CHAPTER 197: ACQUIRING SOLDIERS - PART TWO

Kai looked on in horror.

Hundreds of Kai’s undead were destroyed in seconds.

Vepice flinched beside him. "They’re angels?"

"Something like that."

"They’re... winning."

Kai didn’t speak immediately.

Then he felt it.

The angels weren’t speaking to anything.

They didn’t call upon higher powers.

They were cut off.

Kai’s layered barriers worked.

Even the eyes of heaven couldn’t reach beyond Ylthara.

"I wonder..." he whispered aloud, watching the closest angel hover like a blade ready to fall. "How their souls would taste."

He extended his hand.

"Finn. Now."

A signal fired into the sky.

From above, Finn dove in a blur. His spear met one of the angels mid-charge, throwing it off-course and knocking it through a belltower. Stone rained down into the square.

But one wasn’t enough.

Ralts surged forward next, her flesh warping and reforming like molten clay. She launched a dozen grotesque tendrils toward another, aiming to twist its radiant body into sludge.

It didn’t work.

The divine form rejected the mutations. Holy light burned away his magic like paper in flame.

"Fall back, Ralts!" Kai called.

Instead, he turned to his true artillery.

"All liches. Full bombardment."

A chorus of magical howls answered him.

From buildings, rooftops, shadowed alleys, and broken towers, lichfire poured into the skies.

Green, violet, indigo, and black.

Fireballs of necrotic energy. Spears of frozen death. Missiles forming from magic designed by death itself.

The angels retaliated.

One sliced through a wave of magic, its sword cutting reality in half.

Another burned a dozen liches out of the sky with a burst of flame brighter than the sun.

But even they had limits.

And Kai’s numbers were vast.

For every undead that fell, two more rose in its place. Kai sacrificed the newly fallen, ripped their souls from the edge of death, and fed them into the assault.

Then, finally, one of the archangels let out a shriek, not of pain, but surprise, as Mari tackled it from above, her divine lich form pulsing with celestial hatred.

With one final beam of soulfire from her hands and a volley of cursed ice from a dozen mages, the angel shattered.

The others followed.

Their magic spent. Their masters silent. One by one, they fell.

Burning wings scattered like ash in a hurricane.

Silence settled across the quarter.

He could still hear faint screams in the distance as his undead cut away at the survivors.

Smoke curled upward from shattered buildings. Kai stood still, panting lightly, watching as the divine glow finally dimmed.

Vepice sat beside him, sweat trailing down her temple, her hands trembling. "That was..."

"Costly," Kai muttered, checking his reserves.

Life Essence Remaining: 19,800 / 115,000

"Are we done?" she asked.

He looked down at the city, then up at the still-sealed dome above them.

"No," Kai said softly. "We’ve silenced the priests and their angels. But we need to erase their records, seers, and divinations. We cannot leave evidence. I won’t let the gods find me. Not yet."

Vepice nodded grimly. "Then let’s finish this."

Smoke drifted between the alleys like a dying breath.

The golden glow of the angels had faded. Their bodies—what remained of them—burned down to twisted halos and ashen feathers. Streets were slick with blood. The cries had stopped. Silence reigned.

Kai stood in the epicenter of the devastation. One hand outstretched, his cloak of shadow writhing at his back.

The aftermath had begun.

He stepped forward, boots crunching over broken glass and fragments of bone. Vepice stood quietly nearby, her hands clasped, her face drawn but composed. She had seen war before, but never like this.

And now the reaping would begin.

Kai lowered his hand to the bloodstained cobblestone, his fingers splayed.

"Mass Raise Undead," he whispered.

A tremor pulsed through the air.

Darkness surged outward like a living tide. From corpses strewn across streets, homes, temples, towers, and cathedrals—the dead stirred. The common folk, guards, soldiers, priests, inquisitors, mages, and even the shattered remnants of the archangels—all began to rise.

Their eyes opened—cold, hollow, waiting.

Some stumbled at first. Others leapt from where they had fallen. Undead knights stood shoulder to shoulder with priestesses now stripped of divinity. Mages blinked into existence with the memory of fire still clinging to their skeletal hands.

He felt the numbers rush in as he moved through the city casting the spell several more times.

[Undead Raised: +4,312]

[Undead Raised: +3,809]

[Undead Raised: +2,747]

[undead Raised: +1,002]

[Undead Raised: +934]

And then...

[Undead Army Count: 12,804]

Kai exhaled.

The aura around him shimmered like heat haze—so thick it bent the air itself.

"You have more than twelve thousand soldiers now," Vepice said quietly, looking over the army with wide eyes.

"They’ll all be stored," Kai murmured. "They won’t walk this world until I need them again."

He extended both hands and focused.

The shadow space rippled. One by one, the undead were swallowed. Vanishing into the folds of Kai’s cloak and his soul-bound vault.

Knights disappeared. Priests flickered away. The archangels’ remains shimmered like burning coals before melting into darkness.

When the final soul was tucked away, Kai stood alone in the city with Vepice.

And then... he called to the system.

"Devour."

A pulse like thunder reverberated across the dead city.

The souls rose—invisible to most, but to Kai they were luminescent threads, caught in the air like drifting embers. The moment he called, they surged toward him.

[Souls Absorbed: 15,631]

- Lesser Human Soul (7,204)

- Petty Soul (4,986)

- Greater Human Soul (2,011)

- Grand Human Soul (910)

- Sovereign Human Soul (496)

- Sovereign Angelic Soul (24)

He staggered slightly.

The power was immense. He could feel it crackling in his soul vault echoing through his bones, and pooling deep within him.

His skin crawled with the pressure of divine remnants now shattered and repurposed.

Every angelic soul was heavy. They burned on the way in, not in pain, but in resistance. But they could not fight him.

Not here. Not now.

The system echoed in his mind.

[Soul Vault: 15,739 / 1,000]

[Phylactery Reserve: 11,500 / 11,500]

[Life Essence: 115,000 / 115,000]

[Advancement Requirement Update: 12,804 / 10,000 undead commanded; Complete]

[Find Ebonbrand’s Final Resting Place.]

Kai’s vision sharpened. He stared toward the shattered remains of the central cathedral, now nothing more than smoking ruin.

"I’m ready," he muttered.

"Ready for what?" Vepice asked softly.

He turned to her, a glint of something ancient behind his eyes.

"To become more than I was."

A pause.

Then she nodded.

Kai looked around at what had once been Ylthara, the home of the Hall of Sorcery, a haven of the inquisition, a beacon of civilisation.

Now, it was his.

Or, it would be, if he had the strength and means to support it.

But its story had ended.

For now.

The next step was dealing with an overfull soil vault.