Chapter 53 - Necromancy

"We're still at sea?" Lance asked, as only two hours had passed since they left the dock.

"What'd you expect?" Mei replied. "There are also dangers within the sea. We have to avoid deeper waters and travel through the protected routes. The captain said it'll take a few weeks to get to the continent by ship. The routes have been unsafe as something has been happening in the oceans. The captain talked about leviathans and water dragons being particularly hostile since... the Day of the Eye and Snake."

"Then I will head to my room," Lance said, taking out the Necromonicon from his storage ring as he went inside the ship and entered his room on the second floor. The panther curled against the door as he closed it behind him, preventing others from entering the room and disturbing its master.

"Black dragon leather cover, and the writing seems to be made with the blood of various creatures and humans. Not my style of decor, but it's unique," Lance noted as he sat in the center of the room, his back leaning against the bed as he opened the book on his lap.

"To whomever possesses this book: this is a book that allows a practitioner to learn necromancy as they cultivate to immortality. To continue reading this book is to accept the reality that the world is full of death and to see the world through different eyes. The world of the dead is different from the world of the living. Necromancy is the bridge between the two worlds. It is because those that die do not ascend, but descend into the Abyssal Realm. It is there that the souls are damned for eternity, live for eternity, or are chosen to be reborn into a new life," Lance read aloud. "Well, that's something new. I've never heard of the Abyssal Realm."

"It exists, Master. I have the hereditary memories of my immortal ancestors from when they were alive and dead," the panther purred. Lance scratched the back of his head, as his hereditary memories only contained memories of the living. Souls had to come from somewhere.

"To follow the path of necromancy, one must create a sea of souls. Souls will be the foundation of your mana. Those with an affinity for water will have the easiest time creating a sea of souls. It should lie in the depths of your Soul Realm. The sea of souls must be deep enough, and your cultivation must be strong enough to shackle the souls. Those who fail to shackle the souls to the depths of the sea will become wraiths, undead beings with a collective mind made of several souls. Your existence will cease to exist, your soul unable even to head into the Abyssal Realm. To attempt this, one must be a practitioner of the Meteor Vessel Stage," Lance stated.

"Wraiths are... vicious creatures, Master. Their spirit energy is practically infinite. Only through close range can you kill them. To kill them permanently, you must use soul-targeting attacks. The physical body can sacrifice one of its countless souls to regenerate or several dozen to remake the body," the panther said, a shiver running down its spine. "Not many magical beasts have soul-targeting techniques, and most humans also decline to learn them."

"Necromancers do not bring back the dead; they rip apart souls and use the foreign spirit energy to imitate life from corpses. Exceptionally powerful necromancers can actually rip one soul from a freshly dead corpse and reanimate it. However, the entity will be neither dead nor living. The might of the necromancer is determined by how many souls they harvest. Whenever a living entity dies, they leave behind bits of their soul as the majority enters the Abyssal Realm. The bits of the soul left behind are their memories. Unless they are granted eternal life in the Abyssal Realm, their memories will never return. Exceptionally powerful souls are excluded from this rule, almost all of them either demons or magical beasts," Lance continued.

"To form the sea of souls, one must close his eyes and immerse his consciousness into his spirit sense. Sense the spirit energy around you. All things are connected. All life is connected. Spirit energy is soul energy. The souls of the dead are around you. Sense them. See the world through your spiritual sense, not your eyes," Lance said, then closed his eyes and followed the instructions.

He found himself in his Soul Realm. A boundless ocean surrounded a large island, with five smaller islands forming a pentagram circle around it, where the volcano fumed. The volcano erupted, its lava entering the seas. He followed the lava into the depths of his soul, imagining turning it into chains. His spiritual sense emanated from his body, wrapping the ship. He could sense the spiritual energy around him.

