Awakening: (The Necromancer's Legacy Book 1)

by Henry Andrews

  The anger grew within him. How could a poor child wearing tattered clothes and torn sandals dare to face them? It was a lack of respect that had to be mended and disciplined with the harshest of punishments: death.

  His men were all well-armed: the armor that protected their bodies shone no more, but red flooded their eyes. There were swords, bows, spears, sabers, and even shields wrapped in orange flames, some hot as the inside of a waking volcano and others weaker, almost translucent. The soldiers were forced to stand still despite their doubts. The punishment of refusing or failing to obey the orders of a commander was one hundred lashes in front of their families. No one dared to move.

  It was still daytime, but the night had already started to set. Blood ran down the beaten earth. Most of the houses had already burned down. The sparks and ashes filled the sky like bright, luminous stars. The smoke blurred the soldiers' sight, acting as a curtain between them and the girl.

  "Ah, commander," one of the younger soldiers began, hesitating to continue before obtaining permission.

  "Speak!"

  "A few soldiers are afraid... No one's ever seen a necromancer. They only heard the legends..."

  "Fear? Fear?! We're from the Kaji School. We're not afraid of anything or anyone. We're the ones who bring fear to other people's homes. Warn them that if I see them hesitating even for a split second, they might as well run away because I'll rip their heads off before we head back to our city," the commander shouted.

  Truth be told, he too, was afraid. The legends were clear; necromancers could not only use dead people as slaves but could also drain the mana around them.

  The commander, Len Liu of his name, had participated in several battles between schools. He had seen what levels two and even some levels one could do. The megalomaniac creations that could alter the fate of a battle within seconds. Fire dragons, stone walls, ice arrows that vanished on the west only to emerge on the east, and even the thunderstorms that ran across the battlefield, destroying everything in its path and fulminating hundreds of soldiers at once. But he had never seen or felt such dark energy, such depravity.

  "This is it! I'm going to count to three and we're going to go. No mercy!" He screamed. His family awaited him and he knew he couldn’t live with himself if he ran from a battle. There was no turning back now.

  Chapter 4

  Aurora's mind had sunk in a secluded place within her soul. It was an empty place, devoid of any color, where her voice echoed a dozen times before fading away. The girl yelled for help. How could she have been so useless? She had not helped at all; she had not even run away. The sight of seeing her foster mum bleeding didn’t leave her head. It kept repeating, and now she shouted, sometimes even stretching her hand, believing that if she had been stronger, she could have stopped everything. Deep down, believing that she could still do.

  But, the truth was, she wasn't. She had never been. She had no strength or experience. She was just a mere peasant girl, and she had to settle for that. That was all that she had.

  Unable to cope with what was happening outside, she sat on the transparent crystal floor within herself and placed herself in a fetal position, covering her eyes with both hands, as if she did not want to be seen crying, for she was ashamed to be seen as weak.

  Bardolph's harsh voice was still ringing in her ears. Their deaths had been in vain. She couldn't forgive herself for how useless she had been.

  She had to retaliate. She had to show Bardolph that she had paid attention to his fighting teachings. No longer would she be a victim of her destiny. It was time to take charge of her own body. For herself and for those who had been killed.

  The tears stopped and she wiped the rest of her face. Her cheeks were now reddish, and her lips damp. She got up and shouted loud enough to raise all the corpses in the village. As they stood up, the crystal under her feet also broke into hundreds of shrapnel and Aurora fell into darkness, this time with bloody eyes and clenched fists, awakening in her body.

  She looked around, trying to understand what was happening and how everything had developed up to that very moment.

  Dead people were throwing themselves at the soldiers, tearing their clothes, and ripping off their body limbs before biting their faces or sticking small knives and hooks in their bodies. The screams were loud, crazy even. The soldiers were begging for forgiveness but there was none as they vanished among the crowd of decayed dead bodies who consumed and defiled them.

