Jiangshi vs Skeleton
When I saw the jiangshi burst out of the darkness to the sound of the corpse-man’s flute, I fell into thought for a moment.
Jiangshi...
Black magic for controlling corpses had definitely existed in my previous life too. But its limits were clear: it couldn’t stop a body from rotting, so it was usually only good for making a ghoul out of it.
That definitely doesn’t look like a ghoul.
Sure, if the corpse had only been dead for a short time, maybe its skin could still hold together like that. But a jiangshi has death energy embedded within it.
In other words, aside from the fact that it was dead, it wasn’t much different from a martial artist.
“Shall we test it?”
I gestured, ordering the skeletons to attack.
“Go! Crush every last bone in that arrogant bastard!”
The freak also ordered the jiangshi to attack, and it bent its knees before springing into the air.
Crack!
The jiangshi’s rough claws pierced straight through one skeleton’s chest.
The hard joints crumbled like crackers, but skeletons don’t feel pain. Unless you knock their heads off, they won’t stop.
The skeleton with the pierced chest hugged the jiangshi, and the others joined in to pin it down.
“Bone Bind.”
The bones wrapped around the jiangshi twisted and tangled together, binding it fast.
“W-what is that!”
“It can’t even get out of something that simple?”
Its inner power was close to that of a martial artist, but it couldn’t properly control it.
“That’s enough. No need to watch any longer.”
Just as I was about to end things, the freak began blowing the flute again.
Then the jiangshi’s muscles swelled as if they were about to burst, and it shattered the prison of bones.
“Oh? You still had more to show me?”
“Go! Go!”
The jiangshi bounded straight toward me.
“Bone Restore.”
The shattered bones reassembled themselves and rose again as skeletons.
This was why a necromancer could never lose on land soaked through with death energy that never ran dry.
“Bind it again.”
A soldier who feared death and a necromancer who never permitted it.
No matter how capable the jiangshi might be, could it really defeat an enemy that revived endlessly?
It had been a fight that was doomed from the start.
Once again, bones ensnared the jiangshi, and once again the flute started up.
“Wheeet! Wheeet!”
The jiangshi’s muscles swelled as if they would burst, and then...
Flap-flap! Thud...
At last, its muscles tore apart completely. The corpse had forced out more strength than its body could bear, and it slammed into the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
“So this is the level you’re at.”
The idea of a corpse infused with vitality was novel enough, but since it couldn’t properly use that vitality, it was nothing more than a body with good physical strength, no more and no less.
“My, my jiangshi...”
The freak collapsed in despair. It had the look of a craftsman who’d lost the masterpiece of a lifetime.
But since that masterpiece was pathetic, I didn’t feel like comforting it at all.
“A jiangshi’s revenge... I’ll kill you...”
The freak clasped its hands together and poured out a spell. A greater number of black-red chains surged toward me than before.
“Phantom Hand.”
Unlike Spirit Hand, Phantom Hand allowed me to handle invisible hands.
I swatted away every one of those black-red chains with Phantom Hand.
“Grr... die!!!”
The freak kept shifting the shape of its hands as it threw out more and more energy.
“Fireball! Thunderbolt!”
Crude spells traced themselves through the air, and flames and lightning poured out.
Even when they gathered energy to its limit, each and every one of them amounted to little more than a burn or a sting. Their power was miserable.
“The jiangshi was at least interesting. This is just... messy. Wasteful, too.”
I snapped my fingers lightly. A magic circle appeared in the air.
Just because I was a black mage didn’t mean I couldn’t use magic. I could cast spells up to around the third circle.
“Fireball.”
The sphere of flame flew at the freak.
“Ah!”
It barely dodged, but the orb exploded and scattered sparks everywhere.
“Thunderbolt.”
Only a second-circle spell.
“Aaaaaagh!!!”
One thing was certain: magic in this world was pitifully weak.
“Ugh... Illusion Art! Gravity Pressure!”
Even standing still, I could feel a crushing force bearing down on me, and the freak multiplied into dozens of copies.
“Oh, so it does produce an effect similar to magic. Though the power is terrible, of course.”
“Dispel.”
With a sweep of my hand, I scattered the freak’s spell entirely.
I’d wondered whether Dispel would work, but perhaps because the systems of mana and energy were similar, it succeeded.
“Sshh, this is getting a little annoying...”
I drew up my death energy. To answer spells in kind, I cast a high-circle spell.
“Gravity.”
Bang!
Gravity came crashing down on the freak, slamming its body into the ground.
“Aaaah!!!”
“Phew. I can barely maintain this myself, so let’s finish it quickly.”
I walked up to the freak and grabbed its head.
“A-aahhh!!!”
I drew out the death energy filling its skull. It was a hypothesis I had come up with: if it had become a madman because of death energy, then maybe removing that energy would return it to normal.
