Rebirth of Abium

As they disappeared from his line of sight, Abium quickly opened the wooden door and silently shifted his gaze towards that seven-meter city wall that stood behind his house.

"It's time." He said in a low voice and took out his crossbow with an iron bolt and a long rope.

After a minute, Abium slowly landed on the other side of that seven-meter tall city wall and moved towards the Sycamore Woods.

…

At the same time, at Bucher's street.

A brown-haired old man named Leonard walked out from his large single storied house and frowned as he sensed blood scents coming from the entrance gate. As he walked near to the entrance, his expression turned gloomy. He saw a severed head was placed on the front, along with a sealed letter, and got furious.

'Steve?!'

Steve was Leonard's trusted servant. An hour ago, Leonard asked Steve to buy some food for him and then concentrated his full attention on creating spell scrolls. But he didn't expect someone would murder him during that time and place his head at his house entrance. With an angry face, his blue eyes shifted towards the sealed letter, which put near to the head and soon squinted sharper. He saw a symbol of a skeletal devil skull that was placed in the red seal and became startled.

'Order of the dead member?'

He cautiously walked towards the sealed letter and began to cast few spells using spell scrolls. After confirming there were no traps laid in the sealed letter, he picked it up with an icy look and opened it hurriedly to read.

"Do you want to know why I killed your servant? Come to Sycamore Woods and find out the truth.

Baxter"

As Leonard read those words, deep anger appeared on his face.

"Damn it. When did I offend Baxter?" He cursed at himself and began to walk out of the butcher's lane.

At Rakke Street,

A black-haired man named Neil, who was around 30 years old, looked solemnly at the unsealed letter in his hand, and soon his hand began to tremble uncontrollably.

"What is he up to now?" He wore an anxious look and quickly walked out of Rakke Street.

Similar scenes happened in the other five streets, and soon seven people who had mysterious identities in the slums began to walk out of the Royal city.

…

Half an hour later, six black hooded figures arrived in front of the Sycamore woods and looked at each other with puzzlement on their face.

"Is this some trap, Sir. David?" A blue-eyed old man asked while removing his black hood and showed his angry face to everyone. His shiny brown hair was dancing in the air and looked more beautiful in the moonlight.

"I don't think so, Mr. Leonard." A cold voice came out from another hooded figure, and soon that guy also removed his hood. He had long black hair, deep-set black eyes, and appeared around 50 years old.

"How are you so sure?" Another young man around 30 years old walked out of the woods and asked coldly. He had short black hair, red eyes, and had a pale face. Bandages were wrapped all over his body, and his right hand was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing his miserable state, Leonard, David, and the other four official tier necromancers became shocked.

"What happened to your right hand, Neil?" David sized him up and down and asked while emitting a hint of killing intent.

Seeing David's reaction, Neil scratched his head awkwardly and replied while shaking his head.

"I don't want to talk about that embarrassing incident." He paused for a moment and soon turned his face serious.

"I want to know why Baxter summoned us here. Something feels off about him."

"Nothing feels off to me," David said.

"He always seeks pleasure in others' fear and gives us more headaches. He must have some plan in his mind. Otherwise, he wouldn't have wasted any of the time like this." He paused for a moment and continued with a laugh.

"Well, let's go and see what he is up to."

Neil's face turned sour as he heard David's words and nodded with a weak smile on his face. After that, a group of seven people walked into the woods with the vigilant look on their faces.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the open space at the center of the woods and noticed a gray-haired old man with emerald green eyes sat on the wooden trunk that laid fifty meters away from them. Despite the darkness, they managed to see his face due to the presence of moonlight clearly and got relaxed. He wore a gray robe, an emerald green pendant on his neck, and also had a short sword in his waist.

"Baxter, why did you summon us? Also, tell me the reason why you killed all our servants?" Leonard asked with a piercing glare.

Without minding Leonard's glare, Baxter stood up, walked steadily towards the group, and began to ask loudly,

"Leonard, have you ever heard of the artifact' Feather of Death'?"

As Leonard heard his words, his eyes widened.

'Is he talking about 'Death Pontiff's staff'?' An absurd thought crossed his mind, and instantly he got startled. He had read about that artifact in Death Scripture that 'Feather of Death' was disappeared suddenly during the end of the ancient war, and not even a clue was found about it later.