  Aurora had no idea what was happening. Her hands were wrapped in black goo and the landscape had been bleached in black and white. The pain was appeased and now there remained only a peaceful desire to end everything, leaving none of the soldiers alive.

  She tried to move forward, but her body didn't obey her. A secondary voice, more acute than hers, ordered her to watch the bloody developments within meters of her.

  "See, this is your true power," a female voice said, echoing in the young girl's mind.

  The girl did not answer. She didn't even know what to say.

  Aurora's tongue tasted like rusty metal. She fell to her knees. Her body was unable to withstand the pressure of power itself. Black lines spreading through her body; starting in her hands and moving up to her neck.

  They acted as chains, fastening her to the floor, preventing her from even closing her fist or screaming without feeling metal slithering down her throat.

  From afar, the undead had almost finished. The soldiers' bodies lay on the ground unrecognizable. Torn and bruised skin as if they were mere plastic that had been slashed. The blood clotted over the surface of the teeth and nail marks, sliding to the floor and into the clothes, staining everything along the way. The sour smell of blood mixed with the sweat of bodies and armor gave rise to a rotten odor—even worse than outdated eggs or even the smell of decaying zombies, their bodies gradually falling apart. The color of their skin turned gray; fragments of their flesh loosening from the body.

  Their eyes were now just two balls, the skin around liquefied and swallowing the rest of the face. The black chi they were feeding on was running out. The environment no longer had mana to offer them.

  Color was a thing of the past. A cloudy shroud still lingered around the city. The girl was nothing more than a puppet at the hands of a power she didn't even know she had.

  Luminous flames rose near the wooden house where Aurora had lived her whole life. Only the commander was still standing, his hand already quivering and sweat dripping from his forehead to his fingers. He slashed the approaching, limping, undead, already with wrinkles around their cracked lips. All the zombies who could still walk marched toward him, roaring incomprehensible monosyllables, their eyes uncolored and lifeless.

  "Kaji soldiers surrender to no one!" he shouted, stepping forward and maneuvering his sword brilliantly.

  Heads rolled across the floor, arms and legs adorning it. But no matter how good he was, he was no match for the dozens of zombies who knocked themselves down to get a piece of him.

  It didn't take long before he was drowned among the crowd, the flame dazzled, and the body torn apart. Aurora watched everything. She had never seen a scene so bloody, so painful. She had long accepted the fact that she had been abandoned, but this was a different feeling. This time, her family had been taken away right in front of her. The pity she used to feel for his parents, for having been forced to abandon his daughter, as Bardolph had told her, was nothing compared to the mixture of anger and sadness that still plagued the portion of her soul that now was apathy-free.

  "Stop!" Aurora finally spoke, the voice like a nightly whisper.

  All the zombies stopped and looked back at her. The chi that floated around her hands traveled across the air, reaching the bodies and sucking the semblance of Aurora's soul that each of them possessed. One by one, like towers that knock down the next when they fall, the corpses landed on the ground. Little by little, the crystalline sky reappeared here and there.

  An unknown force ravaged Aurora's body once again. H
er now heavy eyes gradually closed. The girl still tried to get up, but she did have no more strength. She had gone beyond what a seventeen-year-old's body could bear. All her joints ached, and her head begged for a break.

  She closed her eyes and her body collapsed on the ground, the surrounding leaves hovering in the air before fluttering down again.

  And, as the crows flew away, the sun shone once again, brightening the blood on the soldiers' armor and the autumn’s yellow leaves.

  Chapter 5

  The smell of camellias swirled through the air, entering through the window. Aurora finally awoke. Rosemary incense burned and filled the room.

  In contrast to the dark wooden room where she used to live, a window overlooked a transparent lake; the walls were of a yellowish-brown that contrasted with the orange brick roof. There was only one window, by the bed, and the only door in the room was ajar.

  Birds chirped outside, and a stream meandered around the rocks encircling the waterfall as it flowed.

