The dark and desolate Realm of the Dead was filled with mountains of corpses and endless seas of bones.
Three hundred kilometers to the left lay the Land of Rotting Flesh, a grotesque wasteland formed from piles of decaying bodies. All kinds of rotten corpses and shambling undead could be seen everywhere.
Five hundred kilometers to the right stood the infamous Haunted Forest, where countless vengeful spirits and wandering ghosts drifted endlessly through the gloom.
And sandwiched between the two was the vast expanse known as the Sea of Bones.
Here, the mountains were made of bones, and the land itself was made of bones. Even beneath the black streams that trickled through the ground lay countless darkened skeletons.
The bones piled here were both old and new. Some remained incredibly sturdy, while others had long been worn down by wind and sand, their surfaces yellowed and brittle to the point of fragility.
A black sun hung high above.
At the edge of the Sea of Bones below, a large group of skeleton soldiers had gathered together, seemingly resting.
Along the outer perimeter, a few skeletons even stood guard in a somewhat convincing manner.
However, the way their bone frames swayed constantly, their skulls wobbling back and forth, and their pitifully slow reactions made it impossible for anyone to feel even the slightest sense of security.
Expect them to spot an enemy?
You might as well hope the enemy rolls out of the bushes on their own.
This skeleton squad consisted of a hundred skeletons, and their leader was a Skeleton Mage.
The kind of skeletal caster capable of performing a few necromantic spells, with intelligence slightly higher than that of ordinary bones.
Beside the Skeleton Mage sat a yellowed skeleton soldier clad in broken armor, holding half of a rusted iron sword.
Most notably, this skeleton soldier had no head.
Above the broken cervical spine was nothing but empty space. Inside the ribcage, dark mist swirled, within which a faint green ghostly flame could be seen.
This was the very essence of an undead soul. As long as the ghostfire did not extinguish, even if you dismantled an undead into 108 pieces, it could still come back to life.
Morvain looked at the larger skeletons sitting around him, then glanced at the Skeleton Mage beside him in a tattered cloak, before lowering his gaze to his own small arms and legs.
He couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
Out of the hundred skeletons, the majority were first-tier skeleton cannon fodder, numbering more than seventy.
Aside from them were the rarer first-tier skeleton variants, the Skeleton Archers, numbering roughly twenty.
And then there were the second-tier skeletons sitting nearby as the Skeleton Mage's personal guards—Skeleton Guardians.
These sturdy skeleton soldiers could condense armor from bone itself, and the weapons in their hands were also formed entirely from bone.
Despite being made of bone, their attack and defense were far from weak.
After all, Skeleton Guardians were elite skeleton soldiers capable of fighting human soldiers on equal footing. They were completely different from those nameless first-tier skeletons that could be wiped out even by militia.
If these guys fought ordinary skeletons, saying one could defeat ten would actually be an understatement.
As for the leader of this squad—the Skeleton Mage—he possessed the standard third-tier strength.
To be precise, any Skeleton Mage would have third-tier power.
However, that power was somewhat inflated. In terms of actual combat ability, whether they could even defeat a second-tier Skeleton Guardian was questionable.
The reason these guys could rank among the third tier despite their rookie-level combat ability—and even gain a notorious reputation as the strongest third-tier monsters of the undead type, feared by humans—was purely because of their absurd ability.
Skeleton Resurrection Spell.
This was the signature skill every Skeleton Mage possessed. They could turn any corpse into a first-tier skeleton, using it to replenish their forces and fight for them.
In a sense, they were born leaders.
If you left a Skeleton Mage alone and, unfortunately, it discovered a graveyard, then you had better be careful.
A few months later, when you returned to that graveyard, you might be shocked to find that your ancestors were now standing on the opposite side, holding their own bones and preparing to beat you with them.
A single individual could become a disaster.
These creatures were practically miniature Undead Calamity generators.
If it weren't for the fact that they could only resurrect first-tier skeletons—and even if such weaklings gathered into a massive horde they still couldn't threaten a large town—these monsters probably wouldn't have been classified as merely third-tier beings.
After silently comparing both sides' combat strength in his mind, Morvain lowered his head and looked at his pitiful body, once again forcibly suppressing the impulse rising in his heart.
Morvain was actually a human.
At least, he used to be.
He had no idea how he ended up here. By the time he crawled out from a pile of bones, he had already turned into a Headless Horseman.
A headless horseman with no mount, no armor, and no strength—essentially the ultimate downgraded version of one.
The only thing he shared with a real Headless Horseman was that, as a counterfeit claiming the title, Morvain also had no head.
When he first woke up and realized he had no head, Morvain felt despair.
And when he lowered his gaze and discovered he had lost his other two "heads" as well, Morvain completely broke down on the spot.
If not for the unfamiliar voice that suddenly echoed in his mind when he was about to end his life, giving him a sliver of hope, Morvain's undead existence might have ended before it had even begun.
A system.
Just like others had systems, Morvain had one as well.
However, his system was somewhat special.
Other people's systems already had their abilities predetermined, simply waiting for the host to activate them.
Only his strange system actually evolved according to his own wishes.
Morvain thought that since he had finally gained a second life, he couldn't possibly remain a corporate slave like in his previous life.
So having a grand dream—like becoming a king or something—should be something the system could understand, right?
As it turned out, the system understood perfectly.
Unfortunately, it understood a little too well.
The system evolved.
From a blank system with no abilities at all, it evolved into the Skeleton Lord System.
[Name: Skeleton Lord System]
[Energy: 947]
[Ability: Consume energy to strengthen undead creatures. Upgrading from first tier to second tier requires 10 energy. Second tier to third tier requires 100. Fourth tier requires 1,000. Fifth tier 5,000. Sixth tier 10,000. Seventh tier 50,000. Eighth tier 100,000. Ninth tier 500,000. Evolving into an Undead Lord (equivalent to a human Hero or a Demon King of Hell) requires 1,000,000 energy.]
[Evolving from an Undead Lord into an Undead Sovereign (equivalent to a demigod in the mortal world or a Demon Monarch of Hell) requires 10,000,000 energy.]
[Evolving from an Undead Sovereign into a Lesser God requires 100,000,000 energy.]
And that still wasn't the end.
Beyond that were further divine ranks—mid-tier gods, high gods, chief gods, even creator gods.
This system could apparently strengthen beings of any level, but the energy required became increasingly absurd.
What troubled Morvain the most was that this system was truly nothing more than a lord system.
He could only strengthen his soldiers.
He couldn't strengthen himself.
And worst of all, he had no way to guarantee the loyalty of those soldiers.
Which meant—
If he accidentally raised a traitor…
Then he would be completely doomed.