CHAPTER 61: DONE RESTING
"Damn it... What am I missing?" John muttered into the silent darkness of his own mind.
For four straight days, he had been trapped in the abyss of his own consciousness, trying to unravel the fundamental mechanics of the magic Princess Raven had tried to teach him.
He replayed her first lesson over and over in his head. Raven had laid out the blueprint of her family's Necromancy very clearly.
First, to command the dead, one had to sense the soul aspect of others—which meant first mastering the ability to sense the mind and spirit.
But before someone could ever hope to perceive another's soul, they had to look inward and sense their own soul first.
The second step was where things became tricky.
A necromancer had to isolate an infinitesimal portion of their own soul.
That isolated fragment acted as an anchor to bind the soul of the deceased, allowing the dead to remain in the living world. That tiny piece of the user's soul served as collateral—a sacrifice offered directly to Thanatos, the God of Death—should the summoned undead ever suffer total soul annihilation.
It was a delicate art. The reason death affinity was so strictly required was that without it—or another soul-related attribute—an awakener had to reach at least Stage 7 and become a sovereign just to perceive a soul.
And even if a Stage 7 sovereign somehow managed to sense a soul, resurrecting it and forging a pact with the God of Death was utterly impossible without death affinity.
Even then, Thanatos fundamentally hated the practice. Only Raven's royal bloodline possessed his divine blessing to perform the ritual. Anyone else who dared to manipulate souls without the God of Death's favor faced a fate far worse than death the moment their earthly body perished.
John had no interest in raising a traditional army of the dead, nor did he possess a death affinity. His goal was different.
He wanted to create empty, artificial constructs out of his own elemental affinities—constructs that would act as remote energy releasers, extensions of his own power, anchored directly to him through his soul.
He didn't have Thanatos's blessing, but he had something else: he had actually died.
Deep within his subconscious, John could still faintly recall the cold, terrifying state of absolute non-existence in the void before Jynx pulled him out.
By attempting to recreate that exact feeling of dying, he had accidentally triggered a state of total enlightenment, successfully piercing the veil and sensing his own soul.
Yet, despite that monumental breakthrough, he was completely stuck on the next step.
Every single time he tried to take an isolated fragment of his soul and anchor it to an artificial construct he conjured in his mind, the construct simply dissolved. Abyss, Void, lightning—no matter what affinity he shaped it with, the moment he tried to attach his soul fragment, the construct collapsed into nothingness.
Then, after endless hours of trial and error, the brutal realization finally hit him.
Without a soul to give it form and order, a body could not exist. No matter how much energy or soul fragment he poured into an empty construct, without a true soul acting as a foundation, the vessel would always dissolve.
He needed a soul to support the body.
"Which means if I want this to work... I have to use real souls," John thought, the cold reality sinking in.
"And if I use real souls without death affinity or Thanatos's blessing, I'll draw the wrath of the God of Death."
John sat in the quiet dark of his mind for a long time, weighing the horrifying consequences. The thought of incurring the wrath of an ancient deity of death was enough to make any sane man turn back.
Slowly, John opened his eyes. The dim light of the suite washed over him as he let out a long, ragged exhale, his gaze hardening into something dark and resolute.
I'm already living on borrowed time, John thought, a bitter, vicious smirk touching his lips.
My physique is slowly driving me insane, and I am being hunted by the Obsidian Covenant, who want me dead... It's safe to say I am already screwed.
And finally, after the fourth day of experimentation, he opened his eyes.
He uncrossed his legs and stood up, his joints popping after four days of total immobility.
"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it," John whispered to the empty room. "If Thanatos wants my soul, he's going to have to line up behind everyone else."
He had made his decision. He was going to use the soul of a dead being…Thanatos can go fuck himself.
John opened the heavy wooden door of his suite and stepped into the hallway.
As the door swung open, he almost tripped over a small figure sitting right on the floor outside. It was the Bestiar girl, curled up right beside the doorway like a faithful guard dog.
John paused, looking down at her in surprise. She had been completely cleaned up during his four days of immobility.
The filthy, blood-stained rags that were practically no different from being naked had been replaced with clean, properly fitted clothes—a simple white linen shirt and dark trousers.
Someone had washed her wild, tangled, filthy hair and combed it back, revealing her delicate features.
She looked up at him, her face completely expressionless, yet her tail was wagging back and forth against the carpeted floor in a steady, rhythmic thumping.
John's gaze shifted downward, noticing the heavy metal collar still clamped tightly around her neck.
He knelt down, extending his hand to inspect the lock, trying to pry it open or find a keyhole, but the enchanted metal refused to budge under his fingers.
He gave up for the moment and stood back up.
"Stand up," John said quietly.
Without a moment's hesitation, the girl scrambled to her feet, standing obediently by his side, her tail still wagging softly.
John turned and began walking down the corridor, the girl trailing half a step behind him like a shadow.
He needed to find Governor McGraw to get a full update on what had happened over the last four days, check on the status of the Merchant Guild, and figure out how to get this slave collar off the girl's neck.
Spotting a manor maid carrying a stack of fresh linens down the hall, John called out to her. "Where is Governor McGraw?"
The maid stopped, bowing nervously. "The Governor is in his main office, sir."
John nodded and headed straight down the grand staircase toward the office wing. He pushed open the double doors without knocking, expecting to find McGraw swamped with paperwork or pacing the room in stress.
Instead, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Princess Raven was sitting comfortably in McGraw's oversized leather desk chair, resting her chin on her hand with an air of absolute, casual dominance.
Governor McGraw was standing off to the side like a glorified personal assistant, holding a stack of official documents and looking thoroughly exhausted.
The moment the doors opened, both of them snapped their heads toward John.
McGraw's face lit up instantly. He looked at John as if he had just seen his savior descending from the heavens.
John leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms as his eyes darted between the two of them.
"What the hell happened here?" John asked dryly.