Eric crashed to his knees with a groan, overwhelmed by the sudden hideous pressure on his Interface, potency bar, and soul as four fresh souls tried to force themselves into his potency bar and now 100% saturated upper Dantian, all to no avail.

His eyes bulged, so easily able to visualize the mocking cackles of countless experienced players of the great game that the System was, assuring that even the most elite and talented natives who were supposed to inherit their freshly elevated world’s potential would, in the end, ultimately be forced to embrace the most wretched of all classes. Cleverly and skillfully denied all access to heritage libraries, arcane colleges, decent trainers, or anything else that would allow them to become anything but cannon fodder for the true galactic powers out there. Eric didn’t even have access to a safe pod to choose anything but accept the shittiest of all classes. The only one he knew of that wasn’t an active and now thankfully dead orc abomination was zealously guarded by goblins who now wanted him dead at all costs.

The only thing keeping him from breaking before he hideous pain and surrendering all he had worked so hard to achieve, becoming a bloated mockery of a Conscript denied even Bronze ascension, was the furious hate he felt for the mocking bastards that would see all of humanity enslaved to their wills under a System that they dared to claim gave equal opportunities for all.

Just like poor Pavel had been forever enticed with scraps and obligations of duty, while being ruthlessly denied any clear path of advancement, his former masters jealously guarding the true paths forward for their chosen kin alone.

And how Ironic it was that all Eric had ever needed, at the very least, was access to a clean pod.

Yet he had been denied even a chance to find one in Freetown before the goblins had tried to rob him blind, incarcerate him, and steal everything of worth his friends had worked so hard for. As if somehow they had known… or one of those damned clever goblin seers had deduced that hey must harry the unwanted Contender at all costs… before he even had a chance to find Freetown’s pod and ascend as anything more than a basic conscript.

Yet by some miracle, that had worked out in the end, opening up a whole new path to power for him in the form of a cultivation realm that more powerful System Classers could never enter.

Even so, he had still been forced to leave as abruptly as he had come, before he could even say goodbye, or make use of any final lessons from his cherished mentor, or show off the miracle that rune-scribed flesh truly could hold a cultivator’s potential. The bitter reality was that fortune and circumstances had denied any cultivation advancement beyond Rank 20.

He now had no path forward whatsoever.

Yet despite how conveniently the cards seemed to be stacked against him, he still felt his lips stretch wide in a feral grin, as much pain as it was hate and fiercest vindication.

Because he still had one channel for the now agonizing wave of potency flooding his soul, desperate for release. The sibilant System whispers to capitulate into the role of eternal Conscript he negated with a single furious jerk of his head. In refutation of it’s blaring warnings of imminent Interface collapse, Eric pulled free the tools to a path of ascension that very System had done everything it could to turn his interest away from, which meant that it was exactly what he needed to embrace.

Eric’s heart was pounding with strain and desperate hope as he fought against the increasing tremors tormenting his physique as he carefully readied a massive mat comprised of carefully cleaned, treated, and stitched-together beast hides that he and Sam had spent far too many hours working on in the dead of night. Now, more than ever, Eric was grateful for all the hours spent learning at Samuel’s side when not doing all he could to absorb every lesson he could from a ruthless but brilliant Pavel, teaching him so much about cultivation, swordplay, and how to survive the deadliest of Qi attacks.

Because it was only now, pushed to the bursting point that he dared to embrace Necromantic arts he had forced himself to study in theory only for so very long. All for fear of straining meridians that now positively blazed with purifying flame.

And now theory was to become practice in the most rigorous of all examinations.

Struggling to survive Interface collapse in the middle of hostile territory.

Eric couldn’t quite suppress the sudden tightness in his chest as he checked and rechecked the exquisitely complex sigil-laden pentagram he had drawn in chalk upon tanned and treated beast hide before he dared to saturate it with his own blood.

For long, stressful moments, he gazed at his masterwork, looking for any flaw. His Interface choosing that very moment to blare a message to the world he was frankly surprised it hadn’t a good half hour ago.

Contender Eric Silver has entered SkullCrusher (Orc) Territory!

Skullcrusher Tribe formally declares WAR against Eric Silver!

“Well of course you’ll all come for me now, when the one thing I can’t afford is added stress and distraction,” he muttered, his heart now squeezing with added tension as he sensed countless scores of formally sedate troops suddenly mobilizing to action, though no hue and cry had been delivered in his direction, crouched as he was in waist-high grass less than a hundred yards from the forest’s edge, neither trimmed nor consumed by livestock.

Because orcs, as he already knew, were lazy motherfuckers.

