Reborn with a Necromancer System-Chapter 229: Reaching the Portal Gates

They waited until the sun dipped beneath Muderan's jagged horizon and the gold-and-violet sky deepened into a suffocating black. No moon rose here, only faint arcs of drifting light in the upper atmosphere, like the slow shimmer of something vast moving behind a curtain.

It was surreal.

When the shadows grew dark enough to hide the world completely, Kai activated his Umbral Mantle. Darkness clung to him like a second skin, swallowing the shape of his body until even Seyren lost sight of him.

The faint pull of mana to keep the Mantle active was a careful thread, one Kai had to monitor constantly. Too much, and the glow would betray him; too little, and the shadows would unravel. Silent, he moved through the uneven terrain, slipping past scattered pairs of guards and weaving into the loose circle of demons posted around the gate.

They were ugly things, hunched and snarling, with hide-bound armour fused to their skin, weapons dripping with the stench of tainted mana.

He stepped into the dead centre of their formation.

Then he opened the door.

Kai's shadow space yawned wide, and the instant his intent sharpened into violence, the Umbral Mantle shattered into ribbons of darkness.

Skeletons poured out in a tidal wave, first a few dozen, then a blackened flood. They scrambled on all fours before rising, weapons clutched in rotting hands. Rusted swords, jagged spears, and dented shields. All of the armaments of centuries-dead warriors.

The demons howled, turning their weapons on the swarm. Their chaotic magic flared, tearing through the front ranks of bone and rust. But the undead pressed in relentlessly, cutting, stabbing, swarming over bodies to tear them apart piece by piece.

Kai's command was silent, but the pressure of it filled the clearing.

'Break them.'

The fight devolved into slaughter. For every skeleton shattered, three more emerged. Black ichor painted the grass, the sound of clashing steel replaced by the wet crunch of bone on flesh.

When the last demon gurgled its last breath and went still beneath a tangle of skeletal arms, the night fell quiet again.

Kai dismissed the bulk of his army back into the shadows, leaving only a handful of guards to watch the perimeter.

"Orlin. Vepice. Seyren." His voice was calm, as if they'd been waiting for him in a market square rather than beside a field of corpses. "Let's go."

They walked together to the towering portal gates. The black metal was cold even from a distance, etched with runes that had long since gone dormant. The wards hummed faintly in a protective, but incomplete manner.

That's when Orlin exhaled, a slow, disappointed sigh.

"They've removed the portal stones."

Vepice's brow furrowed. "Portal stones?"

"It took my people centuries to make them," Orlin said, his voice quiet but edged. "They were forged from the cores of powerful arcane creatures, condensed mana, and a crystal we no longer know how to reproduce. A lost art, certainly. The demons must have them somewhere."

"If they're anywhere…" Seyren muttered, gaze fixed toward the distant horizon.

Kai stepped beside him, placing a light hand on his shoulder. "Where?"

"There's a nearby castle," Seyren said reluctantly. "Old. In much better condition than the ruins you've seen. A fortress, really."

"Can you lead us there?" Orlin asked.

"No." Seyren's jaw tightened. "I don't want to. Even if you make it to the castle, you won't get inside."

Kai's tone was flat. "I defeated something the darkwalkers called a God. Killed a high-ranking demon right in front of you. Surely your faith in me isn't that small."

Seyren hesitated. "…Maybe. If we try from the southern side. It's rocky, harder to cross. They might not expect an attack from there." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Then that's what we'll do," Kai said simply.

The journey took two more days. They moved under constant pressure, shapes moving in the distance, tracks in the dust behind them, the faint echo of claws on stone during the night. Kai stopped rationing his undead, calling forth squads to patrol their flanks and crush any lesser demons that tried their luck.

Drone demons came in droves. They were spindly, mindless things that leapt onto the skeletons and tore at them with raw strength. The skeletons broke just as easily as they killed, but Kai's supply was almost endless.

One evening, they crossed paths with a serpent-like arcane beast, its body made of translucent muscle threaded with veins of pale light. It hissed without a mouth, its form twisting through the air like liquid. It took both Mari's divine spears and Orlin's necrotic flame to burn it into ash.

By the time they neared the keep, Kai had begun to notice something. The air here felt thicker. Charged. Like the sky was holding its breath.

They stopped by the crumbling wall of an abandoned watchtower to rest. Grass, dry and silver under the strange starlight, whispered in the wind.

That's when the shadow fell over them.

It was massive, at least as tall as a loaded wagon, as broad as three men standing shoulder to shoulder. When it stepped into view, its crimson skin gleamed under taut, bulging muscle. Its eyes were pits of molten gold, its presence radiating raw, oppressive power.

It didn't speak. Didn't posture.

The demon simply raised a hand and unleashed a blast of chaotic magic, the same annihilating energy Kai had seen from Balthaz, straight into the front line of skeletons.

The bone and armour of Kai's protective unit of skeletons turned to dust in an instant.

Kai sent out Shade to dodge and close the distance, but after a barrage of chaotic magic, Shade was pushed back and Kai merged with it instead.

"You're fast, for a fat ugly demon." Kai taunted, hoping to get it angry.

Instead, it smiled. Widely. Terrifyingly so.

Kai cracked his neck, opened his shadow space, and Grond, his huge undead ogre stepped out with a giant club in hand.

He stretched his shadow out to a nearby tree and out came a second figure.

"Let's see how this turns out."