Chapter 52: William Malfoy

The translucent panel in front of Karl finally changed.

[Combat Examination beginning.]

[Wave 1 begins in 3...]

Karl glanced around the forest clearing while the sounds of movement gradually spread through the trees.

[2...]

Several pairs of burning eyes appeared between the branches.

[1...]

Next, dozens of Lava Hounds rushed into the clearing, their bodies covered in cracked black hide with molten light glowing underneath while flames leaked from their mouths.

Karl casually activated Perception on the nearest one.

[Lava Hound]

[Level: 99]

[Rank: Common]

He checked another and received exactly the same result.

Level 99 sounded impressive, but Common-rank monsters at that Level were hardly enough to interest him anymore.

Karl sighed lightly.

Ha... it feels weird acting like some lazy Necromancer.

Still, that was how the profession was supposed to work.

Why run around swinging weapons when he had an army specifically meant to do it for him?

Karl raised the Death Stick and summoned a portion of the Death Legion.

Several black-boned undead appeared across the clearing, runes glowing faintly across their bodies before they immediately rushed toward the approaching Lava Hounds.

Karl looked around for a moment, found a comfortable place beneath one of the trees and sat down.

The first clash ended exactly as expected.

His undead tore through the Lava Hounds while Karl watched from behind, occasionally shifting his position when a corpse landed too close to him.

The first wave ended within minutes.

Karl lazily stood, walked through the battlefield and used Harvest on every useful corpse before returning beneath the tree.

Then came the second wave and the Death Legion killed everything again.

Karl Harvested the corpses and then he sat back down.

The third wave followed shortly afterward, then the fourth and several more after that.

The monsters gradually changed as the examination progressed. Lava Hounds were joined by larger Hell Hounds, flame-covered beasts and other creatures with increasingly better ranks and stronger attributes.

Karl still did not move much.

The undead he had summoned at the beginning continued fighting with little trouble, and whenever one was finally destroyed, Karl simply replaced it with another from the Death Legion.

Before long, the public broadcast of Karl’s dungeon became strangely uneventful.

Adrian Holt was personally crushing monsters with overwhelming physical strength while Leon seemed to be treating every wave like some kind of festival.

Mira moved through her enemies with terrifying efficiency, and Seraphina’s Lightning Magic repeatedly tore apart entire groups at once.

Karl mostly sat beneath a tree.

After every wave, he would stand up, walk around using some strange Necromancer skill on the corpses and then return to the same spot.

Many ordinary spectators gradually moved their attention toward the more exciting battles.

The experienced Necromancers and Association officials watching him did the exact opposite.

Inside the control room, several officials had slowly begun paying more attention to Karl’s feed.

One of them finally leaned closer toward the screen.

"Those undead..."

Another official nodded.

"They’re moving completely independently."

That was what had been bothering them.

Ordinary undead were not intelligent enough to fight like this without continuous commands.

A Necromancer normally had to guide positioning, targets and movements, especially when controlling multiple summons at once.

Karl was barely doing anything, his undead were spreading naturally across the battlefield, covering one another, changing targets and reacting to new enemies without Karl giving any obvious instructions.

Even after the enemy species changed and the waves became more complicated, their coordination barely suffered.

One of the examiners frowned.

"How much control does he actually have over those things?"

Everybody had the same question but only karlncould answer it .

More importantly, Karl himself had still not personally fought once, they all knew his attributes were monstrous.

They had absolutely no idea how well he could actually use them.

Several waves later, Karl had nearly started dozing off beneath the tree when an irritated voice suddenly came from the Death Legion’s summoning space.

"Let me out!"

Karl ignored it.

"Let me out!"

His eyebrow twitched and he sighed, the spine is so much better at least that thing knows how to lie around quietly.

"LET ME OUT!"

Karl finally opened the summoning connection.

A tiny black bird immediately appeared beside him and flapped into the air.

Karl pointed toward the battlefield.

"You better not die because some random attack hits you."

The Heaven-Eating Crow ignored him completely.

It looked around for barely a second before flying toward the battlefield.

Karl watched with mild curiosity.

Is it actually going to fight?

The crow landed beside the corpse of a massive Hell Hound and started pecking at it.

Karl’s expression flattened but then the tiny bird opened its mouth and the entire corpse disappeared.

Karl stared at it. "What the fuck?"

The Heaven-Eating Crow ignored him and ran toward another corpse.

Karl immediately looked toward the System.

System.

[Yes, Host?]

How the hell did it eat that?

[Host should inspect the Heaven-Eating Crow’s status panel properly, It’s name literally states it’s purpose]

Karl frowned but opened it.

[Heaven-Eating Crow]

[Level: 1]

[Rank: Common]

He stared at the information, there’s was nothing great about it and nothing has changed after the crow had eaten the corpse.

Karl looked again, this time checking the attributes underneath and his expression changed slightly, they were higher stil pitiful but indeed higher.

Before he could say anything, the Heaven-Eating Crow swallowed another monster corpse and Karl checked again.

Its Level and rank were the same but its attributes had increased again.

Karl slowly sat straighter.

So this bastard can increase its attributes just by eating things?

The crow had already moved toward another corpse, then Karl remembered something much more important.

His Death Points.

If this little bastard ate every corpse before Karl could Harvest them, what exactly was Karl supposed to use?

The Heaven-Eating Crow reached another dead Hell Hound and Karl hurridely reached it at the same time.

"Mine."

The crow immediately spread its wings.

"Mine!"

"My undead killed it."

"Mine!"

