The pavement of Nexus Delta-33 was almost made entirely of bone.

  As I moved deeper into the Necropolis, the “city” actively tried to digest me. It wasn’t a standard physical assault. The traps here were conceptual, woven into the fabric of the mana itself.

  I stepped onto a wide boulevard that led straight to the Tower, flanked by buildings made of fused ribcages. Instantly, the gravity shifted.

  Not down, but in.

  My boots fused to the floor. The calcium in my own skeleton resonated, trying to pull itself out of my flesh to join the masonry of the road.

  I hissed, flaring my [Domain].

  I pushed mana into my legs to break the bond, but the trap adapted. The air solidified into necrotic spears — dozens of them, instantly manifesting at point-blank range, aiming for my vitals. They didn’t travel through the air; they simply became existent inside my personal space.

  Simple teleportation won’t work, my combat instincts screamed. He managed to lock Space. Impressive.

  I didn’t dodge. I ceased to be there, using [Void Walk] to shift into the grey.

  I stepped sideways into the Lattice. The necrotic spears passed harmlessly through the spot where I had stood a microsecond ago. I re-materialized twenty feet up, hovering above the street.

  “Azrael isn’t playing,” I muttered to the empty air. “Space-locks and bone-fusion? Someone has been reading the forbidden manuals.”

  I scanned the plaza ahead. The Tower entrance wasn’t guarded by an army of skeletons. There were no hordes of zombies moaning for brains.

  There was just one figure.

  It stood directly in front of the gate, motionless as a statue.

  A Knight of sorts.

  He was massive, clad in armor made of a black, light-drinking metal that seemed to suck the brightness out of the air. A cape of tattered shadow-cloth hung from his shoulders. He held a great sword that wasn’t forged, but grown from a single, jagged shard of grey crystal.

  I landed softly, a hundred feet away.

  My [Void Perception] pinged it instantly.

  “Not a minion,” I realized, narrowing my eyes. “An Anima. Just like Rexxar or Jeeves. Azrael isn’t just a Necromancer raising dead bodies; he also possesses a powerful Soul.”

  This changed the threat assessment considerably. Necromancy is messy, but I had experience with it, having already fought a Lich in my Sanctum Dungeon. But fighting a person with a powerful Soul is different. Soul abilities were unique, high-tier magic that existed outside the System's rules.

  The Knight turned. Its helm was a visor-less slab of steel, impenetrable and cold.

  But the voice that came out of it wasn’t robotic. It was smooth, cultured, and oddly echoing — as if spoken from the bottom of a deep well.

  “You are stronger than reports suggested, Eren Kai.”

  It wasn’t the Knight speaking. It was a projection.

  “Azrael?” I asked, folding my arms. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but your city smells like expired meat.”

  “The scent of eternity often offends the ephemeral,” the voice replied smoothly. The Knight lowered its sword, resting the tip on the ground. The stone blackened and withered where it touched. “I monitored your entry. You bypassed the Calcification Grid with a spatial shunt. Your Void manipulation is way beyond projected trajectory. Quite surprising.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” I said. “Step aside. This Tower is mine. I can’t have you spreading that miasma stuff around anymore.”

  “We do not need to fight, Eren,” the Knight — Azrael — said, raising a gauntleted hand. “You want to save this world. We have the same goal. You seek to shield it with Essence and Mana. I seek to shield it with Preservation.”

  “Is that what you call turning two cities into zombies? Preservation?”

  “That is a slur used by the ignorant,” Azrael countered, his tone dripping with professorial condescension. “Think of it as ‘Biological Stasis’. No hunger. No disease. No fear. I offered them perfection.”

  He took a step forward.

  “But more importantly… I have contacts. The Pale Dominion is not isolated. I have reached out to the stars, just as I assume you have. And… I have been answered.”

  The air grew heavier. The green mist swirling around the tower pulsed.

  “The Umbral Synod,” Azrael whispered, the name carrying a weight that made my [Void-Star] spin in agitation. “An ancient, Primordial Empire. They rule across three Clusters. They have perfected the cycle of life and death. They are ancient, Eren. The Kyorians you fear? They are children playing with flashlights compared to the Synod.”

