Too Stubborn to Die

Legions of the dead poured down into the subterranean dungeon, passing by huge columns as they groaned mindlessly.

At the army’s rear, the necromancer, Darius Nessar, tightened his grip around his staff of bones and marched with his army. The Tutorial had warned him that the boss wasn’t to be attempted without thorough planning, but he had an army of the dead that followed his every command.

Besides, he had turned the entire Tutorial into a graveyard. At level 83, he had nothing left to kill. So why not finish it already? It’d been a while since he’d had a good challenge, and the System had mentioned a reward, after all. Perhaps new opportunities would arise after he was done here. Ones that would help him on his path of undeath.

He could see it now, nestled in the distance. The great minotaur with its army of minions. Just another enemy for him to slay and grow stronger from.

His thin lips curled into a smile. How lovely this integration was. He would never grow tired of the wailing cries of his enemies.

The underground had been an ongoing theme of his Tutorial. Countless tunnels and caves led into the labyrinth. They had slowed him in his main task of hunting down other Tutorial takers, a fact that had annoyed him greatly at the time.

But navigating the labyrinth was no easy task, and in a way, it had aided him as he hunted them down. Perhaps this Tutorial was made for him, just like the integration was, since his army of the walking dead was the perfect tool to conquer it. Since he could communicate with his minions, it made navigating the maze easy. Every additional corpse he added to his army was an extra set of legs and eyes to search the maze on his behalf.

And now, at its end, he faced down the boss. His lips, turned purple by the foul path he had chosen, perked his cheeks as his sickly smile stretched wider. This was it. The last day of his Tutorial, but the beginning of his ascent.

The integration was a blessing, designed for him, and he would turn Earth into a lifeless hull filled with countless minions ready to do his bidding. This was his calling, Darius understood.

Never again would he be caged for who he was. How dare they call him a monster? To throw him into a cell. He wouldn’t have to hide his perverse desires for fear of people finding out. He wouldn’t be talked back to or down to.

No prison guards pushing him around. No law to stand over him and dictate what is and isn’t proper.

Darius growled, anger filling his veins as he thought of the treatment he had suffered at the hands of society.

But he had been right. Their squeamishness had been a weakness, one that he had happily exposed.

There was none like him. None so willing to snuff out life. None who took such pleasure in ending life, and he knew that was what would set him apart from the others.

Maybe there were strong people out there, but they would be held back by their humanity. Pathetic, he almost spat. It was weakness, weakness that he would exploit.

Weakness that the System understood. That’s why it had created the integration, after all. Because it saw the truth as he did. It was survival of the fittest. Darius knew what it took to make humans squeal.

All they had were numbers. Friends and allies. It almost made him laugh. The one weakness he had as an outsider in society had been completely eliminated by the integration.

He had an army now, and the people of Earth would soon realize what that meant.

His thoughts went back to those he had already added to his army. The cries and the begging. They had all pleaded with him to stop. How delightful it had been.

This was the meaning of Darius Nessar’s rise, and he would make sure that everyone begged him before he added them to his growing horde. It was the perfect wish-fulfillment, and he loved every moment of it.

He remembered his old shack in the woods. He had hid out for years, preying on hitchhikers. He couldn’t help but smile when he thought of the moniker he had earned.

The Maryland Monster. They had looked for him for so many years that listening to his own cold case podcast episodes had become a hobby of his.

He’d take them home and string them up. But once they were dead, they were dead. It had always been a fantasy of his to be able to reanimate the dead as his slaves and force them to see to his desires.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

How could he be so lucky? The System had listened. It had given him exactly what he wanted by proving the integration and the multiverse. He was the chosen one, and now he had the opportunity to live out his fantasies.

But eventually, the police caught him. It was new technology. A combination of satellites and drones enabled them to map the forest he lived in more accurately, leading them to investigate abnormalities on his property.

He had learned this much during discovery. Technology had come far, and it had been his ultimate undoing. But it wouldn’t help now. The multiverse had seen to that.