'But how did he know about that artifact? Did someone give him some clues about that nature artifact? But why is he telling that clue to us instead of informing it to his master?' Multiple thoughts crossed through his mind, and soon his eyes widened even more.

'Is he plan to get that artifact for himself while using us? Hmm, he knew without our assistance, he wouldn't be able to get near to it. so he must be planning to bribe us to help him.' While he was contemplating in his mind, his legs began to move faster towards Baxter.

Meanwhile, others stopped for a second, and they also hasten their footsteps towards Baxter's direction.

"Where did you heard about that Nature artifact?" David also got tempted by the 'Feather of Death' artifact and began to walk without even suspecting anything.

'90 meters.' Baxter's eyes were cold as he calculated the distance and also hasten his footsteps. At the same time, he tapped his finger on the Miracle star and began to speak once again.

"I heard it from my friend, Yozis. He said that nature artifact is located in one of the Holy See's affiliated kingdom."

David became startled by the news and asked in an excited tone.

"Which affiliated kingdom? And how did he found out about that artifact?"

'20 meters.' Baxter muttered to himself and answered calmly after a short pause.

"I don't know. Yozis told me to gather a few trusted friends and wait for him here." Baxter finished his words and noticed all seven of them already arrived in front of him. But he didn't attack. Instead, he calmly scanned them and saw Necromancer Neil was still guarding up against him.

"That's good news indeed," David said solemnly and suddenly noticed he couldn't be able to think clearly. He was about to say something, but he forgot about that thing and felt confused.

Meanwhile, Baxter's lips abruptly curled up and formed into a mocking smile. Before David could regain his sense, Baxter blinked and reappeared in front of David while holding a short sword in his hand. Then, he raised his sword in a flash and skilfully slashed at David's throat. Before others could understand what the hell was happening, David's head fell on the ground with a thud while splashing scarlet blood everywhere!

For a moment, nobody in the necromancers' ground moved an inch due to the sudden betrayal of Baxter!

Baxter, on the other hand, silently blinked again and reappeared behind another hooded necromancer and then smiled while placing his forefinger behind his nape.

The next moment, a bang sound resounded inside the woods, and that hooded necromancer's head was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a half-meter radius scorching fireball appeared and began to expand like a balloon while completely blinding everyone's eyes.

"Be careful, everyone! He is a mage." Neil said with a gloomy tone and hurriedly summoned a bone wyvern skeleton from his spatial ring. At the same time, the balloon-like fireball exploded. When the other necromancers saw the fireball, all of them activated their defensive artifacts and braced them for the impact. A massive explosion sound echoed inside the woods while sending shockwaves in every direction. All of them, including Neil, was thrown off due to the shockwave and crashed on to the ground. Neil got deeply startled and warned everyone.

"He is a spatial mage. Be careful of any sudden ambush."

But soon frowned as he saw, two of his companions didn't respond to his words and laid motionlessly on the ground. Meanwhile, Leonard and other necromancer stood up hastily with a gloomy expression on their face and checked those two hooded necromancers using the 'Dark eye' spell. It was a death spell that could help a necromancer to see and communicate to the souls that died recently.

"Their souls are gone!" Leonard muttered slowly in shock.

Meanwhile, Baxter stood behind a nearby tree and stared at Leonard with cold eyes while gripping his sword tighter.

But as he was about to attack Leonard, he suddenly felt danger feeling. Abium in Baxter's appearance got startled and noticed Neil was pointing his finger in his direction.

Without any hesitation, he blinked away three times and reappeared 60 meters away from the group. Then, Abium saw a purple mist began to spread in every direction from Neil's finger, and within a few seconds, it completely covered everywhere while blinding his sense of direction.

At the same time, Neil, Leonard, and another remaining blonde-haired necromancer gathered together and stared at the surroundings cautiously.

"It seems there is a mole in our organization. Otherwise, how could this spatial Mage killed Baxter and took his place without arising any suspicion?" Leonard massaged his template and said with puzzlement on his face.

"I have no idea. But we have to kill this fake Baxter here, and now, otherwise, he might leak some important information to the Mages." Blonde haired necromancer said with a depressing tone.

"What if he already did that and now trying to reduce our numbers?" Neil interjected.

"Possible." Blonde haired necromancer said while nodding his head and continued after some deliberation.

