Michael continued walking for a few minutes.
The landscape remained eerily unchanged.
Every where he looked was filled with grey earth and dead forests. Not even the wind seemed willing to disturb the silence that blanketed the Netherworld.
There were also natives around, causing Michael, who had initially started to feel fortable, a little tense.
Just as Michael was beginning to wonder whether this region was pletely deserted, his footsteps gradually slowed. Several hundred meters ahead, something moved in his senses.
Click.
Clack.
Click.
The faint sound of hard objects colliding echoed through the empty wilderness. Michael's gaze sharpened as a group of skeletons slowly emerged from behind a cluster of black, leafless trees.
There were roughly twenty of them. Most stood between six and seven feet tall, their yellowish white bones carrying numerous cracks. Deep within each empty skull burned a dim blue soul flame.
"…"
Michael quietly observed them from a distance. Oddly enough, despite being a necromancer for over a year, this was actually the first time he had ever encountered naturally existing undead skeletons.
The realization caused a strange expression to appear on his face. It sounded almost ridiculous. His legion numbered in the thousands, yet never ordinary skeletons.
Of course, there was a reason for that. Michael couldn't really be considered a traditional necromancer.
From the very beginning, his path had diverged from that of ordinary practitioners, and even though he focused on corpses, thanks to his talent even his flesh zombies turned out different from the usual.
His first bone-derived undead had to be stolen from another necromancer. In any case, his understanding of skeleton-type undead mostly came from books rather than firsthand experience.
Michael's eyes calmly swept across the group. *Hmm, I can't sense any other presence around. So it seems these skeletons are natives?* For necromancers, there were generally two major methods of obtaining undead skeletons.
The first involved personally crafting skeletons using suitable skeletal materials before igniting them with soul fire. The second was summoning them directly from the Netherworld.
After all, if there existed one place in existence that never lacked undead, it was here. The Netherworld was the birthplace of countless naturally formed undead races.
Many necromancers throughout history had established contracts with tribes or summoned wandering undead directly from this realm instead of painstakingly creating every soldier themselves.
Michael's expression became thoughtful. The group continued marching without formation, seemingly unaware of Michael's presence.
Michael narrowed his eyes. Thanks to Death's Heir, he could vaguely perceive faint fluctuations surrounding each skeleton.
Weak. Very weak. Individually, none of them even approached Rank one.
This much wasn't surprising, as the types he could see didn't seem to be from any special race. Their race grade was probably a one star mon grade creature.
Against his current strength, they posed virtually no threat.
Michael quietly watched them for a few more moments before making his decision. Since arriving in the Netherworld, this was the first truly interesting thing he had encountered.
pared to walking around aimlessly, he wondered if he could get any information from these undead.
The concealment technique surrounding his body gradually dissipated. His aura, previously hidden, was no longer restrained.
Click!
The skeletons instantly stopped walking and their blue soul flame flickered violently.
The next moment.
Clack, clack, clack.
The entire group abruptly charged toward Michael.
Their movements were crude yet surprisingly swift, bone feet colliding against the black earth as they rushed forward.
Michael remained pletely calm. His fingers subtly moved as he prepared to release a single wave of pressure enough to suppress every one of them.
However, before he could do anything, when the skeletons were forty meters away from him, they all froze simultaneously.
Before Michael could understand what was going on, without any warning, the leading skeleton dropped to the ground kneeling.
The others reacted just as quickly, throwing themselves to the ground as well.
Clack!
Clack!
One after another, all twenty skeletons prostrated themselves before him. The sudden movement was so forceful that several of them literally fell apart.
One skeleton's left arm flew a few meters away from it. Another's lower jaw detached and rolled across the ground. The third somehow managed to lose an entire leg after kneeling too quickly.
Yet none of them appeared concerned. The limbless skeleton calmly crawled toward its missing arm, picked it up, and pressed it back against the shoulder.
Click.
The bone immediately reattached as though nothing had happened. Another casually retrieved its detached jaw before fixing it beneath its skull with practiced familiarity.
Within moments, the entire group had reassembled itself. Then they returned to bowing.
"…"
Michael remained silent. This development had been pletely unexpected.
Through his senses, Michael could faintly perceive the fluctuations within their soul flames. It was primitive, simple, instinctive. Yet hidden within it was something unexpected.
…Joy?
Michael frowned. That didn't seem right.
Undead weren't supposed to experience emotions so clearly. Even highly intelligent undead such as Jester, Beginning, or Lily didn't truly feel emotions in the same way living beings did.
They understood them and could imitate them, but genuine emotional fluctuations were extraordinarily rare.
These skeletons were just lowly rank zero creatures even goblins would disdain to ambush. Yet Michael could distinctly sense something resembling happiness. Or perhaps it was excitement.
It does seem like it, but there's also a hint of reverence.
It was difficult to describe. The feeling wasn't transmitted through expressions. After all, skeletons possessed no faces.
Instead, their soul flames themselves were fluctuating, almost as though they had encountered something they had been searching for.
Michael quietly observed them.
"…Interesting."
None of the skeletons raised their heads. They simply remained prostrated before him in absolute silence.
The only sound echoing through the barren landscape was the occasional click of loose bones settling back into place.
Michael slowly stepped forward. The moment he moved, every soul flame trembled simultaneously. That strange feeling became even stronger.
"…"
His eyes gradually narrowed. This isn't because I'm strong…
If it were merely the difference in strength, they would have displayed instinctive obedience. Not this. This was almost worshipful reverence.
Michael's thoughts immediately drifted toward the source of everything that had been unusual since entering the Netherworld.
"…Death's Heir."
The title quietly surfaced once more. Ever since arriving, the world itself had weled him. Now even the lowest native undead appeared to instinctively recognize something about his existence.
Michael couldn't help but wonder. Just what did the title Death's Heir actually represent in the Netherworld?
Or perhaps it wasn't the place itself that made his class even more unusual, but rather because this was his first true experience with a wild undead.
The bone dragon didn't count, as it had been stolen from its master without much resistance in a few seconds.
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