Chapter 54 - Necromancy (2)

"Yes. It's only a pity my sister was the only one at the Meteor Vessel Stage. Most of the dead were at the Energy Stimulation Stage, the first and weakest cultivation level," Lance sighed. "It might have been premature to use it here instead of in a tomb or cemetery."

He let the panther rest as he returned his attention to the Necromonicon. It described how someone without the water affinity could form a sea of souls. That process was even more mysterious and extremely painful. He would have to deliberately drink enough blood after consuming a certain concoction to gain affinity for water. Then, the process would be the same as what he had just done.

As he changed the pages, he found the sections that interested him. Magic was different from cultivation. For necromancy, there were several branches for one to learn. One branch allowed a necromancer to materialize spirits and use them to harm others with bacterial poison. Another branch allowed him to turn his mana into bones. He could create bone fields, bone spears, and other objects shaped like bones.

One of the more basic forms of necromancy was summoning. Through mana, he could summon a bone minion from the Abyssal Realm. As he grew stronger, he could summon more bone minions. There was more, but he was not strong enough to learn them yet.

"Imagine the mana materializing in front of me. Imagine a cage of bones appearing," Lance muttered as he stared at the candle wick on the shelf beside his bed. He closed his eyes, envisioning a bone cage trapping the candle wick. When he opened his eyes, his sea of souls stirred. Suddenly, a bursting sound erupted, and four bones appeared around the candle wick. They represented the four main columns, with smaller bars of bone appearing to create the image of a cage around the wick.

"How bizarre. It doesn't seem to be affiliated with the elements," Lance muttered, tapping the bones. They indeed felt like bones. After a while, the bones disappeared, but four holes remained from where the four original bones had appeared. He opened the drawer and looked at the bottom, seeing no hole or crack there.

"The spell was called Bone Cage. It is primarily used to entrap enemies. It is unbreakable and lasts as long as the mana is supplied beyond the mana required to form it. Indeed, it is not affiliated with the elements," Lance noted. "The power to harness the spiritual energy of the soul is profound indeed."

"So that is necromancy?" the panther asked.

"I'm not sure. I need to research it more," Lance replied, reaching to turn the page. Suddenly, the blood on the book surged with spirit energy. The blood rose into the air and burned his palms. Lance screamed as the pain grew, affecting his Soul Realm. As a mysterious brand appeared on both palms, something began to stir within his Soul Realm.

Shocked, Lance was forcibly withdrawn into his Soul Realm. His body appeared to be in the midst of cultivating through meditation. As Lance gazed around in his Soul Realm, his spiritual body began to descend for the first time. He could do nothing as his body hovered above the volcano. A cool sensation filled his being as he descended into the lava and floated before a jade marble, which seemed to be the heart of his Soul Realm.

"My neidan," Lance muttered. "Since when did it descend into the volcano?"

Lance frowned as his body then exited the volcano, wrapped in jade energy as he descended into the ocean. As he got deeper, his eyes widened. In the depths of the ocean was his sea of souls. There, he saw shapes of white energy shackled by chains made of lava.

"One looks like a panther, and that one looks like Mei. Most of these souls are aquatic creatures. There's even a leviathan and a water dragon!" Lance gasped as he saw the true form of the residual soul energies. It seemed that draining even a small portion of life force would augment his power.

"YOU! SNAKE! It's all YOUR fault!" a voice screamed, and Lance looked around in shock.

"What is that voice? Who are you?" Lance shouted, holding his breath as he saw a form shackled by a chain of lava. What shocked him the most was that it was in the shape of an eye.

"The Eye of Darkness. I drained even your life force from within Mei's Soul Realm?" Lance frowned.

"The pain brought me back! It brought me back! Other soul energies too! The dragons, the leviathans, and I curse you! Curse you!" the Eye screamed. "How dare you take a piece of our souls! How dare you take our soul energies! We will break free and devour you! We will become a wraith! We will!"

"Silence," Lance spat, and the lava chains constricted at his thought, causing the Eye more pain. "You're not a true Fragment of Darkness. The real one is within Mei. You're just a piece of whatever consciousness your soul's spirit energy had left. As soon as I can control the sea of souls, I'll be sure to drain you dry."

