Chapter 149: Undead Wyverns
The skeletons moved like trained knights. Not clumsy or sluggish, but elegant and uniform.
One by one, wolves were cut down.
Silver blades flashed with intermediate sword aura, striking with terrifying precision. Raven's eyes widened upon witnessing such a scene.
Among them, a leading skeleton with red eyes raised a sword bathed in an advanced red aura and charged forward like a commander of the dead.
'Intermediate Sword Aura? And… that one…' Raven's eyes squinted.
He knew the leading undead skeleton was completely different.
The lead skeleton cut the Rank-2 Wolf clean in half with a diagonal slash. Blood sprayed the bones of his shin guards. The rest of the wolves retreated instantly, yelping in fear.
It was a pure slaughter.
Soon, the skeletons returned to formation—two straight rows—allowing Raven and Jovie to walk through them like royals through a procession.
But Raven noticed something unusual. Some skeleton knights nudged the ones, some turned their heads to the nearby undead skeletons and seemed to be saying something, and one undead skeleton even scratched its skull!
"Are they… aware?" Raven asked, unsettled by their actions. As far as he knew, the undead mostly act on instinct or through the control of a necromancer. When he battled against Jared, all the undead he controlled acted like machines and were controlled.
But what he saw defied common sense. Those undead also didn't use any sword aura or skills and battled only with pure strength.
These undead acted more like how a human would!
"They retain some of their memories," Jovie replied without turning her head. "Not emotions. But all they have are instincts, reflexes, and battle experience they honed through the years, discipline, etc."
Raven stared at their glowing chests. "I thought undead couldn't move without a soul."
"They can't," Jovie said, eyes still fixed on the battlefield. "A necromancer captures a soul, but most lose their will to resist. They become puppets and only respond to commands."
"But… these?"
"These are different." Jovie smiled faintly. "Because my understanding of the Death Law is very high."
She stopped before the half-eaten corpse of a wyvern, its eyes hollow, its organs missing.
"Necromancy isn't easy. Even a Rank-3 Necromancer can't perfectly connect a soul to its body. It'll resist if the soul's rank doesn't match the body. Or worse—destroy itself. That's called a soul-body mismatch."
Raven frowned. "So you match the soul to the original corpse?"
"Yes. Or… I shape the body to match the soul. It's risky, so most necromancers never attempt it."
She raised a finger, and at once a skeleton strode forward, bowing like a knight before his queen.
"More importantly," Jovie said, "if your understanding of death is too shallow, the undead will only follow simple orders: walk, attack, stop. But if your understanding is deep…"
She turned toward Raven. The moonlight reflected off her cold blue eyes.
"…you can speak to them. Command them. Let them think on their own. If they get enough awareness and retain their memories, the undead will further evolve and become skeletons capable of commanding an army. They can use skills, sword aura, even magic."
"Like these guys?" Raven asked while glancing at both sides.
Jovie nodded and continued.
"This method has both plus and minus. If an undead managed to recall its memories and has unfulfilled desire or resentment, it will try to resist and chase after its desire. If the necromancer is weak, the soul enslavement may break, and the undead becomes a rogue undead. But if the necromancer resolved its problem, the undead would become completely loyal and serve under him for eternity."
Raven stared at the undead knights.
One of them turned his head slightly and seemed to nod at him.
"Let me finish my job first," Jovie said as she touched the wyvern's corpse and started reciting a strange incantation in nether tongue.
The wyvern's corpse twitched.
A moment later, a dark-red magic circle flared to life beneath its charred remains, its glow pulsing like a heartbeat soaked in blood. Ancient symbols whirled and twisted around its perimeter, resonating with a guttural hum that pressed against Raven's chest like a war drum.
Jovie knelt beside the corpse, her expression calm and cold. She produced a fist-sized black crystal from within her robe, its surface veined with flickers of crimson lightning.
She placed it gently near the wyvern's chest.
A low growl rumbled through the air, not from the corpse, but from above it.
Raven's breath hitched.
