Rhythmic clicks and the dry grinding of bone on bone echoed through the suffocating silence of The Mistwood. Four squads of Skeletons fanned out, their movements blurred by a staggering 215 Agility. They didn't just walk; they sprinted with a jarring, skeletal grace that looked like it might shake their frames apart at any moment.
Ethan Sorel watched them vanish into the shifting grey veil. Even as the fog swallowed their white forms, he felt the tether—a cold, psychic link connecting his consciousness to his undead thralls. At his current level, his command radius capped at a hundred meters. Beyond that, the thread would snap, leaving them to their own mindless instincts.
He didn't know how to extend that range yet, but he was certain of one thing: no ordinary Necromancer at this stage could project their will half as far.
Myriad Realms Online was an ocean compared to the pond that was Azure Prime. This Starter Village was merely the cradle. The Calamity Legion would be forged here, in the fires of Inferno Difficulty.
A sharp mental ping drew his gaze north.
"Found you."
[Level 8 Elite 'Mistwood Dryad' slain. Over-Level Bonus (50%) applied. +60 EXP.]
Ethan checked his progress. His experience bar jumped from zero to 2%. Fifty kills to level up. For a solo player in an Inferno raid, that pace was blistering. By the time he reached the skirmish site, the Skeletons had already reduced the Dryad to splintered timber and mulch.
Thanks to his S-rank passive, Shared Life Pool, Ethan didn't need a vanguard for himself. He was the battery; they were the blades. He waded deeper into the woods, stepping over the bisected remains of the Dryad to scoop up three copper coins.
The alerts began to chime with mechanical regularity.
[Level 8 Elite 'Mistwood Dryad' slain. +60 EXP.]
[Level 8 Elite 'Mistwood Boa' slain. +60 EXP.]
Every ten seconds, the bar ticked upward. The only thing slowing him down was the sheer size of the map and the scattered spawn points. Finally, he closed the distance to catch a glimpse of the prey's statistics.
[Mistwood Dryad]
Level: 8
Rank: Elite
HP: 3,600 / 3,600
Attack: 74 | Phys Def: 60 | Mag Def: 40
Skill: [Entangle]
(Watch the roots; they hunger for more than just soil.)
[Mistwood Boa]
Level: 8
Rank: Elite
HP: 3,000 / 3,000
Attack: 108 | Phys Def: 52 | Mag Def: 30
Skill: [Constrict]
(This serpent enjoys a tight embrace. Most don't survive the hug.)
In Inferno Difficulty, the Level 5 dungeon had scaled everything by three levels and forcefully promoted every mob to Elite status. Their health pools dwarfed those of his Skeletons, but in terms of raw Quad-Stats, they weren't even in the same league.
Ethan raised his Bone Staff, tracking a massive Boa coiling through the canopy. He whispered the incantation, and a bolt of ghost-blue fire lanced out.
[Soulfire Burn]
Numbers began to tick above the serpent's head: -98, -101, -99.
At Level 3, Ethan’s Spell Power sat at a formidable 156. His Spirit stat, tripled by the Death Sovereign hidden class, provided the lion's share of that power. Over five seconds, the burn shaved off 500 health. It was respectable for a player, but compared to the combined DPS of twenty Skeletons, it was a drop in the bucket. Still, he kept casting. His Spirit was so high that his natural mana regeneration—46 points every five seconds—completely offset the cost of the spell.
A golden flash erupted near one of the Skeleton squads.
[Level 8 Elite 'Mistwood Boa' slain. +60 EXP.]
Ethan smiled. A drop. Inferno Difficulty's loot tables were generous, yielding a piece of gear after barely a dozen kills.
[Anaconda Hide Belt]
Type: Leather Armor
Level: 5
Tier: Black Iron
Stats: Armor +9, Constitution +2
(Imagine a giant snake wrapped around your waist. Cozy, right?)
"Leather," Ethan muttered, his lip curling slightly. "Of course." The game's penchant for snarky flavor text was consistent, if nothing else.
