CHAPTER 81: NECRO ARCHMAGUS GRIMOIRE IX

The silver script hovered in the air, thrumming with a faint, dreadful resonance.

Aria’s eyes darted between the glowing words, her pulse racing. Bone Lance. Soul Shackle. Spectral Hands. Each name carried weight, as if the grimoire itself whispered promises of strength—and warnings of cost.

Laxin squinted at the hovering text. "Alright, but which one makes things explode? I call dibs."

Aria groaned. "This isn’t a tavern menu, Laxin. They’re spells."

Fenric’s gaze was sharp as a blade. "Yes. And spells are more dangerous than any blade. Without precision, they will turn on you."

He flicked his wrist. The letters shifted, showing skeletal diagrams—bones twisting into spears, chains coiling around ghostly figures, translucent hands clawing out of the ground.

"Each spell requires intent, clarity, and force of will. If you falter..." His eyes slid to a pile of bones half-buried in shadow. "...you will join the heap."

Laxin swallowed. "...Noted."

They started with Bone Lance.

Aria closed her eyes, picturing the shape, forcing her mana into a single bone shard. The fragment quivered, trembled—then snapped upward, stretching into a crooked spear.

"Yes!" she gasped, hurling it at a dummy. It flew—straight into the ceiling, where it stuck like a badly-thrown dart.

Laxin burst out laughing. "Deadly to chandeliers. Terrifying."

"Shut up," she hissed.

He tried next, gripping a femur. "Alright, let’s see... spear of bones, rise!"

The femur twitched—then exploded into fifty tiny toothpick-sized lances that shot in every direction. One clipped his ear.

"OW! Why do mine always try to kill me!?"

Aria couldn’t stop laughing this time.

They moved on to Soul Shackle.

Aria pictured chains, thick and unbreakable, lashing out from the air itself. Shadows stirred. For a heartbeat, dark links coiled around a dummy—then promptly whipped back and tied her own wrists together.

She yelped. "Oh—no, no, no!" She tumbled sideways, struggling against her own spell.

Laxin doubled over. "Congratulations, you just arrested yourself."

She growled. "Try it, then!"

He did. His shadows twisted into something that looked suspiciously like... a jump rope. It flopped uselessly on the ground.

Fenric’s silver eyes narrowed. "Pathetic."

By mid-afternoon, they attempted Spectral Hands.

Laxin clapped his hands dramatically. "Rise, ghostly minions of doom!"

The floor rumbled. His grin widened—until dozens of glowing hands erupted, not to claw at enemies, but to grab his legs.

He screamed as they dragged him across the chamber. "HELP! THEY’RE TAKING ME TO THE UNDERWORLD!"

Aria fell to her knees laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

She tried moments later, more cautiously. Wisps of dark mana seeped from her palms. One spectral hand clawed upward, swiping at a dummy before dissolving.

Her smile widened. "I did it!"

Laxin, still half-dragged across the floor, yelled, "Good for you! Now tell them to LET ME GO!"

Aria dismissed her spell, and mercifully, the hands sank back into the stone. Laxin lay flat, panting.

"...I hate this training."

Aria smirked. "You love it."

Fenric closed the grimoire with a snap. His voice was cold, but his eyes carried the faintest flicker of approval.

"Clumsy. Weak. Unrefined. But you touched the edge of necromancy. That is enough... for now."

He turned away, his cloak swirling as shadows clung to him like a second skin.

"Tomorrow, you will show me more. Or you will break."

The torches guttered as he left them in silence.

Aria stared at her trembling hands, still tingling with dark energy. For all the failures, for all the disasters, she could feel it—her control sharpening, her power expanding.

Laxin groaned, rolling onto his back. "If we survive tomorrow, I’m naming my skeletons Victory One and Victory Two."

Aria chuckled, lying back beside him. "...Don’t get their hopes up."

But somewhere deep down, both of them believed it.

Tomorrow, they wouldn’t just fail louder. Tomorrow, they might actually succeed.

The days that followed were chaos—explosions of bones, accidental self-arrests, ghost hands pulling Laxin across the floor like a mop. But somewhere in the middle of all that disaster... something changed.

Aria’s Bone Lances no longer stuck in ceilings—they cut clean through training dummies, pinning straw heads to the wall like trophies.

Her Soul Shackles, once clumsy, now wrapped around targets like steel serpents, locking dummies in place long enough for skeletons to crush them.

Even Spectral Hands obeyed her, dragging enemies instead of her.

Laxin—well, his spells still had a sense of humor. But they worked.

