High above in the sky, two figures hovered in silence.
Varun and Ruel watched from the air as the soldiers below moved through the frozen plain, dragging corpses, securing wounded allies, and extinguishing the last traces of demonic resistance. It was a grim cleanup, but an orderly one.
Yet neither man looked at the soldiers for long.
Their eyes kept drifting toward the cluster of beasts and monsters standing eerily still in the center of the field.
Michael's undead.
They did not wander. They did not even react to the movent around them.
They simply stood in formation, watching and waiting.
A sight that would have terrified most people.
Ruel swallowed quietly.
"...They are too strong," he muttered. "How can one boy control so many of such creatures? Just him alone is comparable to the
Federation stations in the early floors of Earth."
Varun's expression did not change, but the lines of tension around his eyes deepened.
"That boy is abnormal."
Ruel let out a shaky breath. "Abnormal is an understatent, sir."
Varun did not respond imdiately.
His gaze lingered on Michael's legion far below.
It was a sight that made even soone like Varun feel a tightness in his chest.
Ruel glanced sideways at him, noticing the tension. "Sir... what will you report when the higher-ups arrive?"
Varun's brow creased.
That question had already been gnawing at him.
What exactly would he say?
Would he tell them that a boy barely in his twenties had solved a case that involved a Rank 4 powerhouse? That this sa boy had fought a living elder who had mastered a Domain?
Would he tell them that the boy had not simply survived.
He had ended it.
Varun's jaw tightened.
"They will not believe and think sothing is missing," he said at last, voice low. "They might think I exaggerated or misinterpreted events."
Ruel hesitated. "But you cannot lie either."
"I know," Varun replied.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose as if the weight of everything pressed there.
In the past, he would not have worried about this. He would have filed his report with absolute honesty, confident that the Federation would act according to principle. That was how he had always lived. That was what he had always believed in.
But now.
The old man's words echoed in his mind.
"They do not nurture things they cannot control.
They cage them. Or they break them."
Varun closed his eyes briefly.
He did not want to believe the ravings of a man who had fallen so far, who had killed innocents and chosen the path of corruption. Yet hearing those words directed at Michael, seeing the potential of that boy firsthand, had planted a faint shadow of doubt he was not used to feeling.
Ruel spoke quietly beside him.
"You are worried about what they will do with him."
It was not a question.
Varun opened his eyes again and looked toward Michael's distant figure, which had now appeared walking across the frozen expanse, spear in hand, expression unreadable in the cold wind.
Michael looked small from this height, like a lone warrior returning ho.
But Varun knew the truth.
There was nothing small about that boy.
He did not know how the boy was able to control close to a hundred
Rank 3 creatures, but that alone was enough to mark him as a potential threat if nothing was done about those creatures and he maintain a formation like this at any level.
At Rank 3, racial limits beca less important. With access to universal energy through law cultivation, evolution could be steadily advanced, though it would be slower for races with harsh racial limits.
If Michael's undead did not stagnate in the future, it ant he could eventually have close to one hundred Rank 4 undead.
That was insanely powerful.
"Worried?" Varun murmured. "I am thinking."
Ruel's voice dropped further. "About whether the old man was telling
the truth?"
Varun did not answer imdiately.
He crossed his arms, staring at Michael with a complicated
expression.
"That man was evil," Varun said slowly. "But even evil n can speak
truths sotis."
Ruel frowned. "Sir, you do not truly think the Federation would target
him, do you?"
Varun let out a slow breath.
"I do not want to think so. I want to believe in the Federation I have
served my whole life." He paused. "But when a genius like him
appears... soone in the higher ranks will notice."
"And ask the sa question the old man ntioned," Ruel whispered.
Varun nodded faintly.
"How do we control him?
And if we cannot, how do we make sure he does not beco a
threat?"
A chill that had nothing to do with the ice passed between them.
Ruel swallowed again, more heavily this ti.
"But sir... the boy saved us. All of us. If not for him, we would all be
dead. The whole station..."
Varun's lips thinned.
