Chapter 44
Ghoul
In the Antarian tongue, it meant blackened mouth. Among the undead, ghouls were notoriously troublesome to deal with. They craved the flesh of the living and devoured it endlessly.
With powerful claws, they could tear through metal plates. Their claws carried a deadly corpse poison—just a scratch could be fatal.
One such ghoul, with its entire body rotted and mangled, charged at me.
"Inferno."
Swoooosh!
Inferno blocked the secret entrance. The ghoul thrashed violently, trying to reach me, but it couldn’t break through the wall of flame.
He got halfway through and was half-melted.
Slash!
I struck down those that got through. Inferno’s flames were more than enough to melt them, and my aura could sustain Inferno’s presence all day.
Ghouls create more ghouls. They tear into the living and pass on a cursed semblance of life, spreading the disease.
That’s how these mindless monsters are created.
"I thought this was just an escape route. Turns out it’s a dungeon inhabited by undead?"
The undead appeared endlessly. Inferno burned them down as he slowly advanced, but the tunnel twisted on without end.
As the temperature rose, oxygen thinned.
I had no choice but to step outside temporarily and ordered Inferno to continue clearing the dungeon.
‘I’ve killed quite a few... I wonder if slaying undead helps with aura cultivation too?’
Whenever I hunted monsters, I saw a noticeable improvement in my aura training. Massive amounts of magical energy poured in—like sipping diluted dragon’s breath drop by drop.
“Hooo…”
I consolidated every aura cultivation method I’d studied into one. Its backbone was the Hebron Aura Cultivation method, but calling it that no longer felt accurate.
The Louis Aura Cultivation method.
A new method that would upend the entire field of aura cultivation.
‘…This is a different kind of magic. The energy feels stale. It’s probably death energy, something akin to the death mana that necromancers use.’
I’d only read about it in theory. It resembled what I’d studied but wasn’t an exact match—likely because it wasn’t refined mana, but wild energy permeating the air.
‘The mana is…’
I stopped thinking. I needed to focus all my strength to accept the overwhelming surge of magical energy pouring into me.
KRRAAAAAAAK!
When I hunted monsters marked by the Trickster, an immense concentration of magical energy was absorbed.
But this time, it was steeped in death energy. It flowed through my veins, killing—no, quieting—my living cells. My limbs felt stiff, almost lifeless.
‘This too is part of my strength.’
I didn’t resist. That was the Hebron way. It didn’t matter if it was wrong—I trusted my instincts and leaned on my father’s faith in me.
The magical energy flowed through my limbs, returned to my dantian, and met my fiery aura. There, the death energy was burned away. All the forces merged into one and condensed tightly in my dantian. The result was a dantian far more solid than ever before.
‘What… is this?’
My aura had long outgrown the boundaries of my theories. Because of that, I could now precisely control the aura spreading through all my veins. Not only my dantian, but my veins were infused with aura.
This time, my dantian had grown again. A dense aura now sat there, like a large, solid orb.
This orb, like a starving beast, devoured magical energy until it was full. Only then did it release aura back into the veins.
I opened my eyes and pierced through the darkness. Drawing aura to enhance my sight, I could now see clearly in the pitch-black surroundings.
"Inferno."
I summoned Inferno back to my side.
He raised his flame-imbued arm, then sighed upon seeing me. Sparks flared from his nostrils.
–I was just getting warmed up.
Inferno looked deflated.
His once-bulky frame had shrunk as if he’d lost muscle mass.
"For someone in the middle of it, you sure looked like you were struggling."
I hadn’t seen his battles directly.
But I could tell how things were going by observing how much aura he was drawing from me—and Inferno had been barely holding on.
—That’s because your body can’t handle my full power!
He glared at me, full of complaint, but I just smiled.
"Can’t handle it?"
—Of course, now it can! What in the world happened to you?
Inferno stared, baffled by the sudden change in my power.
"Understanding both life and death—that was the key."
—....What?
Instead of a long explanation, I simply grinned.
Theory didn’t matter. What mattered was that Inferno could now unleash his true strength.
No, it was because of me that Inferno's abilities were enhanced. He hadn’t quite ascended to a high-tier spirit, but he had clearly surpassed the level of a mid-tier spirit.
—This time, for sure…
Inferno dove back into the dungeon.
‘It’s not him that changed—it’s me.’
More precisely, it was the aura dwelling in my dantian and veins that had changed.
I walked into the dungeon at a relaxed pace. Charred ghoul corpses, now just blackened ash, brushed against my feet, and I casually stepped over them.
‘He’s really going all out.’
A wave of heat pulsed from deeper inside. No, Inferno’s flames had heated the entire dungeon.
From within, I heard dull thudding sounds. As I approached, those thuds turned into explosions and monstrous howls.
SWOOOOOSH!
-ROOOOAAAR!
Inferno’s opponent was a ghoul.
It must’ve been a particularly powerful one, because even Inferno was struggling against it.
‘Undead, huh? That’s not exactly my area of expertise.’
Undead were always spoken of as unholy beings, but concrete information about them was scarce.
The Church of Haryan had a few remaining books on undead, but they mostly recounted tales of ancient saints defeating them.
