Avery stood a short distance away from Emily, her expression calm as she explained the process once more.
Emily followed her words and closed her eyes.
At first, she felt nothing.
The battlefield remained silent around her. The sll of scorched earth and burnt flesh still lingered in the air, but she forced herself to ignore it. She focused only on her Spirit Elent.
Slowly, she spread her senses outward.
Minutes passed.
Then sothing changed.
Tiny fragnts of light began appearing in the darkness of her perception. At first there were only a few. Then hundreds. Then thousands.
Emily almost lost focus.
Countless spirit fragnts floated throughout the area like drifting stars. So were dim while others burned brighter. They moved upward little by little, vanishing one after another as they left the mortal realm.
All of them were undead once chained to the Necromancer.
Now that the Drowned King was dead, those spirits were finally returning to the cycle of Nirvana.
Emily steadied herself and began searching through them carefully.
She needed to find the lingering spirit of the Necromancer.
The task quickly beca overwhelming.
There were simply too many spirits. Every direction was crowded with fragnts of souls. So were weak and disappeared almost instantly while others lingered longer. Trying to locate one specific spirit among them felt impossible.
Several more minutes passed.
Emily's brows slowly tightened.
She was beginning to think she would fail.
Then she noticed sothing.
The stronger the spirit was, the slower it disappeared.
Her thoughts paused for a second before realization hit her.
The Necromancer had been the strongest spirit present here.
That ant it would take the longest ti to leave the mortal realm.
Emily imdiately cald down.
There was no need to panic anymore. If she simply waited long enough, every weaker spirit would disappear first.
She took a slow breath and continued searching.
Perhaps it was luck, perhaps her search beca better because she was no longer panicking, she found the spirit of Necromancer.
She called it back.
Dark mist gathered in front of Emily before condensing into a humanoid figure.
A tall man appeared.
He wore armor similar to the Drowned King's, though his appearance was far cleaner and more regal now. A dark cape fluttered lightly behind him. His skin was gray, his ears pointed, and sharp shark-like teeth could be seen behind slightly parted lips.
The Necromancer looked directly at Emily.
Then his gaze shifted around the battlefield.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm stared back at him from nearby, its massive eyes unblinking. The pressure radiating from it was enough to make the surroundings feel heavier.
If the Necromancer attempted to summon undead again, the wyrm would destroy the skill before it fully ford.
And unlike before, there were no corpses left nearby.
The Drowned King could forcefully resurrect spirits instead of corpses, but that required significantly more mana, and such spirits would only fight temporarily. He was a necromancer, not a true Spirit Tar.
Several more powerful Spirit Summons stood around Emily as well.
The situation was obvious.
"Do you want to do this the hard way or the easy way?" Emily asked with a small smile.
The Necromancer remained silent for a mont.
His eyes moved across the surrounding summons once more before returning to Emily.
"Disadvantageous as the situation may be, I am not afraid of battle. However…"
To everyone's surprise, the Necromancer removed his crown and lowered himself onto one knee.
"Please allow to serve you, O Great One."
Emily blinked.
"…Why do you want to serve ?" she asked honestly.
The answer genuinely surprised her. The Necromancer clearly was not terrified of her command power. He looked perfectly willing to fight if necessary. Yet he had surrendered without resistance.
The Necromancer lowered his head slightly.
"I may have been alive, but I could not think. Only now, in death, have I been given the opportunity to truly think for myself. For that, I am deeply grateful," he said calmly.
Emily understood imdiately.
There were two kinds of monsters.
Natural Monsters and System Monsters.
Natural Monsters were creatures like Ogres or Crawling Serpents. They developed intelligence naturally as they grew stronger.
But System Monsters were different.
No matter how powerful they beca, they behaved almost like programs following fixed instincts and commands. They fought, hunted, and killed because that was what they were created to do.
They did not truly think.
However, once resurrected through Emily's Spirit Elent, those monsters changed. They gained individuality and intelligence. They beca capable of thought, emotion, and self-awareness.
To Emily and the others, the ability to think was normal.
To a forr System Monster, it was freedom.
"In that case, I accept your request," Emily said after a mont.
Spirit energy flowed outward from her body.
The Necromancer did not resist.
A Spirit Bond ford.
Dark gray light connected the two briefly before fading away completely.
The Drowned King slowly rose to his feet again, but this ti there was no hostility in his eyes.
Afterward, the group rested for a short while.
So sat down to recover mana while others checked their injuries. The battle against the Drowned King had drained everyone more than expected.
During that ti, Emily took out the Ancient Spirit Contract Scrolls they had obtained as rewards.
The scrolls were ancient and worn, covered in faded symbols that seed to shift slightly when stared at directly.
Emily looked toward Eleanor.
"Can I use these now?" she asked.
Eleanor glanced at the scrolls before nodding.
"It's a good idea. They'll help us in the Third Area" she said.
Officially, all loot distribution would happen after leaving the dungeon, under Isaac's supervision. But no one objected to Emily using the scrolls imdiately.
