The Sovereign Necromancer: System of the Dead

Out of the Smoke

The blue lightning blast did not just make a loud noise; it threw my body across the hard roof. I hit the side of the white Vanguard helicopter with a heavy thud, my lower back taking the whole force. For a few seconds, my ears did not work. There was only a loud ringing inside my head, and my eyes could not see clearly.

I shook my head, coughing up thick gray dust from the broken concrete. The entire roof was covered in a heavy cloud of blue and black smoke that tasted like burnt plastic and old copper wires.

"Amara!" I called out. My voice sounded small and distant to my own ears. "Amara! Where are you?"

I tried to stand up, but my knees gave out immediately. I looked at the corner of my vision to check the numbers.

[Current Mana: 307/100]

[Health: 45/100]

[Status: Internal injuries. Movement speed reduced by thirty percent.]

I did not care about the system warning. I crawled through the broken tiles, my hands scraping against sharp pieces of stone. The concrete pads where the ammunition box had been were completely gone, leaving a wide hole that looked down into the dark clinic below.

Through the drifting smoke, I saw Chiamaka first.

She was lying face down near the edge of the roof. Her fancy Island dress was almost completely black from the flame, and her long hair was burnt at the ends. She was not moving. A few feet away from her, little Samuel was crouching behind a broken iron pillar, his arms wrapped around his head, sobbing. He was alive, but his sister was completely still.

I reached out to touch Chiamaka's shoulder, but a loud, heavy footstep made me freeze.

From the center of the blast zone, the blue smoke split open.

Chief Segun walked out. His dark red dragon-scale suit was covered in deep white scratches, and the left side of his face was bleeding from a long cut, but his eyes were wide awake. The massive blade in his hand was still burning with that black fire, the sparks making a sizzling sound as they fell onto the wet floor. The ammunition blast had destroyed his outer shield, but it did not break his real armor underneath.

"A Mainland rat remains a Mainland rat," Chief Segun said, his voice deep and shaking with anger. He wiped the blood from his cheek with his leather glove and looked down at Chiamaka’s body. "She thought a low-grade magic box could kill an A-Rank Hunter. 

Foolish girl."

He lifted his heavy iron boot and kicked Chiamaka’s ribs, rolling her body over like a sack of garbage.

"Leave her alone!" I shoved my body forward, but the pain in my chest flared up, making me drop back onto my knees.

"Or what, Tobe?" Chief Segun asked, turning his dark gaze toward me. He raised his flaming blade, the heat from the metal drying the sweat on my forehead from ten yards away. "Your shadow beast is dead. Your mana is useless against my dragon scales. You have lost everything."

"He has not lost," a voice said from behind the helicopter.

It was Amarachi.

She stepped out from behind the tail rotor. Her clothes were torn from the blast, but she did not have a single scratch on her skin. The purple light in her eyes was so bright now that it left small lines of color in the air when she turned her head. The heavy golden rifle was gone, dropped somewhere in the ruins, but her hands were covered in that thick, oily black fluid from the hospital floor.

She looked at Chief Segun, and then she looked at me. There was no fear in her face. There was only a cold, hard stare that did not belong to a fourteen-year-old girl.

"Tobe, his defense ring is broken," Amarachi spoke, her voice carrying that strange, deep double tone. "The explosion took away his passive shields. He only has his physical armor left. If you hit him now, he will die."

"Amara, get behind me," I said, trying to reach for her arm. "He is too strong for you."

"I am not a child anymore, brother," she said, her voice dropping into a flat, steady line. She pointed her black-covered hand toward the high concrete border wall in the distance. "Look at the gate. The energy is flowing."

I glanced over the edge of the roof. Through the gaps in the smoke, I could see the high orange wall that separated the Island from the Mainland slums. The three massive black rifts inside the market were growing wider every second. Thousands of tiny blue lights, the souls of the poor people being killed by the sand lizards, were rising into the dark sky, flying across the lagoon like an army of fireflies, rushing directly toward our roof.

They were not entering my system. They were entering Amarachi’s chest. Every time a blue soul light sank into her body, the purple glow in her eyes pulsed violently.

[Warning: Calamity Core Progress: 14.2 Percent.]

[Warning: Target's emotional matrix is collapsing.]

"She is beautiful," Chief Segun said, his angry face suddenly turning into a look of pure greed. He completely forgot about me. He lifted his sword and started walking toward Amarachi, his boots crunching on the stone. "The core is waking up faster than the guild predicted. Come to me, girl. With your container and my strength, the whole city will belong to the Vanguard Guild."

Amarachi did not run away. She stood her ground, her fingers curling into tight claws as the black ink crawled up to her elbows. "You want my power? Come and take it."

Chief Segun leaped forward, his flaming sword coming down in a brutal strike meant to cut her legs off.

"Arise!" I threw both hands forward, pouring every single point of my three hundred mana into the concrete floor below his feet.

The shadows beneath Chief Segun stretched out like long black ropes, wrapping around his ankles and pulling him down with immense force. The heavy blade missed Amarachi by an inch, slamming into the concrete and sending a shower of sparks into the air. Segun roared, his arms straining against the dark bonds.

"Tobe, run!" Chiamaka’s voice was a weak gasp. She had crawled a few inches, her hand reaching for Samuel.

But I could not run. The black ropes were snapping one by one under Segun's massive strength. Amarachi stood right in front of him, her face completely blank as more blue souls flooded her chest. She raised her black hand toward his face, her fingernails turning into sharp points.

"Now," Amarachi said softly.

Before I could understand her words, the metal door behind us blew open with a loud crash. A new group of hunters in black armor poured onto the roof, their rifles aimed directly at our backs.