  “Another Empire,” I sighed, rubbing my temple. “Of course. Because one wasn’t enough.”

  “They are benevolent!” Azrael insisted, the Knight taking a measured step forward. “The Umbral Synod has existed for fifty billion cycles. They govern three entire clusters filled with trillions of stars — the Necrosis Sector, the Silent Reach, and the Bone-Stars. I offer you this information freely, so you may understand and confirm the authenticity. They are not scavengers like the Kyorians; they are the End-State of civilization.”

  “A government of graveyards,” I noted dryly. “How efficient.”

  “It is perfection,” Azrael countered, his voice lowering to a seductive hum. “Do you know what they offer? Not just resources and weapons. They offer infrastructure that defies logic. If we align, the Synod will grant Earth a Planetary Phylactery. A shield made of solidified miasma, miles thick. The Kyorian orbital strikes you fear? Their beams would rot into harmless light before they even touched the stratosphere. We would be untouchable. Impenetrable. An eternal bastion of silence in a noisy galaxy. No one will dare stand against us with our backing.”

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  He swept his hand toward the tower, the green fog parting at his gesture.

  “And for you… they have made a specific offer. They have heard of your Void nature. The Synod venerates the Void as the dark cousin of Death. They offer you the rank of ‘Grave-Walker’ — a Vice-Sovereign of the Black Crown. You would retain your mind, your skills, even your appearance. You wouldn’t be a drone; you would be a King of the Living districts, shielding your ‘bastion’ while I tend to the Preserved.”

  My internal monologue paused on the term ‘Planetary Phylactery’. My [Void Perception] shuddered just hearing the concept. To encase a world in a death-shield meant creating a closed ecosystem where no new life could be born, only maintained or recycled. It was a cage that slowly turned into a tomb.

  “Vice-Sovereign,” I repeated, testing the weight of the title. “Rule the living while you harvest the rest? That’s not a partnership, Azrael. That’s a slow-motion extinction event. You’re talking about turning Earth into a museum exhibit.”

  “Is that worse than being a Kyorian strip-mine?” Azrael challenged. “The Kyorians will liquidate us for credits. The Synod offers eternity. Think about it! Even for lowly Stage 1 Cultivators. No food required. No sleep. Infinite labor. We could build Spires that touch the moons!”

  “And who would look at them?” I asked, shaking my head. “Dead people don’t appreciate art, Azrael.”

  “It is a transition,” Azrael admitted. “But a necessary one. You cling to flesh because you are afraid of the cold. But the cold is consistent. Drop your preconceptions, Eren. Join me. With your Void and my Stasis, we could offer this world to the Synod as a jewel, not a victim.”

  I looked at the Knight.

  Azrael sounded genuinely earnest. Like a fanatic who had found religion and couldn’t understand why no one else wanted to drink the Kool-Aid.

  “You’re right about one thing,” I said, unclasping my hands and letting the [Domain] flare. White-gold fire erupted around me, pushing back the green fog. “I am biased. I happen to like my blood warm. And I’m not interested in trading one set of chains for a sarcophagus.”

  “Pity,” the Knight said.

  The negotiation ended. The violence began.

  The Knight didn’t charge. He vanished.

  “Shadow-Step,” I analyzed, spinning around.

  He reappeared directly behind me, the crystal greatsword swinging in a silent, horizontal arc aimed at my neck.

  I raised a barrier of solid mana.

  The sword hit the barrier, but instead of shattering, the blade passed through it. Not by breaking it, but by aging it.

  My barrier didn’t crack; it dissolved into grey mana-dust instantly.

  “Decay Concepts,” I realized, leaning back just as the tip of the blade grazed my chest plate. The legendary metal of my armor hissed, turning grey where it was touched before rapidly regenerating. “It accelerates entropy on contact. Quite nasty.”

  I kicked out, blasting the Knight back with a gravity pulse.

  He skid across the plaza, his boots tearing furrows in the bone-pavement.

  He raised his hand. “Grasp of the Grave.”

  The shadows under my feet lunged upward, turning into solid, grasping claws. They latched onto my ankles. I felt a sudden drain — not just of mana, but of stamina. My limbs felt heavy, like I had just run a marathon in seconds.