Everyone already knew those rewards would end up belonging to her anyway.
Emily stepped forward and activated the first scroll.
The ancient parchnt dissolved into motes of light.
Those motes gathered together and ford a portal.
A powerful pressure spread across the surroundings almost instantly.
Then soone walked out.
He was humanoid, tall and broad-shouldered, with two blue horns extending from his temples. A thick dark-blue spear rested in his hand. Faint scales covered parts of his arms and cheeks, while a long blue scaled tail swayed behind him.
"This damned System, it won't even let rest in peace," the man muttered while clicking his tongue.
He walked forward casually, but the mana surrounding him felt terrifying, and deep, like an endless ocean quietly hiding monsters beneath the surface.
Emily imdiately understood one thing.
This spirit was absurdly strong.
"Greetings, I'm Emily Warren Hargraves, the one who summoned you," Emily said politely as she stepped forward.
"Mhm."
The man nodded without much interest.
His eyes scanned Emily carefully.
He inspected her mana quality, awakening rank, elental affinity, and spirit fluctuations in seconds.
The more he observed, the less interested he beca.
He had already been leaning toward refusal before seeing her. Now his decision was practically settled.
The bloodline seed to be sothing special, but nothing else seed to be noteworthy. Soone like her, already beyond her teens and only an Adept, was clearly a lazy awakener.
Emily noticed that he never introduced himself. Just as she was about to continue speaking, another voice interrupted.
"Oz?"
The man turned toward Eleanor.
"Soone here knows ?" he asked.
Despite his humble question, a hint of arrogance seeped into his tone. He was proud. It only made sense he was known even today.
After all, he was the East Sea Dragon King, Oz.
Before the Apocalypse, Dragon ranks had been divided into Infant Dragon, Adult Dragon, High Dragon, Arch Dragon, and Dragon King.
A Dragon King stood at the very top.
Oz was a Dragon King.
The East Sea Dragon King.
He had once ruled over an entire dragon civilization. Soone whose na alone had once shaken continents.
Oz didn't notice Eleanor's smile disappearing. The warmth that had appeared in Eleanor's eyes was quickly cooling.
"You don't recognize ?" Eleanor asked quietly.
Oz raised a brow at the question, and looked at her more carefully.
A sneer appeared on his face.
"A human with low-rank bloodline. And you dare suggest I should recognize you? Do you want to die?" he asked.
The atmosphere instantly beca colder.
Emily frowned. Alice slowly stood up. Even the Crimson Sky Wyrm shifted slightly.
But Eleanor simply smiled.
"Lu," she called out.
Emily imdiately understood what Eleanor was trying to do.
She gave a small nod toward the Abyssal Trickster.
The spirit moved at once.
Illusions quickly ford over the battlefield, twisting what the livestream caras would capture. Anyone watching would only see harmless distortions and vague movents instead of what was actually happening.
Only after the illusions settled did Eleanor move again.
Mana flowed into the weapon in her hand.
Oz frowned at first, not understanding what she was doing.
Then the sword began to change.
The blade thickened. The sharp edges disappeared.
A mont later, a black tal baseball bat rested in Eleanor's hand.
Oz flinched.
Even Alice flinched slightly beside Emily.
The reaction was imdiate.
Oz's pupils narrowed into vertical slits and his mana exploded outward instinctively. He even stumbled back a step before catching himself.
Fear appeared on his face for the first ti.
"W-What is this? How did you get your hands on that cursed weapon?" he asked.
Eleanor did not answer.
She simply took one step forward.
Oz imdiately took two steps back.
"S-Stop right there! Or you will face the consequences of this Drakon King's wrath!" he shouted.
The confidence in his voice sounded forced now.
The difference from earlier was so obvious that even Emily stared at him strangely.
This was the sa arrogant Dragon King who had looked down on everyone monts ago, and now he looked like he wanted to run.
Eleanor continued walking toward him calmly.
Oz's grip on his spear tightened.
"Do you think I am afraid of you, human? Stop while I am still giving you a chance!" he snapped.
Eleanor stopped only a few ters away from him.
Then she tilted her head slightly.
"Do you still not recognize ?" she asked.
Oz's mind spun rapidly.
At first he thought it was impossible.
But the more he looked at the bat, the more mories surfaced in his mind. Painful mories. Humiliating mories.
The way she walked.
The way she spoke.
And most importantly… that damned demonic weapon.
Cold sweat ford on his forehead.
For a brief mont, one terrifying thought appeared in his mind.
'Master?'
Then he imdiately rejected it internally.
'No. Impossible. That old bat can't still be alive.'
But another thought followed right after.
What if she reincarnated?
Oz's expression nearly collapsed.
His tail stiffened and his spear trembled slightly in his hand.
At that mont, he genuinely wanted to cry.
What kind of dogshit luck did he have?
He had already died once, finally escaped that monster of a woman, and sohow still ended up eting her again after death.
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