NOVEL NEXT Chapter 167: Death Mist
Grief.
Damien was no stranger to grief.
He had lived in it. Breathed it. Slept beside it since the day he was cast out of his family.
Since the first time a hand reached out to him with warmth, only to twist the knife deeper once he let his guard down.
He had been betrayed. Forgotten.
Called a waste. A failure. A mistake.
And he had survived it all.
He thought he had mastered grief.
Conquered it.
Locked it away somewhere deep where it couldn't touch him anymore.
But as Jiang Xiao Yu's body grew still in her mother's arms, as her final breath faded into the air, as her blood soaked into her uniform and the warmth left her skin…
Something inside him broke.
Not slowly. Not gently.
It shattered.
A scream tore through him, not with sound, but with mana.
Black, blinding death mana surged from his core, erupting like a geyser into the room. The brazier's fire blew out instantly, snuffed like a candle in a storm. Shadows expanded across the floor, crawling up the walls like tendrils.
The entire mess hall darkened.
Chairs overturned.
Glass cracked.
The temperature dropped ten degrees in a breath.
Everyone in the room instinctively recoiled.
President Jiang didn't move, she was too deep in her sorrow, cradling her daughter's corpse, but the others stepped back in fear as the surge pressed against their lungs, against their souls.
Damien rose slowly.
His eyes had changed.
The soft black had deepened to bottomless void, flickering faintly with violet threads. His aura was no longer restrained. It wrapped around him like a cloak made of cold fire, ancient and alien, oppressive and boundless.
His grief didn't come in tears.
It came as silence.
As a pressure so heavy it made the floor tremble.
"If only I was stronger… If only I had more undead summons… If only…" Regret flooded Damien's heart.
If only he had embraced being a Necromancer instead of silently rejecting the idea and focusing on his fighting prowess.
Then maybe… Maybe…
Then he stood, straightened, and raised his hand.
"I won't stop this time," he whispered. "Not until the entire beast tide is torn apart. Not until the European Empire, every last one of them, are ash beneath my feet."
The death mana responded. It howled around him in silent recognition.
Something ancient stirred.
The barrier in his soul, the last tether to restraint, was gone.
He was no longer resisting what he was.
He was becoming it.
The room remained still, heavy with fear, sorrow, and awe. No one dared speak.
And Damien Bloodbane, the monster whispered about in the wake of Blackthorn, stepped fully into the path he had been born for.
Not as a student.
Not as a super soldier.
But as the true Sovereign of Death.
Death Necromancer.
Even the system recognized his massive shift in mindset and attitude.
[Sovereign of Death awakened]
[Accelerating formation of Necromantic Core]
[Devouring Death Energy]
Damien closed his eyes as a rush of data and dark energy surged through his veins. His core pulsed like a heart reborn, threading together fragmented mana pathways into something colder, sharper, and vastly more dangerous.
The grief was still there. But now it had form.
Now it had purpose.
He turned toward the others in the room. The fire had been rekindled, but it flickered weakly in the face of the presence Damien now carried. Elly and Fatty stood near the doorway, watching him. Fatty's usual round face was solemn, his jaw tight. Elly's white scarf fluttered faintly in the low wind that trailed behind Damien as if pulled toward him.
Damien's gaze lingered on them. The time they'd spent together hadn't been long, but somehow, it had mattered. He had grown used to their presence—Fatty's constant chatter, Elly's sharp wit. And with Jiang Xiao Yu… there had been something more.
But she was gone now.
And if he wasn't strong enough, the others might follow.
He couldn't let that happen.
At that moment, a memory surfaced in his mind. Distant, buried deep within the forbidden sections of the Living Library was a holy incantation, ancient and absolute. It was a spell of true resurrection of the highest tier.
Unlike the undead reanimation Damien had mastered, this was something purer. It returned the soul to its body, restored the life thread in full.
But it was something only the strongest Life Mages could cast, and it came with a condition: the target's shattered life core had to be preserved.
Damien exhaled quietly.
He raised one hand, and with delicate precision, summoned the broken fragments of Jiang Xiao Yu's mana core. They shimmered faintly, like pieces of starlight, fragile and irreplaceable. He drew them into himself, embedding them within his own mana core, cradling them in layers of protective death and time mana.
He said nothing to the others.
But the promise had been made.
And one day, when the time was right, he would bring her back, not as an echo, not as a shadow, but truly.
Without another word, he turned and walked out into the night, shadows curling at his feet like they already knew he belonged to them.
Only the wind, the ash, and the weight of death moved with him.
The world outside Pearl was soaked in death energy.
Millions upon millions of beasts and humans alike had perished across the continent. Their blood still stained the land. Their mana still lingered in the air. It was the perfect environment for a necromancer to grow. A field of ruin and despair waiting to be harvested.
He walked the charred plains alone. Death mana rose from the earth in thick black strands, curling up his arms like serpents drawn to something familiar…
Something rightful.
The ground beneath his boots was cracked and scorched from days of relentless battle. Blood had seeped into the soil, human, beast, mage, soldier alike. It had soaked the roots, tainted the wind, and colored the very sky.
Where others would feel grief, or horror, or the haunting echoes of tragedy…
Damien felt power.
It was everywhere.
Death energy.
Thick. Heavy. Ancient.
It rose from the land like mist from a battlefield, drifting toward him in silent reverence.
They moved towards him slowly.
Wisps of black curled around his ankles, then up his arms, clinging like vines drawn to something familiar. He didn't resist.
He opened himself to it.
And the world responded.
The moment he allowed the energy in, his core ignited.
It pulled the death energy into itself hungrily, devouring every particle, every lingering scream of the fallen that hung in the shattered air.
The fragmented mana streams of the dead were absorbed, refined, and compressed deep within the growing vortex of Damien's evolving necromantic core.
His eyes burned with violet light. His skin thrummed with unholy rhythm.
The Sovereign of Death was not just a title.
It was a hunger.
A truth.
A natural order.
And he was claiming his due.
The very earth responded to him. The bones buried beneath the battlefield twitched. Shadows deepened at his feet. Small, dead creatures, birds, rats, insects, rose silently around him before dissolving into black dust, feeding the storm of death gathering at his back.
The death energy mist flowed faster towards him.