His Bone Lances split into three sharp spikes at once, turning a single strike into a scatter shot. His Soul Shackles were wild, but strong enough to yank two skeletons to the floor at once. And his Spectral Hands? They seemed to have... personality. They high-fived each other after clawing down a dummy, making him cackle like a madman.

Fenric, watching from the shadows, finally nodded. "Adequate."

He raised his hand. The floor trembled. Bones shifted—not into soldiers this time, but into towering shapes.

One skeleton formed into a knight, plated in bone-forged armor, a rusted sword clutched in its grip.

Another shimmered with runes, its skull glowing as faint wisps of mana curled from its bony hands—a skeletal mage.

The last rose heavier, thicker, more brutal: a skeletal warrior with an axe bigger than Laxin.

Aria’s jaw dropped. "...They can be more than just soldiers?"

Fenric’s silver gaze pinned them. "Skeletons are the foundation. But knights, mages, and warriors... they are the arms of an army. Without them, you are nothing but children playing with bones."

Laxin whispered, eyes wide. "...That’s it. This is it. We’re making a skeleton guild."

Aria smacked him. "Focus."

Training the Knights was brutal.

Aria’s first knight moved like a clumsy drunk in heavy armor, tripping over its own sword. But after hours of repetition, it began marching steady, shield up, strikes crisp. She felt the difference—commanding one knight required ten times the focus of a regular soldier.

Laxin’s knight... immediately stabbed itself in the foot.

He wailed. "Why do mine hate me?!"

But after two days, it learned to at least swing in the right direction. Sometimes.

Training the Mages nearly killed them.

The first time Aria funneled mana into a skeletal mage, it sneezed out a fireball that torched half the training dummies.

Laxin’s mage, on the other hand, coughed up sparks that fizzled—until it accidentally sneezed lightning straight at him, knocking him flat.

"Okay," he wheezed, hair smoking. "This one’s a keeper."

Training the Warriors was worse.

Big, heavy, slow—but terrifying once they got moving. Aria’s warrior swung its axe in wide arcs, scattering anything in its path.

Laxin’s warrior, meanwhile... couldn’t stop spinning the axe like it thought it was in a circus act. It twirled until it collapsed, dizzy.

Laxin put his head in his hands. "...It’s me. I’m cursed. Even my warrior’s a clown."

But Fenric only said, "Even clowns kill, if aimed properly."

By the end of the week, the chamber floor was a graveyard of shattered dummies. Aria stood tall, sweat dripping, her knights and mage flanking her like a true commander.

Laxin leaned against a wall, panting, but grinning—his own knight crooked, his mage sparking, his warrior dizzy but standing.

Fenric closed his grimoire slowly. His voice, though still cold, carried the weight of something new.

"You have taken the first step. You command not just bones... but an army."

Aria’s heart pounded. Laxin’s grin widened.

"...So," Laxin said, wiping his brow. "When do we get the dragon skeletons?"

Aria groaned. "Don’t even joke."

Fenric’s silver eyes flickered—just enough to make them both go silent.

"Not yet," he said.

But the way he said it made their blood run cold.

The next day, Fenric was already waiting when they entered the chamber. His grimoire floated beside him, pages glowing faint silver.

"You’ve learned to summon knights, mages, and warriors," he said. "Now... you will test them in a battle."

Aria and Laxin both tensed.

Bones rattled across the floor. This time, Fenric didn’t summon just one or two enemies. He raised an entire squad—three knights in armor, two skeletal mages glowing with ghostly fire, and a heavy warrior carrying a massive hammer. They moved in perfect formation, every step sharp, every weapon steady.

Aria whispered, "That’s... an army."

Laxin gulped. "And we’re about to get buried by it."

"Begin," Fenric said.

Aria shouted, "Shields forward!" Her knights marched in a line, blocking the first wave of attacks. Her mage raised its hands, firing a bolt of blue fire that burst against an enemy’s shield.

Laxin barked, "Warrior—swing wide! Mage—zap something, anything!"

His warrior roared, axe spinning in a sloppy arc that actually smashed into two of Fenric’s knights. His mage sneezed lightning again—this time striking one of Fenric’s mages and making its bones rattle apart.

Aria blinked at him. "...Did that actually work?"

He grinned. "See? Strategy!"

Their skeletons pressed forward together. For once, their timing wasn’t awful. Aria’s knight locked blades with an enemy while Laxin’s warrior crashed into its side. Her mage fired again, and his followed up with a crooked lightning bolt. The enemy squad actually faltered.

Fenric’s voice cut through the clash. "Better."