CHAPTER 187: DESPERATE MEASURES AND SKINSHIP

Kai didn’t return to Vepice in the stands. He left the coliseum without saying a word to anyone.

The sun cast long, golden rays over the behemoth of a building as Kai exited its shadowy interior. The roar of the crowd still echoed faintly behind him, but it felt like it belonged to another world.

’Grim’s fight is probably about to start. I can ask Vepice about it later.’

He stared up at the sky.

Blue, cloudless, and achingly calm.

His limbs trembled. His muscles screamed with exhaustion, his bones felt heavier than ever before, and every breath was a struggle against the lingering pain from the fight.

He was utterly spent.

There was no energy left to burn.

His sigil trickled a thread of ambient mana into him, a delicate, almost invisible wisp that converted into a bare flicker of life essence, but it wasn’t enough. It was like catching drops of rain during a drought.

Kai lowered his gaze, eyes hardening with thought.

"Where can I even get enough life essence in this city now?"

"I’ve cleaned up the crime, and taken out the thieves guild..."

Then, something clicked.

His mind flashed with memory—half-formed visions through the milky white eyes of his undead rats. The shadows they skittered through. The cracked stones and silent graves they passed.

It wasn’t much. Not compared to what he’d already consumed. But it was something.

And he had nothing else.

Kai began to walk.

His steps were slow, but deliberate. The people of the city were too caught up in post-fight celebrations to notice the cloaked figure moving through the side streets, keeping to the shadows, always beneath the line of sight.

He needed nightfall.

He needed silence.

And most of all, he needed time.

As dusk bled into darkness, the citadel quieted. Lanterns glowed faintly on doorsteps. Market stalls closed. Windows lit with soft amber hues.

Kai’s path twisted through the outer districts until the stone markers began to rise from the soil like broken teeth.

The Grand Forne Graveyard.

It was ancient, older than even the inner ring of the citadel. Moss-covered statues of forgotten saints. Collapsing mausoleums with rusted iron gates. Headstones tilted and cracked from age and weather. A quiet hum filled the air here, an echo of years, of loss, of memory.

Kai pulled a dark cloak from his shadow space and draped it over himself.

The moonlight filtered down through withered trees as he stepped toward the nearest one. His hand pressed to its bark. The roughness was familiar.

He drained it.

The bark turned black. Then gray. Then powder.

The tree withered from the inside out before crumbling to dust.

[Life Essence: 301]

Kai exhaled sharply.

"Not too bad."

He moved from tree to tree. Each one was massive, ancient things that had soaked in the energy of the graveyard over centuries.

They gave willingly. Their life was already thin and bitter.

When he finished the last one, he stood in the middle of a small clearing ringed by dead roots and ash.

[Life Essence: 1,733]

"That should be enough."

Kai extended his arms and summoned a thin, singular barrier. It was a dome that coated the entire cemetery. He structured it to shroud the space within and try to prevent the gaze of the divine.

It flickered as it formed, translucent and soundless.

"I can’t afford layers," he muttered. "One will have to do."

He turned toward the cemetery proper. The rows of graves. The crypts. The nameless.

And smiled.

"Let’s see what the dead have left to offer."

He raised his arms, hands open, palms facing downward.

"Mass Raise Undead."

The ground trembled.

Kai concentrated sharply, hoping that nothing took notice, and he felt no divine response.

Cracks spread across the cobblestones and fresh earth alike. Bones clawed their way from soil. Dust turned to flesh, rotten and dripping. Skulls snapped into place. Ribcages knitted themselves back together.

From every corner of the Forne Graveyard, the dead stirred.

[Zombies Raised (346), Skeletons Raised (5,982)]

Kai’s legs buckled.

His vision swam. His knees hit the ground.

[Life Essence: –20,901]

His lungs burned. His heart skipped a beat.

His skin turned pale. Sweat poured down his neck. A sick, coppery taste filled his mouth.

He doubled over and coughed.

Dark blood splattered the grass below.

"Damn... that... that took so much more than I thought..."

The world dimmed.

He heard footsteps, uneven and dragging.

A groan.

Instinctively, he lifted his ungloved hand and pressed it against a torso of rotted flesh. The zombie disintegrated beneath his touch and turned to ash and energy in a breath.

It barely helped.

He sent the command with what little clarity remained.

"Come to me."

And slowly, they did.

A trickle at first, then a river of walking corpses and rattling bones. They came in groups of tens, then hundreds, surrounding him as the energy of their cursed existence was siphoned into him as they turned to dust.

An hour passed.

The moon climbed higher.

Kai sat motionless on a stone bench before a crumbling mausoleum, cloak draped around his shoulders, his expression hollow and tired, but alive.