A ghostly form of the wyvern, foggy and translucent, emerged above the corpse. Its spectral wings unfurled, vast and majestic, eyes burning with resistance and confusion.
Then came the chains—glowing reddish-black, jagged and ethereal—snapping upward from the magic circle like vipers.
They wrapped around the wyvern's soul.
The beast roared silently, struggling against the chains, its form rippling and cracking like unstable mist. But the magic held firm. Inch by inch, the soul was dragged downward, its fury dimming into desperation.
And then—compliance.
The ghost melted into the corpse.
Jovie's incantation also ceased.
"If I had tried to bind its soul to another wyvern's body," she explained, her voice soft and clinical, "it would have fought until the end. But this—" she gestured to the corpse "—was its original vessel. The soul recognizes the corpse and accepts it."
Suddenly, blue fire erupted from the wyvern's body.
Not from outside, but within.
The rotted flesh ignited, peeling away in flakes. The burning didn't consume the wyvern, but it purified it. In moments, all that remained was a gleaming wyvern skeleton, towering and majestic, veins of faint blue fire coursing through its bones.
Raven also noticed strange words were engraved on the bones, which looked eerie and mysterious.
Its hollow eyes glowed like twin sapphires in the dark.
Then, with deliberate grace, it lowered its head to Jovie, like a knight swearing fealty.
Raven's heart raced.
She didn't stop there.
Wordlessly, Jovie moved to the next wyvern corpse. Once again, the red circle ignited, the soul emerged, the chains bound, and the corpse was consumed by holy-blue flame.
One by one, she repeated the ritual. Each time, the soul fought a little less.
Within thirty minutes, five skeletal wyverns stood before her.
Their bones gleamed like polished ivory, eyes aflame, tails swaying behind them like waiting hounds. They moved with terrifying discipline—not like puppets, but like trained war-beasts awaiting command.
Raven watched in breathless awe.
[That's how strong a necromancer is,] Zera murmured in his mind.
Jovie closed her eyes and raised her hands. Crimson magic circles reappeared beneath the wyverns and the surrounding skeletal knights.
A pulse of red light enveloped them—then they vanished.
Gone.
As though they had never existed.
Jovie dusted her gloves, turned, and began walking toward the camp.
"Let's go back."
Raven silently fell into step behind her, still absorbing what he had witnessed.
Halfway through the return, Jovie spoke, pride lacing her voice. "A necromancer's strength lies not in spells or incantations... but in the power and quality of the undead they command. Though weaker than when alive, these wyverns are still powerful enough to threaten an Expert Knight."
She paused to glance at him with a smirk. "I could take down a Rank-3 magical beast alone with five."
Raven blinked. "Even though they've lost their flesh?"
"They've lost weight, not power," she said. "But they're faster now. They don't feel pain. They don't tire. And more importantly... they're loyal than any knight."
She continued without waiting for his reply.
"I could've animated dozens of lesser undead, but I prefer quality over quantity. Strong souls, bones, and proper soul-body alignment—only then do you get true monsters."
They passed under the night canopy in silence.
Crickets chirped. The wind had stilled.
"Doesn't it cost you?" Raven finally asked. "To maintain them?"
Jovie's steps didn't slow. "Only when summoned. While dormant, they rest in a sealed pocket dimension of mine, waiting for my call. That's what the Soul Anchor Crystal is for." She tapped the black gem on her necklace. "A soul-binding artifact of my design."
Minutes later, the protective dome of the campsite came into view—a translucent shimmer over the forest clearing.
They entered without resistance. The runes sensed Jovie and allowed her passage.
Lanterns flickered. The wounded still groaned. The air had grown damp with nightfall.
Inside the camp, nothing had changed. But Raven had a completely different perspective.
He now knew what true necromancy looked like—not the clumsy, sluggish corpses of amateurs he had seen when battling the undead in Azmar, but the elite, terrifying might of a true death mage.
Inside their modest tent, the two sat once more.
Raven reclined onto his cot, fatigue dragging at his limbs.
And yet... he couldn't sleep.
His mind replayed the wyverns rising, one by one.
…