  “Vampiric Drain coupled with powerful binds,” I noted, impressed. “For a Tier 5, you punch way above your weight class.”

  I stopped playing fair.

  I expanded the [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix].

  The white fire exploded outward. It didn’t just heat the air; it imposed a reality where the shadows couldn’t exist. The claws screamed — a sound like tearing fabric — and evaporated.

  I stepped forward.

  The Knight charged again, swinging the decay-blade in a flurry of strikes. He was fast. Skillful. A master duelist.

  But skill did not matter when facing overwhelming power.

  I caught the blade.

  Not with my hand, but with [Apex Mana Authority]. I solidified the air around the sword into a vice of impenetrable density. The Knight froze, struggling against the invisible lock.

  “Neat sword,” I said, stepping closer. “But you rely too much on the weapon’s enchantments.”

  I placed my palm on the Knight’s chest plate.

  [The Void-Star’s Hunger].

  I didn’t target the construct. I targeted the link.

  I felt the thin, silver thread of soul-mana connecting this shell to Azrael, hiding somewhere far away.

  “Taste test.”

  I pulled.

  The Knight convulsed. The blue light in its visor flickered and turned red. The decay mana fueling the armor rushed into my palm, swirled through the filter of my bracelet as it vibrated with happy malice, and fed my core.

  “You…” Azrael’s voice cracked, sounding distorted and fearful now. “You can touch the Soul Thread? But that is…!”

  I clenched my fist.

  The Knight crumbled.

  It didn’t fall apart; it simply ceased to be coherent. The armor fell clattering to the bone pavement, empty. The crystal sword shattered into dust.

  A fading wisp of green smoke hovered above the pile of scrap.

  “Eren Kai!” Azrael’s voice was faint now, a whisper in the wind. “I do not pity you. The Synod does not forgive insults. The Kyorians are but simple peasant farmers while the Synod are Harvesters. You have made a huge mistake.”

  The wisp vanished.

  I stood alone in the silence of the bone city.

  I turned to the Tower gate. The green miasma that blocked it was already thinning, sensing the defeat of its master.

  I keyed my comms.

  “Jeeves.”

  “Yes, Master?”

  “New threat profile,” I said, walking into the Tower lobby. “Azrael mentioned a ‘Primordial Empire’ called the Umbral Synod. Undead affinity. Claims they are galactic heavy-hitters, stronger than the Kyorians. Put a flag on it. I want to know what to expect from them and how soon.”

  “Understood, Master,” Jeeves replied, his tone mixing polite concern with the distinct sound of a pen scratching on paper. “The geopolitical landscape is becoming rather crowded with empires, sir. Shall I assign the threat matrix to ‘Existential’ until further information?”

  “Do it,” I said. “And locate Azrael. I need to find where he’s hiding his real body. This Anima was strong — Peak Tier 5. Meaning Azrael himself is likely mid-to-high Tier 6. But more importantly…”

  I looked down at my chest plate. The spot where the decay-blade had grazed me still had some lingering effects. Even with its enchantments, the metal wasn’t fully healing right. I sent a sample through the Sanctum Singularity, sending it straight to Leoric’s containment chambers in his workshop.

  “This mana,” I murmured, running a finger over the scar. “It’s sticky. It feels like an infection. If he spreads this ‘Synod’ influence too far, the purification fields won’t be enough. Make sure you let Leoric know to study it and learn everything he can about it.”

  I felt a phantom chill. Not from the air, but from the Lattice itself.

  The Kyorians were tech-savvy conquerors. Korg was a brute. But this… an ancient, galaxy-spanning empire of the Dead?

  That was a different kind of war.

  “Secure the towers,” I ordered, stepping onto the portal pad in the Tower's lobby for the first floor of Delta-33. “We need those defenses online. Make sure you let me know if you detect any mana signatures related to this miasma.”

  As the teleporter hummed to life, I felt the heavy gaze of the unseen watching me. Not just Azrael. But something older, darker, staring across the void of stars.

  “Another bigger, scarier enemy,” I sighed as the light took me. “Fun.”