Reborn with a Necromancer System-Chapter 225: The Belly of a Beast... Again

Kai blinked against the burning sting in his eyes. The air, if it could be called air, was thick, humid, and suffocating, reeking of rotting meat and a bitterness that seared the back of his throat. It was worse than Vepice's medicinal sludge back in the forest, a nauseating mix of bile, blood, and half-digested horrors.

He didn't waste time gagging. Already, the walls of the worm's gullet rippled and squeezed, pushing him deeper toward its stomach.

Flames burst from his palms, flooding the tunnel of flesh with blistering heat. He carved deep black streaks into the glistening walls, cooking strips of meat to charred husks. But against something this massive, the damage was little more than a rash on a titan. The worm shrieked, a sound that echoed through the creature's whole body, but the burning didn't slow its convulsions.

A flood of thick, stinging fluid surged toward him, foaming and hissing as it ate into his boots. The acid was coming for him fast, hungry and relentless.

"Alright," Kai muttered, pulling off his gloves, "let's see who erases who first."

He let the acid claim his flesh, welcoming the agony. Necrotic energy poured from him into the worm and life essence returned, cycling like some twisted heartbeat.

His regeneration thrummed to life, knitting his body even as it was stripped away, every cell replaced and reforged over and over.

He dug his bare fingers into the slick, pulsing walls, letting the life of the worm bleed into him. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Hours passed, or maybe more. Pain became something quieter, almost familiar. He stopped flinching. The rhythm of destruction and repair was hypnotic: dissolve, regrow, feed, consume.

The worm writhed and screamed around him, its voice shaking the very bones of the cavern. Several times, it tried to vomit him out, heaving its great bulk and flooding him with waves of bile. But Kai drove shadow-forged spears into the walls, anchoring himself in place while acid swirled up past his shoulders.

Time blurred.

Once, something thudded against him.

A body.

A pale darkwalker, still twitching, fell into the pit of acid with him. They didn't last seconds before their skin sloughed away. Other times it was corpses, crushed bones, or unrecognizable chunks of prey. Occasionally, he felt the sharp clatter of rock, proof of what it had devoured in its endless hunger.

But he remained.

Eventually, the acid slowed to a trickle. The violent contractions in the worm's body went still. The walls sagged, losing their tension, and a deep, low groan rolled through the creature's corpse.

Then the flesh beneath his hands began to dissolve, not into liquid, but into drifting black ash. It crumbled away faster than the wind could carry it, until Kai stood on collapsing remains, the carcass collapsing like wet paper.

He stepped out into the dim light of the ruined city, mucus and bile dripping from him in long, disgusting strands. The silence lasted only a heartbeat before the cheering began.

It started as a low ripple of sound from the shadows, growing until it roared through every broken street and shattered building. Darkwalkers emerged in droves from the wreckage.

Pale, masked figures spilling into the open, their voices, if they could be called that, trembled with something between disbelief and joy.

"God is dead," cried their leader, standing atop a shattered stone archway. His voice shook with raw emotion, echoing against the cavern walls. "No more sacrifice. We are free!"

The applause rose into a desperate, deafening ovation.

They were louder and grander than anything Kai had heard even in the Arena of Kings. They weren't the cheers of the entertained. They were the cheers of those who had their chains shattered.

And every pair of sunken, pale eyes was locked on him.

Then he saw his companions. Vepice, Orlin, and Seyren. They looked at him with surprise, and that's when Kai realised it.

The acid had completely melted all of the clothes and armour off of him.

He was naked.

In front of hundreds of pairs of eyes.

---

Kai stood in new clothes offered by the darkwalkers. They weren't crafted from fabric, but from plants and chitin. It itched in places, but Kai tolerated it.

Once again, he stood in the council chamber of the Darkwalkers. Their leaders sat upon low stone thrones, their eyes glimmering faintly in the dark. The air was heavy with damp and the smell of minerals.

Kai stood beside Orlin, Vepice lingering just behind, and waited for the murmurs to die.

Seyren waited outside, murmuring about how he didn't like the darkwalkers or the city.

The largest of the Darkwalkers, a broad-shouldered figure with skin like wet slate, leaned forward. His words came slow and jagged, as if forced through a mouth unused to human tongues.

"You… come. You kill worm. Save tunnels. We… see."

Kai exchanged a glance with Orlin, then stepped forward. "We didn't kill it for free. We want something in return."

A ripple of uncertain murmurs passed through the leaders.

Kai continued. "We want relics... magical items. From the city that was here before you."

The broad-shouldered one blinked slowly. "Not… ours. Old things. Left from… stone-folk… long dead."

"Then they're unclaimed," Kai said flatly. "And we'll be claiming them. I want the best you've found. Everything you've taken from the ruins of the city."

Another leader, hunched and narrow-faced, rasped, "You… want shine-things? Power-stones? Cloak that not tear? Blade that cut ghosts?"

Kai's lips twitched upward. "Exactly. All of that. You bring them here, and we'll take them off your hands."

Orlin stepped in, voice smooth and deliberate. "In exchange, the tunnels are yours again. No worm. No fear. That seems fair to me."

The broad-shouldered leader looked to the others. They spoke in guttural whispers for several long moments before finally nodding.

"We… bring. All. You take. But… then you go."

"Fine," Kai said. "And once we've taken our payment, you'll lead us to the way out. To the surface."

The leader's eyes narrowed. "Surface… far. Hard walk. But… yes. We take you."

Kai folded his arms, the corners of his mouth curling in faint satisfaction. He had even greater hopes for the magical items in this city than he'd had for anything in Mirth. The relics here were old, far older than the Darkwalkers, and likely far more potent.