"Curse you! Curse you!" the Eye screamed as Lance descended even deeper. Whatever had dragged him into his own Soul Realm seemed to be at the base of the lava chains.

Lance dived deeper and deeper, seeing the chains enlarge and grow warmer. Water sizzled around him as he could see the chains converge in the distance. There, at the bottom of it all, was a red and orange striped neidan. The jade energy around him began to disperse, entering the red and orange neidan.

"A neidan. A red and orange striped neidan," Lance muttered as he saw a small child with lava shackles around his wrists and ankles. However, he did not seem like a fragment of a person's soul but the entire soul. He was not made of white energy and looked real. What's more, he resembled Guo Yang when he was seven years old.

"Who are you? What are you?" Lance asked as the child looked up at him. Unlike the child form of Guo Yang, this child had flaming red hair and orange slit irises.

"I am you. I am the you that is tattooed on your back by the Heavens. I am the you that transforms into a serpentine dragon. I am the you that was the World Serpent," the child smiled. "I am the second half of your soul. Your soul was too powerful to be reincarnated into a human fetus. The Heavens split you, us, into two. I am your power and the reason the neidan and the corpses within are locked away. You should know what I am. I brought you here because you could finally hear me, sense me."

"That's impossible," Lance said.

"It is time we became whole. The mana within this place has finally unsealed me. Now, we can be what we were always meant to be. The metamorphosis can be complete. All the pain, all your happiness and sadness; it is time you embraced it," the boy said, the lava shackles disappearing as Lance's hand outstretched to the boy's by a mysterious force.

"What will happen after this? What are you doing?" Lance asked.

"I am giving back the good you kept locked away. Emotions are not a weakness. It's time for us to play in the world again. I am the human you, the human soul you finally accepted. Let's play," the boy said, grabbing Lance's hand.

"Master?" the panther frowned as Lance seemed to meditate in midair. Lance slowly straightened and stood on the ground, opening his eyes.

"Hello, panther. It is nice to meet you at last," Lance smiled, spirit energy pulsing around his body as he rolled his shoulders, and a throne made of bones appeared behind him. "We are one again. I am complete. We are going to have so much fun in the southern continent, you and I. Magic and practitioner arts. I will burn brighter than the sun."

"Lance! Lance!" a girl cried, the door bursting open as Mei and Lingqi stormed in. Her eyes widened in shock as they saw Lance sitting on the bone throne, his red hair black again but with chains of lava wrapped harmlessly around his arms.

"It is good to see you, Mei. I had another breakthrough. The metamorphosis is complete. My personality could use some work, though. I trust you'll help me?" Lance asked, Mei and the others staring back at him in shock. "Oh, don't be afraid. I am just fusing fire and earth to create lava. I awoke the fire affinity. Isn't this great?"

"What happened? He's so different. Some of that rude and narcissistic tone is still there, but he seems more... like a real teenager," Mei gasped. "What happened to you? Are you Guo Yang? The World Serpent? Lance Wang?"

"I am all three. I just accepted myself. It took fifteen years, give or take a few months, to embrace my humanity," Lance grinned. "I'm sorry for everything. I was incomplete. Please don't blame me for what I've done and what will happen from now on."

"What did you do?" Mei asked.

"I fused with myself. I am the brother you should have had. I am the brother you always had. I'm finally both, and I really miss our parents. I would apologize, but I also feel nothing for them. They were never there for me when they thought I was sickly. The brazier and the snakes were my only friends then. You, you were there sometimes. Thank you," Lance said.

"No way! No

way!" Mei said, stepping back in fear. "Double soul fusion?"

"You must be really confused right now. Don't worry. I won't hurt you. The previous me would have had some intimate thoughts with you, though," Lance smiled at Lingqi, the latter looking more terrified of the current Lance Wang. "Dammit. I feel all excited inside, like a caged child finally freed. I think I've lost a bit of my sanity."

"Now you, I know," Mei said. "I don't know whether to record this as progress or a nightmare. Lance Wang with a screw loose in his head. Both childish and scheming. Merciless and playful."

"I really don't understand what under the Heavens is going on," Lingqi muttered, the panther nodding in agreement.