As a Death Sovereign, he was restricted to Cloth Armor. But he wasn't about to let the item go to waste. He focused his will on the belt.
[Cataclysm]
[Success. 'Anaconda Hide Belt' has ascended to Bronze-Tier.]
The stats surged by 50%. He tossed the upgraded item into his bag. It would fetch a fortune from a rogue or scout later.
The slaughter continued. By the time he reached the heart of the forest, the forest floor was littered with serpent scales and splintered wood.
[Congratulations. Whitenox has reached Level 4.]
[Congratulations. Whitenox has reached Level 5.]
Loot flooded his inventory: a Crude Wooden Wand, a Serpent Fang Dagger, an Anaconda Hide Jerkin, and two E-rank skill books—Entangle and Constrict. He fed them all through Cataclysm, elevating them to Tier 1 before stashing them.
He was sitting on a goldmine, though the average player probably couldn't afford a single piece yet. Ethan himself only had three silver to his name.
"The whales will find the money," he mused, directing the Legion further into the gloom.
At Level 5, the Skeletons' stats jumped to 292. They were no longer just summons; they were walking natural disasters. Finally, the fog thinned, revealing a clearing dominated by a massive, coiled shadow.
[Player: Whitenox]
Level: 5
Class: Death Sovereign
Agility: 51 | Spirit: 108
HP: 1/1 | MP: 6,480 / 6,480
Spell Power: 409
Talent: Cataclysm (Forbidden Tier)
Skills: Summon Skeleton (E), Soulfire Burn (E), Expanded Summoning Capacity (D), Shared Life Pool (S), Death Conscription (SS)
Summon Capacity: 20/100
The massive jump in power hadn't come from his gear, but from a single E-rank skill book he'd looted: Expanded Summoning Capacity.
Under normal circumstances, it added +2 to the summon limit. But Ethan wasn't normal. His Calamity Trait doubled the effect to +4, and Death Conscription amplified it further. A trash-tier passive had just expanded his command limit to a terrifying 100 units.
He had tried to use Cataclysm to "re-ascend" the skill after learning it, hoping to loop the bonus, but the system had promptly shut him down with a "No overlapping Ascension" prompt. The developers had at least closed the most obvious loopholes.
He didn't mind. He pulled out The Death Codex.
[The Death Codex] (Level 5)
Spell Power: +75
All Stats: +25
Special: Damage to Undead increased by 100% (Applies to summons).
(Unlock next tier at Level 10.)
The +25 to all stats was game-breaking at this level. Ethan tapped the back of his hand, summoning the grey vortex of his class skill. Two more Skeletons stepped out, their bones gleaming with a polished, metallic sheen.
[Skeleton]
Level: 5
All Stats: 583
HP: 5,830 | Attack: 583 | Phys Def: 292
Skill: [Crushing Blow]
Ethan looked at his new summons. Then he looked at the Boss waiting in the clearing.
[Mistwood Boa Rex]
Level: 8
Tier: Silver-Tier Boss
HP: 88,000 / 88,000
Attack: 327 | Phys Def: 136 | Mag Def: 98
Skills: [Constrict], [Devour], [Venom Spew], [Earthshatter]
Flanking the Rex were two Mistwood Boa Guardians (Champion Rank), each boasting 8,350 HP.
For a standard five-man party, this was a nightmare. The Boss healed 1% of its HP every five seconds, requiring a sustained DPS that most Level 5 players couldn't dream of.
Ethan didn't bother with a strategy. He simply pointed his wand.
"Kill them."
The Ossian Legion swarmed. The two Guardian boas hissed, lunging forward with bared fangs, only to be met by a coordinated wall of Crushing Blows.
-892!
-901!
-1,788! (Critical)
The Champions didn't even have time to coil. They were pulverized in a single volley of overhead strikes. Before the Boa Rex could even fully uncurl its massive body, its guards were already cold meat.