Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 688
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Summoning Genius of the Necromancer School – Episode 688
The symbol of victory in the Northern Region.
From far beyond the mountain range, a black arrow was streaking through the air. It crossed the peaks in an instant—
Shriek!
It buried itself dead-center in Fourth’s chest.
Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash! Crash!
The arrow’s impact sent Fourth’s body plowing through buildings in the urban district, sliding backward with no way to stop. He tried to brake with his remaining foot, but nothing caught.
Gasp!
Fourth spun around desperately.
There, directly behind him, loomed the Grand Duke’s castle.
No, no, no, no, no!
A sickening crash.
A terrible sound shook the air itself.
The Grand Duke’s city wall, built from alloy.
The black arrow punched through it, crumpling the metal, and drove straight through Fourth’s core.
The Black Storm that Fourth had maintained dissipated, and the undead that had been circling nearby, suddenly bereft of their master, reverted to mere corpses.
“Fourth is—”
“Dead!”
A deafening roar erupted.
Cheers swept across Bilkenos.
“Long live the Grand Duke!”
“Long live Ursula!”
Everyone was cheering.
Northern warriors were rushing toward the fallen Kamibarez with worried eyes.
“…Thank goodness.”
Kamibarez gazed upward at the sky, her vision growing dim.
“Stay strong, Simon.”
A gust of wind swept through.
The Grand Duke stood with her hair streaming, the Bow of Tempest hanging loosely from her hand.
“I made the shot.”
Exhaustion weighed on her, but she held her ground, tilting her head back against it.
The relentless blizzard was finally easing, replaced by sparse, wet snow falling gently.
“There are no other variables. Everything depends on you now, Simon.”
* * *
Simon and Pier were descending into the depths of this new Abyss.
But here, attacks from undead were sparse. Simon cocked his head with a puzzled expression.
“There are hardly any undead. Is this a dead end too?”
[Kheh heh! Actually, I’d say the odds of striking gold have gone up.]
No one had cleared them in advance, yet as they descended there had been almost no undead attacks. The few undead they did see seemed frozen in place, as if broken.
As if the Northern God himself was inviting them down.
Simon descended willingly.
Step.
His feet touched solid ground. Raising the Sword of Ruin, Simon followed the veins of blood that traced across the Abyss floor.
‘Found it.’
The crimson membrane appeared, just as it had the first time he came to the Abyss.
And beyond it, he felt a darkness so deeply ominous he’d never experienced anything like it before.
Simon’s throat tightened with tension. He pulled back the crimson membrane and pushed forward.
‘!’
He froze at the sight that opened before him.
Thump— thump— thump— thump—
Countless bio-organic structures pulsed and moved like a beating heart. Blood vessels sprouted everywhere, carrying blood, darkness, and nutrients in endless supply to the living tissue, which extended throughout the entire Abyss.
It was as if the broken old Abyss he’d visited with the Grand Duke at the start had been restored. But if that had been a broken factory, this one was running.
And at the center of this biological facility stood a throne, covered in terrifying blood vessels. Something sat upon it.
‘Could that be…!’
At first he thought it was human. It wasn’t.
The frame was gaunt and massive, wrapped in a white exoskeleton of bone-like material that covered it like armor. At the center of its chest was an eye-like bulge, ringed by complex veins pulsing around it.
The head too was protected by the exoskeleton. Visible within the face were strange, curved wrinkles. The jaw extended long, and the snout protruded forward.
It looked like something from another world entirely.
‘That’s the Northern God?’
The darkness felt closest to the ‘source’—most akin to the primordial darkness he’d sensed from countless Abyss creatures and the Northern God’s undead across all these years.
Yet no matter how he looked at it, this form differed from the Northern God’s appearance as described by the various Grand Dukes.
[So you’ve come.]
In that instant, the creature’s eyes—the one that had spotted Simon—flared wide.
[Yona’s child.]
The thing sitting upon the Throne of Veins rose to its feet. An overwhelming darkness flooded through this space.
Simon’s eyes snapped open.
‘Just now—what did it say? Yona’s child?’
[Hard to believe, even seeing it myself.]
Then came Pier’s voice, tinged with dismay.
[I suspected—feared—but this? How in all the hells are you here!]
Through Pier’s telepathy, Simon felt a wave of confusion and shock so powerful it staggered him. In all their time together, he’d never known Pier to falter like this.
[Gyros—commander of the Seolgwi Battalion!]
At those words, Simon’s skin erupted in goosebumps.
Commander of a battalion?
The ‘Northern God’ that had tormented the Northern Region for over a thousand years was actually an Ancient Undead of the 7th Legion?
[It has been long, Pier.]
Gyros’s eyes gleamed. The two undead clearly knew each other.
Simon felt his thoughts spinning in chaos.
“Wait—Pier! Gyros is…!”
[Yes.]
Pier’s voice dropped low.
[The very Ancient Undead that Richard ordered to guard the North.]
More than twenty years ago, on the day Richard met a young Grand Duke.
—I’m going to annihilate the Northern God’s forces now. For the next five years, you won’t see a trace of them—I’ll leave one of my Ancient Undead behind. But that protection lasts only five years, nothing more.
Richard had met the young Jin Arskalte, freshly bereaved of his father, and promised five years of protection for the North.
And the Ancient Undead entrusted with that task was Gyros himself.
[Why are you here! You were fighting the Northern God—!]
[And died in that fight. That’s what the humans were made to believe.]
Darkness rippled across Gyros’s hand. In response, the bio-organic structures of the Abyss writhed and convulsed.
[But the truth is reversed. I transcended even Yona’s orders to guard the North. I slew the Northern God alone, and grafted its power onto myself!]