He could sense the spirit energy of the sailors. He could see spirit energy seeping out from the bodies of the practitioners aboard the ship. None of them could sense his spirit energy, except for Mei. She seemed to be a cold, dark hole in the center of the ship, sometimes turning into a warm beacon. Then he could sense them. He sensed the soul energies.

The ocean was nothing but a giant graveyard. Survival of the fittest reigned supreme in its waters. Fish ate shrimp, and whales ate sharks. Sharks feasted on fish, and the fish fed on each other. He could sense their souls. He could sense the residual spirit energy of their souls as they left their corpses. He could sense it all. Slowly, his spiritual sense began to grab them, the soul energies screaming as they were dragged into his body. Dragged into his Soul Realm.

"What's going on?" Mei shivered, the other practitioners scared stiff as they could hear the souls screaming. The screams shook them to their very core. Some practitioners fainted outright. Others coughed blood and wondered what was going on. None of them were capable of sensing the souls, yet the screams sounded as if they were next to their ears.

"What's going on?" Lingqi asked as she and Mei shared a room together.

"It's the souls. Lance is actually sensing the souls of those long dead, grabbing them with his spiritual sense. I never knew spiritual senses had such applications," Mei whispered, terrified. "Usually, there are souls around us, but he is draining multiple of them. Their screams are beginning to collect, and their numbers have become large enough to be heard by others besides Lance. There must be countless souls."

"No! I don't want this!" a woman sobbed. "Somebody make them stop!"

"What's happening? What are those screams?" a man said.

"It's the end. My pap was right. It's the end," another man shivered, holding his daughter and wife in his arms.

All the people who did not faint had gathered on the deck. They felt safer clustered together. The captain and his sailors tried to maintain order. Children cried, and spouses embraced. Eventually, the screams died down. However, no one dared to move until an hour had passed.

"Lance! Lance, what did you do?" Mei said as she ran to his cabin, frowning as she heard a growl on the other side of the door. The panther pawed at the door, opening it to allow the two females in and nudged it closed behind them.

"Mei," Lance said, opening his eyes and staring at them as they entered the room.

"What did you do?" Mei demanded.

"I did as the book instructed. For a practitioner to be a mage as well, I must have a sea of souls. The ocean is full of the dead; even their corpses produce waste. It wasn't hard to find the residual spirit energy of the souls. I merely harvested them into myself," Lance answered. "It is formed. It won't happen again."

"You could be lying!" Mei shouted.

"Once the sea of souls is formed, there is no need to absorb living souls. The sea of souls is the beginning. Its purification is the next step—turning the residual souls into an ocean of mana. The only evil done is to form the sea of souls. The screams you heard were not really from the souls. The screams you heard were rips in the Mortal Realm. These rips occurred because you drained the soul fragments. These fragments were meant to exist until the end of time," Lance said, showing Mei the passage in the book. "They weren't souls. You just thought they were souls. There is no way to grab souls with spiritual energy. I just grabbed the spirit energies of the souls. Even your spirit energy, I drained. You can call it your life force, if you will."

"Not souls, but the life force of the creatures on and around the ship," Mei muttered.

"Yeah. I also made a breakthrough in my cultivation with all that life force," Lance grinned.

"You entered the Middle Meteor Vessel Stage!" Mei gasped, sensing the increase in his cultivation.

"It is the power of souls. You know of this. You did it once before," Lance waved dismissively. "Leave me be. I must research my new magic in order for us to survive in the southern continent."

*Grrr*

Mei and Lingqi stared back to see the panther bare its fangs at them. Clearly, it was ordered to make them leave. Mei stared silently at Lance and then at the book.

"Maybe it was a mistake. You could have learned other magic. It didn't have to be necromancy. It's not evil, but it is scary and ancient power," she muttered. She knew what Lance absorbed weren't true souls. The real souls were in the Abyssal Realm, but their power was ancient and mighty. This would be the only time Lance would drain living souls, with Lance

reassuring her it was only this once.

"You gained considerable power, Master," the panther said.