‘I did read a book on undead extermination once, but it was completely absurd.’
Undead were beings that rejected death.
In my previous life, I had studied them in hopes of escaping death. Unfortunately, the only remotely useful book I found was <Skeleton Extermination Technique: Focusing on Joints That Are Easy to Break>.
That wasn’t enough to understand the undead.
SWOOOOOOOSH!
The more wildly Inferno raged, the hotter the dungeon became. I raised my aura to protect my body as I moved into the chamber where he and the ghoul were locked in combat.
CLAANG!
The ghoul’s head exploded from a fire blast.
Its body collapsed with a heavy thud, like a wooden plank.
“…You did well.”
—This was nothing!
“Still, you should rest a bit, right?”
Inferno didn’t answer. He vanished on the spot.
He had fought with everything he had. One slip-up, and he would’ve disappeared completely. Of course, even if a summoned spirit suffered a severe blow and vanished, it would eventually recover in the spirit realm and could be summoned again.
Inferno left behind a tiny ember by my side—a flame imbued with the essence of a spirit. It would be immensely helpful while exploring the rest of the dungeon.
I examined the corpse of the ghoul that had pushed Inferno to his limits. It didn’t look much different from the others—its body wasn’t especially muscular or anything.
I then inspected the shattered head.
‘The brain is still intact… and surprisingly fresh. How is that even possible?’
Unfortunately, there were no more ghouls left to compare it with. It didn’t make sense—the body was completely rotted, yet the brain was practically fresh.
‘I need more ghouls. Aren’t there any left?’
I combed through the dungeon thoroughly but found no more.
Reluctantly, I turned to analyzing the remains of the ghoul whose head had been destroyed.
“Damn it!”
The ghoul’s skull had been durable enough that several large fragments remained. On one of them, a mark was burned into the bone.
As always, it was the Trickster’s mark.
The Trickster’s reach had extended even to this place. And the fact that it had appeared before me of all people… was ominous.
—I’ve been waiting for you, Louis.
The Trickster’s voice echoed, faint and eerie.
‘I don’t know what you’re after, but I won’t be manipulated by you.’
I sat down on the spot.
I’d already searched the dungeon and found nothing else that could threaten me.
I took a slow breath.
As I began circulating my aura, a flood of massive magical energy mixed with death energy surged toward me.
‘Ugh…!’
Before absorbing the marked ghoul’s energy, I had first taken in death energy from the other ghouls. Had I skipped that step, the overwhelming force would’ve likely torn me apart.
Fortunately, my dantian and veins had become accustomed to the death energy. I took in the torrent of magical energy, filled my empty dantian, and circulated it through my veins.
[TL/N: It probably got empty after Inferno's fight with Marked Ghoul.]
Even after that, there was still enough magical energy left to further reinforce my dantian.
Along with the magical energy came fragments of the ghoul’s memories. It was like reliving an entire life in mere moments—not just what the ghoul had experienced in life, but the shocking events it witnessed after death as well.
‘A necromancer!’
The ghoul had once been a necromancer. He was the one who had created this dungeon, a sorcerer whose theoretical knowledge far outpaced his practical accomplishments. Though he had spent his life trying, all he ever managed to create were ghouls.
But his theories had reached as far as the creation of high-tier undead.
‘…Even seeing it firsthand, I can’t fully comprehend it.’
I had glimpsed a portion of the mage’s knowledge.
It had been recorded in an ancient language—one that was no longer used in the modern age.
‘He may have invented the language himself.’
Occasionally, mages would invent their own languages to prevent their magical knowledge from being leaked. It was impossible to fully decipher such languages.
Eventually, I absorbed all of the magical energy. My aura had expanded to the point that I could now summon even a high-tier spirit, but only briefly.
I rose to my feet and looked around the interior. Long ago, this place had been the necromancer’s laboratory. The ghouls born here had taken over the dungeon, and the mage himself had fallen to them and become a ghoul.
‘It should be around here…’
In the necromancer’s memories, there had been a separate research chamber.
A hidden passage connected this main hall to the inner lab.
Click. Rumble…
Just like before, the entrance was concealed using an Ains-type design. I pressed the hidden button and gently pushed the upper part of the wall with my palm.
A secret passage opened.
Nowadays, simply researching undead could earn you a death sentence. But in ancient times, necromancers were regarded as equal to other mages.
—Magic is just a tool; what matters more is how it's used.
That was the belief of the ancient Antarians. They legally traded corpses and even trained necromancers at the state level.
Following the long passage downward, I eventually came upon a small iron door. It was old and rusted. When I pulled it with force, it gave way with a heavy clang as the latch broke off.
“This must be… the necromancer’s research chamber!”
Books lined the desks and shelves.
There was hardly any other object in the room, but the mere sight of those rare books made my heart pound with excitement.
But that excitement soon turned to disappointment. Most of the books had decayed and crumbled at the slightest touch.
The ones that still held their shape had been eaten away by mold or insects, rendering their contents illegible.
Still, a few books remained in relatively good condition. I recognized them from the memories I had gained from the ghoul, but I still couldn’t translate them.
In one corner was a human skull. It wasn’t the remnant of someone who had died there—it had clearly been placed deliberately.
