Reborn with a Necromancer System
Chapter 152: A Rat King?

Chapter 152: A Rat King?

The abandoned shed on the far fringe of the academy grounds looked like nothing more than a forgotten heap of rotting wood and overgrown ivy. Its shingles were broken. The walls leaned, bowed inward like something massive had once leaned against them. A single window, crusted over with grime, let in a thin sliver of moonlight that sliced across the interior like a blade.

But what appeared empty from the outside was anything but.

Kai had inscribed thirty sigil barriers around and within the structure. They were layered, interwoven, and pulsing with necromantic energy. He had drawn them with bone chalk that also has his blood combined. After a couple of experiments, he found it made the barriers and sigils stronger, and that’s what he needed now.

Some bore the marks of concealment. Others were full combat barriers of his own design, designed to repel entry by one of his loaded spells. The outermost one was cloaked in illusion magic, a technique he’d perfected when saving Firra.

He knew the barriers were like a flare in the darkness. Any competent sorcerer, any relic-hunting priest, or even the Devourer herself might sniff out the disturbances eventually.

But Kai didn’t care.

Protection came first.

He would fight if he had to. Let the city burn. Let his undead tear apart the skyline if that was the cost. He’d buried too much to lose again.

And for now... he had work to do.

---

He crouched in the cramped shed, surrounded by spellbooks, scavenged materials, and the cold, oily presence of shadow. He extended a clawed tear in the barrier, no wider than a needle’s eye, and one by one, his undead rats scurried through, slipping into the circle like returning soldiers.

Seventy-nine of them. Twitching. Clicking. Empty eyes glowing like tiny embers.

He exhaled softly and spread his hand above the first two.

"I don’t need you for scouting anymore," he murmured. "Time to become something better."

His fingers traced the fusion sigil into the air, two loops crossing, bound by an arcane braid, and let it drop.

A blinding, white-blue light flared, and when it faded, the new creature blinked at him.

[Undead Rat Alpha – Strength, Sight, and Speed: Enhanced]

It was larger than the others. Denser. Its fur, once patchy and mottled, now had a coarse sheen to it. But the way it moved betrayed the truth, it was still undead. Jerky, unnatural, animated by something just beyond the mortal thread.

Kai tilted his head. "Not bad."

He repeated the process.

Two more rats. Another Alpha.

He let them fight. A little bit of mock combat, no spells, no commands. Just teeth and muscle and instinct.

They were faster. More aggressive. Smarter.

He’d sacrificed two petty human souls for each one, stolen from street thugs and murderers in the Nova City underbelly. Worth it.

Then he tried a lesser soul.

[Insufficient Soul Strength]

Kai narrowed his eyes. "Hmph. So you’ve got standards now."

His curiosity sparked. What about the other end?

He retrieved a grand soul, the kind that made even him hesitate. The kind that had belonged to someone powerful. Someone full of memories, rage, love, and ambition. A life not easily erased.

He pressed it into the fusion.

The light wasn’t just bright, it roared.

The shed walls groaned. Shadows pulled away. The sigils flared and pulsed like arteries. Kai braced himself against the far wall.

When the radiance died down, he nearly choked.

The creature before him was massive.

Almost too big for the space. Its back hunched against the rafters, its limbs thick as tree roots. Dozens of pale nipples ran down its stomach. It stank of blood and wet stone.

[Undead Rat Broodmother – Ability: Creation: May spawn new Undead Rats after consuming sufficient flesh. Minimum Brood: 6]

Kai blinked. "...So I’ve become a Rat King. Great."

He rubbed the back of his neck, watching as the Broodmother scratched the floor with long, bone-plated claws.

"I’m not interested in raising a swarm. I want soldiers. Warriors. Not a sewer infestation."

Kai scratched his chin and smiled.

"Unless..." he murmured. "This might be an easy way to reach 10,000."

Kai reached into his shadow space and dismissed the Broodmother into it. Her massive form sunk into the darkness.

He turned back to his army.

One by one, seventy-eight of the seventy-nine rats were fused into Alpha variants.

By the end, his mind buzzed with sigil residue. His palms were numb.

[Undead Rat Alpha (40)]

He didn’t smile. But something close to satisfaction curled in his chest.

"I don’t know how strong they are yet. But a swarm of forty enhanced rats? That could overwhelm even trained knights."

He could picture it. Cloaks of fur and shadow, sinking teeth into exposed necks. A single hand signal and his army descends, turning combat into chaos.

Maybe being the Rat King wouldn’t be so bad.

---

The next morning arrived silently.

No bird calls. No wind. Nothing broke through his barriers.

