Emil had been traveling across the landscape with Ray for quite a little while. After they went over a hill and reached the other side, he had it stop. He looked around. On a nearby tree, there was a gash in the bark. He believed that to have been from Ray’s antlers, from its memory of running away right after it was attacked. Which meant that he was now close to that spot.

He slid off Ray’s back, and took off his bag. Emil left the bag on the elk’s antlers and ordered both it and Theo to remain there. Whatever kind of creature or monster this was, he wanted to face it alone. Ray would be able to take some damage, but when it came to undead roach, all it would take was one lucky hit to destroy it. As such, he wanted them to stay out of danger.

“If it somehow finds you before I find it, I want you two to run towards me, got it? And when you find me, then stay away.” The two undead received and understood their master’s command. But before he walked away to begin his search, he had a sudden thought.

Emil went back to his bag. He opened it, and from its contents, pulled out his collection of small memory orbs. Individually, each one wouldn’t be worth much Mana if he absorbed it. If he had to estimate, they would probably give somewhere between 15 and 20 Mana a piece. But all together, they would restore almost all his spent Mana once he absorbed them. However, something he did wonder about was the conversion time. Emil took the first one, and drained its energy into himself.

+15 Mana acquired

Conversion into a usable form is required

Estimated conversion time: fifteen minutes

He cocked his head slightly in surprise as he read the notification. That time estimate was much, much shorter than he expected. For that equivalent amount of Mana, it would have previously taken a good bit over half an hour. But now, that wait had been cut by more than half. Was this another change that came with being fully undead? Or maybe it was because he had grown more powerful, and as a result, closer to being a master over death that would no longer need Mana? Perhaps both were true.

Emil absorbed two more memory orbs, which gave him 17 and 18 Mana respectively. So once the conversations were done, he would now regain a total of 50 Mana. But when he was down to the last one, he chose to keep it instead. Death Magic was another ability of his that had recently leveled up. But whenever he had previously used it to kill something, it had been while he held a memory orb.

Casting it required both his own Mana and the power of death the orbs contained. So he would need at least one if he wanted to try it out, to see how much a level-up had strengthened the ability. As Emil turned away from his undead and began to walk, he placed the orb inside the pocket of his coat.

Perhaps he would find the ice creature before he fully regained the Mana, but at least the process had been started. In an ideal world, he wouldn’t even need to use the full 215 points left in his Mana Level. However, ideal was not something the world had always been to him.

So as he searched for it and eventually fought whatever being this was, he would need to remember to temper his curiosity with caution. He was undead now, yes, but not invincible. As the destroyed body and half the soul of Mayor Duran had already made clear. On that thought, Emil began to walk away from his undead creations and trudged through the snow.

Let’s see, if it is something that’s territorial, then it has to still be somewhere in the area. So if I just get close enough for it to notice my presence, then it should come to me. Question is, how large is its territory? Emil asked himself as he walked.

He continued forward for a few minutes, before he heard something from somewhere to his left. He turned toward it, and listened closely. It sounded like ice cracking, with an underlying noise like a dull hum. And it seemed to be drawing near to his location. Emil hid behind a tree as he kept both an eye and an ear out for the source of the noises. When he peeked around the tree trunk, Emil’s gut feeling was confirmed as he saw it.

An ice elemental, and a large one at that. It was easily more than ten feet tall. The elemental hovered over the snowy ground as it moved. A plume of snow blew from the ground beneath it. Its body was divided into several distinct parts.

Its central section was that of an inverted triangle made of ice. In the middle of this, partially visible through the ice, was a glowing white sphere. It seemed to spin rapidly inside the elemental. It had four limbs, each one on a side of the triangular body. They were rectangular blocks of compressed snow that all floated on their own.

Hmm, seems like a standard elemental. Definitely too big to be a minor variant, but thankfully not a major. Emil thought to himself.

If it had been a major elemental, he wouldn’t have dared to provoke it. The jump in power from a minor to a standard variant was a hundredfold. Between a standard and a major, the difference was even wider. It was one of thousands of times in strength. Even as an undead that was a B+ Grade, he had zero confidence in his ability to stand up to a major.

