After retrieving the pills and the recipe book, Sokram pretended to look around some more, then closed his eyes and spread his mana sense through the whole room.
He expanded his sensory range, a silent wave of mana rippling through the room. It mapped every crack in the stone, vibrating slightly as it hit the denser material of the hidden safe.
Opening his eyes, he walked toward one of the shelves and, pushing it aside, found the safe behind it.
He knocked on it to feel the material, sensing that it was made of steel, and he used his Matter Manipulation Spell to disintegrate the safe’s door.
There, Sokram found a map that pointed to the Tripeak Mountain Range in Whiteland. Another place where he would find a wealthy treasure.
Finally satisfied, Sokram went back up and left the cave.
He decided to head southeast, where the Pavilion had indicated the necromancers were hiding or plotting something.
Arriving at the general location was easy, especially with his gliding and teleportation travel method. Finding the necromancers’ hideout, however, proved far more difficult.
Sokram spent the whole day searching for anything that matched the location's description and found nothing.
But once night fell, while he was meditating at the top of a tree, Sokram felt a violent distortion ripple through the ambient mana, as if the darkest void was swallowing all the life around.
He quickly merged with the shadows and went scouring ahead, following the disturbance in the flow of Magi around the area.
Until he saw a group of 50 skeleton soldiers marching toward the source of the disturbance.
Sokram, not wanting to lose this lead, used his needles to travel faster until he found it.
He had been in that same spot during the day, but there was nothing like what he was seeing around then.
What Sokram saw wasn’t a cave, but a vast stairway plunging underground.
He couldn’t see the end of the stairway, so either the necromancers had been working on this hideout for a few years, or they found some ancient ruins or even a lost underground city.
Sokram didn’t rush in. Instead, he conjured a few Mud Golems, but these weren’t clones.
They were smaller and faster and shared a mind link with him. He could see through their eyes. But he could only conjure five of these golems at the same time.
After a few tests, he realized he could merge them into the shadows as well.
Then, taking a few moonstones from his glove and some blood-ink, he made a few runestones enchanted with the Shadow Cloak spell.
Sokram placed the runestone near the core of each mud golem, along with a needle and an active recording crystal.
After finding a decent hiding spot, he sent the golems forward and merged into the shadows.
The five golems went down the stairway without Sokram worrying about them being spotted.
He worried more about the mental strain because the further away they were, the more mana they cost and the greater the concentration level he should muster.
Even with Mana Breathing, sustaining the link for long periods was difficult.
Although his spirit essence and vital energy were rarely used, Sokram still had far from unlimited power at his current level.
Still, it was bearable.
After a long descent steeped in eerie silence, only broken by the scraping of the skeletons and zombies along the way.
Sokram’s golems finally reached the bottom and came across a road lit by the sickly green glow of candles burning at the top of stationary skeletons’ skulls.
But looking ahead, Sokram's eyes widened in shock.
What he found was neither ruin nor lost city.
Instead, he stared down into a sprawling necropolis. A city of the dead, teeming with unlife. Countless undead were digging, building, and doing all kinds of manual labor.
Traveling through the shadows of this dark underground city, Sokram saw many necromancers hanging around.
As his golems moved through the shadowy streets, he could see pubs, inns, and even an underground market and a castle at the center. It was a real city being built.
But Sokram couldn’t see anyone’s appearance, as they all wore hooded robes and masks.
After exploring for a couple of hours, Sokram realized the city's hierarchy was divided by the color of the robes the necromancers wore.
The ones wearing black seemed to be the lowest rank, the ones wearing red were in the middle, and those wearing dark blue robes seemed to be the leaders.
But then Sokram saw a woman in white robes, and the respect everyone showed her made it clear that whoever dressed in white was at the top.
Sokram spotted a group of necromancers being treated with reverence by the others through one of his golems’ eyes and approached carefully as they seemed to be giving the others instructions.
“Reverend Tomb Mouth, we’re ready to start the invasion. We have been ready for a few months now. What is the hold-up?” One of the less respectful necromancers, who wore a crow mask and a red robe, asked, but by his tone, he seemed very annoyed with the situation.
“You again? Trying to create a riot, Priest Raven?” The Reverend, who wore a mask of a shouting orc and dark blue robes, spat at Raven.
“We have the right to know. This isn’t what we were promised. I even lost a brother to those fuckers in Eversnow, so why aren’t we invading already?!” Priest Raven grew even more impatient.
The Reverend sighed, took out a communication crystal, and whispered a message into it. A few seconds later, he received his response, “You all! Gather around, I’m not doing this again.”
The Reverend’s voice boomed through the underground city. His voice was amplified by magic, rolling through the cavern, echoing off the damp walls.
