Chapter 77: Transition

Far outside Reaper’s Sanctuary, Leon, Mira, Seraphine, Galzan and Lucifer watched Karl from a distance.

He was still floating above the ruined plaza while the tornado of Death Energy around him continued growing, swallowing more and more of the city.

Leon looked between everyone with a questioning gaze, but none of them understood what was happening.

Meanwhile, Karl had completely lost awareness of the outside world.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself standing above an endless calm sea.

The water beneath him was perfectly still while the sky above was so clear that there wasn’t even a trace of cloud anywhere.

Karl looked around in confusion until he felt a faint tremble beneath his feet.

Looking down, he saw a tiny white koi swimming through the water, followed moments later by another one that was completely black.

The two began circling each other, soon more koi appeared, some black and some white, joining the same rotation from different directions.

Karl watched them almost in a trance as the circle grew larger and the fish moved faster and faster.

Their individual forms gradually blurred until the koi themselves seemed to disappear.

What remained was a massive black and white Yin-Yang slowly rotating across the endless sea.

Karl continued watching without even realizing that words had begun leaving his mouth.

"Life begets death, death begets life when the two return to one, the wheel of existence begins to turn and begins the endless cycle of Reincarnation."

The moment the final word left his mouth, the entire world disappeared.

Outside the Sanctuary, the tornado around Karl suddenly erupted outward.

BOOM!

A massive domain spread from his body and expanded across the city within moments, covering nearly the entire Reaper’s Sanctuary.

Leon, Mira and Galzan froze as the pressure reached them even from so far away, while Seraphine and Lucifer looked toward Karl in clear awe.

The pressure was terrifying and for a moment, it felt as though death itself had wrapped around their bodies, but strangely there was also a warm calmness mixed inside it that felt completely opposite.

And as they looked toward Karl floating at the centre of the domain, another strange feeling rose instinctively from within them.

An urge to lower their heads, almost an order to kneel.

Before anyone could properly understand it, Karl’s eyes opened.

The enormous domain immediately began contracting and all the power covering the Sanctuary rushed back toward him, gathering around the empty cavity in his chest.

The energy began spinning faster and faster until a new heart slowly started forming inside him.

Warmth spread throughout Karl’s body as the final pieces joined together and the heart completely formed.

[Heart of Reincarnation successfully formed.]

BOOM!

The first heartbeat sounded less like a human heart and more like a war drum, then another came.

BOOM!

With every beat, Karl’s body began restoring itself.

The massive hole through his chest started closing while both lungs rebuilt themselves around the new heart.

Old scars disappeared with them and even the smallest injuries throughout his body began repairing one after another.

Then notifications started appearing in front of him.

[Personal Domain successfully formed.]

[Domain of Reincarnation acquired.]

[Transition Requirement Completed: Form a Personal Domain.]

[All First Transition requirements fulfilled.]

[First Transition commencing.]

Karl’s eyes widened slightly.

At last it’s completed.

But before he could even think about it, another notification appeared.

[Compatible Transition Material detected.]

Karl frowned and the notification.

Compatible material?

A faint humming came from below and Karl immediately looked down and his expression changed.

The two severed pieces of the Reaper’s Order were trembling among the rubble.

"System, wait!"

The pieces shot upward before he could do anything and broke apart into countless tiny particles.

[Integration commencing.]

Karl’s face darkened as he internally screamed in anger.

This is my fucking dungeon objective!

The System ignored him completely as even more notifications started appearing.

[First Transition successfully completed.]

[Host has advanced to Tier 2.]

Then the EXP Karl had stored while trapped at Level 99 finally started pouring in.

[Level 99 → 100.]

[Level 100 → 101.]

The notifications continued one after another.

[Level: 107]

A smile appeared on Karl’s face, that damned Transition task that had been hanging over him for so long was finally finished and he could level normally again.

Then the new skills appeared.

[Undead Transmutation]

[Sacrifice undead to transmute them into standardized military undead such as Knights, Swordsmen, Assassins, Mages, Archers, Liches and other combat units.]

Karl immediately liked that one, at least his nightmare of eventually having an enormous army made almost entirely of random cannon fodder finally had a solution.

[Death Exchange]

[Instantly exchange positions with any undead under your command regardless of distance. Spatial barriers and sealed regions cannot prevent the exchange.]

[Undead Reincarnation]

[Destroyed undead may return their imprint to the Domain of Reincarnation and can later be reconstructed using Death Energy.]

[Monarch’s Command]

[Greatly strengthens command over the Death Legion, allowing instant orders, improved coordination and increased resistance to suppression and external control.]

Then the final skill appeared.

[Throne of Ten Thousand Arts]

[Karl may use any active skill possessed by an undead currently under his command.]

Karl looked at it for a moment before a smile appeared again, there are definitely ways to abuse these skills.

He then checked the state of his army.

[Death Legion: 293]

His smile immediately faded a little, most of the undead had disappeared the moment Life Link was forced to take the damage from the Grim’s attack.

For now, he didn’t even have enough left to worry about them being cannon fodder.

Karl closed the panels and silenced the remaining notifications when he noticed several figures rushing toward him.

Leon, Mira, Galzan, Seraphine and Lucifer were already returning as Karl slowly descended toward the broken plaza.

The moment his feet touched the ground, Leon reached him first and practically crashed into him with a bear hug.

"Damn bastard, I thought you really went on a date with Lady Death alone."

Karl almost lost his balance before looking at him.

"How can I leave like that? And anyways... were you crying?"

Leon immediately pulled away and hurriedly wiped his face.

"Nah, nah, why would I cry? I was just washing the blood off my face."

Mira had been looking at Karl with clear relief, but hearing that, she immediately spoke.

"Oh yah, indeed washing it with tears."

Leon gave her an exaggerated look.

"It’s wrong to lie, you know."

"You literally just lied."

The two immediately started bickering while Karl just smiled and ignored them.

Seraphine walked over next and looked him up and down before raising an eyebrow.

"Well, well now cough it up, how did you figure out that the boss’s life was tethered to the Reaper’s Order?"

Leon and Mira stopped arguing and looked toward him as well in curiosity.

Karl thought for a moment before replying.

"To be frank, I wasn’t really sure until the end."

"The first thing was the dungeon objective itself, everything here was built around obtaining the Reaper’s Order."

He glanced toward where the broken pieces had disappeared.

"Then Lucifer’s Divine Fall destroyed almost the Grim’s entire chest, but the Order wasn’t destroyed with it instead It disappeared while the Grim regenerated and then appeared again afterward."

Karl continued as he recalled the fight.

"No matter how much Death Energy we used against him, his HP stayed at one hundred percent and whenever he formed those shields, the densest part was usually around the Order."

"He protected it even while moving."

"So you thought that was the thing keeping him alive."

"Pretty much."

Karl smiled.

"His bullshit about being immortal only made me more suspicious, and the idiot kept revealing more every time I provoked him."

He looked down at his completely restored chest.

"At last it was still a really lucky guess and I’m even luckier to still be standing here."

A quiet chuckle suddenly sounded inside his mind.

["Do you really think simply being lucky explains everything that has happened with you?"]

Karl’s jaw tightened slightly, but he ignored the System.

Leon stretched his injured shoulder and sighed.

"Yah, yah, pretty smart stuff, but I’m fucking exhausted."

He looked around the ruined Sanctuary before suddenly remembering something.

"Where’s the token now? And shouldn’t the dungeon be open already? When are we going back?"

Karl stiffened as everyone gaze shifted on him one by one.