Chapter 54: Domain!?

Karl’s eyes remained fixed on the information floating before him.

[Golden King Tiger]

[Level: 99]

[Beast Rank: King]

His earlier confusion disappeared almost immediately.

King rank? No way.

Karl had never heard of a King-rank beast being deliberately placed inside the Human Alliance National College Entrance Examination.

Nightmare difficulty was supposed to be dangerous, but this had already gone far beyond anything that should have appeared here.

More importantly, King rank was not simply another increase in attributes.

Once a beast crossed beyond Overlord and reached King rank, its existence changed completely.

Karl had barely finished that thought when the Golden King Tiger raised its head.

ROAR!

The entire forest trembled.

Leaves tore from branches while several nearby trees bent under the pressure, and a wave of brilliant golden light spread outward from the tiger before covering the entire battlefield.

Karl’s expression darkened.

No fucking way.

Golden light stretched across the ground and climbed through the surrounding forest until Karl and the Death Legion were completely trapped inside it.

There was no mistaking what he was looking at.

A Domain.

Every King-rank beast naturally awakened an Innate Domain, and that alone was enough to separate them completely from everything below King rank.

Within its Domain, the beast’s own abilities were strengthened while anything opposing it was suppressed according to the nature of that Domain.

Karl looked around as a faint metallic shine spread across the forest floor.

Metal Domain.

Outside the artificial dungeon, the reaction changed almost immediately.

"A Domain?!"

"That really is a King-rank beast!"

"Why hasn’t the examination been stopped?"

"Karl Reed is finished."

The news spread rapidly through the viewing areas as more people moved toward Karl’s feed.

Moments earlier, most spectators had only been excited to see something unusual appear inside the examination, but the sight of a complete Domain removed much of that excitement.

A Level 99 King-rank beast was already terrifying.

A King-rank beast fighting inside its own completed Domain was something else entirely.

One spectator shook his head while staring at the screen.

"Tch... what a waste, he was ranked first too."

Back inside the dungeon, the Golden King Tiger roared again.

This time, Karl immediately felt that something was wrong.

The sound itself struck like a physical attack.

His ears rang violently as several undead near the front of the Death Legion were blasted backward.

Weaker ones shattered outright, sending black bones flying across the clearing while others crashed through the surrounding trees.

The tiger lowered its head and its enormous body crossed the distance in a flash Karl immediately shifted aside as one massive paw tore through the space where he had been standing.

BOOM!

The ground behind him exploded and Karl landed several metres away and raised the Death Stick.

"Spread out."

The Death Legion reacted immediately.

Dozens of undead separated across the battlefield before rushing toward the tiger from several directions, while Karl opened more summoning formations behind them.

This time, he stopped using the weaker undead he had been relying on throughout the earlier waves.

Stronger members of the Death Legion emerged one after another and entered the battlefield.

Seraphine appeared behind them shortly afterward, staff already in hand.

She looked toward the Golden King Tiger before glancing at Karl.

"You finally found something troublesome."

Seraphine ignored him and raised her staff.

Cold air spread across the battlefield as frost rapidly covered the ground beneath the tiger’s feet.

At the same time thin golden threads shot between several trees and wrapped around its limbs, trying to restrict its movement while the Death Legion attacked from every direction.

For a short while, Karl fought exactly as a Necromancer normally would.

The Death Legion attacked from the front while Seraphine disrupted the tiger from behind and Karl repeatedly shifted his undead whenever the Golden King Tiger tried breaking through their formation.

The Metal Domain covered everything.

The Golden King Tiger tore through several undead with a single swipe before twisting its body and crushing another beneath one paw.

Its tail struck across the battlefield moments later, shattering two more undead before they could recover.

Karl immediately replaced them, several black summoning formations opened nearby as fresh undead rushed forward.

The tiger roared again and golden light flashed through the Domain.

Hundreds of hardened metal rods formed high above the forest.

Karl looked upward.

"Oh, come on."

They fell like massive pillars and the entire battlefield disappeared beneath the attack.

Metal rods tore through trees and slammed into the ground one after another, smashing through the Death Legion while several struck directly through the bodies of Karl’s undead and pinned them into the earth.

Seraphine raised her staff and a thick layer of frost spread above her before several incoming rods froze and shattered.

Karl moved between the remaining attacks while his undead took most of the pressure.

The moment the barrage ended, he summoned another group.

The fight continued and Karl used Death Severance several times whenever the tiger exposed itself, sending curved slashes of condensed Death Energy across the battlefield.

One struck the tiger’s shoulder and a faint mark appeared.

