Chapter 114: Soul Dispersion 1

Kent cast another Illumination spell and continued reading through the grimoire.

Unfortunately, although the book contained several other low-level spells below Level Three, Kent soon discovered that calling them ordinary magic was not entirely accurate.

They were closer to divine spells.

To cast them, a mage needed more than mana and spiritual power.

They also required faith in the Nether God.

And the strength of those divine spells depended directly on how deep and sincere that faith was.

Kent immediately understood the difference.

Take Healing and Illumination, for example.

Both were low-level light-element spells that Kent himself could use.

But if his versions were compared with those cast by genuine priests of the Church of Light, there would be a significant difference in both power and duration.

A priest’s spell would be stronger.

It would also last longer.

The reason was simple.

Their magic was supported not only by mana and spiritual power, but also by their faith in the God of Light.

The same principle applied to more advanced spells.

For instance, an intermediate light-element spell such as Holy Light Protection was not something just any light mage could cast.

It required genuine devotion to the God of Light.

Across the continent, spells that depended on faith in a deity were collectively known as divine spells.

Still, Kent had not come away empty-handed.

Among the spells recorded in the grimoire, he found one that immediately caught his interest.

Soul Suppression.

Strictly speaking, it was a sealing spell.

And in practical terms, it was almost useless.

Its success rate was simply far too low.

Against a target one level below the caster, the spell had only around a ten-percent chance of succeeding.

Against someone of the same level, the success rate dropped to roughly one percent.

Strangely enough, however, the spell did not seem to impose a strict upper limit on the strength of its target.

In theory, even a Level One Mage could cast Soul Suppression on a Level Nine powerhouse.

There was still a chance that the spell would succeed.

Of course, that chance was so absurdly small that most people would never bother trying.

But probability was a strange thing.

A ten-percent success rate did not mean the tenth attempt was guaranteed to work.

The very first cast might succeed.

Or ten thousand attempts might all fail.

Luck did not follow neat arithmetic.

And that was exactly why Kent liked the spell.

Somewhere deep inside human nature, there was always a little desire to gamble.

Besides, Soul Suppression acted directly on the soul.

That made it a perfect example of the difference between necromantic magic and undead magic.

Strictly speaking, necromantic magic could actually be considered a branch of undead magic.

Over the course of history, however, the two traditions had gradually separated and developed into distinct paths.

Most undead creatures possessed physical forms.

The lowest-level skeletons, for example, were constructed from actual bones.

As a result, undead magic focused heavily on summoning and controlling tangible creatures such as skeleton warriors.

Necromantic magic was different.

Most necromantic beings lacked true physical bodies.

Because of that, necromantic spells tended to act directly upon the soul.

Many of them were curses.

One example was the Level Three necromantic spell Soul Bewilderment.

It directly interfered with a target’s soul and consciousness.

Kent now realized that this was almost certainly what had happened to Daphne earlier.

She had fallen asleep, yet no matter how he called or shook her, she had refused to wake.

Another spell was Soul Pierce.

Anyone struck by it would experience agony that seemed to come from the soul itself.

The pain was so overwhelming that the victim would almost certainly lose the ability to fight.

That alone made necromantic magic an extremely sinister school of magic.

And the grimoire contained even darker spells.

Soul Transfer.

Soul Extraction.

There were several others just as cruel.

Kent had no interest in them.

Not only were those spells vicious beyond reason, but most of them also required special casting materials.

And those materials were usually harvested from necromantic creatures.

For Kent, that was more than enough reason to ignore them.

Kent therefore decided that, for the time being, he would learn only two spells—

Soul Suppression and Soul Dispersion.

To avoid alerting the Wraiths surrounding the room, however, Kent could not chant the incantations aloud.

He could only recite them silently in his mind.

It was only when he began memorizing the spells that he realized something surprising.

The magical script in the grimoire was written in an ancient language—

the so-called Ancient Elven Script.

Fortunately, Kent could understand it.

Most low-level spells did not require faith in a deity, which was precisely why Kent had been able to cast spells such as Healing and Illumination without being a follower of the God of Light.

Of the two new spells, however, the one Kent looked forward to most was Soul Dispersion.

After all, the spell allowed the caster to absorb the pure necromantic mana left behind by a Wraith.

Normally, absorbing too much necromantic mana would gradually affect a living person’s soul and even alter their personality.

For true necromancers, the most important source of power was not mana itself, but spiritual power—or, more accurately, the strength of the soul.

Kent, however, was different.

Whatever type of magical element entered his Mana Source would ultimately be transformed into the same silvery-white mana.

That mana could then be converted into any elemental affinity he required.

In other words, all the negative effects normally associated with necromantic mana would have no influence on him at all.

Of course, Kent did not yet realize this.

Once he felt that he had memorized the incantations well enough, Kent walked toward the window.

