Chapter 58: Ceremonial Touch

Outside the ancient castle, shrouded in night, two agile figures were climbing the wall hand over hand. Their ropes strained in the darkness.

Bear and Husky—Hastin and Hares—might have been scammers, but they did possess genuine skills. They had easily picked out the route with the fewest magical traps, slipped past the outer wards, scaled the perimeter wall, and flung their grappling hooks onto the top of a tower.

One last climb, and they would be inside the tower itself, able to work their way downward through the castle.

Their plan was simple: make a quick circuit, scribble a rough map to fool their employers, and get out.

They had never wanted this job in the first place. The paladins had dragged them to the outskirts of Ambrose's territory at swordpoint, forcing them forward.

Worse still, those paladins had done something to them. If they tried to flee, they would be swiftly pursued. There were plenty of tracking spells in the standard light magic arsenal.

There was no easy way to botch their infiltration. Their only option was to minimize how long they spent inside.

Though they were confident in their abilities, both brothers felt a chill whenever they thought of the name Megaman Tiga. That legendary lich had ruined them utterly, leaving scars that went far deeper than flesh.

They'd have charged ten times the asking price if they had known he was the target. As it stood, their lives were on the line.

They could only pray the lich was buried deep in his vault and counting his coins, unaware of their intrusion. They swore to every god they knew that they would take nothing, not even a stone. They'd leave a few footprints, then vanish entirely.

Unfortunately, the gods were not listening.

"Caw—caw—CAW!"

Husky's raven suddenly shrieked, startling both brothers mid-climb.

Husky knew his beast companion never cried out without reason. He looked toward the bird and saw it trace a strange, urgent arc through the air.

"Below?" he murmured. "What's down there?"

He followed the warning and glanced downward.

One look was enough to drain the strength from his limbs.

"What is it?" Bear muttered, peering down as well. His hands jerked violently, nearly causing him to lose his grip on the rope.

Below them stood a monstrous presence.

It was a giant several meters tall and clad in heavy black armor. Where its head should have been, there was only a mass of constantly shifting dark-purple light.

"A... Dullahan?!" Husky gasped.

"Have you ever seen one that big?" Bear hissed. "That's got to be a hill giant!"

"Then it must have been a hill giant turned into a Dullahan!" Husky shot back.

Bear was about to retort when the figure below drew a long blade. "Shit, it's seen us! Hurry up and climb!"

His final word had barely been audible: the dark edge of the blade had swept past Bear's neck, severing his head cleanly.

Bear didn't stand a chance. They were at least fifteen meters away. How had the blade even reached him? How had it been so fast and so silent, without even the barest sound of a swing?

As death claimed him, Bear only had one thought on his mind: "Damn it. That so-called life-saving potion was fake. Those paladins cheated us."

Husky, however, had a front-seat view to what was happening.

In the instant before his death, three spells had flared around Bear's body: Agathys' Armor, Stoneskin, and Mage Armor. All had activated properly, yet none delayed the blade for even half a second.

As Bear's head fell, Husky and the now headless corpse plunged downward together.

That single strike had not only taken Bear's life but also sliced through their ropes.

The attack had been precise, savage, and utterly terrifying. Husky had no time to mourn his brother. Chains snapped tight around his body in midair.

The blade had been hurled on a chain. After severing Bear's head, it had twisted back like a living thing to loop twice around Husky.

Once more, Agathys' Armor, Stoneskin, and Mage Armor all activated—but none managed to save Husky from his fate.

The thick chain went taut in the air. Blood sprayed.

Husky was cut cleanly in half. By the time his body struck the ground, his eyes were already closed.

Only then did Ambrose arrive beside the towering, headless figure.

"Perfect timing, Tiga," the Dullahan said smugly. "Just caught two intruders."

The Dullahan truly regarded Ambrose as family by now. The moment he sensed intrusion, he had eliminated the threat without hesitation.

Before a legendary being, the potion's defensive magic meant nothing.

Ambrose looked at the mangled remains scattered across the ground and sighed. "Gareth... Next time, if you're facing small fry, try to leave their bodies intact."

"Huh?" Gareth replied. "You short on bones or something?"

He assumed Ambrose wanted to turn the corpses into undead.

Ambrose shook his head. "The Speak with Dead spell requires their bodies to be mostly whole. Decapitation and bisection won't do."

Speak with Dead was among the most classic of necromantic spells. It could temporarily bind a soul to its corpse and force it to answer questions—usually a maximum of five, and the dead could tell no lies.

Ambrose wanted to know how these two had breached his castle all of a sudden, and whether the paladins were planning something.

But with the bodies in this state, the spell was impossible to cast.

Gareth cleared his throat, embarrassed. "Ah... I forgot. I'm not great with magic. Didn't think about Speak with Dead."

Ambrose didn't blame him. Gareth had done exactly what Ambrose had asked him to do. "It's fine," Ambrose said calmly. "I'll just make them undead instead. A bit more trouble, that's all."

𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

He summoned clusters of Mage Hands to gather up Bear and Husky's remains and carry them into his laboratory.

As he looked at the reassembled corpses, a strange feeling struck him. This was... probably the first time he had ever created undead in such a traditional way.

Since becoming a legend and acquiring Mimetic Soul, all of his undead had been implanted with those rather than the souls of the living. Even their bones had come from old battlefields from the last monster war.

"This is absurd," Ambrose muttered. "If the others in the Elegiac Society found out, they'd mock me for centuries."

With a peculiar sense of novelty, he began stitching the corpses together, then proceeded with his first truly orthodox necromantic ritual.

Since it was his first time, he decided it deserved a little ceremony. He'd turn Bear and Husky into high-tier undead, then.