Date With a Necromancer(Part 1)

Rowan walked through the large double doors into a room obscured by steam due to the massive difference in temperature between the outside room and the one here. Rowan let it waft out of the room so he could finally see and what stood before him was a massive refrigerated hallway filled to the brim with different glass containers. Some held animal body parts, and some of them contained human body parts.

He saw several zombie heads as well as several creatures he could not place at this time. Rowan walked down the hallway and passed all the parts as the room opened up into a brightly lit room where a man sat in a reclining chair with tubes attached to it that led to a clear pod where he could see Camille. Her body was wrapped in her healing flames constantly and somehow they were being channeled from the pod to the man sitting in the chair in the lab coat. The first thing that stood out beyond that was the fact that sitting by his feet wrapped in chains was EM. Rowan could feel the rage inside of him boiling.

The sight of the man in front of him caused the souls within him to roil with rage and indignation. This was the man that had not only ended their lives but at the same time tortured their souls before putting them to his own use. Rowan had to shake his head to keep the rage in check and, at the same time, the man in the chair smiled at him. His hair was short and spiky, with streaks of white through it. His hair was odd for sure, but what truly stood out were the bright blue eyes that never stopped looking at Rowan.

His build was that of a middle-aged man. Rowan could even see the slight wrinkles under his eyes. Despite the massive amount of rage that he was holding back, he couldn't help but think that the man looked kind. His eyes looked soft and kind, which made him truly look like a dad. He smiled at Rowan but did not stand up from his chair. "Rowan Raid, I have wanted nothing but to be able to meet you since the moment I came to this world. You are such a dazzling individual, and mana coming to this world has made you even more so. You are the perfect specimen. A being so in tune with souls that they naturally gathered towards him. You are practically born to be a necromancer, so without further ado it would be my pleasure to invite you to join the necromantic society. We are active throughout both the first and second layer and I promise you that the things I can teach you will put you in a position to rule this world if you want."

Rowan had begun to release storm points through his feet and towards his companions while the man talked. "I don't think I want to learn the things that you are capable of teaching me. I'm only here for two things: your life and my friends." He raised an eyebrow, but kept his smile all the same. "Oh, no pleasantries? I go by Azure, by the way. I would implore you to reconsider my offer, though. We would be able to help you greatly. We can teach you things that not even the precious system could teach you." Rowan walked closer and Azure finally stood up, but as he did, the tubes that Rowan thought were connected to the chair released from his back with a hiss.

"I have no desire to gain power the way you do. How many lives have you claimed just to make your precious Zodiac gang, and all of them fell before me, each as easily as the last? You don't have to feel the things you put these souls through, but I do. I can still feel the first incision you made into their bodies. I can feel the terror they felt as you used your abilities to tear their souls from their flesh. I can feel the hate they have for you because they don't get to have another day. They are gone and they know that."

Rowan tapped his foot and the storm points formed whips of water that lashed at Azure and, at the same time, snagged Emily and dragged him to her so that he could catch her in his arms, an action that startled her awake. Rowan looked down at her and smiled. "So much for not getting caught, Em." She looked at Rowan with a look of fear as she realized that she was still in the same place just now Rowan was here as well.

"Rowan, you gotta be careful. He's strong." It was no later that she said that when Azure lightly clenched his hand and all the water whips and storm points shattered at the same time. Azure smiled and waved his hands and the pod that held Camille opened before her unconscious body floated out of it and towards Rowan. "I have gotten my use out of her. She and your friend can both go, as long as you stay here to keep me company."

Rowan nodded his head towards Azure, and the chains that bound Em vanished into gray mana. "Em, listen closely. You are going to go through the door behind me and keep going until you get out of this place. Go back to my place and wait for me there. I shouldn't be long." Em looked from Azure to Rowan before she jumped and wrapped her arms around Rowan in a hug. "Come back safely. I'm sorry I got caught. I promise I won't do it again." Rowan nodded and patted her head while he grabbed Camille from where she was floating and handed her to Em, who looked determined as she sped down the hallway and away.

Rowan looked back to Azure after he could no longer feel the signatures of Em's mana. Azure had walked closer to Rowan with the same nonchalant look on his face that he had before, despite the fact that Rowan had attacked just a moment before. "Listen, you don't have to be a dog to the system. There are other ways to pursue power. You don't even realize how much knowledge we can give you. The necromantic association will be the rulers of countless worlds before long and after that, when we find a way through the barrier , we will lay claim to the first layer as well. I bet you are wondering why I said layer, right? I bet your system did not tell you that, did it?"

