No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

The word did not echo. It didn't need to.

It commanded. It unlocked.

And the first level answered.

The three undead beast generals convulsed violently as their souls began to fall.

Dragged downward by invisible chains through the first gate of the Ninefold Abyss.

Black light exploded from their chests, spiraling upward in jagged pillars of flame-wreathed shadow.

Waves of death energy rolled out in pulses, devouring both the dead and undead nearby.

It was a violent manifestation of the first circle of hell where beasts turned into demons and horrors of unimaginable power.

The first circle of hell, Vel'khara.

The Realm of Remnants.

A wasteland carved from silence and ash, where the souls of forgotten beasts roam the ruins of their extinction. The sky is always dark there, not black but hollow, and the wind carries only the sound of names long erased. Time crawls sideways. Bones bloom from the ground like flowers. Rivers run with liquefied memory.

The transformation was immediate.

Frostmourne let out a soundless roar as his form thickened, twisted, and split. His fur blackened into a coat of frost-rimed armor, jagged and shimmering with infernal ice.

Two more eyes opened along his skull—slit-pupiled and filled with voidlight. His back arched, spine extending into an iron ridge of horns and razors. Chains of frozen soul-iron wrapped around his forelegs like manacles snapped mid-prison break.

Sythrix coiled mid-air as his wings expanded, splitting and reforming into four jagged blades of bone and storm. Black lightning surged through his frame, cracking through his hollow ribcage.

His skull stretched into a long, crownlike helm, and burning glyphs from the First Hell etched themselves into his scales.

Veyraxis reared up, legs doubling in size, her carapace splitting to reveal layered void plating that throbbed with demon-tainted death energy. Spines jutted from her abdomen, glowing with toxin born from the sins of dead empires.

Her mandibles lengthened, and her eight eyes flared one by one with cruel, mathematical intent. Swarms of smaller spiders scattered from beneath her, mutated echoes of the hive that birthed her.

They were no longer mere generals.

They were Undead Demonlords.

Avatars of the First Circle, clawing their way upward from damnation to reign in unlife.

Smarter. Faster. Deadlier. Bound to Damien not by leash, but by pact.

And now, they stared across the battlefield with demonic hunger.

The beast legions paused.

Even the sky seemed to hesitate.

Damien's smile widened as he continued drifting forward, death swirling around him like a cloak stitched from screams and memories.

"Welcome," he said softly, "to the first level of hell."

The battlefield did not move. It trembled.

Frostmourne was the first to break the stillness. With a sudden crack of frost splitting through the soil, he launched forward, faster than the eye could follow. The Basilisk General, a monstrous serpent with black scales etched in ancient runes, hissed in fury. Its tongue flickered through the mist, tasting the magic.

Then Frostmourne was upon it.

Their clash sent a thunderous shockwave through the plains. Ice exploded outward, a whirlwind of frozen shards that hissed as they sliced through the air. Frostmourne slammed into the basilisk's side, his jaws tearing into its armored neck. The general screamed, a screech of magic and rage, as it unleashed a burst of freezing mana. The temperature plummeted.

Frostmourne didn't care. His soul-iron chains lashed outward, wrapping around the basilisk's body. Then he pulled. Bone cracked. Scales split. With a vicious roar, he dragged the serpent's head down and slammed his jaws shut over its skull.

There was a crunch like mountains grinding.

Then silence.

Above, the Razorwing General shrieked as Sythrix rose to meet it.

The sky crackled with black lightning as the demon-drake spun through the air, trailing arcs of corrupted storm. The Razorwing dove, wings blazing with wind and flame, its cry like a thousand razors scraping metal.

They met with a boom that cracked the heavens.

Sythrix struck first, his tail whipping around to catch the Razorwing's flank. Feathers and flesh tore free in a spray of blood and flame. The beast retaliated with a bolt of white-hot lightning that tore into Sythrix's wing, but the undead demonlord didn't flinch.

He spun midair and descended like a falling blade. His four wings ignited with stormlight, and when he struck, it was with the fury of a god.

The Razorwing screamed as its spine was torn open.

Sythrix coiled around it mid-air, crushed its wings in his coils, then bit down on its throat until the screams stopped.

Below, in the trees, Veyraxis hunted.

The Mantid Queen led a wall of clicking, whirling limbs, her scythes drenched in venom, her swarm slicing through what remained of the forest.

But Veyraxis had changed.

She crawled along the canopy like a storm of legs and toxin, her carapace cloaked in voidlight. With a screech that cracked bark, she leapt.

The Queen turned… But it was too late.

Veyraxis impaled her through the thorax with two jagged legs, then sprayed a cloud of black mist that melted a dozen mantids instantly.

The Queen struck back, cleaving one of Veyraxis' limbs with her scythe—but the demonlord only screeched louder, slammed her into the forest floor, and pinned her beneath five legs.

Her fangs descended.

The Queen shrieked as venom burned through her eyes.

In the center, the Void Ape General prepared another teleportation burst.

It vanished, and then reappeared behind Frostmourne and threw a punch laced with gravitational distortion.

Frostmourne staggered before turning.

And the ape was no longer facing a worn-down undead.

He was facing a demonlord who had tasted blood.

Frostmourne roared, the sound shaking the stars. He lunged, claws glowing with frozen hellflame, and tore the ape's arm clean off.

Before it could teleport again, chains of soul-iron slammed into its chest and pinned it to the ground. Sythrix descended like a meteor and impaled the ape through the spine.

Veyraxis joined a second later, fangs dripping, and sank them into its skull.

Silence fell.

The Four Generals of the Northern Beast King… Slain.