[Death Mark applied.]

Another slash followed moments later but it barely left a mark seeing this Karl’s expression turned ugly.

He was burning through undead for no real reason.

Every destroyed summon could technically be repaired as long as enough of it remained, but restoring weaker undead in the middle of a fight like this was hardly worth the Death Energy.

Karl’s eyes shifted toward Seraphine.

Almost an entire month of accumulated Death Energy had disappeared into raising this woman to Level 100 before he had even gotten the chance to properly test half his other abilities.

Nearby, the Heaven-Eating Crow was having a considerably better time than everyone else.

It darted around the edge of the battlefield, swallowing whatever it could find whenever the tiger’s attacks destroyed something nearby.

Enemy remains disappeared first and then even the shattered pieces of Karl’s weaker undead began disappearing as well.

Karl looked at it and just sighed hose broken low-tier bones were practically waste anyway.

Another metallic barrage tore across the battlefield.

Karl raised the Death Stick and released several Death Severances in quick succession, cutting apart some of the incoming rods while his undead absorbed the rest.

As the battle continued in the same exhausting way Karl’s patience finally started running out.

He could keep replacing them but he would run out of them sooner or later.

Then he remembered something he had barely touched since obtaining it.

The Marshal-rank support undead.

The spine.

Karl looked toward the Golden King Tiger, then toward the Death Legion being torn apart around it.

Fine, guess there’s a first time for everything.

He stepped back and drove the Death Stick into the ground.

Dark energy erupted around the weapon as its form immediately began changing.

The shaft lengthened while black material spread outward from the upper end, curving into the enormous blade of Grim Reaper Form.

Karl pulled the completed scythe free.

For the first time since entering the examination, he no longer looked remotely lazy.

Then another summoning formation opened beside him and a long pale spine dropped onto the ground.

It twisted once before immediately beginning to crawl toward him.

Karl could faintly sense something through their connection, but unlike Seraphine or the Heaven-Eating Crow, whatever the spine tried communicating came through as little more than broken impulses.

Karl frowned.

Whatever, just do it.

The spine responded immediately and it climbed onto his back.

Outside the dungeon, several spectators visibly recoiled.

Vertebra after vertebra moved across Karl’s body while the pale structure attached itself along his spine.

One person watching from the Association almost looked away.

"What the hell is that?"

Even William’s expression became strange.

He leaned slightly closer toward Karl’s feed.

"What kind of Necromancer summons this stuff?"

Arthur glanced toward him.

"You’re asking me as if I know everything seeing that stuff myself first time?"

The spine finished attaching and several notifications immediately appeared before Karl.

[Integration initiated.]

[All Attributes increased by 100%.]

[Aura Master’s Ability learned.]

Karl’s eyes widened slightly.

Aura Master?

Before he could inspect the ability properly, the spine changed again.

Bone rapidly expanded outward from his back and spread over his shoulders, chest, arms and legs.

Within seconds, Karl’s body was covered in a fitted layer of pale skeletal armor that moved with him almost like a second body rather than ordinary equipment.

Thin crimson lines ran throughout the white structure, glowing faintly from his shoulders down toward his hands and legs as Karl looked down at himself he raised his eyebrows.

Not bad hu!.

The public reaction was far more divided.

Some people were visibly disgusted by the transformation while others simply stared.

The supposedly F-rank Necromancer who had spent most of the examination sitting beneath a tree was now standing inside a King-rank Domain, covered completely in white-and-crimson skeletal armor while holding an enormous black scythe.

William’s smile slowly disappeared as he leaned closer toward the screen.

The fight had not stopped for Karl’s transformation.

The remaining Death Legion continued battling the Golden King Tiger while Seraphine attacked from the rear, but the beast was still tearing through them inside its Metal Domain.

Then its golden eyes suddenly shifted and locked directly onto Karl.

For the first time since the battle began, the tiger completely ignored the undead surrounding it.

Karl immediately felt something was wrong.

The Golden King Tiger opened its mouth and energy began gathering between its jaws.

At first it was only a small white glow, but within seconds the light became bright enough to illuminate the surrounding forest.

Seraphine turned sharply toward Karl.

"Karl."

"I see it."

The gathered energy continued increasing.

Karl tightened his grip around the scythe while the crimson lines across his skeletal armor glowed brighter.

Then the Golden King Tiger fired and a gigantic white beam tore across the battlefield.

Trees disappeared instantly in its path while the ground beneath it was ripped apart from the sheer force.

Karl barely had time to raise his scythe before the attack reached him.

The beam struck directly and the entire public feed vanished beneath white light.