Chapter 4 – A Voice in the Ashes

The fire that had once ignited during the ceremony had not faded—it simmered under Ray's skin like a second heartbeat.

Even hours after the ritual, he could still feel the faint echoes of something ancient pressing against the inside of his skull. A whisper. A memory that wasn't quite his.

Something had changed forever.

---

The sun had set. The village had quieted, but not peacefully.

Doors were bolted. Windows shuttered. Fires burned low, not for warmth, but to ward off fear.

From her seat near the hearth, Asha sharpened a blade she hadn't touched in years.

"Ray," she said without looking up, "we're going to the mountain tomorrow."

Ray blinked. "The wild zone?"

"No. The corpse field."

His breath caught. "Is that allowed?"

She glanced up, eyes calm but sharp. "Does it matter?"

"…No."

"Good."

She stood, slipping the blade into its sheathe. "You'll need real bodies to test your class. Practice dummies don't bleed."

---

Seventeen hummed inside Ray's mind, thoughtful.

> "She's good. Practical. Dangerous. I like her."

Ray smiled faintly. "She's terrifying."

> "Even better."

---

Before he slept that night, Ray opened the [Skill Tree] panel.

It unfolded like black veins across a canvas of bone.

Dozens—no, hundreds—of skills.

Locked behind levels. Branching paths. Some led to Tyrant of the Dead, others to Plague Monarch, Bone Lord, even Warden of the Endless War.

But at the center, one path pulsed with faint green light.

> [Path Chosen: Soulbound Legion]

> "A commander," Seventeen murmured. "Not a puppet master. You don't just control the dead. You make them follow you."

Ray nodded slowly.

"I want them to choose me."

---

A shadow shifted outside his window.

Not a beast.

Not wind.

Just Mayla.

She stood by the fence, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

Ray slipped outside.

Neither of them spoke for a long while.

Then she asked, "Are you… okay?"

He nodded.

"That… wasn't normal, Ray."

"I know."

"I'm not afraid of you," she said. "But others are. And that kind of fear turns people into cowards. Or monsters."

"…I know."

She looked away. "I'm going to the academy. In two months. I was invited after today."

Ray's heart twisted. "A-rank."

"Yeah."

A pause.

"You should come."

He laughed, short and bitter. "They'd never let a Necromancer in."

Mayla shrugged. "Make them."

---

Later, after she left, Ray turned to Seventeen.

"Should I go?"

> "Eventually. Not now. First, we train. We grow. We become something they can't ignore."

"An army?"

> "A legend."

---

A few hours before dawn, Ray couldn't sleep.

He stepped outside, walked down the path behind their home, and into the edge of the woods.

The night was cold and quiet.

Then something stirred.

A faint glow beneath a pile of old leaves—animal bones. A small fox, long dead.

Ray knelt beside it.

"Let's try," he whispered.

---

> [Skill Activated: Rise Undead – Lv. 1]

A pulse of energy rippled through his palm.

The bones shuddered.

Cracked.

Reformed.

And then it stood.

A skeletal fox, its sockets glowing faint green, stared at him with something more than instinct. Something almost… grateful.

> [Undead Raised: Forest Fox – Level 1]

[Trait: Fast Step]

[Loyalty: 100%]

Ray smiled.

His first soldier.

His first friend.

---

When he returned home, Asha was waiting by the door.

Her expression didn't change.

But her eyes flicked once to the undead fox behind him.

Then she opened the door and said only, "Don't let it shed bones inside."