But still, even a standard ice elemental won’t be easy to kill. Seems like it still hasn’t noticed me though, so I at least have the element of surprise. It was a few moments later that he realized the unintentional pun he had just made. He suppressed a chuckle at his own joke, but mentally noted to save it as a good one to eventually tell someone.

The elemental continued to float along. Its path was perpendicular to his. So as long as it didn’t detect him, it would eventually pass by. However, he had no intention of letting it get too far. Emil began to hatch a plan. He reached a hand into his coat’s pocket. He started to twirl the memory orb between his fingers while he thought about what he wanted to do.

The problem is that elementals are beings of almost pure arcana. Flesh Manipulation and Soul Manipulation probably won’t even affect it. Negative Magic has been pretty proficient at destroying even stone. It might still be effective even against its magically enhanced body. Unholy Fire Magic though… I’m not sure. He wasn’t confident about it as he began to think more deeply.

Its flames aren’t physically hot, instead they burn the soul. They might still work on a magical being, but at the same time, they might not. Plus, like Death Magic, it also needs both Mana and death energy as its fuel. So with only one memory orb as a source, I need to be careful about how it's used. So I guess Negative Magic is still my best shot then. After it’s made some distance away from me, I’ll aim right for its midsection. Then if I get the chance once it is too damaged to be a threat, I’ll see if Death Magic can finish it off.

With his decision now made, all he needed to do now was wait. The elemental continued to move along, at its own slow pace. But even as it passed by, Emil remained patient. He needed to bide his time until it was far enough not to notice him as he cast the spell. Several minutes passed by in wait, as he remained still and hidden. But the second that he felt the moment was right, Emil stepped away from the tree and pointed his open hand at the elemental.

-20 Mana

A Negative Void silently flew through the air. Between Emil and the ice elemental were several trees. The spell tunneled straight through them, and grew slightly bigger as it absorbed their mass. But as the sphere of negative power continued toward the elemental, he didn’t stop at just that.

-20 Mana

-20 Mana

Emil immediately followed it up with a second Negative Void. He then quickly sprinted to a spot where there were no obstacles between himself and his target, and fired a Negative Arc. As he shot out the arc, he watched as the first Negative Void was only another second away from its target.

It crashed into the ice elemental’s central body, and a high-pitched ring could be heard across the forest. A cloud of white vapor sprayed out from where his spell had impacted its body. It quickly covered his vision of the void.

But before it was completely out of sight, he could see that it had not simply passed straight through the elemental. Instead, it had been seemingly stuck into that side of its icy body. Emil heard a series of massive cracks as the second Negative Void flew into the same spot as the first, and the Negative Arc hit it from a different angle.

A frosty fog now completely surrounded the elemental. Emil considered if he should follow up with a another round of spells. However, he decided to conserve his Mana and first observe the results of his initial attack. He carefully watched as the fog steadily started to clear up. Once it had cleared away enough for him to see it, he had to stop himself from letting out a whistle.

There were cracks both big and small across its body. A large gash was on one side where it had been struck by the Negative Arc. But on the section that had been struck by the successive Negative Voids, a massive chunk had been destroyed. None of the damage had been deep enough to reach the white sphere inside it, however.

But as Emil took in the elemental’s condition, said condition very quickly began to change. The cracks spread throughout its body began to fade away. The gash and large hole he had made each started to become more shallow. Its recovery was rapid, and he could feel a drop in the ambient Mana as it repaired itself. If given the opportunity, it would need no more than a couple of minutes to undo the damage he had dealt it.

He quickly prepared to cast another use of Negative Void. But before he could gather up the Mana, a dozen icicles spontaneously formed in the air in front of the ice elemental. They shot out in his direction. Emil had to break the focus of his spell to leap out of the way of the attack. However, as soon as he hit the ground, a second volley of icicles had already been fired.

The Necromancer only had less than a second to get away, something he would never have done in time when he had been alive. But his undead body was different. He had not needed to think about dodging. The moment he saw the attack, he was able to react instantly and rolled out of danger. The icicles stabbed into the snow behind him as he then got behind a tree for cover.

-20 Mana

From behind the tree, Emil shot a third Negative Void back at the ice elemental. As it ripped apart its trunk and caused the tree to begin to fall, he ran over to another. But now that the elemental was aware of him, it prepared for the attack. Before his spell could even reach it, several walls of ice formed in the space between them. However, they didn’t seem to be mundane ice like the icicles had been. Emil could sense that they were filled with Mana.

