The Regressed Necromancer Prepares for the Apocalypse - Chapter 28

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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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The Returning Necromancer Prepares for the Apocalypse — Episode 28

Even in that moment, Do Jin’s senses and mind were working frantically.

‘Another crisis is coming. I’m certain of it.’

How could he endure it?
Do Jin cast his gaze down to his wrist — more precisely, to the Pyramid equipped there.

‘I’ve been sensing something else in my perception since just now.’

Was it because he’d surveyed the Arena’s mana comprehensively while hunting for booby traps?
Or was it because he’d channeled powerful mana through his feet to stabilize the chariot’s balance while dodging those traps?
Since moments ago, Do Jin had been experiencing a peculiar sensation.
And that sensation was now linked to the chariot beneath his feet.

‘Could it be…?’

While the survivor of the Bandit Team, skilled in handling horses, hurried to accelerate,
Do Jin was drawing another skeleton from the Pyramid.
It was immediately stripped of its original form through the Thrall Armament and transformed into something else entirely.
But this time, it was not Do Jin’s own body that he was using.
Before his return, Do Jin had weathered every trial imaginable and devoted himself wholly to maximizing the use of skills and items—so now he was attempting something audacious.
Why go to such lengths?

‘I have to try everything I can try.’

It was because of the mana that had been stimulating Do Jin’s senses from just moments ago.
Had it been the constant focus of his perception to evade the Arena’s booby traps?
It seemed that, little by little, all of Do Jin’s five senses—his eyes, ears, and more—were expanding their reach into that realm.

‘The Arena’s floor, its walls, and the chariot I’m riding.’

He could feel the mana that composed them.
How it was woven and layered and linked together—what that structure looked like.
What each individual thread of mana sang, what sound echoed each time connected mana moved.
He had never experienced anything like this before.

“……!”

It was an attempt no one had succeeded in making, before or after his return.
Yet Do Jin dared to try.
His judgment was almost instinctive.

‘I will push my mana into that space.’

He would manipulate his own mana with even greater precision, meticulously camouflaging the colorless, transparent mana of a player to resemble the Arena’s mana.
Yes. Disguise.
So that it would not collide with the mana composing the Arena.
So that the System would mistake this foreign mana for its own.

‘I will connect the player’s mana directly to the System.’

It was something no player had ever accomplished.
And yet, now—
it was happening.
Just as with the Thrall Armament before, he was summoning a thrall and reshaping its original form according to Do Jin’s own image.

—Wait! Look, everyone! The Seo Hae Won Team’s chariot is behaving strangely!
– Some kind of metal is sticking to the chariot…….

As expected.
The wolf skeletons, massive as they were, could not easily escape the players’ eyes.
Yet most players logged into the Arena were seated in the stands, and the chariot moved so quickly that it was even harder to make out the skeletons’ bones clearly from a distance.
As a result, to the spectators’ eyes, what appeared to happen was that something elongated and dull-metallic suddenly burst forth from thin air, moved of its own accord, and clung to the chariot.

“……This can’t be real!”

The one who cried out was Jin Nam Soo. He stared at the Seo Hae Won Team’s chariot with eyes wide, but the reality before him did not change.
He was accustomed to the diverse quests spilling forth from the Vortex of Desire, but he had not simply taken the place of the charioteer on a whim.
He had finished his calculations and committed himself to clearing the quest on his terms.

‘Their chariot has already taken multiple impacts. No matter how skillfully it’s piloted, it will be hard to gain any more speed.’

The rewards given by the system for its quests were paltry.
Yet the Vortex of Desire had long since become a playground for the wealthy elite alone.
They wagered on everything imaginable, squandering colossal Magic Stones and Gold that ordinary players could never dream of, all on a whim.
Naturally, the scraps they threw to players attempting the quests were immense.

‘Clear the Chariot Race Quest and I get a hundred Magic Stones……!’