"That is exactly why I feel uneasy," he said. "Power that saves can also
destroy. It is not the boy I fear. It is the fear others may have of him."
For a mont, neither man spoke. Below them, Michael continued walking across the frozen expanse, completely unaware of the storm of thoughts swirling above him.
Varun sighed quietly.
"...I will report the truth," he said. "But I will choose my words
carefully. I will not paint him as a weapon or as a threat. I will describe
what he did, nothing more."
Ruel nodded slowly.
"That is all we can do."
"Perhaps," Varun said, eyes following Michael, "the higher-ups will see
what I see."
"And what is that?" Ruel asked.
Varun's gaze softened just a fraction.
"A boy who should be protected, not feared."
They both fell silent again.
Below, Michael's undead shifted for the first ti, turning their heads
toward their approaching master.
Ruel shivered.
"Sir... what is this youth, really?" Varun did not look away.
"Soone the world is not ready for," he said softly. "Least of all the
Federation."
There was one thing Michael always wondered about ever since he
started having a group of intelligent undead.
Was he going crazy because he was starting to see them as sothing
akin to family?
This feeling only grew worse when he began incorporating his blood
into their evolution process.
Most necromancers did not feel the sa way he did.
For most of them, undead were numbers.
At best, they were better tools.
Michael had read many notes on black magic in the academy.
One had stated that a good necromancer should be able to sacrifice half his legion without a flicker of emotion if it ant gaining a single
strategic advantage. Michael understood that. He even agreed with part of it. A
necromancer who could not make hard choices had no business commanding the
dead.
But sowhere along the way, his path had bent slightly from that
cold standard.
Maybe it was because his undead were never ant to be simple copies stamped from a single mold.
Or maybe it was because, thanks to his blood, they truly felt like kin
to him. So when he noticed their attention on him, Michael could not help but smile a little, his body and thoughts feeling lighter. Michael made his way to them. After asking the more intelligent ones
about the general state of things, he summoned them all back into the damaged Coffin of the Forgotten.
Just as he finished, he sensed two figures from above making their way toward him.
Michael already knew who they were; he had sensed their gazes from
the start.
The two figures descended in a controlled glide and landed in front of
him.
Varun stepped forward first.
"Young man," he called out, voice steady but laced with concern, "are you injured anywhere?"
Michael shook his head. "No. I am fine."
Ruel exhaled in visible relief, his shoulders dropping. Varun did not relax as easily, but so of the tension in his posture softened.
Ruel hesitated before asking the question weighing on both their minds. "What happened to the old demonic cultivator?" Michael kept his expression calm and neutral.
"Unfortunately," he said, "he escaped."
Both n froze.
The word carried enormous weight for the two n who had
personally witnessed the destruction a Rank 4 could cause.
An enemy like that, alive and lurking in the shadows, was a nightmare.
But then Michael continued, voice steady. "But he escaped with far greater injuries than before." That single sentence hit them like a burst of warmth in a blizzard.
Both n instantly relaxed, just a fraction, but noticeably so.
They had seen the old man's state when Michael vanished with him: barely recognizable as a Rank 4 powerhouse.
Ruel rubbed his arms, recalling the blood, the collapsed ridians,
the trembling limbs.
"With those injuries... even if he is alive, he will not be able to move freely for so ti," Ruel muttered.
Varun nodded slowly, though his eyes stayed sharp. "And that buys us ti."
Ti they desperately needed.
Michael did not correct them.
He did not tell them the truth: that the old man was not just crippled.
He was sealed, frozen, locked away in a coffin.
That was not information anybody needed. Varun inhaled deeply, steadying his thoughts, then placed a hand on
Michael's shoulder.
"You did well," he said. "Too well. If this had gone any other way... we would have lost everyone here!"
Michael accepted the words quietly. "Co," Varun continued. "The higher-ups will want a report when they arrive. But for now, you should rest. We will handle the rest."
Michael nodded and followed them back to the second floor of Hell.
A/N: I think I might start writing longer chapters soon, guys. To provide a better sense of progress instead of sticking to Webnovel word-count. This doesn't translate to a chapter per day too.
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