"Phylactery?" The words escaped Enya's mouth.

"Huh?" Pell asked. He saw the confused gaze on her face. It was clear that she was reading a system notification.

"It says that I crafted a Demonic Phylactery. A minor one."

"You mean those things that liches use to like, gain immortality or whatever?"

"I think they can be used for that," she answered. In Sable's books, there were actually many uses for a phylactery. All it was, was basically a container that housed a soul. Some times, they held a real soul, other times, they held a mirrored copy—not the original, but something close enough.

"But… I didn't make this though?" Enya questioned, not necessarily to anyone but herself. She tapped on the glass. "Why did the system say I made this?"

Enya pulled up her system screen.

System Notification: New Recipe Entry has been added.

Item Name: Demonic Phylactery [Minor] Tier: Gold Rank: B+ Effect: A sealed container that can house demonic souls, which can be stored or withdrawn. Stored souls will be healed over time. Demonic souls that have been stored in this container can be imprinted. If an imprinted soul dies, a copy of that soul will regenerate here slowly over time. Memories are not carried over during regeneration, unless manually updated prior. Soul Limit: 1/2 Imprint Limit: 0/1

So it truly was a phylactery. This was an item that could store specifically demonic souls. Judging by the soul limit, there was already a soul stored inside. This couldn't be anyone but Zerus.

"It is a phylactery. It says there is one soul inside it right now. I think it's Zerus."

Pell lifted the glass chamber, to get a clearer look. Aside from the durableness of the glass box, there wasn't anything else significant about it. There was Zerus' heart, along with the chains, but nothing else appeared notable.

Josier also gazed at the demonic phylactery, though he wasn't too interested. He was curious, but the realm of manipulating souls and necromancy—it wasn't something that concerned him.

Enya hummed. She summoned the Grim Pullet, flipping through its pages for phylacteries. There were over several dozen entries. However, there was one page different from the others. It wasn't exactly a recipe.

Phylacteries are simply containers that can store souls. Phylacteries can be created with nearly any type of material. As such, aside from the ones recorded here, phylacteries are a personal creation. As long as a container has been infused with the reader's Soul-Energy, and any material, spell circuit, or ritual that can restrict a soul from escaping is used—a unique phylactery with special properties can be made.

She turned the page. There, she found her new recipe.

Demonic Phylactery (Gold)

Description: A sealed container that can house demonic souls, which can be stored or withdrawn. Stored souls will be healed over time. Demonic souls that have been stored in this container can be imprinted. If an imprinted soul dies, a copy of that soul will regenerate here slowly over time. Memories are not carried over during regeneration, unless manually updated prior.

Materials Required:

Demonic Soul

Twin-Coil Worm Blood

Corrupted Blood

Paanitia Glass

Callendryl Chains

Soul-binding Spell

Luwessner Petals

This… this was her first entry to the Grim Pullet. Her very first mark in history, permanently stored inside of this book. Still… what was with all of the materials? Twin-Coil Worm blood? Paanitia glass? Was that what the chamber was made out of? She didn't prepare any of these materials, yet it listed it as her own recipe. Was this because Pin had made the item, and Enya just… finished it? Thereby, collecting all of the credit? That's all she could think of.

Enya closed the book after a quick skim of the recipe. She tapped the glass once.

A prompt appeared.

Demonic Phylactery currently has no imprinted souls. Soul Aspects: Zerus Larenune Would you like to imprint the selected soul? [Accept/Decline]

She accepted with a mental thought.

System Notification: Zerus Larenune has been imprinted.

That… was it? Could she truly save Zerus? Now that her soul was bound to the demonic phylactery—that meant she could pull her soul out and revive her, right? At least… maybe in the future, she could?

Simply put, Enya wasn't sure how the whole reviving process worked.

Pell's soul was contained and moved by the dungeon core. The core did all of the work, moving and implanting his soul into his body.

When Enya extracted Zerus' soul—her body had gone limp when it was fully removed. When the inner darkness apparition inhabited her body, it couldn't do anything from inside either. It simply floated within as an uninvited guest. Then, when Enya stored Zerus' soul back in—her body didn't regain consciousness.