All the necromancers in the city approached, rushing their steps toward the Reverend.
Sokram counted over 500 of them. A little over 300 were wearing black, around 150 were wearing red, and 50 were wearing dark blue.
But through another one of his golems, he could see five individuals, all wearing white, watching the commotion from the castle walls.
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While one of Sokram’s golems monitored the announcement, his other golems explored the rest of the city, recording everything they saw, from the type of undead to the overall city's layout.
That’s when Sokram found something even more disturbing: tunnels.
Now he understood how the orcs and the bandits were crossing the border unhindered and undetected.
Sokram sent his golems to explore the tunnels, while the remaining one was recording the announcement.
Seeing that everyone had gathered, Reverend Tomb Mouth began his speech.
“As you all know, our Church has, since its founding, been looking for three things. The first is a place to call home, where necromancy will no longer be illegal or frowned upon. The second is the inheritance of the Dragon Emperor Drokmin and his mortal remains. And lastly, the seeds of Chaos.”
The crowd didn’t seem surprised, and Sokram, through their reaction and whispers, understood that it was common sense among them.
The Reverend continued, “The first one is still a dream for the future, but the Dragon Emperor’s tomb is here in Norwinter. We have many pieces of evidence pointing toward the Mount Wintry Horn, which we can’t act upon because of those damn apes and their King.”
Through the crowd chatter, Sokram heard many words of agreement and words of resentment against the apes that lived at the foot of Willow’s mountain.
Some necromancers even recounted, through whispered conversations, what happened when they faced the Monkey King.
Sokram was surprised that the necromancers feared Willow’s neighboring ruler so much.
Because, judging by her Level of Existence, he knew the monkey shouldn’t be even an Exalted yet, as Willow had told him that the Monkey King was weaker than her.
This made Sokram believe that these necromancers might be forming a new church with no true powerhouse among them.
“Besides, there are also griffons on the top of the mountain, and one of them is at least at the Flawless Existence level. So we would need a bigger undead army to face them together. But if we move against them, the powerhouses in that damn city will notice us, and our preparations for the war will be rendered useless.”
The Reverend's words made sense, but only until Raven opened his mouth again.
“Why don’t we march against the small city already? What are those two kings so afraid of?” Raven's voice spread a wave of silence. All the chatter died instantly, severed as if by a blade.
Hundreds of masked faces turned toward the Reverend, the silence so heavy that even the shifting of their robes could be heard as they waited for his answer.
Yet, the Reverend didn’t dally in answering, and his voice boomed again to reach them all.
“We can’t march alone. The Pope made an Oath of collaboration with the Kings of Frostaxe and Whiteland. And as a reward for our collaboration, they promised us two seeds of Chaos.”
The crowd of necromancers was awed by this revelation.
Some even started celebrating, and Raven, for the first time, looked down, ashamed.
At the same time, Sokram’s eyes gleamed with naked greed, his heartbeat surging hard enough to echo in his ears.
'Two seeds of Chaos?' The very thought made his palms itch. For a moment, the risk of the mission faded, replaced by the calculating hunger of a dragon eyeing gold.
'When I raid their Royal Palaces, I'll have to look for it.'
Sokram's greedy thoughts were interrupted by the Reverend's following words.
“As for what they are afraid of, you know the Grand Duchess is living in that city, don’t you? A Semi-Perfect Existence, even 684 of our brothers with all our undead, couldn’t even hold a candle to her. And now there's that cursed Dark Lightning Killer, and the Androny family is there too. And that mercenary group that killed your brother, Raven, we have reason to believe they are at least Flawless Existences.”
This time, it was the Reverend’s words that made everyone silent.
“But how are we going to face them when our Pope and Bishops are still stuck at the high tiers of the Reformed Existence level?” One of the necromancers asked in fear.
“Our backers have an even more formidable backer. A White Dragon from the Western Continent supports the Kings of Frostaxe and Whiteland. Another Semi-Perfect Existence with a personal vendetta against the Grand Duchess.”
That confirmation alone would have been troubling. But knowing a White Dragon from the west had set its sights on his grandmother made Sokram’s blood boil.
“He is close to reaching a breakthrough and reaching the level of Perfect Existence like the Elven Empress Meriande.” Finally, the Reverend’s words restored their hopes.
“To reach that breakthrough, he might need a year or so, and that’s why we are waiting. Besides, not only our Pope, but all six Bishops are close to reaching Tier 10. So, along with the mercenaries, the orcs, and our forces, Norwinter will be a land of the dead when we are done with it. Isn’t it worth your patience and obedience?” The Reverend asked, but his eyes were glued on Raven.
Raven understood what was required of him. “Yes, Lord Reverend, thank you for answering our questions. For the name of Macal the Death Lord!”
