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

The lightning faded behind him, its echo leaving only the steady buzz of residual energy across Damien's skin. Every nerve was still alive with static, but his breath came steady now, and his legs no longer wavered. His muscles had learned to absorb the current, to ground and release it, and as he reached the final step of the lightning trial, the three-hundredth, his necromantic core surged in quiet triumph.

He did not look back.

He looked up.

And the path still stretched endlessly onward.

Step by step, Damien advanced, his progress methodical but far from slow. He allowed every elemental trial to speak to him. Wind at the four hundredth step tore at his balance and whispered lessons in adaptability. Earth from five hundred to six hundred did not crush him, but taught him how to root his stance in resolve. Iron challenged his physical resilience, forcing his refined silver-grade body to flex and anchor with mechanical precision. Wood, gentle in appearance, was deceptive—it seduced the soul into rest and required sharp spiritual clarity to resist.

He studied them all. He did not rush. He learned.

And slowly, as the air grew colder and the light thinner, he reached the steps above seven hundred.

Far above, figures were visible, clustered at one point in the sky like birds trapped on a wire.

Damien narrowed his eyes and saw them.

Nyxara. Vathrian. Sylea. Thalvia. The remaining two drow, Furion and Herel. And Lyrisa.

They had reached the eight-hundredth step.

And they had stopped.

Damien took the last step of the seven-hundreds, and as he did, he tasted it.

The world shifted.

The air changed. It grew dry, not like sun-scorched sand, but like a tomb long sealed. The light dimmed, the colors bled into monotone. Sound dulled, as if the stairway itself had muffled the space ahead.

He took one more step forward and stopped beside them.

The others turned toward him, visibly surprised by his sudden appearance. Nyxara raised an eyebrow, unreadable as always, while Vathrian's expression twisted into a scowl.

"You finally made it," Lyrisa said with a grin, though her voice held a trace of tension.

Damien's gaze was already fixed on the step ahead. "What's the hold-up?" he asked calmly.

"See for yourself," Sylea muttered. "Just take one step forward."

Damien did.

The moment his foot touched the eight-hundredth step, the oppressive aura that had halted the others vanished completely around him. The air turned still, quiet, and cold—but it was no threat. It was familiar.

"What is it?" Lyrisa asked softly, her eyes narrowing. "Death energy?"

"Death energy," Damien confirmed with a nod. "Pure. Unfiltered."

Lyrisa tilted her head, a slow smile tugging at her lips. "You look rather at home in it."

"I am," Damien replied. "But only those attuned to death can say the same."

Behind them, the rest of the drow remained several paces back. Their faces were pale, their breathing uneven, some wore expressions of frustration, others fear. None dared take another step forward.

After a long silence, Nyxara finally spoke, her voice low but resolute. "If we want to proceed, we'll need your help."

Damien turned his head slightly, raising an eyebrow. "You expect me to carry six of you?"

"I don't expect you to carry anyone," Vathrian snapped. "We just need shielding—"

Damien ignored him and looked to Nyxara.

"Why?" he asked. "Why should I help anyone other than her?"

He gestured at Lyrisa, who gave a cheeky shrug and slipped her hand around his arm as if she had been waiting for that cue.

Nyxara was quiet for a moment, then stepped forward, her tone low, controlled, but serious.

"The stairs are not the end." she said. "It is only the beginning of the final arc."

"You're speaking in riddles."

"There is a final challenge." she explained quietly. "Not here, but in other places. JerAxle did not leave a single legacy. He left many. Fragments of his inheritance are scattered across races, worlds, and planes. But the final convergence point is shared. At the summit, all paths will meet. There will be others, non-drow, other races, other successors. If we reach the final challenge fragmented, alone, we'll be annihilated."

Damien studied her carefully.

"The next trial won't be personal. It will be a war. A competition for fate."

"And you need a complete team." Damien murmured. "As many pieces as possible to play the board."

"Exactly," Nyxara replied.

Damien considered it. The stairs whispered their silence again. His death energy pulsed calmly inside his chest, not objecting.

"Fine," he said at last.

He raised his hand, and with a slow motion, he unfurled his aura.

It did not burst outward. It did not roar.

It slid over the steps like a creeping mist, cool and precise. The death energy wove around each of the drow, coiling lightly at their ankles, their wrists, around their temples. It did not touch their cores. It did not invade their senses. It simply shielded them from the direct pulse of JerAxle's death field.

They felt the change instantly.

Vathrian gasped as the pressure vanished. Thalvia straightened. Sylea breathed deeply. Nyxara nodded once in quiet appreciation.

"Stay close," Damien said. "If you stray from my pace, I'll leave you behind."

They nodded, and together, the eight of them resumed the climb.

Every step felt like walking through a graveyard where the air remembered every soul that had passed. Their boots made no sound. Their hearts beat slower. Even thought itself seemed to stretch, slowed down by the pressure of death that Damien absorbed on their behalf.

At the eight-hundred tenth step, something changed.

Nyxara paused. Her eyes sharpened. She tilted her head slightly and whispered, more to herself than anyone else, "The answer was there all along…"

She took a breath. And then, with no warning, she stepped out of Damien's aura.

The death pressure hit her instantly.

But she did not flinch.

Instead, her body shone faintly. Her previous trials—earth, wind, wood, iron, lightning—all rose within her aura. She didn't block the death energy. She balanced it, layered it, dispersed it through the foundation she had built with her earlier steps.

She surged ahead.

One step. Then three. Then ten. She vanished into the grey distance, her figure straight and proud.

The others stared in shock.

Then the realization hit them like thunder.

If she could do it, so could they.

They began testing it in fragments. Thalvia condensed her iron body to absorb fragments of the pulse. Sylea used wind-infused agility to slip between pressure waves. Even Vathrian, begrudgingly, combined his darkness affinity with temporal slowing to blunt the death resonance.

By the eight-hundred twentieth step, they were gone.

Only Lyrisa remained.

She looked up at Damien, who had stopped walking. He turned toward her, waiting.

"Well?" he asked.

She tightened her grip on his arm and smiled, playful and warm.

"You really think I'm going to leave you alone up here?"

And together, as though on a stroll rather than ascending through the domain of death itself, they continued to climb. The silence around them was no longer oppressive. It was quiet company. The kind that only two who understood death could enjoy. The cold wrapped around them like a cloak. The pale light above shimmered like ghostly fire.

And the final climb toward the end of the stairway began.