Transmigrated as a Ghost

Marcus felt a cold chill through his entire soul the moment he touched the sludge like liquid that made up the core of the Font of Death.

All at once he felt the amassed anguish, pain, fear, and rage that had created this magical phenomenon.

Hundreds of thousands of lives had been snuffed out all at once to create this well of undeath and negative energy.

The cataclysm that had caused so much death had been lost to history, and now all that remained was this Font of Death that spread the resentment of the long dead.

Thoughts of spreading the destruction that befell the people, beasts, and monsters that had died began to fill Marcus’ mind. The powerful emotions left behind were trying to influence him.

‘Still, this is not enough to push me over the edge.’ 

With his mind steeled beforehand Marcus kept out the intrusive thoughts of spreading death and destruction that the Font of Death was trying to force upon him. 

The voices themselves were loud, but unfocused. They were merely echoes of the past and would not be able to influence Marcus so long as he kept his sense of self strong. Luckily, he already had plenty of practice not losing his mind thanks to his Soul Devour unique skill.

Once Marcus had found his center and felt he was ready, he allowed the energy within eh Font of Death to flow into him. He would need to bathe within it for a hundred days to meet his second to last evolution condition.

Time raced by for Marcus, both incredibly fast, and agonizingly slow.

Most of the time it was easy for Marcus to ignore the influence of the Font of Death, but occasionally a very powerful cacophony of voices would try to shatter his will.

If he let go, it would be easy for him to be absorbed by the Font of Death instead of the other way around.

‘Mrazivý, Lilia, Roxene, Lyra, Blitz, Inten, Quillon, James, Alaric, Fallon…’

Over and over Marcus repeated the names of the people that were closest to him. Even after losing track of time and having his soul and mind encroached on by the Font of Death, he was able to keep himself strong so long as he remembered those he cared about.

‘You have leveled up to level seventy-two.’

‘You have leveled up to level seventy-three.’

‘Evolution Requirement: Bathe in a Font of Death for one hundred days completed.’

The moment he received these notifications from the system, Marcus opened his eyes and saw the now much thinner sludge like liquid of the Font of Death.

Without any hesitation Marcus pushed off the bottom he had long since settled on and aimed for the surface.

When he breached the top of the Font of Death, he instinctively tried to take a breath, but felt like he was suffocating.

‘Get ahold of yourself, you don’t even need to breathe anymore. Calm down.’ Marcus thought.

It seemed that for an instant his mind had played a trick on him and instinctually thought that he needed to breathe after being submerged for so long. A vestige from his past life as a human.

Once he had gotten ahold of himself now that he was no longer in the trace like state he had been in for the past hundred days, Marcus floated out of the Font of Death and survived the area.

The first thing he noticed was that the pool that made up the Font of Death was noticeably smaller and less thick as it had been before. He had absorbed a great deal of the energy that it contained and severely weakened it.

His attention was next drawn to just outside the Font of Death where the landscape had taken on a drastic change.

What used to have been a desert had turned into a frozen wasteland that looked like part of the arctic. Not the hottest part of the continent as it should have been.

Another disconcerting factor was what looked like thousands of frozen bodies. It appeared that a massive army had approached only to be completely wiped out by ice.

Normally seeing this would have been cause for concern, but Marcus could only think of one individual that could have done this.

‘Look like she has already spotted me.’ 

Turning his head, Marcus could see a blue blur closing in on him at a tremendous speed.

The next thing Marcus knew, he felt a heavy impact against his body and a strong grip around his torso.

“I’m happy to see you too, Mraz. But if you don’t let up, I think you might break me.” Marcus said, feeling his sides caving in from the hug his wife was giving him.

“You will be fine with a little crushing. Just let me hold you like this a bit longer. These last hundred days have been rough.”

Hearing the stress in Mrazivý’s voice, Marcus allowed her to indulge herself for a bit. Clearly it had not been easy guarding him for a hundred days while he bathed in the Font of Death.

It took her several minutes, but eventually Mrazivý let out a satisfied sigh and released Marcus.

When he looked down at her face, he could see that she was smiling, but she had heavy bags under her eyes and a sickly pallor to her skin.

“Before anything else, I want to thank you for keeping me safe. It does not look like it was easy.” 

“Your damn right it was not easy. It only took a couple of days before pretty much all of the undead came swarming at once. Whatever you were doing, they were not happy about it. I still get flashbacks about the battle. There were so many of them that I thought we would be overrun at some points. We never would have held out if it weren’t for Aziz leading an army to attack the undead from the other side.” Mrazivý said, still shaken by the near endless battle she had fought.

“Well, I am glad to see that you are okay. Here, maybe this will make you feel a bit better.”

With the wave of his hand Marcus used his Ultimate Refresh Supreme Skill to help Mrazivý recover from her fatigue and the wear on her body that being so near the Font of Death for an extended period of time had caused.

Mrazivý let out an immediate sigh of relief after Marcus’ skill had brought her status back to its peak. All at once her condition had vastly improved.

“That is much better.” Mrazivý said. “Now, can we get out of here? I really do not want to stay in this place for another moment.”

Glancing about, Marcus could not see any sign of his two beast companions who had also been protecting him.

He knew that they were alive thanks to his connection with them, but it was still possible that they had been severely injured or suffering from some sort of affliction.

“They are both fine, just needed some time away from the Font of Death to recover. Let us go pick them up and get out of here.” Mrazivý said, tugging at Marcus’ arm.

Understanding just how much she wanted to leave, Marcus allowed himself to be pulled along and followed Mrazivý to where Blitz and Inten were waiting.