Chapter 56: Come to us!!

Karl remained standing for several seconds after the Golden King Tiger collapsed.

The last traces of Death Energy slowly disappeared from the scythe, and his grip around the Death Stick loosened as the enormous dark scar running through the shattered Metal Domain finally began fading.

Then the strength holding his body together gave out.

Karl’s knees buckled and he dropped heavily onto the ruined ground.

Across Ardent City, the reaction was immediate. Several spectators thought something had happened to him after the fight, while those with more experience quickly realized that his body had most likely reached its limit.

Seraphine hurried over and pulled him upright before he could collapse completely.

"Karl!"

His eyes slowly opened, Karl’s face had gone pale and his breathing was heavier than usual and almost every muscle in his body felt as though it had been torn apart from the inside.

Despite that, a wide smile appeared across his face.

Seraphine stared at him for a moment before finally releasing the breath she had been holding.

"Damn... you really killed that thing with one strike."

Karl tried straightening himself but pain immediately tore through his entire body.

His expression twitched.

Fuck, that hurts.

Seraphine noticed and tightened her grip around his arm.

"Don’t suddenly pretend you’re fine."

"I’m not pretending."

Seraphine gave him a look but did not bother arguing.

Karl endured the pain and opened his System panel, immediately finding the newly created skill.

[Death Slash]

[Proficiency: Novice]

[Cooldown: 1 Day]

[Effect: After using Death Slash, the user’s body will enter a severely weakened state.]

Karl stared at the final line for several seconds.

So that’s why.

The skill had forced far more power through his body than it was currently capable of handling comfortably.

Considering Death Slash had only just been created and was still at Novice proficiency, Karl doubted the drawback would remain this severe forever.

Self-created skills developed differently from ordinary learned abilities.

Their proficiency progressed through Novice, Proficient, Master and finally Perfect, with the creator gradually refining everything from energy consumption to the actual structure of the skill.

Karl remembered that process very well.

In his previous life, even after years of combat experience as a Sword Saint, creating techniques that genuinely belonged to him had been incredibly difficult.

He had only managed to create two true self-made skills.

Even that had been enough for the Alliance to regard his understanding of combat as exceptional.

Karl looked at Death Slash again.

Ha... and I’ve already created another one this early.

His smile returned.

A new notification suddenly appeared.

[Examination Completed.]

[Final Score: Incalculable.]

[Abnormal combat record detected.]

[Awaiting further review.]

[Please exit the dungeon within 10 minutes.]

Karl’s smile faded slightly.

"Incalculable?"

Seraphine glanced toward the panel but naturally could not see it.

"What?"

"Nothing Important."

Karl’s attention moved toward the Golden King Tiger lying several metres away.

The enormous corpse remained almost completely intact apart from its severed neck, and even in death the body still contained an overwhelming amount of energy.

Karl stared at it for a moment.

Leaving this here would be such a waste.

He slowly started walking toward the corpse with Seraphine still supporting him.

Karl placed one hand against the golden fur.

"Death Legion."

Dark Death Energy spread outward from his palm and rapidly covered the Golden King Tiger’s body.

The transformation began almost immediately.

Its brilliant golden fur darkened slightly as deathly energy flowed through the corpse.

Bones shifted beneath the flesh while the enormous wound across its neck began pulling itself back together.

Seraphine watched quietly from beside Karl, the dead tiger’s claws dug into the ground.

Then its body moved and the Golden King Tiger slowly rose again, but the presence surrounding it had completely changed.

Its golden eyes were gone and a faint crimson glow now burned within them.

Karl opened its information.

The King rank it had possessed while alive was naturally gone. As an undead within the Death Legion, it now followed an entirely different hierarchy.

[Golden King Tiger — Undead]

[Undead Rank: Commander]

Karl’s eyes brightened slightly.

Commander rank.

That was considerably better than he had expected.

More importantly, Commander-rank undead possessed far more than the rudimentary instincts of lower undead.

Karl could already feel genuine awareness behind those crimson eyes.

The massive tiger looked around the destroyed forest before lowering its head toward him.

A voice entered Karl’s mind.

Salutations, Master.

Karl paused and then a pleased smile appeared.

"Not bad."

The tiger remained bowed while Karl examined it from several angles.

It definitely deserved a proper name, Karl thought seriously for several seconds before deciding something.

Karl nodded toward the tiger for a moment before saying.

"Your name will be Big Rod."

The Golden King Tiger froze and its crimson eyes slowly lifted toward Karl.

For some reason, the newly born undead seemed to feel that something about the name was deeply suspicious.

Karl stared back without the slightest trace of guilt but big Rod continued looking at him.

Karl coughed lightly and glanced away.

It’s a good name.

After several more seconds, the enormous tiger finally lowered its head again.

As Master wishes.

Seraphine looked between the two of them.

"I’m not even going to comment on this one."

"Good."

Karl opened the Death Legion’s summoning space and recalled Seraphine first and big rod followed.