Once I pulled out every last shred of death energy, the madness faded from the freak’s eyes and its focus returned.
It panted for a long while with its head pressed to the floor. In the place where the death energy that had ruled it only moments ago had vanished, only fear seemed to remain.
“Can you think straight again?”
At my voice, the freak jerked hard. Then, with trembling hands, it touched its own face and looked around in disbelief.
It looked at the shattered bone fragments, the remains of the jiangshi whose muscles had burst apart, and then back up at me as I stood quietly watching from the darkness.
A woman...?
There were so many people in this world with long hair that I’d assumed it was a man. It turned out to be a woman.
She glanced back and forth between me and the surrounding wreckage, then burst into tears.
“It wasn’t a dream... What on earth did I do...”
She stared down at her own hands in despair. Before she could sink all the way into hopelessness and bite out her own tongue, I spoke.
“Save the regret for later. Answer my question first.
Where did you learn that clumsy spellcraft and the method for making jiangshi?”
She kept her head bowed and, in a trembling voice, told me everything.
Her name was Ju Ryeong. She had originally been a mid-rank disciple who moved between the outer and inner halls of the Blood Cult, until she took advantage of lax security in the forbidden library and stole several spellbooks.
“I was insane. I thought if I mastered those books, I’d become a master like the elders.
But this place, where I fled to escape the Blood Cult’s eyes, wasn’t fit for human beings, and spellcraft wasn’t something you could learn alone.”
No wonder the power had seemed so weak. It must have been the limits of self-study.
“So that’s why there were so many different spells.”
If she had just practiced one spell over and over, it might at least have had some power behind it. But she lacked even that patience, so she’d learned them all in a messy jumble.
“And the jiangshi?”
“I made it according to the method in the book. But there weren’t enough materials here, and my skill was lacking, so I could only make one corpse at most.”
I couldn’t tell whether this one had talent or not.
Still, she had learned spellcraft on her own and even managed to make a jiangshi. But since the results were so miserable, I couldn’t quite judge her.
“Ju Ryeong, was it? Hand over the spellbooks you stole and every record of your research so far.”
At my command, Ju Ryeong led me deeper inside.
There were bizarre patterns, corpses, and blood everywhere.
“You killed quite a few, didn’t you?”
Ju Ryeong, her hands trembling violently, held out several books and research journals written in blood.
I skimmed through them casually.
The idea isn’t bad.
Magic used circles as its medium, but spellcraft used the dantian.
It was a method better suited to a martial artist, and there were bizarre theories in here that the magic system would never even attempt.
Though crude and full of inefficiency, it contained theories I had never considered.
The harmony between black magic and spellcraft... maybe it really is possible.
Next, I checked the jiangshi creation method.
It said that if you carved a ritual into a corpse with strong resentment in a place where yin energy had gathered, then affixed a talisman to it, the process was complete.
All of those conditions had to be met to begin with, and depending on the caster’s ability, it might succeed or fail.
There are a lot of missing pieces.
I could see areas to revise, and I might even be able to combine it with black magic.
I’d gained a major harvest: spellcraft and the method for making jiangshi.
I’d need more research still, but what mattered was that I could see the possibility.
I looked quietly at Ju Ryeong.
“Do you want to live?”
Killing her would be easy. I could drag her back to the Blood Cult and hand her over as a traitor.
But to do that would be a waste of the jiangshi-making know-how she’d built up here in Black Valley, and of this place itself.
“If you spare me... I’ll do anything!”
In Ju Ryeong’s eyes, there was a desperate will to survive.
“After all the people you’ve killed, you sure do want to live.”
“T-that’s...”
“Enough. I happen to like people like that myself.
But if you want to live, there are conditions.”
“What are they?”
“From now on, you are dead. Become a ghost who does not exist in the Blood Cult or the martial world, and hide here in the depths of Black Valley.”
I gathered death energy at my fingertips and carved a magic circle into her chest.
“Aaaagh!”
Ju Ryeong clutched her chest and screamed.
“From now on, you’ll be able to adapt to death energy. But the moment you refuse my orders, your heart will burst and you’ll die.”
I placed a hand on Ju Ryeong’s head and cast another spell.
“Memory Transfer.”
I handed over the basics of black magic. Still, if she had managed this much through self-study, I figured she might be capable of researching on her own.
“This is only the beginning. I’ll come back periodically and give you new knowledge.
You will build my legion here and turn all of Black Valley into my territory.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, Master! I’ll devote this life to you!”
Good. At this rate, she’d probably build a legion on her own.
“Then I’m leaving.”
After receiving Ju Ryeong’s farewell, I carried the corpse out and into the open.
It was time to return to the Blood Cult.