Surely, she would have begun moving, or even breathing again, right?

Maybe simply storing a Soul-Aspect into something didn't necessarily mean that the soul would be revived. Perhaps the dungeon core was a special case, being able to manipulate and control souls easily. Enya on the other hand—couldn't. Not yet.

The good news though, was that Enya now had Zerus' soul. If she could maybe get the dungeon core to absorb it, or learn a method in which she can revive her, then she could bring Zerus back.

The Callendryl chains were still here, but they had been broken. There was nothing binding Zerus anymore. She was no longer a slave. Enya just needed to bring her back, and she would have freedom again.

She checked her other notifications. A new prompt had shown up since she reached level 15.

Class Perks have been unlocked.

"What is a class perk?" Enya asked out loud.

"Oh? You've reached level 15 already? Congratulations," Josier chimed.

"Hmm… actually, I've also just hit that too for my merchant class," Pell said absentmindedly. "Looks like all of the half-assed experience I gathered in the past few days was worth it, after all."

Enya looked over at him. Pell was now also looking at his own status screen from the looks of it.

"Is hitting level 15 a big deal?" she asked.

"When you hit level 15 in your main or innate class, you unlock that class' perks. Basically, they're special bonuses that unlock once you are proficient enough in that class." Pell subtly glanced over at Josier before looking back. "I already hit level 15 in my innate class. It gave me skills that make using the class easier."

Enya hummed, thinking about his words

Pell's innate class was farmer if she remembered correctly. Though, for some reason, it sounded like he wanted to keep it a secret from Josier.

She looked back at her status screen to inspect the new notification.

New Perks for Necrosmith have been unlocked. Minion Attributes can now be applied. Crafting Assistant has been unlocked.

Crafting Assistant: The Grim Pullet will now be able to assist you with any crafting processes. Advice or suggestions given are fallible; information given is based strictly on the contents stored within the Grim Pullet.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Attribute - Original Sin: The designated minion will be able to copy and use all modifications made upon any existing summons. This includes enhancements, enchantments, and minion specific upgrades. Any modifications that directly conflict with another will not be granted. Only one Original Sin may be active at a time.

Attribute - Harvester: The designated minion will be granted bonus experience points for slaying other creatures. This minion will also automatically extract Soul-Energy from anything that it has killed. Extra bonuses are granted if the designated minion is a skeleton. Only two Harvesters may be active at a time.

She stared at the screen, wide-eyed.

These sounded… amazing.

With Crafting Assistant, the Grim Pullet could help her during crafting, whatever that meant. Even if its advice wasn't perfect, it would still be helpful to have an assistant. She had created the Gravecaller's band before, but its tier had been lower than she expected. Even though she felt like she had done everything correctly, she didn't know why it had downgraded. The crafting assistant could possibly help shine some light on this.

And then there were the attributes.

Original Sin and Harvester—they seemed to be enchantments or augmentations she could assign to her minions.

If she chose carefully, she could turn one of her summons into a true undead monster. If she learned more enchantments to apply onto a minion, the Original Sin could copy it, which would greatly bolster her overall minion's strengths.

She imagined a skeleton with the strength and speed of a hulking skeleton and dire zombie, the ones that Sable had been experimenting on in his workshop.

The thought made her chest flutter a little.

Enya's fingers hovered over the interface, eyes fixed on the newly unlocked attributes. She just… didn't know any enchantments or augmentations yet. But… maybe with the new crafting assistant, she could learn some fairly quickly. She just wasn't ready to use Original Sin. Not yet, at least.

Her eyes shifted to Harvester instead. That one was more practical and simple. Two minions could hold the perk. Bonus experience for kills, automatic soul-energy absorption, and even greater benefits if the minion was a skeleton.

Her eyes flicked toward Pell.

He was still examining his own status screen, muttering under his breath as he scrolled through some list on his own status screen. His skull tilted slightly to the side, and one glowing eye dimmed as if in thought.

