The Summoner's Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

Chapter 54: Necromancer Leonis

Although admirable, Aria had to admit that the man was quite the lunatic.

He was a man who carried an ice coffin on his back. His body was half dead to pay the initial price for obtaining a high-leveled necromancer physique.

Not only was knowledge a necessity, a great physique was also needed to sustain the power.

His name was Leonis, a former paladin captain who went to war in the name of the Holy Inquisition.

As a result, his wife was targeted. The beautiful woman who waited for her husband to return from the dangerous inquisition was eventually found packaged in a sealed box sent to Leonis.

A heavily mutilated body with clear traces of unspeakable torture. A severed head that had a hole carved through, where her hand was stabbed inside the hole. On her ring finger, the diamond ring that Leonis had exchanged with her on their wedding was clearly present.

The moment the box was opened, the sickening smell of rotten flesh penetrated your nose.

She wasn't even able to die with her eyes closed. It was unknown how much she had gone through before she was finally met with the sweet release of death.

From the numerous amounts of heinous wounds and marks, some were already scabbing, which proved that it did not end in a short period of time. Bugs were devouring her corpse and eating it from inside out, further defiling the body's worth and honor.

People who came to see what happened gathered and saw the unbelievable spectacle. Half of them gagged, the other half turned their head away from the scene.

Only Leonis kneeled on the ground for hours, not being able to digest what had happened to him.

He crumbled down right then and there. Only after fainting due to exhaustion was he able to peel his eyes away from the disgusting sight.

Leonis, facing that incident, blamed himself for his wife's suffering. If she wasn't married to him, she would've stayed the perfect lady she was, living a happy and unfettered life. If he wasn't a paladin captain, they could've became a normal couple not separated by the war.

On the next day after finding out, Leonis handed in his resignation letter.

He was a very decisive man. From that point on, he could not even dare to face his comrades anymore.

For he had already started hating the world itself.

He took her wedding ring, packaged his wife's corpse in a specially crafted ice coffin, and set off for the journey to recover his wife.

It was unknown whether he was doing it for his wife, or for himself. To find solace after the traumatic event.

However, Leonis did not have a good end. He failed in achieving his goals even with the astounding ability he possessed.

Not only did Leonis learn the art of necromancy too late, her body was also too damaged for him to even achieve anything.

However, with his determination, he managed to get his skill so high that he was able to recover a slight connection with his dead wife.

He received one word. One simple word, a faint whisper that entered his ears and only his.

'Stop'.

His wife, too, could not bear seeing him suffering under the leftover marks of her death. Naturally, she wished for him to stop and continue on with his life. Of course, this did not mean that his wife did not embody hatred towards Leonis after the pain she had to go through.

The next thing Aria heard of him was the tragic news of his death. He had buried his wife and himself. He was still alive, but near death. Within the short period of time before he died, he must've had to stay alive inside the coffin for some time. He laid beside his dead wife.

How agonizing must've that been?

Aria shook her head.

The reason Aria knew this was because Leonis' infested house had became a major threat and had to be eradicated. She was one of the persecutors that ended the case by demolishing the building.

Leonis' journal was recovered, in which he documented a series of entries that described his journey and his learning progress.

Not only was the journal valuable for his life story, but also the knowledge he possessed that brought him nothing but even more pain.

He took the harsh path of necromancy, forcing himself to constantly improve, improve, and improve.

His body was on the verge of breaking down all the time. On his last day of living, even if he did not kill himself, he would've died very soon.

Half of his body was traded for the exchange of a necromancy skill. By the end of his journey, the necrotic parts would naturally have spread all across his body. Not a single part of him was left untouched.

It was a sad case.

The journal ended up being stored by her disciple, who loved learning just like her.

Yerenica, the orphaned child she had taken in during her journey.

Aria got distracted with her heavy stream of thoughts and recovered after seeing that the enemies' movements were starting to change in an erratic manner.

Meaning that they sensed Aria's arrival, but couldn't detect her correct location yet.

'If it was really a Lich, then it should be panicking right now.' Aria's eyes narrowed down to the monsters.

Inside her mind, she was cleanly separating her targets and formulating a plan to successfully bring her to a win without much trouble. Dividing up the tasks between her and the spirits, her blood boiled as she grinned. She was sure of her victory this time too.

Since Aria and the rest cleared the previous stages with ease, almost to the point where it seemed like a game, naturally the boss would be affected as well.

Aria smirked, thinking about the advancement she was going to have and the refreshment that came with it. It would certainly feel better than eating ice cream in a hot summer day.

Aria leapt to the crowd, breaking apart their crowding nature by bashing one creature so hard that it pushed the rest away, creating a layer of shock around Aria.

The target that she directly hit was affected the most. Its originally deformed body shook and broke apart, falling down to the ground as fragments.

[Level C Skeleton Warrior <Mad> successfully murdered.]

[Experience points increased by 5500.]

'Oh?' Aria noticed the high amount of experience. Naturally, the experience points she gathered scaled with her power as well, but there was one loophole.

It was based purely on Aria's System and not Aria herself.

For once, Aria could have superb fighting skills and take down one monster without any help from the System: which meant no [Halvargg], no mana cost, and no System-related skills and she would be able to receive a much higher benefit due to the System rating her fight as 'beyond' her.

One more reason was that Aria was able to take down monsters that were higher in level than her. These would also give her additional points, leading to the generous amount she received just now.

She thought that she would've had to slay ten creatures before a level up came, but it seemed that she only needed five creatures before she could proceed to the next level.

Aria smiled, thinking about her goal, which was going to be achieved soon.

As she continued to charge at other monsters, the other two team members also joined in since this was still considered their work.

Truthfully, Aria would've preferred it if they stayed out of her continuous slaying, but who was she to complain?

She was currently using the resources of another group that she had not joined yet.

Ha-young was wary of Aria. That was a fact. Perhaps it was because she viewed Aria as a competitor, her eyes was drawn to the woman a lot. Within the battles, she would observe the woman.

This time, too, she looked at the black-haired Aria who just performed a dazzling kick.

"What is with her?!" Grumbling, she watched as Aria performed perfect sequences in taking down the monster. Compared to Yan's heavy strikes and her magic blows, Aria was much more efficient as everything she used preached upon clean kills.

She was a temperature sensitive person, so she actually did not like using fire magic all that much. But she was blessed with the magic as her Main. How could she change?

Seeing Aria, who was currently performing a duet with Dianthe, Ha-young had sprouts of envy within her heart. She thought that Aria's way of fighting must be so breezy and cool, compared to hers which were scorching hot.

One thing. A shared knowledge between all living things.

That distractions were a form of potent danger that could very well result in a disaster.

Not to mention, a distraction within an ongoing fight.

Distractions itself could be used as a weapon during fights. But what if your own ally got distracted on her own?

Within the next second, a 'disaster' happened.

"AH! WATCH OUT!!" Ha-young's shrill and panicked voice could be heard coming from Aria's backside, which led to her turning her head around to see what happened.

The surprise that greeted her was undeniably quite overwhelming.