Just sunlight pushing through the boarded window, filtered through thirty layers of sigil-warded magic, giving the light a strange shimmer, like sunlight on deep water.

Kai sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, the Alphas arrayed around him in orderly rows, still and waiting.

In his hands, he held the real project: a custom sigil he had been refining in his stolen hours between battles, teaching, and plotting escape.

Decay. Life. Two opposites.

Two forces that, when twisted together the way only necromancy allowed, became poison.

The rat before him twitched as he pressed the sigil into its hide.

[Poison Sigil Learned]

Kai grinned.

"Brilliant. Damage over time. Perfect for swarms."

He added the sigil to every Alpha, hands moving with a quiet precision. Repetition had become a kind of meditation for him.

By the time he was done, his back ached, his wrists throbbed, and his sigil chalk was worn down to a nub.

But the Alphas now carried death in every bite.

---

The sun climbed higher.

It slipped between the edges of his illusions, playing softly against the floorboards.

Kai stood and stretched, feeling his joints pop. He ran his hand over the wall to steady himself.

Still quiet. No intrusions. No watchers.

He looked out the dirty window, through the maze of barriers.

Beyond the trees, the academy’s spires began to catch the sunlight.

Time to go.

He drew his cloak over his shoulders.

The rats vanished. Back into his shadow space.

Kai stepped out from the shadows of the abandoned shed, his cloak drawn close, eyes flicking left and right across the damp morning courtyard. The academy loomed tall behind him, spires cutting into the sky, banners still fluttering lazily despite the rising tension in the city. He walked with purpose but not urgency, slipping between buildings, past statues and halls, until the main path came into view.

And, sure enough, she was there.

Mari stood just outside the academy gates, arms crossed, her usual golden-white battle robes exchanged for travel leathers. Her staff rested against her shoulder, its crystal tip glinting faintly under the morning sun. She was pacing, but not nervously, just impatiently.

Always impatient.

Especially when it involved him.

When she spotted him approaching from inside the grounds, her brow arched.

"You were inside?" she asked, walking up to meet him. "I thought you left already."

Kai shrugged. "I had a few things to finish."

"You know you’re one of the most hunted men in Nova right now, right? What kind of ’finishing’ does that require?"

"Personal," he replied simply.

She didn’t press, though the scowl remained. Together, they fell into a quiet stride, their boots tapping softly against cobblestone as they made their way toward the outer plaza where the teleportation gates were arrayed like ancient monuments. Dozens of polished archways, each humming with magic and reinforced by layers of defensive sigils, connected the capital with every major region and stronghold of the continent.

Neither spoke much as they walked.

The silence between them wasn’t awkward. Not anymore.

Kai noticed it. Something about Mari had changed. She didn’t fill the air with needless words like she used to. She didn’t ask questions she already knew he’d ignore. She let the quiet hang between them.

Maybe it was a kind of trust. Or maybe she just didn’t care about him any more.

Or maybe it was the same weariness he felt: the exhaustion of people who’d seen too much and survived.

When they reached the base of the gate, they stood before the tall stone archway.

"Ready?" she asked, resting her palm against the runeplate embedded in the stone.

Kai placed his hand beside hers.

The gate flared.

In a blink, the world blurred, spinning in streaks of color and wind and scent, until suddenly it stopped, and they were there.

The Forest of Arcane Creatures stretched before them like a painting unrolled from the heavens. Ancient trees towered above, their trunks wide enough to swallow a house, their leaves glowing faintly with a soft bioluminescent pulse. Floating spores drifted lazily through the air, changing hue as they passed through sunbeams. The very earth shimmered with quiet magic, and strange shapes shifted in the undergrowth, beasts of horn and mist, creatures that fed on mana itself.

Kai’s breath caught in his throat.

It had been so long.

His eyes lingered on the winding paths, the dense thickets, the flowers that blinked open when they heard footsteps.

’Ah... It’s been so long.’

He took a single step forward, hand falling instinctively to the hilt of the blade hidden beneath his cloak. Not out of fear. Out of memory.

’This was like home for me for a time. And Vepice is waiting for me... so they can say welcome home. Well... they probably won’t speak at all. But it’s the thought that counts.’

Behind him, Mari exhaled dramatically.

"What?" she said. "Are you just going to stare at it all day? We only have twenty-four hours, you know."

Kai glanced at her. "I know. I went to the academy, too."

She rolled her eyes and stepped past him onto the first winding root-path that led between the trees.

"Then hurry up," she said over her shoulder. "I’m doing this for someone who needs it."

Kai’s mouth twitched into something like a smirk.

’We both are.’

And then he followed her into the forest, where the wild magic of the arcane creatures breathed and shifted with every step.

He breathed in. The ambient mana put him at ease.