The Grand Ballroom had become a slaughterhouse.
"Kill the vessel! Tear her apart!" High Priest Malek commanded from his floating perch.
Three hundred zombies—former guards, nobles, and waiters—shuffled forward with unnatural speed. Their eyes glowed green, their limbs jerking like marionettes. Mixed in with the horde were the Chimeras, using the undead as meat shields to close the distance.
Seraphina stood in the center of the carnage, her back to Kael.
"I can't use my full power," she gritted out, frost forming on her eyelashes. "If I unleash a Glacial Age here, I'll kill the survivors hiding under the tables."
"Then don't aim wide," Kael said, cracking his neck. "Aim for me."
"What?"
"Freeze them. I'll shatter them."
A Chimera leaped over a table, roaring.
[Skill: Glacial Wall]
Seraphina stomped her heel. A jagged pillar of ice erupted from the floor, impaling the Chimera mid-air. It screamed, thrashing.
Kael moved.
[Shadow Step]
He appeared on top of the ice pillar. He didn't stab the monster. He grabbed its face.
"Thanks for the meal."
[Recycle.]
ZZZT.
The Chimera dissolved into particles of light. The massive beast didn't leave a corpse; it didn't leave blood. It just ceased to exist.
[+150 System Points]
Kael jumped down, landing in the middle of a pack of zombies.
They clawed at him. He ducked, weaved, and danced through their rot. Every time his hand brushed a shoulder, a head, or an arm, the target vanished.
Touch. Dust. Touch. Dust.
[+20 SP]
[+20 SP]
[+20 SP]
It wasn't a fight. It was an erasure.
"He... he's making them disappear!" a terrified noble screamed from beneath a tablecloth.
High Priest Malek watched from above, his bone mask hiding his confusion. Necromancy relied on bodies. If the bodies were destroyed, he couldn't raise them again.
"What sort of magic is that?" Malek hissed. "Holy Magic? No... it feels like a void."
He pointed his staff at Kael.
"Focus on the male! Blow him up!"
Malek activated [Corpse Bomb].
The zombies surrounding Kael suddenly bloated, their skin glowing bright red. They were about to detonate like biological grenades.
"Kael!" Seraphina screamed, raising a shield.
Kael didn't run. He smiled.
"Area Recycle."
He slammed both palms onto the marble floor.
WHOOOOOM.
A violet dome expanded five meters around him.
The bloated zombies didn't explode. The mana building up inside them was sucked out instantly, pulled into the vacuum of Kael's system. They deflated like sad balloons and then crumbled into ash.
[Critical Absorption!]
[Mana Restored: 100%]
[+500 SP]
Kael stood up in the center of a perfect, clean circle. He looked up at Malek and dusted off his tuxedo.
"Is that the best you got, bone-face?" Kael shouted. "I've cleaned toilets scarier than you."
Malek's aura flared with rage. The room shook.
"Arrogant insect! You think you can mock a Disciple of the Abyss?"
Malek slammed his staff down.
From the shadows of the stage, four massive shapes emerged. They weren't zombies. They were Death Knights—armored warriors nearly seven feet tall, wielding greatswords wreathed in green flame.
[Elite Enemy Detected]
[Target: Death Knight (Rank B+)]
[Count: 4]
"Tear his limbs off," Malek ordered.
The Death Knights charged. They were fast—faster than Kael.
"Seraphina!" Kael yelled.
"On it!"
The Empress raised her hands.
[Diamond Dust]
The air temperature dropped to absolute zero in a split second. The moisture in the air froze, creating a dense fog of microscopic ice crystals.
The Death Knights slowed down, their armor creaking as ice formed in their joints. Their green flames sputtered.
It bought Kael exactly two seconds.
He didn't attack the Knights. He attacked the floor.
[Chain-Blade: Deploy]
He fired his grapple at a chandelier above the Knights, retracted it, and launched himself into the air. He swung over their heads.
"You missed!" Malek laughed.
"Did I?"
Kael severed the chain of the chandelier.
The massive crystal fixture, weighing half a ton, crashed down on top of two of the Knights, pinning them to the ground.
Before they could push it off, Seraphina blasted the pile with [Flash Freeze], encasing the Knights and the chandelier in a block of solid ice.
"Recycle that!" Seraphina shouted, a fierce grin on her face.
Kael landed on the ice block.
"With pleasure."
He placed his hand on the ice.
[Target: Frozen Death Knights]
[Recycle.]
CRACK. SHATTER.
The ice block exploded inward. The armor, the flesh, and the souls of the Knights were consumed.
[+1,000 SP]
Only two Knights remained. They faltered, their primitive AI confused by the sudden disappearance of their comrades.
Kael looked at his SP total.
[Current System Points: 4,200]
He was getting richer by the second.
"This is fun," Kael admitted, panting slightly. He turned to Seraphina. "How are you holding up?"
"The necklace is getting hot," Seraphina said, touching the [Silent Night]. "Malek is trying to brute-force a mental attack."
"Then we end this now."
Kael looked at the S-Rank Necromancer floating above the stage.
"Malek!" Kael stepped forward, his voice amplified by his mana. "You trapped us in here with a Void Lock, right? No one leaves?"
"Correct," Malek sneered, gathering a massive ball of necrotic energy. "You will die in this cage."
Kael reached into his inventory.
He pulled out the [Necrotic Golem Core] (the one he saved from the dungeon) and the [Basilisk Poison Sac] (half-full).
"System," Kael whispered. "Instant Fusion."
[Warning: Unstable reaction predicted.]
[Fuse "Necrotic Core" + "Basilisk Poison"?]
"Do it."
The items in his hand merged, glowing with a sickly, pulsating purple-green light. It looked like a beating heart made of toxic waste.
[Item Created: "The Plague Heart (Unstable)"]
[Effect: Upon impact, releases a necrotic shockwave that destabilizes all mana constructs in a 50-meter radius.]
Kael weighed the bomb in his hand.
"Hey, Malek!"
The Necromancer paused. "Any last words?"
"Yeah," Kael pulled his arm back, aiming not at Malek, but at the glowing runic anchor point of the Void Lock barrier behind him. "Catch."
He threw it.
With Strength 50+, the Plague Heart flew like a cannonball.
Malek realized too late what Kael was aiming at.
"NO! THE BARRIER!"
SPLAT.
The bomb hit the barrier anchor.
BOOOOOOOM.
A shockwave of toxic green energy rippled through the room. It didn't kill people; it killed magic.
The Void Lock shattered like glass.
The zombies instantly collapsed, their animating magic disrupted.
Malek fell from the air, his flight spell cancelled, crashing onto the stage.
The barrier was down.
"Alfred!" Kael screamed into his comms. "NOW!"
CRASH!
The wall of the ballroom exploded inward as the Frostfall limousine—reinforced like a tank—rammed through the brick and mortar, drifting across the dance floor and crushing a table of hors d'oeuvres.
The back door flew open.
"Your carriage awaits, Madame!" Alfred shouted from the driver's seat, holding a shotgun.
Kael grabbed Seraphina.
"Get in!"
"We're running?" Seraphina asked, stunned.
"We broke the trap. We humiliated the Cult. Now we leave before the S-Rank wakes up and gets serious."
He shoved her into the car and dove in after her.
"Drive, Alfred! Drive like you stole it!"
The limo screeched, tires smoking, and sped back out through the hole in the wall, leaving behind a ruined banquet, a confused Necromancer, and a legend that would terrify the underworld for years to come.