Rowan took the exact moment that he finished speaking to throw a punch with all of his strength. There was a whooshing sound as his fist broke the sound barrier and shot toward Azure's face. Space started to crack and fracture where his fist traveled. He was on a direct collision course with Azure, and the space cracks widened as it reached its destination. Azure raised his hand in a manner that should have been slow, as far as Rowan could tell it was, but it raised with the perfect timing to place his hand right in front of the punch. Brilliant shining blue scales burst across his hand right before the collision, and Rowan's punch landed with a muffled thud. The force of the punch continued through as Azure took three steps back before stomping and stopping himself, while the force of the gale from the punch caused countless jars to shatter.

"Come now Rowan, at least allow me to finish the pitch, then you can give me what belongs to me and we can be friends. I can even take you as my apprentice. I would have you know that I am already a rank six existence. You can not hope to beat me here, so any continued insolence and I will throw my offer out the window and use your body to create an unparalleled death knight."

Rowan stopped for a second and navigated through the rage in his mind to ask a question. "What do you mean, give you back what belongs to you? I have nothing that is yours." Azure shook his head and shook some dust from his coat that had landed on his shoulder after Rowan's punch.

"Of course you do Rowan, the souls of the zodiac that you have absorbed. I will be needing those back. It took me a long time to find such peculiar souls again, I would rather not waste the opportunity in front of me to step into rank seven, if i can do that I should be able to step into a brand new world of necromancy then I can take my zodiac art to a brand new level." Rowan was about to speak when Azure continued unabated.

"Your friend's powers allowed me to heal from the wounds that those stupid slaves of the system from the interstellar academy gave me, so I am back in my prime. Once you return those souls to me, then we can both leave this pitiful world. It does not even have enough mana to create a rank six existence, how it gave birth to such wondrous souls is beyond me. The first time I implemented the Zodiac technique, it took me tens of years to find beings with all the souls and they were very, very against me doing the procedure. Imagine how much stronger I will now become with the ones I've gotten from here. Who would believe that I could use willing hosts as a furnace to refine their souls with others and create the perfect boost for myself?"

Rowan began to connect the dots as the realization dawned on him, but at the same time, there were eleven other souls that had begun to pay attention to what was happening from where they rested in the phantom image of the falcon. "It was so bothersome acting like they were important. A trick here and a trick there and they thought what I had done had made them a tier zero existence. It was only for show. It can fool some things, but anyone willing to inspect would be able to tell the difference. None of them were even worthy enough to become death knights after I claimed their souls."

Rowan began to shake with rage as the eleven animal souls burst with grief and sadness and an anger of their own. "So you've done this before? Your azure technique is designed to use people with special souls to create a tonic that boosts you to the next level?" Azure nodded with a smile on his face. "Well, of course Rowan, how else do you think I made a name for myself? That dumb system injured me when I first turned to necromancy, it gave me one warning when I discovered I was attuned to the mana, it told me that death mana could be used a different way but I saw such a clear path before me, it was like I was born for this, but I digress. The system tearing itself from my soul injured me so badly that I, much like most necromancers, had to find a new way to evolve our mana and mana centers. My method is the azure technique. I have had to use it ever since I was rank 2. I have completed it exactly four times…Well I guess five times now."

The grief from the eleven was overwhelming for a moment before it turned into a rage that funneled into Rowan. "I'm going to kill you for this. Not for just taking advantage of the zodiac, they knew what beast they chose to work for, but for all the lives you claimed here. I did not think about the number until just now, but if there were ten thousand souls put into this project, that means in the course of your time here you've taken over ten thousand lives just for a single rank up? You are worse than trash."

Azure shook his head as his face suddenly became menacing and the smile on his face became reminiscent of the tortured souls Rowan had seen here. "Fine then, you becoming a death knight is how it will have to be. Also, though before this starts you should know, if you think 10000 souls were a lot, then you should have seen what I did to other worlds. It took me many years to perfect the zodiac technique, and millions of lives. It was what put me on the radar of that school."

He smiled at Rowan while at the same time beautiful blue scales sprouted along his body while his body enlarged, shredding the lab coat and the clothes he was wearing.

His voice had changed and was much raspier now and certainly more of a hiss to it. "Now come die Rowan Raid, I can't wait to see what your soul looks like torn from your body." He moved slightly and was right in front of Rowan, his massive scaled fist smashing towards Rowan's chest.

Rowan raised his hands to block but at the same time he was able to see that in each of the scales on Azure's body there was a trapped soul that showed itself as a mark for one of the other eleven members of the zodiac and each scale shifted to a different animal each second. The punch connected with Rowan's arms and space almost shattered at the collision as Rowan was blown off of his feet and sent crashing through a mass of jars and tools.