Explosions accompanied by powerful shockwaves erupted.
When everything calmed down, the Necromancer’s body was in tatters.
It had survived thanks to the defensive spells.
Neo stood calmly.
Even after using a large-scale attack, he was barely short of breath.
“Hehhehehe….”
The Necromancer started to laugh.
Its chuckles turned into maniacal laughter.
“I see. So, that’s how it is!”
“…?”
Neo, although confused, didn’t hurry to end the battle.
He wouldn’t be able to leave the window until the entrance reopened.
There was a lot of time to spare.
Besides, he was waiting, hoping his Shadow would spawn.
Though there were low chances of it happening, given that he hadn’t encountered his Shadow until now.
“You must be the leader of Awakeners!
“That’s why you are so strong.”
The Necromancer pointed his long, elongated finger at Neo.
Although he was shouting, there was a sense of pride in its gaze.
“The damned Hanma Family must’ve spent centuries cultivating you.”
He nodded to himself as if he had understood everything.
“After they prepared their ultimate weapon – you – they opened the seal and sent you inside to fight me!”
“What are you talking about?”
Neo frowned.
“I’m just an academy student. No one sent me here.”
“There is no need to lie. Someone as strong as you must be the strongest or at least among the ranks of the stronges–”
“Stop deluding yourself.”
“I’m strong, but far from the strongest.”
The Necromancer grinned.
He remained firm in his speculation.
“Oh? Then humor me. If you aren’t the strongest, where would you place yourself?
“I, for one, was on par with Titans and the Revolutionary who opposed them.
“I was one of the pioneers of the Apocalypse Era!”
Neo clicked his tongue.
The centuries of loneliness seemed to have messed with the Necromancer’s head.
Even if he was strong in the past, he had been surpassed long ago.
“Answer me, Strong One.” The Necromancer urged.
“I’m somewhere among the Top 25 students in my academy.”
“Hmm… Is the Academy the name of the organization ruled by the strongest Awakeners? There–”
“That’s just in my academy.”
Neo cut off the Necromancer and continued.
“I’m barely in the top 100 if we count the demigods who are around my age and didn’t enter the academy, or those who used magical drugs or forbidden techniques to grow stronger.”
His words made the Necromancer stiffen.
Neo ignored his shock and continued.
“These are all who are on par with me in my age group.
“If we are talking about demigods who can crush me easily, there are a million of them of at least.
“The number jumps to billions if we count the mythical beasts, monsters, and otherworldly entities in elemental dimensions.”
Neo shrugged.
“I’m strong, but far from the strongest.”
“Don’t lie…”
The Necromancer scowled.
“Do you really think I will believe those foul lies!
“What about the Titans? What about the Resistance!? What about them!?
“If you are average, then what are they? Gods!?”
“Yes. They’ve become gods centuries ago.”
“…”
The Necromancer swallowed his words.
He couldn’t believe Neo.
However, he knew Neo had no reason to lie.
“What… what is the highest stage of Awakeners in your era?” the Necromancer asked.
He wanted to know.
The Myths, the strongest Awakeners, were the second-stage Awakeners.
Neo opened his mouth.
“I would call them Fifth-stage Awakeners if I were to use the terms from your Era.”
“What about the Gods?”
“Their strength can’t be measured in stages.”
The Necromancer’s head dropped.
His eyes lost their drive.
“What have I been doing for centuries? If I’m so weak, then have I not done anything but waste my time?”
“….”
Neo didn’t answer.
The Spirit Seed the Necromancer cultivated had the potential to shake the world.
However, the Spirit Seed was unstable.
From the looks of it, the Necromancer didn’t have a strong mind to bear the burden of the Spirit Seed that had been cultivated from the grudges of hundreds of souls.
So, in a sense, it was true he had wasted his time.
“If you’ve received your answers, I’ll finish you now.”
Neo walked up to the Necromancer.
He placed his palm on the Necromancer’s head.
The monster didn’t resist.
While he did have absolute trust in his immortality, he just didn’t care anymore. freeweɓnovel.cm
Neo activated his blessing.
The life of the Necromancer played in his head.
A man was traveling across the country with his family.
His children were happy since it was the first time they sat in an airplane.
The smile of his family warmed his heart.
