Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 944: Michael Levels Up [1]

The figure that descended through the blood sky was not the naked human form Michael had been speaking with moments ago.

What appeared above them was a deer.

It was massive. The scale of it only became clear as it descended further. The body alone stood at a height that made the surrounding hills look modest by comparison. Its coat was red with unusual coloring.

The antlers were the most striking part. They branched high and wide, and along their length they were threaded with what looked like dark veins, pulsing faintly like they were alive.

It was eerie. This was Michael’s first thought when he saw Shojo’s true form.

The surroundings only made it worse. Against the red ground and the blood sky and the iron smell that saturated everything, Shojo’s form sent a chill through his bones.

Yet at the same time Michael couldn’t help but feel a little awe at its beauty.

One’s class could influence its owner in ways that were not always obvious from the outside.

A fire mage who had spent years immersed in their element would often find fire to be the most beautiful and comforting thing in the world. A class centered on poison would eventually shift its owner’s relationship with toxins entirely.

The taste of things that would kill an ordinary person might become pleasant. Some poison practitioners developed a preference for it that extended beyond combat utility into something closer to appetite, and over time developed a discomfort with anything that lacked that quality.

Class influence was subtle in the early stages and pronounced in the later ones, though this was not universally true for everyone.

Michael was a Necromancer. More accurately now, Death’s Heir. He had only been in the profession for a matter of months, which was essentially nothing by the standard of people who spent decades or centuries on the same path.

Though by reasonable measure the influence on him should have been minimal, it still existed.

Trust was one of them. He found himself extending more natural trust toward the dead than toward the living.

Beauty was another.

One should not be deceived by the pleasing appearance his undead had developed after entering the Great Stage and gaining their human forms. Underneath it, many of them retained grotesque true forms.

Michael had been around corpses and undead in various states almost every day for close to a year now. The threshold of what registered to him as strange had shifted considerably in that time.

Things that would have unsettled him before simply did not produce the same reaction anymore. The unusual had become familiar.

The two undead did not care what their master found beautiful or unsettling.

They only registered that Shojo was a threat to their master.

Instinctively understanding they were at a disadvantage within the opponent’s domain, both of them activated their own domains simultaneously.

Compared to their previous actions, this was a reasonable method to cancel out a domain.

Activating one’s domain within an enemy domain was one of the crudest methods available for breaking out from the inside, but the effectiveness of that cancellation was considerably reduced when one party was already established within their own space.

Breaking out from the inside required either raw power sufficient to overwhelm the established influence, or a sustained contest of competing domains that gradually eroded the home ground advantage from within, which was an exhausting approach.

It was because of reasons like this that as one grew in power, battles were either extremely short or extremely long.

After all the more on grew in power, so did their method multiply.

Unless the gap in strength was large enough to force an immediate resolution, a battle between equals at high strength would not end quick.

Shojo saw the two domains activate and made a strange sound from its mouth.

Spears of blood formed in the air, dozens of them condensed from the liquid sky overhead, and descended.

The undead Drakeblood roared and flew upward to meet the attack. It shifted in the same moment, its humanoid form giving way as its true form emerged.

The sky darkened below Michael as he watched the undead Drakeblood launch itself upward to meet the descending spears directly.

On the ground beside Michael, the undead demonic supernatural moved as well. Black water rose from nothing around it, pulling upward and spreading outward in a curved formation that positioned itself between itself and Michael’s position.

The water solidified as it shaped itself, forming a shield dense enough that the blood spears that curved toward them struck the surface and stopped, absorbed into the black water rather than penetrating through.

All of it happened in the space of a moment.

Michael’s eyes widened with a flash of fear.

He had been present from the very beginning, but his brain and senses had managed to follow it only partially, catching impressions and afterimages rather than the actual sequence of events.

His mood turned grave.

He thought about the Legendary Stage fights he had survived before this. Looking at what was happening above him right now and feeling the gap between what his senses could track and what was actually occurring, he understood with new clarity just how close to death he had been in each of those encounters.

However, with danger present around him, Michael forced himself to calm down and brought his attention back to the present.

Above him the undead Drakeblood and Shojo were exchanging in the blood sky, impacts sending ripples through the liquid overhead in expanding rings.

This domain was wide and it was not an exaggeration to call it its own world. Michael was almost certain that if they fought close to him the shockwaves alone would leave him at the gates of death.

Michael watched with surprise as Shojo matched the Drakeblood. He could not tell which had the advantage, but this meant Shojo’s level was extremely high, most likely a late stage Legendary creature.

On the other hand, the undead demonic supernatural held its position beside him, the black water shield absorbing the diverted attacks that curved away from the main exchange above.

Michael’s mind settled into a focused state as he quickly determined his next step.

He had to cancel the domain.

In the blood-soaked world, Shojo’s heart was not calm.

It had initiated the exchange with confidence, and yet the undead Drakeblood was matching it.

Shojo had not felt this in less than a decade.

The last time it had faced something of this caliber had been that individual with the dragon bearing, the one whose blood had carried that special quality and whose strength had pushed Shojo to a narrow and costly victory. That encounter had stood alone in Shojo’s recent memory as the one genuine test it had faced in years.

Now here was another one. No, there were two. The one below was simply not fighting yet.

Were beings of this strength simply becoming more common? Had the standards it had calibrated itself against over a thousand years shifted during its extended rest?

Shojo had seen creatures reach its level across its long life. Most of them had been fortunate ascendants from its farm, but even those numbers were few. The bulk of its growth had come from devouring large numbers of Great Stage creatures. Great Stage creatures were simply more available, easier to cultivate in large numbers, and far less dangerous to pursue. The yield per individual was lower but the volume compensated.

In any case, this all pointed to how limited the number of Legendary Stage beings truly was.

Wait. If it was not mistaken, was the very reason it had come here not because of two creatures ascending to the Legendary Stage?

The thought hit Shojo like a physical impact.

A cold and heavy regret moved through it as it broke off from the Drakeblood and turned its attention downward toward Michael’s position with sudden urgent focus.

What it saw confirmed the worst of what it had just realized.

Two more figures stood beside the human youth.

Four Legendary Stage creatures.

The human youth had four Legendary Stage creatures.

Fear moved through Shojo in a way it had not felt in a very long time.

It watched as all three undead below activated their domains simultaneously. The Drakeblood above rejoined them, its own domain spreading outward to add a fourth competing influence to the space.

Four domains activated simultaneously inside the Crimson Burial Ground.

It did not matter how strong Shojo was.

The Crimson Burial Ground trembled and then scattered.

The blood sky broke apart. The red ground dissolved. The iron smell faded. The hills and the channels and the liquid overhead all came apart at once as the domain collapsed entirely.

They all appeared outside again.

The night sky of the Everlong Forest returned above them, clear and dark, and Shojo stood in its true form in the open air.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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