The ball of negative energy tunneled through them. However, instead of absorbing the mass to grow large, it progressively shrank in size with each wall it collided with. By the time it passed through the final obstacle, it had already dissipated into thin air. Emil clicked his tongue in frustration. He had already spent 80 Mana, more than what the memory orbs would give back as they converted.

“Fine then, how about this?” Emil said aloud as he grabbed the memory orb. He once again stepped away from his cover, and faced the elemental. His grip clenched against the orb as he concentrated on casting the power of Death Magic. He focused his gaze on the sphere of power inside the ice elemental’s core.

A couple of seconds passed, but nothing happened. He had not spent any Mana, nor used up the memory orb’s energy. Yet despite his earnest attempt to cast the spell, no result had been produced. Emil quickly realized that his suspicion of doubt had just been confirmed.

The ice elemental was not a living being, at least in the biological sense. So more than likely, his ability had not even been able to register it as a proper target and thus was rendered ineffective against the magical being.

He had little time to think about it, however, as a new wave of icicles flew at him. Emil could sense that this time, these too had been enhanced with magic. He dodged out of their path. But instead of hitting the ground, they redirected their trajectory midair towards his new location. He jumped back again, and a few of them stabbed into a tree and remained stuck in place. But the rest continued to target him and forced Emil to stay on the move.

Emil dodged and sprint with purpose, however. Now that the ice elemental had seemingly adapted to Negative Magic and was immune to Death Magic, his options were limited. As he moved, he made his way closer to the elemental and steadily closed the distance. There was still one more ability he needed to at least try, but he had unfortunately never tested the limit of its effective range. As such, he needed to get as close as he could.

He kept his fist tightly clutched around the memory orb as he ran. The icicles that followed behind him steadily dwindled in number as they hit obstacles. When Emil felt that he was close enough and had gotten rid of the last icicle, he stopped. He channeled his Mana, and quickly prepared to use the orb’s energy for Unholy Fire Magic before the elemental sent a new attack.

-30 Mana

It was still considerably farther of a target than when he used it on Hadwin. So for good measure, he had gone ahead and added an extra 10 Mana to the spell. He felt the memory orb in his grip crumble away into nothing. A blast of cold, blue fire shot out of his other hand. At the same time, the ice elemental had just prepared an additional volley of empowered icicles. Because of this preoccupation, it was too slow in its response to put up more walls of ice to block the unholy flames.

The fire engulfed the arcane monster. In the reflections of its icy body, the surrounding area was illuminated in a blue light. The elemental flailed its floating limbs wildly. For a moment, Emil felt hopeful that his attack had actually been effective. But just as quickly as the feeling had come, it was just as quickly dashed. Within mere seconds, the roar of flames was reduced to mere wisps, and then faded away entirely.

“Crap! Come-” Emil yelled, but was cut off as the already-made icicles were hurled his way. As he tried to dodge them, the ice elemental blew out a cone of ice shards. He leaped out of the way of the new attack. However, as he was mid-action, a wall appeared in the direction he had jumped toward. His body slammed into the ice. He had been caught right in the elemental's trap.

The icicles whistled through the air as they were directed at him. Emil tried to dodge. But the obstacle that limited his movement, even his undead body’s enhanced reactions couldn’t let him get away in time. All that he could do was cross his arms together in an effort to protect himself.

When he did, he had done so in an attempt to shield his face. But his body moved in contraction to his desire. It was as though it had inherently understood what was truly important. It instinctually went against his initial reaction and instead covered the spot that held the core that was his soul.

Shrapnels of ice dug into his arms. At the same time, the icicles stabbed into his left shoulder and across that side of his midsection. A sound like shattering glass rang in the air while Emil felt the sensation reverberate throughout his body. From his clothing, a chunk of frozen flesh and blood fell out and landed in the snow. Emil’s eyes widened as he looked at it.

Emil was ready to scream in agony. To yell out curses as the pain shot through him. But when a few moments passed, there had yet to be any pain for him to feel. In fact, he slowly realized that he had barely even felt the icicles when they stabbed into him. If he hadn’t been prepared for them, he might not have even noticed them. For all intents and purposes, he felt completely fine.