  Aurora's eyes remained half-closed like unopened blinds that let only a few rays of sunshine slip through between them. The incense burned out but the aroma lingered in the air. The girl's body was riddled with black marks and blemishes; evidence of the crime of which she had been both the victim and the perpetrator. She did not know it yet, but she would discover that such inscriptions were seen as sacrilege by the great majority of the people living on that continent. Her arms and legs now carried extra weight, the dry and putrid chi that had yet to leave her body.

  Why me? the girl thought, yet unable to move, still feeling useless.

  The memory of everything that had happened, from the death of her adoptive parents to the undead she had awakened, was still fresh in her memory. She was immersed in her thoughts when a pair of shoes strolling on the varnished wooden floor made themselves heard. The door crawled open to reveal a man of tall stature, whitish hair down to his shoulders spinning in the air even though there was no wind.

  "I see you're already awake," the man said. He had a strong, authoritative voice, as if he had spent a lifetime managing other people and always had to speak in high tones.

  "Where am I? Who are you?!" Aurora asked him. Her throat was still dry, and as she tried to get up her blood pressure dropped, and she almost tripped.

  She barely had the strength to stand still and the chi within her was slowly cleansing itself, hiding the traces of the existence of latent power.

  "Take it easy. Your body is still recovering,” the man answered, putting down a steaming cup of tea, with an herb afloat, on the bedside table. "Drink this. It'll help you," he added, as he sat down on the opposite corner of the bed.

  From his upright posture and the way he moved—each movement calm and calculated—, Aurora knew that the man before her was probably a soldier, or at least he had been one. The best thing to do was to comply and see where that led them. Even if she wanted to run away, if she wanted to try to fight him, she had no strength. Not anymore. And she knew it.

  She grabbed the cup and guided it into her mouth. The lemon flavor burned her throat as it went down. Soon after, her whole body writhed, moving unnaturally. The weaker ones, weak-hearted or associated with smaller peaceful religions, would have accused her of being a devil or of having been possessed by one if could have seen her.

  Her arms bent until her shoulder was pointing toward her face and her legs unfolded in such a way that they now supported the girl's back. Her bones seemed to have crumbled and the girl's head was thrown back as her back rose from the mattress.

  "Don't fight the pain. It's only through it that you'll achieve peace of mind," the man said, pulling the two-buttoned white sleeves of his mantle upward. "The liquid is cleansing your body of impurities. The eight main meridians will be cleansed in a few minutes, hours if you keep fighting yourself. Your core needs a revitalization. We have a lot to talk about. It's time for you to know the truth," the man said before standing up and heading to the door.

  Aurora still tried to grab him, but her fingers slipped down the smooth fabric. She had never touched anything of such fine quality. Whoever the man was, money didn't seem to be a problem for him.

  Invisible tethers tied the young girl to the bed, squeezing her arms and legs until she had trouble breathing. A constant smothering scratched down her throat and twisted her stomach. Her screams filled the room. The birds took off. A black goo ran down the corner of her mouth, the liquid flowing along her collarbones, clinging to her skin and staining her shirt, spreading itself through the thick threads it was made of.

  Her forehead burned with a fever. Drops of sweat dripped down her face. She scratched the sheets and clenched her jaw. Her cheeks had taken on a red flush and her tongue had whitened. Anomalous shadows rose from the ground, their white eyes narrowed on Aurora. Black cloaks covered their bodies and their tilted faces.

  They are illusions, Aurora thought, closing and opening her eyes to the rhythm of a clock ticking. What did I do to deserve this? she wondered as she felt her face plastered to the pillow, a bubbling black miasma steadily removing the red from her lips.

  The man's leather boots haunted the floor again. He approached the door once more. He opened it slowly and walked over to Aurora. She had no idea whether only a few minutes had gone by or if it was hours since she had woken up. The man stopped on the way and glanced at the place where the young girl was looking but saw absolutely nothing.

  "You're hallucinating, right?" he asked like he already knew the answer. "This will help you. It shouldn't be long before the tea kicks in."

