Reborn with a Necromancer System-Chapter 220: Muderan’s Secrets

Kai froze, watching the dragon as it flew overhead.

Its silhouette passed over them, and for a moment, they saw it in full: obsidian scales shimmering with flecks of rust-red, a tail lined with twitching hooks, a maw half-open as if testing the heat of the land below with its breath.

Then it flew on, disappearing into the vast desert beyond the woods.

But the tension didn't fade.

Not immediately.

It took a long while before any of them dared to breathe too loud.

Kai finally managed a whisper. "Tell me that was just some weird bird."

He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't.

It was a dragon. Bigger than the one in Ebonbrand's dungeon. At least twice the size and still alive.

Orlin's face was blank. "Another stroke of luck. Probably didn't see us. That was Averneth. One of the old ones."

"You know its name?" Vepice asked, still trembling.

"Of course I do. Many of my people would bring sacrifices to the old ones and they would protect us from the beasts that would do us harm," he said, eyes narrowed. "If you're lucky, you'll neither see nor hear it again."

Kai didn't ask what would happen if they weren't lucky.

He didn't want to know.

The plains and rolling hills stretched on for what seemed like forever.

"I haven't seen any of those demon things you were talking about." Vepice said, looking at Orlin.

"They're around. A scout or two would have taken notice, but since we haven't used magic, they won't see us as a threat."

"And if they do see us as a threat?" Kai asked.

"Well, there were tens of thousands of demons in the armies that attacked us centuries ago. Who is to say they don't have an army of a million or more by this point?"

"A million?"

"Simply speculation based on the breeding patterns of demons."

"Still..."

"Don't worry about that unless it comes to it."

The wind shifted.

A gust rolled over the hills and swept through the ruins behind them, bringing with it a scent Kai couldn't quite place.

Metallic, sharp, with the faintest undercurrent of decay.

He stopped walking. Vepice did too, her brow furrowing as she sniffed the air, rubbing her arms against a sudden cold that hadn't been there before.

"Do you feel that?" she asked.

"Yeah." Kai scanned the landscape. "Something's close."

Orlin's expression darkened as he lifted his head. His dead, colorless eyes scanned the shimmering air as though they could pierce through dimensions. "Don't draw your weapons yet," he murmured. "Not unless it pounces. The worst predators can smell fear and the steel meant to kill them."

They kept walking. Slowly. Cautiously. The shadow of the dragon had long since vanished over the horizon, but it felt like something else had replaced it—something more intimate. A pressure on the air. Like unseen eyes resting too long on the back of Kai's neck.

He kept his senses sharp, hand never far from the hilt of his dagger, feeling the shadow magic tremble ever so faintly in his palm.

Then the stillness broke.

From the crumbling ridge of a distant ruin, a figure sprinted into view. Stumbling and half-collapsing with every step, it bolted from the fractured outline of what must have once been a village, a collection of stone and timber now worn into the earth. Two other shapes pursued it with ruthless intent, their frames lean and clawed, mouths agape with teeth too many and too long.

"Demons," Orlin spat. "Scouts. Runners. Fast, but fragile."

The fleeing humanoid was unlike anything Kai had seen. Tall, lean, but oddly graceful—even while panicked. Their features weren't entirely right: long fingers with joints that bent a bit too far, skin too pale beneath the layers of dust and grime. Their hair was short and silver-blonde, whipping in the wind, and their eyes glowed an unnatural orange from a gaunt face. They were clothed in tattered robes that clung to their body like burnt parchment, scorched in some places and wet with blood in others.

And they were running straight toward Kai, Vepice, and Orlin.

"Help!" the stranger cried. The voice was light, desperate and feminine. "Please!"

Kai didn't hesitate. He stepped forward and thrust out his hand. A whip of shadow coiled around the lead demon's ankle and yanked it sideways, sending it skidding across the dirt. The second one let out a shriek and veered toward him instead.

"Deal with the runner," Orlin commanded as he swept forward, staff raised, decay magic already curling around his fingertips. "I'll deal with this one."

Vepice moved to intercept the stranger, her staff drawn more in warning than readiness. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Why are they chasing you?"

"I'll explain, just let me through!"