He felt it was worth it to spend a portion of their family savings for the trip when suddenly the Apocalypse hit.
The plane crashed, and the man was the only survivor.
Years later, he came to realize he had awakened the moment the Apocalypse began and used the Death element to save himself.
He was talented in the arts of Death elements.
The man had been living like a ghost until then.
However, the realization gave him a purpose.
He would revive his family.
He dabbled in the forbidden branch of death – Necromancy.
The Soul Hunters from the Underworld were deployed to take care of the man.
He defeated them easily.
The man, drunk on his powers, started to use sacrifices to grow stronger.
He was powerful.
So powerful that the Titans and the Resistance, led by Zeus and Ares, had to set aside their differences to stop him.
It wasn’t until the Hanma family interfered that the man started to lose.
Hamna family dabbled in the art of Necromancy and, for some strange reason, they weren’t hunted by Soul Hunters.
With the Hamna family providing the knowledge of the strength and weakness of Necromancy, the Titans and the Resistance forced the man to retreat into a [Rift] connected to the Shadow world.
Defeated, the man realized he had been sealed in the Rift between his world and the world of Shadows.
However, he didn’t despair.
He wasn’t alone.
He used the people he had kidnapped, killed them, and captured their souls, torturing them for centuries.
The grudge born from the souls was an excellent fertilizer for the Spirit Seed of Darkness.
Centuries later, when the man was beginning to lose his sense of time, suddenly the entrance of the rift opened from the other side.
The necromancer tried to invade the world and kidnap more souls to torture.
A black-haired swordsman blocked his path—
Neo exhaled lightly when the memory ended.
His eyes glowed.
His hand was covered in a starry, ethereal aura as he opened his mouth.
“Niles Radcliffe, you’ve led a life full of sins.
“Not only did you forget about your family—the reason why you became a necromancer—you became drunk on your powers and committed atrocities that destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent souls.
“Even after being sealed, you never repented.
“You tortured the souls of more innocents to strengthen yourself.
“You, Niles Radcliffe, are a Sinner.”
The Necromancer realized something was wrong.
Neo wasn’t trying to kill him.
But his senses were warning him as if an attack capable of reaping his life was coming.
“I sentence you to an imprisonment of 1500 years in the 5th circle of Hell.”
Chains erupted from the ground and bound the Necromancer.
They started to pull him into the ground.
“You… what are you doing!?
“Who are you to judge me!?” the necromancer shouted, panic evident in his voice.
The chains burned his soul, making him cry.
He glared at Neo.
“You damned boy. I spoke to you as an equal, and this is how you treat me!?
“Look at yourself! Your soul is even more accursed than mine! Your Sins are far heavier than what I’ve accumulated!
“You have no right to judge me—”
The Necromancer, unable to complete his words, was taken away by the chains of Hell.
“It was easy to defeat the Necromancer since he was a soul, and my blessing can judge souls.”
Neo looked at his hand.
He couldn’t help but recall the Necromancer’s words.
“My Sins,” Neo muttered.
Using Darkness to devour the souls of others allowed him to gain their stats and abilities, but it also brought their sins.
It came as no surprise Neo’s soul looked corrupted to the Necromancer since he had devoured a lot of beings and was now carrying their sins.
Shaking his head, Neo looked at the bones jutting out of the ground.
Each bone was a prison for a different soul.
He joined his palms, gathering the power of his blessing, and pushed it into the ground.
The land was covered in a starry glow.
Hundreds of memories started to play in Neo’s head.
The souls cried.
They let out the grievances in their hearts.
Neo listened to them patiently like a parent.
He could see the lives they’d lived.
Some of them were captured when the Necromancer was trying to escape.
They were innocent and had lived good lives.
Neo sent them into the cycle of reincarnation.
Some of them were sinners.
Neo didn’t send them to Hell since they had already suffered in the Necromancer’s hands.
He turned their souls into pure Divine Energy using the blessing and let them become one with the world.
Some of the souls were innocent, but they didn’t want to reincarnate.
The centuries of torment under the Necromancer destroyed their will to live.
Neo used the blessing to soothe their souls.
If they still wished for death after that, he let them become one with the world.
[??? is satisfied with your Judgement.]
[You have received…]