"We need to inform about him to Master Rilos and Lady Yalya."

Nodding his head in approval, Leonard stared at the purple mist and then turned his head towards the black-haired Neil and asked.

"Neil, how many minutes can you able to maintain this spell?"

"Two more minutes." Neil's words were short and cold. Following that, he closed his eyes and noticed Baxter was standing 50 meters away from where he stood. A cold smile appeared on his face. The next instant, he conjured a small bone and tossed it into the mist.

Meanwhile, Abium glanced at the surrounding mist and furrowed his brows.

'I can feel dense nether energy gathering in the atmosphere the same as the undead plane. Hmm, it also affected my scanning range.' He frowned a bit and soon noticed a sudden change occurred in the surrounding purple mist.

"Who are you?" A cold voice came out from the purple mist on his left side, and soon a part of the purple mist formed into a humanoid skeleton shaped figure and stared at him coldly. Two deep blue eyes were flickered in that skeleton's sockets, and it gave off a cold aura to the surroundings.

Abium wasn't affected much by the smoke's intimidation and coldly snorted. He didn't waste his time and casually conjured another fireball and then directly threw it at the purple humanoid skeleton figure. The next instant, a groaning sound echoed from his left side, which made Abium's lips curl upward. He didn't dare to delay any longer and ran towards that direction.

"He is coming!" In the meantime, Neil opened his eyes abruptly and said solemnly.

"Damn it, battling against the spatial mage is a pain in the *ss." Leonard cursed loudly and began to summon all his undead skeletons from his spatial ring. But due to some strange reason, he couldn't be able to summon his trump card.

'Hmm, what is my trump card?' Puzzlement appeared on his face, and soon he couldn't be able to think clearly. He stood there with a dazed expression on his face and noticed a shadow appeared behind him.

"Watch out!" Both Neil and that blonde-haired necromancer screamed to warm him. But too bad, their scream fell into deaf ears as Abium's mind freeze spell took effect.

At the same time, Abium, in an old man's appearance, appeared right behind Leonard and directly plunged his short sword towards his chest area. Although a transparent invisible shield appeared and tried to block his short sword, Abium's advanced level sword aura tore through the shield and directly stabbed into his chest. A painful scream echoed in the woods. Once he confirmed Leonard was dead, he took a step back and disappeared into the purple mist.

Seeing Leonard's Death, Neil got anxious inside. Only he and the blonde-haired necromancer stood anxiously on the ground.

Blonde haired necromancer furrowed his brows and quickly cast 'Death's guard' spell.

It was a unique first-tier necromancy spell!

A second later, a dark smoke conjured around their body and formed into a black ball like a shield. Meanwhile, Abium got startled and reappeared in front of that shield and slashed his sword while imbuing it with advanced red sword aura. But that 'Death's guard' spell completely blocked his sword and left him more shocked. At the same time, Neil began to mutter a chant in nether language.

"Spirit of the dead, hear my call.

Kill the betrayer by knife, chop his torso in half

Make a f*cking brutal death, dismember his body.

I summon you here to kill, sever, hack and chop.

I want to hear his scream; I want to see his broken soul.

Destroy him by the knife, cut his flesh into pieces

Use vicious attacks to murder and maim

Use the blood and the innards for supper.

Boil his fingers and toes to make soup,

Chomp his arms, devour his flesh

I want to see his dead body twitching, missing his head.

Leave only a pile of bones, skin still attached.

….

Seeing Neil's chanting, Abium grew anxious and quickly backed away.

'Azolla, any help?' He asked with a nervous tone while studying the Death's guard spell.

'Kid, he is going to summon an undead from the underworld with the help of his death god. It will be most likely a Level 1 Ghoul.' Azolla said calmly.

'Level 1 Ghoul?' Abium got puzzled.

'Yes, same like mages and magical beasts, Ghouls also can able to cast necromancy magic spells. A Level 1 Ghoul has the same power as the first tier mages. But they can also borrow divine power from the god of Death like Light priests and casts divine spells.' Azolla's words shocked him.

At the same time, Abium felt a strong nether power starting to gather in front of Neil. With an uneasy face, Abium turned his head and looked at Neil vigilantly.

…

The cause of all the pain

The cause of all the suffering

Mangled by the blade

Sacrifice to my rage."

Meanwhile, Neil clapped both of his hands and finished his chanting.