Super Necromancer System

436  Necromancer Vs. Capo "A game of chess, is it?" said Aldrich. "You don't see pawns taking kings very often."

Nico's eyes glowered. "Consider this an exception."

Aldrich addressed Feather but did not turn his back on Nico. The Sword Capo was too dangerous to do that to.

"Feather, leave this area. Vexa will guide you to safety," said Aldrich.

"Already on it!" Feather sprinted away, his footsteps heavy and crunching as they sloppily meandered over the forest floor.

"No minions?" Nico's golden eyes flickered about, scanning Aldrich's surroundings. "Every battle report done on you indicates you fight with a variety of soldiers. A lonesome king is rather defenseless, wouldn't you say?"

"You don't have to worry. My soldiers are everywhere," said Aldrich. He began to raise his hands into the air. Green necromantic energy flickered about his fingers. His mist cloyed and settled on the many corpses littering the large clearing - the corpses of variants that Nico had slaughtered. "[Serve]."

Aldrich cast [Mass Raise Undead]. The corpses began to twitch, strewn apart body parts moving on their own to reanimate back together.

In response, Nico predictably flicked his coin at Aldrich.

Aldrich expected this. He was ready to tank that hit. When he had first manifested here using his [Mist Phase], his [Death Essence Barrier] was not up.

Now, it was. Granted, the barrier was more specialized for absorbing energy-type damage. Physical attacks phased through the barrier, but even then, they suffered a debuff that reduced their damage based.

It was enough to make the average bullet about as lethal as a pitcher's fastball. A decent bruise for the normal human, but to Aldrich who was definitively superhuman in every stat, it was nothing.

Aldrich knew from blocking Nico's initial toss at Feather that it was not that much stronger than a bullet. He could easily block it again.

He was, however, wrong.

A coin-sized hole sizzled in Aldrich's head, the rim glowing red hot. The coin had punched right through not only Volantis, but also Aldrich's rather hardened skull.

Aldrich faltered and fell down to his knees, listlessly looking down. The reanimating variant stopped moving.

"And that's checkmate," Nico said casually. A massive golden aura surged all around him, far stronger and brighter than before. He put his hands in his pocket and strolled up to Aldrich, close enough to reach out and touch him. He looked down at Aldrich's cored head and scoffed. "One move. That was all it took to get rid of you, hm? Looks like you weren't as big a player as you thought."

Nico turned around. The moment he did, he saw a large shadow cast over him. Instinctively, he turned around, but it was too late.

Aldrich grabbed Nico by the back of his head and slammed the Alter into the ground. A hexagonal pattern of green energy formed around his arm, massively improving his strength with [Death Surge].

The forest floor shook as if a bomb had detonated, soil rising up in a small geyser from Nico's head making fresh contact with fresh dirt.

"I see. You were holding back," said Aldrich. Magic surged as he channeled it into the arm pinning Nico down. He knew that it would take far more than a single surprise shot to kill the capo. He prepared to cast [Anti-Life Beam].

Purple light began to crackle around Aldrich's palm.

'Incoming' Volantis's voice rang urgently in Aldrich's head.

In response, Aldrich let go of Nico and shifted to the side, his cloak allowing him to seamlessly fly through the air.

The coin zipped back to where Aldrich was. This time, when it landed, it created a sizable golden explosion.

Nico had learned in just one small exchange that explosive attacks fared much better than piercing ones against Aldrich who could stand up with a hole in his head with zero issues.

Aldrich had used Nico's attack as a chance to trick him by playing dead. But that would not work again.

"You're not dead? With a damned hole in your head?" Nico's silhouette stood up in the waning cloud of his coin-induced explosion. The shine of his coin glimmered in his gloved hand. His normally gel-slicked-back hair was now messy, framing his golden eyes with strands of silver. His lip was cut, blood dribbling down to his chin.

"You'll find me harder to kill than most." The hole in Aldrich's head reformed as mist condensed into it.

'Apologies,' said Volantis. 'My structure is not as strong as it once was. I could not fend against that attack, nor could I even sense it - such was its speed.'

'It's alright. I'll handle the brunt of this fight. Just keep your sensors sharp.'

'Understood, warfather.'

"Doesn't matter. I've dealt with regenerating types like you before," growled Nico. He held his coin up. The surging golden aura around his body dimmed, thinning as it seemingly transferred over to the coin, making it brighter than ever.

Aldrich held up his own hand in response. On it was a beating, red, healthy heart.

Nico's brow rose in confusion, then further in alarm.

21:15 n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

From Fler'Gan's experimentations, Aldrich had learned that Alters, though they could not really analyze magic as they lacked spell-scrying capabilities, still possessed a level of supernatural instinct that let them know whether a spell was dangerous or not.

Back when Aldrich pulled off his fake death, he did not use his moment of surprise just to knock Nico's face into the dirt. He had mainly used it to get off his [Heart Hold] curse -  a spell that was normally incredibly difficult to get off because it required making direct contact with a physical attack significantly slower than normal.

Nico's brow rose in confusion, then further in alarm.

From Fler'Gan's experimentations, Aldrich had learned that Alters, though they could not really analyze magic as they lacked spell-scrying capabilities, still possessed a level of supernatural instinct that let them know whether a spell was dangerous or not.

Even if the spell was something less tangible than a fireball like, say, a curse, if the Alter managed to see it, they could still sense danger from it.

The stronger an Alter, the sharper their instincts were. Nico might not have understood how a heart was on Aldrich's hand, but an Alter of his caliber knew that his life was in imminent danger.

"Checkmate," said Aldrich. He crushed the heart in his hand. The very moment before he did so, Nico threw his coin. Not at Aldrich, but…behind him?

The coin sailed into the air far, far away.

The heart burst as Aldrich closed his metal-covered fingers around it. Blood spilled down his hand before it along with the remnants of the heart faded away into black particles. That was the sign that the curse had now taken effect.

Nico's heart was now mush.

Nico coughed heavily and went down to a knee, blood spitting out of his mouth.

Aldrich took a step forward, ready to speed up the process of Nico's death. The man was going to die soon anyway, but Aldrich did not want to wait before inducting such a strong unit into his legion.

'Wait. That warrior's vitals…they are still stable. Including his heartbeat,' said Volantis.

'What?' Aldrich saw as Volantis saw through Nico, showing that, indeed, his heart was still intact.

Nico stood up and exhaled deeply. He turned to Aldrich, blood smeared all over the lower half of his face. His golden aura raged around him bright, almost blindingly so.

"Check. But not mate," said Nico.