He turned slowly.
Grafted to his back were the pulsing bio-organic structures of the Northern God. Grotesque eyes embedded within rolled and fixed upon them.
[Now I am the new Northern God.]
Splurt!
Pop!
The bio-organic structures scattered across the chamber burst open, and from within poured freshly-transformed, dripping-wet undead things.
The creatures’ screams echoed through the space.
[You’ve betrayed your Legion Commander! Gyros!]
Pier’s voice rang out.
[Betrayal?]
Gyros’s eyes flashed with savage fury. Bitter cold roared forth from his arm, reshaping in an instant into a greatsword over seven meters long.
[Yona was the first to betray!]
Gyros moved.
‘Fast!’
Simon, startled, swung the Sword of Ruin to meet him.
Clang!
With the sound of thunder, Simon’s body skidded backward. His pupils shook with the numb shock running through his fingertips. A single exchange—and he understood.
‘This bastard is monstrously strong!’
Hadn’t they said the Northern God possessed no combat ability?
That was absurd.
Clang!
Clang!
Crash!
Gyros was incomparably more formidable than the Three Brothers, who were supposedly the sum total of the Northern God’s martial prowess.
Simon gasped and staggered. The Sword of Ruin had frozen solid with frost.
[Be careful, boy! Direct contact with the cold Gyros emits will be dangerous!]
Pier was right.
The Sword of Ruin grew heavier by the moment, and the transmission of dark power through it faltered drastically. Simon gritted his teeth and gripped the hilt with all his strength.
‘Please—work with me!’
Shhhhhhh!
The greatsword rippled into a sickly green, and venom beaded across its surface. In the same instant, it lengthened to match Gyros’s blade.
“Haa!”
Simon and Gyros swung their greatswords in unison. Green and blue arcs collided head-on.
Clash! Clash! Clash!
Thunder roared with each impact.
Liquid and gas collided in succession, green and blue sparks erupting as they froze and melted each other.
[Falls far short of my expectations.]
Gyros brushed aside Simon’s blade with contemptuous ease, then drove forward and backhanded him with his free palm.
Boom!
Simon flew backward and crashed against the Abyss wall. He gagged, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
[Boy!]
[I begin to doubt whether you truly are his son. Clearly you cannot replace Yona.]
Gyros scattered the ice-forged blade into wisps and made as if to sit.
Rumble!
Veins erupted from the empty floor of the Abyss, twisting themselves into the shape of a throne. The moment he settled into it, the Northern God’s power awakened, and hundreds of eyed tentacles began to coil upward from every surface—wall, ceiling, floor.
[If I kill the son—]
The figure on the throne raised his arm.
[Yona will have no choice but to come to this place. Is that not so?]
Roarrrrr!
Crunch!
At his gesture, the tentacles lashed forward, and the waiting undead surged in alongside them.
“Enough!”
Crack!
Simon stamped the floor violently and twisted his hips into a draw.
“Stop spouting nonsense!”
Shhhhhhhhwaaaack!
He unleashed the drawn blade with full force. A silver arc of steel scythed through the tentacles and undead, sweeping outward, while Gyros raised his arm from his seated position. The floor itself rose like a wall to receive the blow.
“Explain it properly! Why is my father a traitor? What do you mean by killing me to summon my father to the Northern Region?”
Simon reset his grip on the greatsword and pointed at Gyros with a sharp gesture.
“Is all of this revenge against my father?”
Gyros leaned his elbows on the throne’s armrests, interlaced his fingers, and rested his chin upon them.
[Must I answer you?]
“Yes.”
Simon’s voice turned glacial.
“I am Richard Polentia’s son, Simon Polentia. And I am also the current commander of the 7th Legion. If you belonged to my father—”
Simon’s eyes flashed.
“Then you belong to me.”
[Hahahahahaha!]
Gyros laughed, his frame trembling.
[The only worthy thing about you is the blood you inherited from him, and yet you strut about with such arrogance! A boy tainted with such vile blood, no less!]
“I mean every word.”
Simon’s voice carried a low growl.
“If you are my father’s legacy, then I will claim you. And just as surely, I will bear the weight of my father’s sins.”
[A mere son? You cannot replace even a speck of dust that Yona represents!]
Gyros raised his arm again, and the Northern God’s power began to surge forth.
[All I desire is Yona alone!]
Shwaaaack!
Shwaaaack!
Countless tentacles rose up, and undead manifested throughout the chamber.
[When an Ancient Undead’s mind has been twisted, dialogue becomes fundamentally meaningless, boy!]
Pier’s voice rang out.
‘Which is precisely why it falls to a Legion Commander to see it done.’
[Khehehehe! From the look of it, Gyros claims to be the Northern God himself, but my assessment is that he is nearly entirely under the god’s control.]
‘Understood.’
Simon seized the Sword of Ruin and drew it forth.
Two objectives.
‘I will take Gyros with me, and I will liberate the Northern Region.’
He declared it with conviction, but even Simon was beginning to feel the strain.
The journey here had consumed far too much of his Dark Element and vitality. Without proper sleep, camping only in the bitter freeze, exhaustion had layered upon him like winter itself.
And with the Northern God’s power now in his grasp, Gyros was an opponent Simon alone would struggle to overcome.
He accepted that fact.
Whoosh!
Simon opened a Subspace.
In the end, the weapon he had held back until this final moment.
Flutter!
Gyros’s expression twisted into something savage.
Simon lowered his stance, the Sword of Ruin angled in his right hand, the Golden Banner tilted in his left.
“There’s no time left. Let’s settle this here, Gyros.”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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