“For the name of Macal, the Death Lord!” the crowd shouted in unison, while Sokram cringed in his hiding place. ‘Damn fanatics!’ Sokram's thoughts were filled with disgust.
Sokram turned his attention back to the golems that were exploring the tunnel.
They had been traveling through it all this time, and the mana consumption was starting to weigh on Sokram, so he told them to stop.
Maintaining the link now felt like holding five iron weights at arm’s length. His brain began to throb as the strain deepened by the second. A dull throb pulsed behind Sokram's temples, intensifying with every meter the golems traveled away from him.
Yet, Sokram could still feel the connection with his needle thanks to the mind link he shared with the golems. He couldn’t teleport to where they were, but he could still send items to them.
A risky plan began to take shape in his mind.
Using the golem that stayed in the underground city, Sokram began counting the pillars of sustenance of that underground city. There were forty of those.
Sokram’s golem approached them, and although they were extremely well-warded, they weren’t being guarded.
Sokram looked inside his Void Gloves and found he had enough moonstones and blood-ink to bring his plan to life.
He only needed a way in.
That’s when movement caught his eye. A lone necromancer was ascending the stairs.
A wicked smile curled Sokram’s lips, even more so now that he knew no one there had a cultivation higher than the Reformed Existence level. And as he gauged the man's strength, all he saw was a weak, unsuspecting, and solitary mage.
'Perfect!'
Their low level of cultivation wasn’t surprising.
Despite the women in his family having reached high levels so fast, that was only because of Chaos Energy, his Cultivation Boosters, and Runic Energy Gathering Formations.
The rest of his world, except for the greatest empires and organizations, continued walking at a turtle’s pace when it came to cultivation.
Meriande and the other Perfect Existences were all more than ten thousand years old, and they were stuck in the same Level of Existence for millennia.
Sokram considered all of the information he gathered and checked his resources, especially his Runic Blood Tattoos.
Then he waited for the lazy Necromancer to reach the top of the stairs.
As soon as the Necromancer stepped outside, Sokram moved faster than a blinking eye.
A hand clamped over the Necromancer's mouth, silencing his scream, as shadows engulfed them both.
One moment, the stairs' entrance was occupied; the next, they were empty, leaving only a faint swirl of dust.
Sokram didn’t kill him immediately, but placed him in an illusion to probe his Mana Heart for any active tracking spells.
He didn’t find any active spell links being sustained, which meant that Necromancer had not summoned any of his undead and was not being monitored.
Sokram stripped him of his robes, mask, and spatial rings. He had also found a necklace on him.
After a few seconds of studying it, he could see it was a token, and thankfully, it wasn’t linked to his Mana Heart either.
These necromancers didn’t seem too worried about safety measures. But judging from what happened to Eversnow in both the first and second wars in his previous timeline, it wasn’t strange.
The common belief was that Eversnow was no longer a powerful city.
And before Sokram erased that timeline, it truly wasn’t.
Sokram donned the necklace, robes, and mask.
The robes were heavy and smelled faintly of grave mold. The mask was cold against Sokram's skin, limiting his peripheral vision but perfectly hiding his identity behind the visage of a grinning goblin.
He gave the Necromancer a quick death before his lightning-coated hand pierced through flesh and ribcage with wet resistance.
In jerky motion, his steady hands reached into the warm chest cavity and extracted the still pulsating, mana-crystalized heart.
Sokram took out a moonstone and drew a rune using the Necromancer's blood.
The blood rune flared crimson until it darkened to a deep purple as wisps of black death energy, along with the blue wisps of mana, spiraled out of the Mana Heart, sucked greedily into the moonstone until the heart turned grey and crumbled to dust.
Sokram tied the runestone on a cord and wore it around his neck. Then he went through the rings he found on the Necromancer.
There was gold, some spell books, which he gave a quick read-through, just in case he needed to summon an undead, but then he found the only thing a necromancer would never lose: his gravestone.
A stone linked to a sub-dimension where the necromancers stored their undead.
Overwriting the link with the stone was easy since the Necromancer was dead.
He used the death energy on the runestone to feed the undead in the gravestone, but he would only keep them while he needed them.
Finally, he found something that would make his infiltration a lot easier: diaries.
‘Funny, a necromancer keeping diaries, haha,’ Sokram thought while going through them.
Basically, what Sokram learned was that the Necromancer he just killed wasn’t the weakest but was far from being the strongest.
He was a Deacon called Goblin Raiser, and he kept his head low, doing what he must. Even better was the fact that Sokram and the Goblin Raiser had similar body measures.
‘Fate must be helping me, hm?’ Sokram thought as he realized all his luck wasn’t merely luck.
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