Eric shook his head, doing his best to ignore the mounting pain as he desperately focused on his masterwork forged over countless weeks, looking for any flaw as the saturated potency of a level 25 opponent he had no outlet for slowly overwhelmed him.

As far as he could tell… there were none.

“Here goes nothing,” he muttered to himself, slicing open his thumb, allowing a single ruby red drop of blood to form, blood containing so much trapped potency too long denied any outlet that he could possibly squeeze out, eyes widening as the entire bloodworking blazed to sudden life.

Necromantic Skillcheck made!

Congratulations! You have successfully infused previously forged Complex Summoning Circle!

You have successfully Soul Bound Summoning Mat!

Your Summoning Mat is capable of raising up to 5 linked Revenants at one time.

Revenants may be linked (or bound) as a single unit!

Eric wasted no time. One after another, he put his prizes on three of the five points of his diagram, bloody palm causing the inert crimson sigils on each of the massive tusker corpses to blaze with eldritch green flames.

A necromantic blaze that had caught the eye of at least one orc scout, as distant cries by the keep and scouts on the fort battlements jabbing their fingers his way could be seen.

But not before a desperately focused Eric managed to complete a ritual that could have taken hours in mere seconds, needing only to feed the complex patterns of sigils the power of his life force via the conduit of his blood, his oversaturated experience point pool flooding into the now fiery red sigils in a release so profound in bordered on ecstasy.

Eric howled, overwhelmed by the flood of necromantic power surging through his soul in ways far different and far more corrupting than any act of cultivation could possibly be. He gazed with awe as the massive, mastodon-sized tuskers began to twitch and spasm free of death’s rigor mortis, as the spirit boar he had the absolute arrogance to think he could bring to life all at once with his first try actually shuddered to supernatural life.

Of course he had left two summoning circles bare. Because not even he, so desperate for relief from the awful pressure he felt, was arrogant enough to think he could raise five revenants back to unlife on his very first try. A wise last minute decision he would later think as the ecstasy of triumph he felt as the awful skull-bursting pressure he felt turned to sweetest relief that almost immediately turned to dread.

Because the ritual had worked just as he had prayed it would.

He had successfully channeled the goblin’s potency and the three musketeers he had had to fight so hard not to absorb lest he burst… Yet it didn’t stop there. His entire 9th level experience bar began plummeting down to nothing, stopping just before he was forced to pay for his daring with his life force once more. As not even this great working was able to tap into his 100% saturated upper core.

Even so, the sharp spike of anxiety piercing his gut at peril just avoided, and the growing cries of shouting orcs in the distance, couldn’t replace the awe and wonder he felt as not one but three massive revenants came to supernatural life before him.

As much as some might find it an utter abomination, as imperfect as any supernatural creation was, Eric couldn’t help but feel an almost paternal pride. Because when all was said and done he had created life, at least of a sort, bringing sentience and awareness to that which had been utterly inert, just seconds before.

And with his sigils in place, it was nothing to assume absolute control of all three of the docile mastodon-sized tuskers before him, now feeling their awareness occupy a tiny corner of his mind, with a single touch of already scribed bloodrunes flaring to life upon each of their massive skulls.

You have dared the unthinkable, attempting to raise and bind 3 Greater Revenants as your very first necromantic ritual!

Modifiers for pre-made ritual in effect!

Modifiers for Hidden Bloodlines in effect.

Multiple Essence affinities are in effect. (250% increased potency cost!)

Critical success!

You have infused your Blood Sigils with the essence of Fire & Dominion.

All resistance has been burned away!

Congratulations!

You have successfully Summoned and Bound 3 Greater Revenants at one time!

The Profession Adept Necromancer is now open to you!

The Classes Adept Necromancer & Adept Summoner are now open to you!

(Note. Adept Necromancer Title and corresponding boons have already been earned by another!)

Blood Mastery is now Rank 25!

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 18!

You have achieved Rank 21 in Rituals of Summoning and Binding!

Eric felt a flood of power the equal of his potency as countless interconnecting insights finally clicked in his mind, now understanding intuitively what Samuel had tried to drill in his head with chalk, diagram, and lectures over countless weeks; the complex potency of essence, arcane magics, soul force and sheer Willpower that, for those born with the right bloodlines, would allow them to compel wisps of sentience that might be the spirits of the dead, or potentially the very essence of the cosmos itself, to infuse constructs forged by artistry or biology and the necromancer’s blood, before being bound by sigils and a necromancer’s will.

Bound to serve for eternity.

But so long as the sigils were correctly forged, it was a price those spirits gladly payed, for a chance at sentience once more.

