The Ruined Death Knight

Though as he was following the knowledge of his new spell, the magic that he was casting created a pitch-black magic circle that created threads that reached out slowly toward him. he midway withdraw his dead mana from all the corpses, canceling the spell and making the pitch black magic circle dissapear.

"What kind of spell did I learn? It's as if it wanted to take more mana from myself..." He said as looked at where the magic circle was.

'I was too hasty casting this one, I should have first read what the new spell does...' Danzel thought internally while calling himself a dumpass.

[Call of Anabast]: Though you call, you learned to create and summon forth the fabled Anabast with a corpse as their vessel. Extremely rare and powerful undead. Most think that they are beings from stories to scare children, while does more knowledgeable about them, calling them the reapers of necromancers or revenants, despite not being worthy to be referenced with such names. Even such information is extremely rare, to the point that their existence stays unknown to many worlds. To summon one, the magic caster has to forsake 1-100% of his mana pool so that they can anchor themselves in the mortal realm. The forsaken mana can be forced back to the magic caster no matter the distance of the Anabast, though that results in the Anabast disappearing after a short amount of time, this effect can't be interrupted. Forsaking 1-2% of your mana pool has the chance to turn the Anabast into a Wraith hostile to you. The more mana is forsaken, the stronger the Anabast will become. If more than 55% is forsaken in a single Anabast, they will seek to take the rest. A mistake that many necromancers learn too late before their deaths.

Danzel took his time reading his newly acquired spell to summon those so-called Anabast, but the more he continued reading, the more serious his gaze became.

That was because the spell was way too ominous by its very nature.

He didn't know what kind of undead Anabast were, but referencing them as revenants who were supposed to be 5th-tier undead, they were probably very powerful.

Also, the part about forsaking his maximum mana didn't come off well towards him, despite the skill saying that he can get it back wherever he wanted. The fact that a portion of his mana would be unavailable and that those guys were traps for clueless necromancers was also a worrying point.

"I guess my luck has run out this time around..." Danzel said as he shook his head, disappointed.

Till now, he was quite satisfied with the [Soul Affinity] and [Dead Mana Affinity] combo that he was going with, alas there was bound to be a crappy item in a treasure vault.

He was fine in forsaking 10% of his mana for the [Armor of Death Knight] talent, as the armor was essential for his runes.

But doing the same for potentially weaker than him minions was something that he doubted would be worth it.

'Though, judging as useless will be me getting ahead of myself.' He thought internally.

Most of the time, he had plenty of mana to use his spells and skills without minding much of his mana.

The main glutton that eat up his mana was [Phantom Phase], even with [Undying Preservation] trying to sweat to make it cost less.

"Giving out 1-2% of my mana is a no-go, even if weights are powerful, they will be still of the 2nd-tier and hostile towards me. And for safety sake l should give them a bit more than necessary... maybe 4%?" Danzel mumbled to himself as looked at the many corpses in front of him.

'Mhm, let's do 5% each. Though I got to deal with those first of all.' He thought as he spread his dead mana to all the corpses and cast two [Greater Raise Undead] of the 10 levels.

The given dead mana was sucked to each of the 55 corpses in almost an instant before each of them awoken their ethereal dark green eyes similar to Danzel's.

Each of the Draugr was at least 2 meters tall and held the strength that reached out to the 3rd-tier thanks to the runes increasing their strength and body toughness together with other various resistances and even giving them the basic affinity of all-natural elements.

Without the runes, those draugrs would be considered the peak of the 2nd-tier based on attributes, but with the runes, they were capable to touch the first step of the 3rd-tier.

"Our will is yours to command, our liege~." All the newly created draugrs said simultaneously with their eerie voice before kneeling before their creator, Rue Danzel.

'No problems with the runes or their bodies, that's a good sign.' Danzel nodded internally before turning his back to them, focusing on the 5 tallest and reshaped corpses.

"Let's see if you are worthy..." Danzel mumbled as he followed the knowledge inside his head to cast [Call of Anabast].

From his hand, dead mana escaped before flowing into the air, slowly creating a pitch-black magic circle.

And unlike before where there were many black threads reaching out, this time came 5 large dark hands slowly reaching towards him.

"Quite slow for a spell... also the hands seem to react to the targeted corpses." Danzel mumbled as he guide the ever-slow black arms to pass through his armor and touch one of his ribs.

The touch of the black hands felt extremely uncomputable to the point that Danzel was surprised, it felt as if the black arms were placing some kind of marking on his very soul, it wasn't inside his soul, but right outside like some kind of tattoo, but on one's soul and body that is. That alone made him reconsider the spell, though the knowledge he receive had also the ways to remove those markings.

'So that's how they get my mana...' He thought internally,

Though worried some, that didn't stop him from stopping the spell.

The next part he found quite difficult but at the same time quite reassuring. As the man wasn't leaving his soul, but was merely being saved inside the markings and not leaving his body.

Though he never really worked with his very own soul and frankly lacked the knowledge to interact when being in the physical realm, it was hard.

He also understands why 1-2% wouldn't have worked out.

Those markings were both separate, each marking having a copy of itself in the body and soul. Both made some sort of connection with each other to share the mana. Danzel body and soul are attributed to his total mana in a way.

And when Danzel finished giving each hand 5% of his mana, the black hands moved back inside the pitch black magic circle before traveling slowly towards the 5 special corpses and for each hand, they touched the spine of one corpse, leaving another mark, which contracted the other marks on him.

There were a total of 3 markings, with each requiring at least 1% percent, that was the true reason why this spell would have not worked out.

Maybe even 3% was pushing the limits of the spell.

As for the spell, once the markings were placed by the hands, they withdraw right back inside the pitch-black magic circle.

Once back inside, Danzel then had to put an insane amount of mana inside the magic circle just to activate it.

But once he was done, one by one, 5 extremely large shadows escaped through the magic circle that was glowing in dark light.

The 5 shadows then flew towards the 5 available corpses and the shadows moved as if they were inspecting the 5 corpses, the first shadow that came out chose the tallest corpse with no ribs with the others picked one of their own.

Once inside, flaring dark green eyes appeared in each of those corpses except for one of them and then let out an unnatural.

"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

"Gaaaaaahhhhh!!!!"

The next thing that happend was that the shadows started to emerge from their body and cover them, as each of them let out a death aura similar to Danzel when he was a Wight.

Their bones were soon hidden within shadows just like their ethereal flaring eyes as their bodies started to rise up and levitate off the ground.

Each of their bodies started to become taller and the shadows formed long-sleeved robes with a hood that completely hid any signs that their bodies were of bones.

Even their hands had shadows flickering ominously.

Albeit those who knew of Anabast considered them as some kind of ethereal undead, that was half the truth.

Their bodies function like the other ethereal undead such as wraiths or banshees, but their bodies were also physical. Which was hidden within their shadows and only when they chose would they reveal it to others.

That was the case right now.

The shadows hiding their skulls dissipated and were replaced with the flaring skull that Danzel shaped uniquely before. All of them except the one that had no eye sockets revealed their skulls as they turned toward Danzel.

"You called upon us, Creator?"

"You called upon us, Creator?"

"You called upon us, Creator?"

"You called upon us, Creator?"

"You called upon us, Creator?"

Each of them said in their eerie and ominious cold voice.