Several Wraiths were lurking in the shadows outside, baring their strange mouths and drifting restlessly through the darkness.

Some of them had already developed relatively clear forms.

Most, however, remained vague and indistinct.

Those weaker spirits were merely Level One or Level Two Wraiths.

A Wraith whose body had become almost fully solidified would already be considered a high-level specimen.

Wraiths could grow all the way to Level Nine.

And a single Level Nine Wraith might rule over a host numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

If one ever succeeded in advancing to Level Ten, flesh and blood would begin to grow upon its spiritual form.

At that point, it could achieve something approaching true resurrection.

Of course, reaching that stage required surviving an unimaginably dangerous trial.

That, however, was a matter for another time.

Most of the Wraiths outside resembled pale white shadows floating in midair.

Their heads vaguely resembled those of humans.

But beneath that resemblance, they were grotesquely different.

Each possessed only a huge mouth.

There were no arms.

Instead, several tentacle-like appendages extended from their upper bodies.

Their lower halves had no legs either, tapering downward like the flowing hem of a long robe.

Strangest of all, the Wraiths were not actually making sounds.

What Kent perceived as howling was a form of spiritual fluctuation.

When those waves reached a human mind, they acted directly upon the soul.

To the victim, the sensation was almost indistinguishable from someone screaming directly into their ears.

Kent carefully scanned the area.

Then he noticed one Wraith beneath the window that was clearly larger than the others.

Its spiritual body was almost an entire size bigger.

Its level was obviously higher as well.

Regardless of their level, Wraiths were intelligent creatures.

That made the larger one the obvious first target.

Kent narrowed his eyes.

His spiritual power locked firmly onto it.

“Soul Dispersion.”

He raised one hand while silently reciting the incantation.

A stream of grayish-white light immediately shot from his palm and streaked toward the larger Wraith.

The instant the spell was released, even Kent himself felt a wave of unnatural cold spread through the air.

It was the chilling aura unique to necromantic magic.

In truth, most necromancers were no longer truly human.

Many had originally been ordinary mages who, after death, used forbidden secret arts to transform themselves into necromantic beings.

The reason was simple.

Necromantic mana was fundamentally unsuitable for living creatures.

A living body was not meant to cultivate that kind of power.

Necromantic existence, of course, could be regarded as another form of life altogether.

“OOOOOOOH!”

The larger Wraith immediately sensed danger.

Its translucent mouth opened impossibly wide as it released a violent howl.

Then its body drifted backward—

and in a single movement, it shot several meters away.

Kent’s mind trembled under the force of the spiritual wave.

His concentration nearly broke.

That howl was not merely a cry of fear.

It was one of the Wraiths’ natural methods of attack.

Among the many varieties of spectral creatures, there was even a particular race known as Wailing Banshees.

They specialized almost entirely in this kind of spiritual assault.

Kent did not feel that his soul had suffered any real damage.

His mind had merely been shaken for an instant.

And just as his concentration began to waver, a cold current of necromantic mana suddenly surged through his mind.

Kent’s spirit immediately steadied.

Only then did understanding dawn on him.

So cultivating necromantic magic had this kind of benefit as well.

The Wraith he had targeted failed to evade the Soul Dispersion spell.

At first, the grayish-white light did not appear particularly fast.

But in the very next instant, it suddenly accelerated and shot directly toward the large Wraith Kent had locked onto with his spiritual power.

What surprised Kent even more was that the spell did not completely sever itself from him after being released.

A spiritual connection still remained between him and the Soul Dispersion spell.

“OOOOOOH...!”

Kent knew perfectly well that Wraiths could not truly produce sound.

Even so, through his spiritual perception, he could clearly sense the creature’s agonized screams.

After being struck by Soul Dispersion, the large Wraith began thrashing violently in midair.

Its translucent body twisted and rolled as waves of anguish poured from its spirit.

The effect of the spell was almost like sunlight falling upon fresh snow.

The Wraith began to melt away.

Its body visibly shrank.

Originally, the creature had stood more than four meters tall.

Yet after only a few seconds, it had already diminished to barely over three meters.

And it was still shrinking.

The smaller its spiritual body became, the louder its agonized howls seemed to grow.

“Soul Dispersion!”

Seeing that the Wraith was still struggling, Kent immediately cast the spell a second time.

That was when the surrounding Wraiths finally seemed to understand what was happening.

The moment they saw Kent release another Soul Dispersion spell, they scattered in panic.

Pale figures fled in every direction, filling the darkness with strange, chaotic spiritual cries.

Only then did Kent finally let out a breath of relief.

Truthfully, if all those Wraiths had attacked him at the same time, he had no confidence that he would have been able to cast Soul Dispersion smoothly.

Against one Wraith, he could manage.

Against an entire swarm—

that would have been another matter entirely.