Eric allowed himself only a moment to be awed by the strangely docile awarenesses he sensed in the upper right corner of a fresh page of his interface that the System had not doubt taken great pleasure as dubbing Eric’s Unholy Abominations.

Eric could sense all three of those spirits bound to each other and to him. Because after only a momentary struggle that was over in a strangely effortless blink of an eye, when Eric’s essence infused sigils blazed to eldritch life upon the tuskers’ skulls, all three seemed as willing and eager to follow his commands as guild-mates on team chat that were about to do a raid together. Even better, they now shared a connection no primitive army could hope to match, Eric’s thoughts alone enough to direct them.

He couldn’t help shaking his head in awe and amazement at the three magnificent revenants he just knew could withstand any number of spear thrusts or led shot peppered from even the orcs oversized muskets.

Only to be humbled as triumph turned to terror and his most precious title perk screamed desperate warning as he ducked for all he was worth.

Just as the closest mammoth’s head exploded in a crimson shower of gore.

Your revenant has been fatally struck by Shaman-directed artillery shell! You have saved versus backlash! You have avoided being peppered with necromantic shrapnel!

The words blared over Eric’s interface but all he felt was terror as he dashed away from the massive brownstone fortress for all he was worth, his pair of spirit boar right behind him.

Before realizing he was playing the absolute fucking fool and abruptly pivoted to move transverse to the keep, effectively racing around it in an orbit as the topsoil behind him exploded with the impact of another cannon ball, now recalling with crystalline clarity all the warnings he had received about just how deadly those champion killing cast-iron 24-pounder cannons were.

Crude, smoothbore, following specs he suspected the orcs had been forced to adhere to for centuries… yet made so much more effective when the cannon balls and grapeshot were directed by shamans who, for all Eric knew, had spent decades learning how best to compel those massive balls of lead or steel through the air.

But there was one counter that just might keep him alive, Eric thought, as he heard the hue and cry of not dozens but hundreds of orcs that had spotted him, because it was mid day and he couldn’t make use of the thick second growth forest just beyond the clearing surrounding the keep for several hundred yards in all directions. Not with massive mastodon-sized tuskers he was determined not to have obliterated by cannon fire.

He did his best to ease the frantic pounding of his heart as his two surviving tuskers squealed what he almost thought was encouragement. Because after those two panic-inducing shots… the cannon or cannons hadn’t fired at all.

Eric peered toward the keep he continued to circle, daring to crack the faintest of smiles…

But only after his desperate gaze scanned every crevice of the twenty-foot high battlements all around. Doing his best to make sure he saw nothing but angrily gesturing orcs armed with muskets, not devastating artillery, glaring and pointing his way.

Because even if his enemies had access to a shaman that would allow them to fine-tune their shot… the one thing 18th century 24-pounders were absolute shit at was maneuvering. At least that was the case most of the time, and at the present panicked pace he was sprinting, fast enough that his massive undead tuskers were actually falling behind, the cannons didn’t have a hope of keeping up with his transversal velocity.

Especially when he made it a point to stay on the far side of the keep. Not the side with the hard-packed road which was of course where the rift between worlds had formed and, not surprisingly now that he thought about it, where the cannon had been pointing.

Eric took deep breaths of air perfumed with the sharp tangy scents of grass, wildflowers, and his own panic, forcing himself to ease his desperate pace to a much more reasonable jog, before summoning a tool of his own held casually in his right hand as he dared turn around, and face the absolute flood of howling roaring orcs racing across the field in a massive wave of green and purple, axes and spears raised high, muskets cracking random shots, even from 400 yards away.

Only now did Eric dare crack a smile, even as he spared an anxious glance at the keep battlements, spotting more than a few plumes of white smoke from musketballs fired, but those he thought he could handle. Hopefully.

Especially when one of his tuskers thoughtfully flanked his side, blocking the line of sight between battlement placed musketeer and a desperately backpedalling Eric, who deliberately slowed down his pace.

Though he refused to stop. Hell no. Not when his paranoia suddenly blared with the image of carefully concealed guns from wall ports hidden by shamanistic arts his Unified Perception couldn’t pick out, no matter how hard he squinted at the battlement walls.

Just because he couldn’t see them, didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Even if his ears were still ringing with the explosion of the first tusker he had ever raised, just seconds after its resurrection… the awful sight of his headless masterpiece slumping over in final death blazened perhaps forever on his mind… he forced himself to keep focused.

To stay calm.

And to focus all his frustration and fury on the massive force of orcs presently racing towards him, all of them eager to claim his head.