The ruined battlefield became quiet.

Karl looked across the shattered trees, broken ground and remains of the Golden King Tiger’s former Domain before finally turning toward the dungeon exit.

He had done enough for one examination.

---

Inside the control room, William and Arthur remained silent while Karl’s feed displayed the aftermath of the battle.

William eventually leaned back.

"He’s far stronger than his current rank suggests."

Arthur gave him a sideways look.

"That took you this long to notice?"

William ignored him as his attention remained on the replay of Karl’s final strike.

"A Necromancer personally finishing a King-rank beast with a physical attack..."

He shook his head slowly.

"And that thing still had more than half its vitality left before the last strike. Its Domain was practically perfect too."

Arthur’s mouth curved slightly.

"Indeed."

William looked toward him and the small smile disappeared immediately.

The two old friends exchanged a glance before William finally stood.

"Well, we’ve seen enough let’s leave."

He turned toward Edwin.

"You handle things here and come to Arthur’s place later."

Edwin nodded.

"Yes, Captain."

William had already started moving when Edwin hesitated.

"Captain."

William glanced back.

"What?"

Edwin pointed toward Karl’s examination record.

"What about this?"

The screen still displayed the abnormal result.

[Final Score: Incalculable.]

William clicked his tongue.

"Tch right."

A small data drive appeared in his hand as he walked toward the main control terminal.

He inserted it and placed his hand against the authentication panel.

Several security checks appeared one after another.

[Human Alliance Authority Verified.]

[Marshal-Level Authentication Accepted.]

William opened Karl’s abnormal combat record and attached the complete dungeon logs, including the unexpected King-rank encounter and the circumstances surrounding the final wave.

Atlast he flagged the examination for exceptional central evaluation and authenticated the abnormal encounter so the national examination system would treat the record as legitimate rather than corrupted dungeon data.

William looked over the submission once.

"That should do it."

He removed the drive.

"The central system can calculate whatever nonsense this deserves."

William turned toward Arthur.

"Now let’s go."

Arthur gave Edwin one final glance before following him toward the exit.

Just before they left, William casually raised one hand.

Snap.

The strange haze covering the senior officials disappeared.

Several people blinked at almost the same time.

One official stared blankly at the screen before rubbing his forehead.

"What was I..."

Another looked around.

"Why am I standing?"

Their memories returned smoothly up to the point before William had entered but after that thy seemed to mist of weirdly.

Edwin alone remained completely unaffected.

He watched the room descend into confusion for several seconds before stepping forward.

"Everyone, calm down."

The officials gradually looked toward him.

"The examination is still running and we have work to finish, check the systems first and worry about your headaches later."

The officials returned to their stations one after another, still slightly confused but far more concerned with the examination data in front of them.

---

The artificial dungeon portal lit up and Karl stepped through.

The moment his figure appeared inside the examination facility, the atmosphere around the area changed.

Nearby academy representatives stopped talking almost simultaneously.

Most of them attended the National College Entrance Examination every year and had watched thousands of talented candidates pass through these halls.

Karl had managed to throw almost every normal standard they used out of the window.

An F-rank Necromancer had entered Nightmare difficulty.

Then a Level 99 King-rank beast had somehow appeared.

And Karl had personally finished it with a single strike after an extended battle.

For several seconds, people simply watched him walk away from the portal.

Then one representative moved.

"Karl Reed!"

Another noticed immediately.

"Wait!"

The first man had barely reached Karl before someone else hurried around him.

"Our academy would like to discuss—"

"Move aside, he hasn’t even heard our offer yet."

"You weren’t even first!"

"Who cares who was first?"

Within seconds, several lower- and mid-tier academy representatives had gathered around Karl.

Tier-2 and Tier-3 academies normally preferred to wait until official scores were released before making serious offers, but none of them wanted to risk losing the chance completely.

Everyone understood that Karl was unlikely to choose them.

That did not mean they were going to surrender without trying.

"Karl Reed, our academy can provide specialized Necromancer resources."

"We can offer you a guaranteed core-student position."

"Our faculty has three high-level summoning instructors."

"Your academy doesn’t even have a proper Necromancer department."

"Shut up."

Karl stood in the middle of the growing crowd with a blank expression.

His entire body was still aching from Death Slash, and somehow the moment he left one battlefield, another had formed around him.

A representative pushed closer.

"Karl, if you give us a moment—"

"Wait your turn!"

"I’m not pushing."

"You literally just pushed me."

Karl slowly looked from one representative to another.

What the hell is going on?

He had only walked out of the dungeon, yet somehow half the area had turned into chaos within seconds.

Karl stared at the crowd for another moment before an old memory surfaced.

People suddenly acting as though reaching him first was a matter of life and death.

His expression became slightly strange.

This feels way too familiar.

It was almost exactly what had happened after he awakened the Sword Saint talent in his previous life the mere difference was instead of these tier 2 and 3 it was the tier one and the 5 top tier academies fighting over him.