The elite, belonging to the top 0.1%, amassed Magic Stones and Gold by every conceivable method, whether they played as active members or not.
Using those accumulated Magic Stones and Gold as bait, they had transformed the entire Arena into a private gambling den.
Players, enticed by prize pools far greater than what the public Arena offered, willingly logged in and kept the secret.
Need it be said that the Bandit Team itself was born when such players gathered, accumulated experience, and coalesced into a single force.
Thus, Jin Nam Soo and the gambling den players were skilled in diverse tactics that ordinary Arena players could never conceive of.
Exploiting the fact that death never occurs in the Arena, they had employed every stratagem available to a player—bait, cheating, deception—and had witnessed and heard as much.
Yet none of it could explain what now unfolded before their eyes.

“The chariot is…… morphing into a different form of the Arena system itself?!”

There had never been such a case until now. The Arena’s quests were always consistent, as was the Arena itself.
He had heard tell that the Under Arena possessed unpredictable environments and Hidden Quests that surfaced unexpectedly, but that had always been how it was constructed from the start.
He had never seen nor heard of any part of an Arena belonging to a quest transforming abruptly mid-quest! Not even if it were just a single chariot!

“……Did you see that?”

The shock rippled through the countless players seated in the spectator stands and broadcast booths.

“What……what am I looking at right now?”
“Could this quest have a chariot transformation event mid-run?”
“How could it! How many Chariot Race Quests have I seen by now!”
“Then what did those players do?!”
“……System Interference?”

From whose lips had that phrase escaped.
Of course, such a detail mattered little. What mattered was the weight those words carried.
System Interference.
The direct exertion of human will upon the system that creates Arenas and items, Magic Stones and Gold, and indeed Players and Skills themselves.
Since the Great Change, countless nations had attempted it, only to taste the bitter cup of failure again and again.
And yet it was happening now, before their very eyes.

* * *

‘It worked!’

I can’t fathom how this absurd feat actually succeeded. Before the regression, it had never worked even once!
No—before that, no one had ever succeeded. Even when I honed my senses to their absolute limit and observed dungeons and monsters, I had never felt the conviction I feel today.
The confidence that I could drive my own Mana into the space between theirs.
In the midst of regression and class-changing to Necromancer, as his senses grew even sharper, a certainty struck him like an impulse, hammering against his skull.

“Senior… what did you just do……?”

Hae Won’s voice trembled beside him, tinged with shock.

“I’ll explain later!”

Right. Explanations could wait. Whether from the chariot system’s modification or something else, the vehicle they now rode had undergone a profound transformation.
The wolf skeleton’s massive, sturdy frame had fused with the chariot, altering not only its appearance.
Even the driver’s seat had shifted from Hae Won’s position to Do Jin’s.
Now the chariot’s reins lay firmly in Do Jin’s hands.
And bizarrely, the horse itself exhaled an eerie green mana, emanating an unsettling atmosphere.

‘If I’d summoned even one more skeleton, the horse itself might have become skeletal.’

Had that happened, Do Jin’s identity would have been exposed before all those high-society players.
Moreover, the Test Guild and Hangang Group would have been dragged into a gambling den scandal.
This was perfect—the chariot’s appearance alone transformed, nothing more. Without knowing the materials, it looked like nothing but an ivory-colored reinforced plating flipped over the original frame.

‘Maybe because it’s bone, it does have that feeling of ribs packed tightly together…….’

Well, anyway.
The chariot had taken hits here and there from rival team attacks and booby trap escapes, leaving him genuinely anxious.
But at this level, he could push forward without worry…….

“Senior, the chariot looks like it’s made of bone!”

……It seemed he’d need to hurry the clear!

“Hold on tight, Hae Won!”

He brushed aside her words lightly.
His eyes tracked the final competitor’s chariot and the Arena’s mana moving gradually as if to activate booby traps, while
Do Jin seized the green-tinted reins with savage intensity.

Whiiiiine—!
In that instant, Do Jin felt the chariot’s mana surge once more.
Connected to Do Jin through the Thrall Armament’s effect, the chariot and horse were enveloped in an eerie green mana,

Roooooaaaaarrrrr!!!!!
A cry as if a wild beast were howling tore through the air.
It was the sound of the Arena’s mana and the Necromancer’s mana intertwining.

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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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