The desolate depths of Bellum stretched endlessly beneath a sky the color of bruises.
A land overco by drought—cracked earth, withered trees, rivers reduced to dusty scars across the landscape. Nothing grew here. Nothing flourished. Nothing lived except the things that had been cursed to exist.
Above it all, a figure flew.
He rode atop a boned creature whose wingspan blotted out the weak sun. Its body was a patchwork of fused skeletons—ribs curving into wings, vertebrae forming a spine that stretched longer than a ship's mast, claws that could crush stone. On its furry neck, eight dragon heads swayed, each one eyeless, each one hungry.
On its back stood a black-robed figure.
He was like death itself.
Anastas.
Behind him, winged demons gave chase—dozens of them, their leathery wings beating the dry air, their mouths open in silent screams. They hurled fireballs from their palms, streaks of orange and red that curved toward him like angry cots.
He paid them no heed.
I'm almost there.
The crown on his head pulsed faintly—the bone crown, the one Dax had forged from a wraith. It whispered directions into his mind, a constant murmur that had beco as familiar as his own heartbeat.
Behind him, the demons cackled.
More fireballs ford. More flew.
Anastas clicked his tongue.
"Damn demons." His voice was bored, almost petulant. "This is why I hate this plane so much. I can't imagine Mother being from such a place."
He glanced over his shoulder at the horde chasing him. Dozens had beco hundreds. The sky behind him was thick with wings, teeth, and burning light.
"Well." He turned back around. "You picked the wrong guy."
He crossed his arms.
Wretched souls began to pour from his body.
They erged from his chest, his back, his palms—shrieking, clawing, hungry. Spirits of the dead, bound to his will, twisted into shapes that should not exist. They poured upward like smoke from a pyre, forming a dark cloud that spread across the sky.
I'm not even surprised anymore.
One by one, the souls possessed the demons.
The creatures froze mid-flight—their wings locking, their eyes going wide—as the specters forced their way into their bodies. So scread. So simply went still. And among the wretched souls that poured from Anastas were demons that had died under his hand. Their own kind.
They tore into the living demons with the fury of the betrayed.
Anastas stared at his palm.
Wraith King.
This was the na he had given his new power. He had dominion over dead souls. Not borrowed. Not earned through years of study—but given by a man who treated god-killing artifacts like party favors.
Soul enslavent and soul nourishing. He flexed his fingers. How great.
What was Captain's goal, giving such?
He was taken by his own madness—not the destructive kind, but the kind that ca from seeing too clearly.
Even the corpse I got from Captain is so powerful. Mixing it with a bone fusion spell… I was able to co up with this baby.
He patted the bone wyvern beneath him. The eight heads glanced at him briefly, then swiveled back to the horizon.
In a matter of seconds, the demons exploded.
One by one, their bodies ruptured—black blood raining down on the cracked earth below, fragnts of bone and flesh scattered across the wasteland.
Their souls, newly freed, spiraled upward, drawn into Anastas's body like water finding its level.
He absorbed them without expression.
"This should be enough." He looked ahead, following the guidance of the crown. "From the guidance of the crown… I should be able to break through with these souls."
He paused.
"Honestly, it's too good to be true. The technique states to refine souls into essence." He shook his head.
He guided the bone wyvern downward.
The mountain rose from the wasteland like a tombstone.
Its peak was lost in the bruised clouds, its slopes jagged and bare. Anastas circled it once, twice, his eyes scanning for what the crown had promised.
There.
A cave mouth wide enough to swallow his bone wyvern whole. It sat high on the mountain's face, sheltered from the wind, hidden from casual view.
Clearly the nest of a beast.
He descended.
The cave was massive—bigger than it had looked from outside. The walls were smooth, worn by sothing large that had passed through them many tis. The floor was littered with bones and the dried remnants of old als. The air slled of sulfur and old blood.
Anastas dismounted. The bone wyvern folded its eight heads into its chest and settled against the cave wall, its massive form blocking the entrance like a living door.
He sat cross-legged at the center of the cave.
No remorse.
He closed his eyes.
The souls within him stirred—hundreds of them. He could feel them pressing against the inside of his skin, screaming, begging, fighting. They did not want to be refined into nothing.
He began to draw them toward his mana core.
The first soul entered—and burned.
Not with fire. With sothing deeper. The essence of the soul was stripped away, purified, compressed into sothing that could be absorbed.
The screaming in his mind grew louder. The struggling grew more desperate.
Anastas did not flinch.
He thought of her face—faint now, blurred by ti and distance.
This is my path and I will walk it without remorse.
He cleared his mind of guilt.
Souls burned. Another and another.
His body burst with a dark mist as his core began to expand.
At the edge of his core, a black gleam began to travel, moving at a steady pace. In the depths of his core, the souls thrashed around, trying to escape eternal death, but they were bound by his will.
His core shrieked once after the first cycle, then the second, and the third. On the fifth cycle, the refining speed slowed almost to the point where it couldn't move.
Just then, a powerful beast screeched. Its dangerous magical presence surged in the distance.
The walls of the cave shook. Instantly, the sleeping wyvern raised its heads, staring at the gigantic bird in the distance.
On closer inspection, it was a rank seven Vethral — a powerful avian known for its tenacious control over the wind.
Anastas was shaken by its presence.
Fuck. I can't break the cycle now.
Before he could make a rash decision, his undead beast moved.
Its aura matched the powerful beast in the distance. Bones stretched wide as it took to the sky.
Anastas's mind cald. Looking within, he hovered inside his core, astonished by the sight.
This breaks the laws of this world.
His eyes followed the demon souls in his core.
Are they resisting refinent? His mind was conflicted.
"Arg!" He scratched his head. If I was half as weird as that guy, this wouldn't be a problem.
He stretched his hand out in an attempt to increase the refinent speed.
Just then, the souls burst—not into mana, but into an ominous fog. With little to no resistance, they passed through his core.
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