Kai joined her, frowning as the stranger stumbled to a stop a few feet away. Up close, their features were shifting subtly, too subtly for Vepice to notice, perhaps, but not to Kai. The outline of the jaw softened. The hips widened. The voice cracked faintly, deepening half a note before settling again.

"…What the hell are you?" Kai murmured under his breath.

"I'm not your enemy," the figure said, panting. "I was running from them. That should be enough!"

The demon Kai had snared snarled and tried to lunge forward again, only for a sudden blast of necrotic decay from Orlin to melt half its head. The other one turned to flee, sensing the odds had shifted, but a javelin of bone conjured from Orlin's hand pinned it to the ground before it could vanish.

Silence fell again. The air seemed to grow thicker in its absence, the presence that had hung so heavily over them now sharper, watching with interest rather than aggression.

Kai and Vepice stood before the stranger, their weapons half-raised.

"I think," Orlin said slowly as he stepped up beside them, "you'd best tell us your story."

The figure lowered their hood, revealing a delicate face, now distinctly masculine. The same glowing orange eyes stared out from beneath a bloody brow.

'Weren't they... female?'

"My name is Seyren," they said. "I'm not quite human. But I'm not a demon either."

Kai raised an eyebrow. "Then what are you?"

Seyren smiled weakly, their chest still heaving. "I'm what happens when a demon falls in love with a human and gets a little creative."

Orlin blinked, then groaned. "Great. A half-blood."

"Half," Seyren agreed, "on both sides."

Then their voice shifted again, an octave higher, their face softening slightly as something more feminine bloomed in their expression.

"…Also, sometimes neither. Sometimes both."

Kai narrowed his eyes. "You can shift gender?"

'That explains my confusion. But... how does that even work? If I were to turn them into an undead soldier, could they still shift gender?'

Seyren nodded, and then slowly sat on the ground. "It helps. Especially when you're hiding from both sides."

The silence that followed wasn't as tense as before, but it wasn't exactly warm either.

Kai folded his arms. "Alright, Seyren. You've got about five minutes to convince us not to leave you here."

And he meant every word.

Seyren stood still at the edge of the broken settlement, his back turned slightly, ears alert beneath the sweep of his silvery-black hair. His shoulders were narrow in this form, slender and androgynous. The lingering breeze from the dragon's passing had long since faded, and in the growing silence, the air felt tight with something else.

"The demons'll be coming," Seyren said finally, voice low, almost swallowed by the wind. "You used magic. Even that little burst, like torchlight in a blackened field. It's how they find you. It's how they found the last village I hid in."

Kai frowned, glancing back the way they came. "We've seen nothing."

"You will," Seyren replied. He turned to face them, gold eyes catching the light. "They take time to gather. Time to circle. Then they strike from every direction like carrion flies."

"Then what do you suggest?" Orlin asked, eyeing him closely. "You seem rather confident."

Seyren gave a crooked smile, more tired than cocky. "Fifteen years. That's how long I've lasted. I don't fight. I don't burn things. I hide. The demons don't look where they fear to walk."

"And where's that?" Vepice asked cautiously.

Seyren said nothing. He turned and began walking down a slope behind the ruins, toward a jagged cluster of rocks that looked, from a distance, like nothing but a shallow landslide. As they followed, a low hum began to echo in Kai's chest, some faint pulse, like the beating of a second heart deep underground.

When they reached the base, Seyren crouched and pulled aside a heap of twisted metal and debris. Beneath it, hidden beneath collapsed stone and dry earth, was a black hole just wide enough to fit a person crawling.

"There," he said. "That's your door."

Kai stared down into it, the air wafting from below cooler, somehow damper despite the dryness of the land. It smelled like earth, stone… and something stranger. Almost old.

Orlin's expression shifted from suspicion to grim recognition.

"I know this place," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else. "This is part of the Underdark."

Kai glanced at him. "The what?"

"A world beneath our own. Caverns upon caverns. Labyrinthine. Endless." Orlin's voice was tight, reverent, but with a thread of unease. "The necromancers of old, the true ones, the founders came from there. I was born aboveground, but I heard many stories."

'So, this is the darkness that Ebonbrand came from...'