"You didn’t even fight."

"Mine!"

Karl stared at it for several seconds before simply activating Harvest.

Death essence flowed out of the corpse and entered him.

The Heaven-Eating Crow froze.

Its feathers rose slightly as it glared at Karl before rushing forward and swallowing the remaining body anyway.

Karl immediately checked its attributes and they had still increased, just less than before.

The crow seemed to notice as well, it slowly turned toward Karl.

"It’s so bad in taste now."

Karl almost laughed.

"You still got something."

"Bad!"

"Fine, fine."

Karl pointed toward the forest.

"Let me Harvest first, I’ll get you something tastier later."

The crow became quiet.

"Tastier?"

"Yes."

It stared at him suspiciously for a few seconds before finally nodding.

"Fine necromancer you better not disappoint this sovereign."

The agreement was settled, Karl Harvested every corpse first and took the Death Points and whatever other benefits he could extract.

The Heaven-Eating Crow then followed behind him and devoured whatever remained, continuing to increase its attributes even if the gains were somewhat smaller.

The public viewers naturally understood none of this.

They could not see the crow’s status, nor did they know why Karl kept staring at it after every corpse.

What they could see was a palm-sized bird swallowing monsters hundreds of times larger than itself.

That alone brought plenty of attention back toward Karl’s dungeon.

A few spectators initially thought the disappearing corpses were some kind of spatial ability until one of the feeds clearly showed the Heaven-Eating Crow opening its mouth and swallowing a Hell Hound whole.

The examination continued as new species appeared as the waves progressed, stronger ranks began replacing the Common monsters and the numbers kept increasing.

Karl’s routine barely changed, his undead fought continuously and when some were destroyed, he summoned replacements.

Karl Harvested the dead, the crow ate what remained, and then both returned to waiting for the next wave.

Several waves later, the doors to the authorized control room suddenly opened.

Arthur and Edwin were still inside with the senior Association officials when an unfamiliar man casually walked through the entrance.

One official turned around immediately.

"Who the hell let—"

But his voice stopped, another official noticed the newcomer and froze, followed by another and then several more.

Within seconds, chairs scraped backward as practically every senior official inside the room stood and saluted.

Arthur finally turned toward the entrance but unlike everyone else, he smiled.

"So here you are, old Will."

Several people inside the room almost forgot how to breathe.

William Malfoy.

One of the Three Marshals of the Human Alliance and the oldest among them.

The Sleeping Dragon.

And Arthur reed was calling him old will.

Die if you want to die why take us with you!!

William looked toward Arthur and laughed.

"Court-martial for disrespecting a Human Alliance Marshal seems suited to you."

Arthur laughed as his figure disappeared from beside the screens and appeared directly in front of him.

"And no court-martial for running away with the Human Sovereign’s daughter, huh?"

William froze, for a brief moment and a faint blush actually appeared on his face.

"Shut up, bastard!"

Arthur burst out laughing.

William glared at him before eventually laughing as well, while every official around them looked as though they desperately wished they had heard absolutely nothing.

After a while, William finally calmed down.

"Little James told me about your visit."

Arthur’s expression became slightly more serious.

William glanced toward the dungeon screens.

"It’s been years since I last saw Karl, next thing I hear, the brat has already managed to get in a ridiculous situation just like you hu."

Arthur cleched his teeth but then gave a small nod but the amusement gradually disappeared from his face.

"But you understand what this means, don’t you?"

"The world is already failing to contain them."

William remained silent for a moment before nodding.

"I know and that’s why I came."

He sighed.

"Getting out without those old monsters noticing was troublesome enough, and your sister-in-law’s eyes aren’t exactly easy to escape either."

Arthur gave him a faint smile, nobody else in the room understood what they were discussing.

William finally looked around and noticed that practically every official was still standing rigidly in salute.

He casually snapped his fingers and a faint wave passed through the room.

The officials’ eyes immediately became glossy.

One after another, they sat back down in a daze, several of them staring blankly at the screens while a thin line of drool slowly escaped from the corner of one man’s mouth.

Arthur glanced at him and William shrugged.

"They’ll be fine."

Only Arthur and Edwin remained unaffected.

Edwin was still standing straight.

"How have you been, Captain!"

William turned toward him and smiled.

"Tch, look at you."

He looked Edwin up and down.

"Can’t even call you Fatty properly anymore. Age really took a toll on you, huh?"

Edwin’s expression twitched.

"I’m not taking divine drugs like certain people."

Arthur Silently looked toward another screen.

William laughed before finally turning his attention toward the examination feeds.

"So where’s our Karl?"

His eyes moved across the screens until they stopped on one clearly labelled.

[Karl Reed]

Karl was resting beneath a tree while his undead tore apart another wave.

The Heaven-Eating Crow followed behind the battlefield afterward, eating whatever corpses Karl had already Harvested.

William watched for a while before smiling.

"He grew into a fine young man, didn’t he?"

His attention shifted toward the Death Legion and the smile slowly became more curious.

"Though those summons look nothing like a normal Necromancer’s."

William watched them move autonomously across the battlefield before glancing toward Arthur.

"What’s his talent and compatibility?"

He considered it for a moment.

"At least S-rank, I’d guess, probably higher."

Arthur scratched his cheek.

"Uhm... twenty-one-star compatibility."

William slowly turned toward him and his expression made it obvious he was waiting for Arthur to stop messing around.

Arthur continued.

"And an F-rank talent."

William stared at him like he has gone mad and if he was truth then the world definitely has gone mad...