The Black Necromancer

By the time the life that burned within the core of the Flaming Stallion King had died out, it was wholly encased in see through ice, like a beautiful museum display. Leon whistled. It was quite a sight, and it made him wonder if he could raise this beast without destroying its body.

His dark mana that was tinted with Unholy energy reached out for the wispy soul that lingered within the beast's core. Then he tugged it out of the body, taking it to the opposite side of the hall. Then he began the raising process. Black smoke rose around the wispy soul, ravaging the air around it and sending the ambient mana around into turmoil. When it finally died down, the form of the Flaming Stallion King was left, with black-purple fire running down its mane and tail. Its eyes burned with a fire that could not be put out.

The eyes of the newly raised summon drifted to its former body that was encased in ice, and then to Fenrir. It held Fenrir's gaze for a few seconds, and Leon could feel the competitive spark within those eyes. Then it finally turned to Leon and walked toward him, before going down in a subservient manner and huffing.

"You have my complete loyalty, master." It spoke. Leon rubbed his chin and nodded before turning to raise the weaker stallions. He had something on his mind. He now possessed over ten Peak B rank former floor bosses in his army, but unlike some of them that could speak, most of them did not possess that ability. Take Tyrant as an example. The dinosaur king could easily understand Leon, but could not use the common language to speak back like Aristodemus, Dibella, and Fenrir. It was strange, but he had no idea why that was. It seemed their Intelligence stat did not have anything to do with their ability to speak, unlike what he might have thought.

After doing a count, Leon turned with a smirk. "I killed more."

"That's only because you have more summons." Jet rebutted.

"Don't be a sore loser. You're the one who decided to make it a competition." Leon laughed.

"Hmm..." Jet simply hummed and turned away to mount his ride. Leon waved at Fenrir, and the giant wolf quickly came over, shrinking his size for Leon's convenience. Then they hundreds of summons quickly sped ahead to continue their scouting.

"I think I noticed something with this floor. Did you notice it too?" Leon asked Jet.

"What is that?" Jet turned to look at Leon.

"The Flaming Stallions and their king. It felt like we were clearing a boss room. And considering how this floor is supposed to be 'special', I think we might just be fighting bosses." Leon explained.

The Flaming Stallion King showed the same level of strength as was expected from other floor bosses. But it was just one of the groups of monsters that populated the halls of the floor. If this implied that they would run into more of them, then it was only normal to assume that the floor boss would be much more powerful. The floor boss just might exceed the technical level of a B rank being!

Jet pondered for a minute before agreeing with Leon. If things went on in the way they suspected, then they might fight against an A rank boss!

"How strong are you?" He turned and asked Leon.

"Hmm, I would say Mid-High B rank." Leon shrugged. He was not sure of how to grade himself, but he could easily beat a High B rank monster. Jet nodded and looked around at Leon's summons. With their power, they might stand a greater chance of beating the tower boss.

"Let's keep going." Jet nodded and continued moving forward. The area was quickly cleaned up with the valuable monster cores tucked into the treasury of Leon's dungeon. It was a nearly automatic process for him when he was raising the undead. Before the bodies could disintegrate up to the core, the core was already absorbed into the dungeon. Now, he had over a thousand B rank cores sitting in his treasury.

As they kept on moving ahead, Leon shared the vision of one of his many summons. He had split up his summons into groups of fifty, with them all consisting of B rank creatures. The weakest were Mid B rank. Each group had at least five High B rank summons in the lead. Like that, they were a formidable force to be reckoned with. Coupled with the near endless regeneration they had as his summons, unless one could destroy them in a single attack, they would keep on coming back as long as Leon had enough mana.

This group of summons had just come across a team of Elves. Violent wind whipped around the summons, tearing them apart. But their regeneration was also fast, if draining on Leon's mana reserves. It was not easy to keep on restoring a B rank being, but his vast mana reserves did help a lot.

"We have a lot of strong competitors." He hummed under his breath, but continued on. In the chaos of the fight, one of the summons slipped away, hanging back at a distance. The summon acted as a sort of teleport point, and then a humanoid shape emerged from its shadow.

James, the summon that always remained in the dark, dealing lethal damage that his opponents never saw coming, appeared. He turned to the Skara Warrior that had served as the beacon for his travel and nodded. This was a skill that belonged to James, and had only been strengthened upon reaching B rank. He could travel through shadows thanks to a skill of his, but now, the skill had been strengthened and with a boost from Leon's powers, he could now instantly travel to the location of any of Leon's summons. He could also travel with others, although the number was low.