Darius couldn’t wait to find those prison guards and cops who had tossed him around and manhandled him. If any survived their tutorials, they would know pain at a very different level.

But for now, he had a Tutorial to finish.

Inhaling deeply, Darius shuddered with satisfaction and turned his gaze on the boss. The world had become so much more entertaining. Never again would he see the inside of a cell, never again would he be held back from his true calling.

Raising his staff, he sent the command to attack, and his undead army flooded forward.

Death had locked his army in stasis, no longer able to walk their paths and grow stronger. But it had taken little else from them. They still commanded their Skills and Stats they had in life, albeit a little slower and less coordinated, though even that was improving as Darius grew stronger.

And so when the undead army charged, the dank, subterranean cavern, the air was cast ablaze with a myriad of Skills and spells that crashed down upon the boss and its far smaller army.

The dead took their losses, but it mattered little. They had stagnated and would need to be replaced as Darius would need stronger warriors as he leveled, making them expendable. Though perhaps he would keep those that he took a particular fancy to.

He then swirled his staff, casting [ Body of Bones ] and encapsulating himself in swirling bones that could both act defensively and offensively.

The casualties were adding up, and he pointed his staff, firing bones from his swirling forcefield toward the minotaur’s warriors caught in battle. The bones turned into missiles of deathly energy, poisoning their targets with necrotic energy and eating away at their flesh.

The minotaur’s warriors were actually stronger than most of his troops, but the sheer number of attacks suffocated their defenses and whittled them down.

With every passing second, less and less of the minotaur’s troops stood. They couldn’t overcome his forces, and the undead army marched on tirelessly.

Then, the necromancer himself focused his Skills and spells on the boss, who was too distracted with the dozens of undead who were breaking through the ranks of his dwindling troops and charging toward him.

The minotaur’s defenses were formidable, but it was eating countless attacks, and it was obvious that its energy reserves were being drained before the necromancer’s army had even reached it properly.

This was the face of Darius’ power. The fruits of his hard work were evidence of how far he had come. To think, on his first day, he had almost been killed by another human.

He had actually had to weasel his way out of the situation. Talking the man down from stabbing him.

But he hadn’t done anything wrong. The man’s companion had died at the hands of a monster; what point was there in leaving the man’s corpse to just rot?

It was an infuriating reminder of how weak everyone was. Luckily, Darius had scored some lucky loot drop early, one that had given him the spell of [ Raise Dead ]. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked well against the monsters in the Tutorial.

Faced with death, it only made sense to do whatever he could to survive. And that meant finding a suitable candidate for his new spell. It would be stupid to do otherwise.

But that man hadn’t seen it that way. When Darius had turned his recently deceased friend into a zombie to do his bidding in the middle of battle, the man had gone crazy with rage.

Cutting down the last two monsters, he then turned his blade on Darius, and he had been skilled at using it. He was a big guy, athletic, and smart. Or at least as smart as one could be whilst harboring the weaknesses of misplaced morality.

He had overpowered Darius after a short melee and was poised to end his life. But once more, his weak morality had stood in his way, halting him from casting down that final strike.

The necromancer pleaded with him. He explained the situation as best he could. It wasn’t that he wanted to resurrect his friend, but he thought it was necessary, at least that’s what he told the man.

And he actually bought it, and lowered his weapon. But the experience had told Darius everything he needed to know about people.

The integration hadn’t changed them. They were still weak and misguided. They didn’t understand him. They just saw him as a monster.

That wouldn’t do. He couldn’t share this new world with those who saw him as a monster, and so he wouldn’t.

The following night, when the big man rested, Darius sent a knife through his neck and raised the second warrior of his growing army. And that had been the last time he was truly threatened by another human in the Tutorial.

The necromancer’s smile widened further as his army broke down the minotaur’s defenses. Wounds were mounting up on the great beast, and soon he would be done here.

“The world isn’t ready for me!” He roared as he cast [ Bone Breaker ], and the boss sagged and weakened. “I shall take it all and prove my path is superior!”