  He leaned over and put a cold, wet towel on Aurora's forehead. He also used a handful of napkins to clean the girl's pillow and belly the best he could. Some of the black fluid had already solidified and clamped onto the girl's body; leeches were now sucking the putrid impurities lying on the surface. They fed on the darkness that Aurora had hidden in a proverbial nine-key safe, but which now roamed throughout her body free at last.

  That was how black energy worked. While the rest collaborated with the mana in the environment and the chi within the body, the black, demonic energy seized and fed on the user's body. It drew the surrounding environment’s life, making sure not to leave a trail of light behind.

  All the schools had forbidden their members from pursuing a path of diabolical cultivation. It went against everything they believed in; the total control of a healthy body and mind.

  And yet, once a year, sometimes taking as long as ten years, someone with an innate talent for the black arts emerged. It was nature's way of keeping the balance. The vital Yin-Yang balance for the mortal world. After all, there would be no light if darkness did not exist either.

  "I didn't expect you to be so messed up within and yet still be so strong. I can feel your black chi wanting to expand. I haven't seen such an abundant natural power in a long time," the man said.

  He removed a golden hook from one of his pockets and straightened his hair before making a ponytail with a calm and exquisite gesture. Not a hair was loose. There was not a second wasted, a flaw in his plan, he had absolute mastery of all his actions. "Open your mouth," he instructed, removing a dry towel from the mahogany bedside table. He folded it into four parts and stuffed it into the girl's mouth.

  The man laid his hands on Aurora’s body and started chanting several harmonious syllables.

  A blinding white light shrouded his hands until it operated like a ball of mirrors glistering in beams along the four walls. The index finger of his left hand made its way from her chest to her navel, unbuttoning the buttons along the path. He buried it in the girl's dantian, three fingers below the navel, devouring the blackness that remained in her guts. The girl clutched the sheets, her fingers already red and swollen, winded. It wasn't normal for such a fragile body to endure so much, let alone withstand it. Smoke seeped out of the room, leaving the girl's body, the leeches liquefying and becoming black ooze that slipped down the sides of her belly and muddied the bed.

  A
urora’s back arched almost to the point of snapping and only when the spasm ceased did she close her eyes.

  Chapter 6

  “Your father would be proud," the man said, now certain the girl couldn't hear him.

  The truth was, the burden of carrying the secret of Aurora's existence had earned him excommunication from his school. All for vowing his life for someone other than the school’s leader.

  However, the importance of that bloodbath had triggered a wave of events that he could only predict to a certain extent. Kaji School’s army would be forced to march for days, rain, and sun, seasoning their Zen bodies and minds.

  The prophecy was real, and the blood moon would rise in sixty days. Preparations would have to be completed much earlier. The man had long been waiting for this moment. It appeased his soul to know that his and his old partner's plan had worked.

  Knowing that the girl wouldn't be up for a while, he decided to set his hands to work. Aware of the measures that would be taken by Kaji School as soon as the news of a new necromancer spread and reached them, he knew exactly where to go and who to ask for help. He knew Kaji School would want revenge, to show the world that they weren't afraid of anything and that even dark chi couldn't stop them.

  He walked down the narrow corridor, the dark wood walls housing the soft noise of his breathing in contrast to the clatter of his boots. He scrubbed at his robe, darkened ashes with a burning smell floating through the air.

  He was a humble man, fond only of the pleasure of an occasional cigar. He lived in a comfortable house near the edge of the city. As soon as he entered his room, he took a deep breath, the trail of ashes that had stuck to the stubble inside his nostrils being thrown out. A gray cloud still rose in front of him, but he quickly demystified it with a vertical hand cut. Seen from the outside, it would look like he'd just sliced the smoke ball. Only those who had already reached at least Level Three would have seen two of his fingers infused with chi, diluting the black charge in each particle, even the ones only slightly bigger than one centimeter. After all, maneuvering chi was not an easy task for those who were not ready or careful.