[Life Essence capacity reached. 115,000/115,000]

[Skeletons Remaining – 861]

[Zombies Remaining – 12]

He stared at the numbers, blankly.

"Maxed out... It took over five thousand undead to replenish it..."

He leaned back, looked up at the moon.

"...Was it worth it?"

A breeze passed through the broken trees, whispering secrets from a time before his own.

Kai let out a slow breath and ran a hand through his hair.

"Well... the last time I maxed it out, it did last me quite a while. And next time..."

Under his illusion, his green eyes narrowed.

"...next time, I’ll find a smarter way to do it."

He stood.

The last of the raised undead stood silently around him like sentinels, motionless. Waiting.

He gave them a simple order.

"Vanish."

Kai opened his shadow space and absorbed his new soldiers into the darkness.

And Kai walked back into the city under cover of darkness.

Kai wandered the winding streets of the citadel beneath the pale sheen of moonlight. The high stone walls and shuttered windows loomed around him.

With each step, his boots scraped across the cobbled alleys, echoes of a long day’s toll ringing through narrow, empty corridors.

By the time he reached the inn, the lamps inside cast a soft amber glow across the windows. The din of late-night patrons had long since faded. Most were asleep. A few shadows shifted beneath the doorways upstairs.

The moment he opened the door to their room, Vepice collided into him with enough force to nearly knock him off balance.

Her arms locked around his neck. Her hair smelled faintly of honeyed bread and lavender oil.

’She must’ve bathed.’

"Miss me?" Kai asked with a crooked smile, more habit than humour.

"Of course!" she said, squeezing him tighter. "I figured you had a reason for not coming back to watch the next fight. Are you okay?"

"I am now," Kai said softly. "I was low on... energy."

Her eyes narrowed. "Did you..."

"I didn’t kill anyone this time," he answered quickly, hands half-raised.

Vepice exhaled through her nose and relaxed her grip.

"Good," she whispered. "We’ve killed enough people for a while."

"Maybe," Kai agreed. "But if they get in my way-"

"Then they die, right?" she finished with a knowing look.

"Exactly," he said. "But I’ll try to be diplomatic. If I can."

As Kai began pulling off his gloves, Vepice reached out and took his hands in hers.

Kai flinched, panic flashing through him like a jolt of lightning. He yanked his hands back and stared at her, wide-eyed.

"I-are you okay?!" he asked, frantically checking her fingers, her palms, her wrists for any sign of decay, any greying flesh, any of the telltale cracks.

There was nothing.

No damage. No rot.

"I’m okay, Kai," Vepice said gently, stepping closer.

He blinked, confused. "You’re... okay?"

Tentatively, slowly, Kai removed his gloves again. His bare hand reached for hers like it was the most fragile thing in the world.

Fear ruined his mind. He was hesitating.

Their skin met.

Warm. Smooth. Alive.

There was no rot. No withering. No draining of life essence. Her pulse remained steady under his fingers. Her hands trembled slightly, but not from fear.

Kai’s throat tightened.

Tears formed without his permission, spilling quietly down his cheeks. He couldn’t remember the last time he touched someone with his bare hands.

Not since he was a child.

And now, for the first time in years, he wasn’t a danger to someone he cared about.

That night, they didn’t speak much. They didn’t need to.

Vepice pulled him gently into bed. She had changed into her nightgown.

"You can take it off." Kai said.

She looked at him curiously, but did as he asked.

She slipped out of it before sliding beneath the sheets.

Her bare form pressed to his, her warmth grounding him, healing something that no magic ever could.

Kai followed her lead. He lay beside her, naked, holding her close. Her heartbeat was slow. Calm. Comforting.

It wasn’t sexual, though the temptation lingered beneath the surface, hot and urgent, like embers smouldering in his blood.

But Kai buried it deep.

He wanted their first time, if it were to ever happen, to mean something.Not in a creaky, overused inn bed with thin sheets and lumpy pillows. Not while his body still bore the exhaustion of battle and the scent of grave dust.

’I can’t believe I’m thinking about this right now... I’ve got other things I need to focus on.’

Vepice curled into his chest, one arm wrapped around his ribs, the other tucked beneath her cheek. She drifted off easily, her breaths soft against his skin.

Kai remained awake.

He didn’t need sleep.

Not tonight.

He spent the hours until sunrise simply being there. Holding her. Feeling her. Letting the ache of loneliness that had haunted him for years finally begin to fade.

In his arms, in the fragile silence between heartbeats, he found a kind of peace he never thought he’d deserve.

And in the golden hour before dawn, with light spilling slowly through the window, Kai smiled to himself.

’Maybe this is okay.’

She was still there.

He was still there.

And that was enough.