing it.”

Karnak furrowed his brow as he listened. “Well, that makes sense for now, but...”

There was still one aspect that didn’t add up.

“Even if he were the beneficiary of the curse, his consent would have to play some role in its activation. But Prince Lloyd was completely unaware of what was happening. How do you explain that?”

Kayle and Olt answered in turn.

“That was resolved with Detzras’s magic.”

“He is capable of wielding both magic and necromancy simultaneously.”

“Using a magical mirror, he projected Prince Lloyd’s image and linked his soul with the target of the curse.”

“Then, the curse was placed on Prince Alford as if it were Lloyd’s own will, using a fabricated persona.”

Karnak blinked.

“Magic?”

As he thought it over, the explanation began to make sense. What was impossible with necromancy alone could be accomplished with magic, and vice versa. By combining the two, each filled the gaps in the other to complete the curse.

“Huh. That actually works,” Karnak muttered.

Hearing the method described, he realized that even he could replicate it. After all, he too wielded chaos magic alongside necromancy. The only difference was that he’d never thought to approach it that way before.

“So, with magic and necromancy working together, you can pull off such absurd feats...”

It also explained why they had used the mirror to project Lloyd’s image and verify the ritual.

“Since Prince Lloyd was technically the subject of the curse, he would need to complete the ritual himself. Makes sense now.”

With his curiosity satisfied for the moment, Karnak stroked his chin thoughtfully. The combination of magic and necromancy wasn’t the only thing that gave birth to the completion of this unconventional curse. The deeper reason lay in Lloyd’s own subconscious desires.

Even if he consciously knew it was unbecoming of a prince, Lloyd had always envied Alford’s strong, healthy body. His unspoken wish to switch bodies had provided the perfect foundation for the curse to take hold. Since the curse worked entirely in Lloyd’s favor, it had been easy for it to manifest. Karnak recalled a past conversation with the prince discussing the very subject.

***

“If you were the perpetrator, it would have been easier to understand, Your Highness,” Karnak had mused aloud.

Lloyd had nodded seriously. “You’re right. Honestly, I don’t even feel much like a victim in all this.”

The prince had continued, baffled by the situation. “Alford takes my body and claims the throne? With that worn-out body of mine? What’s the point?”

If Alford had been far removed from the line of succession, such an act might have made sense. After all, greed for power could often override rational judgment, and people tended to overvalue what they didn’t have.

“If that’s the case, Alford must already be deeply regretting it...” Lloyd had added with a wry smile.

But he quickly dismissed the possibility.

“If Alford wanted everything, he could just kill me. He’d gain what he wanted without having to give up his own healthy body.”

***

That’s true. Prince Alford has no reason to switch bodies with Prince Lloyd, Karnak thought.

The disparity between the two was so great that even the curse itself had to be rigged to make it work in reverse.

And yet, he went through with it anyway?

With his first question resolved, Karnak moved on to the second.

“Tell me,” he said, continuing the interrogation. “Why did Prince Alford switch bodies with Prince Lloyd? What possible benefit could he gain from it?”

It was then that the hall suddenly trembled. One side of the building collapsed in a cloud of dust and rubble, and a deafening explosion shattered the air.

Booom!