She opened her mouth to ask him—to offer the Harvester attribute.

But before she could speak, Josier cut in.

"I'd hold off on any decisions right now if I were you two," he said calmly, but with an edge behind his voice. "Zerus might be… defeated, if we're being polite. But those monsters she summoned? They should still be out there."

Enya turned toward him.

"Berry, Manny, Nakrin, and that little one—Risha. They're probably still fighting right now. Save the class allocation stuff for later. We might need to move fast, just in case. Nakrin is with them but…" he sighed. "I'm a bit afraid of leaving him in such a… flammable environment."

Enya hesitated, then gave a short nod. Pell grunted in agreement, closing his status display with a flick of the wrist.

"Alright," Enya said. "Let's go."

They turned and started through the trees, weaving past scorched patches of earth. Ash fluttered from above like dead snow. The smoke in the distance was starting to rise higher, curling against the sky in black ribbons. They crossed by soot-dusted bushes still alit with embers. Any of which they came across, they quickly extinguished.

Josier kept to the front. Pell trailed slightly behind, still mumbling something about passive merchant bonuses. Enya walked between them, thinking.

They didn't have the animal that Pell and Josier had rode on anymore. A bicorn as Josier called it. The creature had bolted after the earlier chaos—spooked by the explosion that had thrown them into the desert.

Josier was still in fighting condition, but he was quite exhausted. Holding back against an enemy trying to kill you, took quite a lot out of you. If they had the bicorn, they could partially rest, while letting it lead the way.

But maybe… they didn't need it.

Enya stopped suddenly, causing both Pell and Josier to pause.

"I have an idea," she said, eyes gleaming faintly.

She turned off the path and started walking toward a familiar stretch of crushed underbrush.

Pell blinked. "Wait, where are you—?"

Enya didn't answer. She reached the edge of a clearing where a massive carcass still lay half-coiled in the grass.

The beast Zerus had beheaded.

It looked like a mutated cross between… a bear, boar, and lizard. Its flesh still glistened in some spots, armored gray plates covering its body like dragon scales. Thick tusks curled from its decapitated head.

Enya stepped closer.

"I never absorbed the soul-energy from this one," she said. "I think… I can get us a ride."

She placed her hand on the corpse. The flesh was slightly cold.

The forest clearing opened up before them.

The ground was a mess of charred roots and blackened soil. Flames had spread far—faster than they should have, and smoke now clouded the treetops like storm clouds descending. In the middle of the chaos, two twisted ents stood, rampaging.

Or rather… what had been two.

The massive trees were merging together, bark and sinew fusing in long, groaning cracks. Their limbs twisted like muscles, roots knotting and warping into one enormous abomination. It towered over the forested battlefield now, a hulking nightmare of bark and malice.

Near the battle, Berry and Risha were collapsed in the grass. Both injured. Berry's scarf was scorched, and her arm hung limply at her side. Risha sat slumped against a scorched tree trunk, dazed, her blade dropped somewhere in the dirt. Manny was still partially upright, one knee down, panting heavily. His hand glowed faintly with magic, forming a spell circuit despite his injuries.

And ahead of them all—stood Nakrin.

His scales were dull with ash, his body steaming, but he remained firm, unmoving. He was completely uninjured, and raring for a fight. Yet… he appeared to be hesitating.

Josier clicked his tongue as he took in the scene from far away. "Tch. I told him to be careful with those flames…" His voice was low, more annoyed than surprised.

"If this whole forest burns down, a monster wave could trigger. And that's not something we're ready to deal with."

Still muttering, Josier leapt from the skeletal beast they rode in on and dashed ahead—shoes crunching through grass and twigs as he moved to regroup with Nakrin.

Enya and Pell remained behind, swaying slightly atop the reanimated corpse of the armored boarbear.

The ride had not been elegant.

Its bones creaked with every step, tusks jutting forward like a prow. Its plated armor clacked against its ribs in a hollow rhythm, and it moved with an awkward lurch. A saddle hadn't even been a consideration, not to mention a lack of reins or other support.

"I should've learned a zombie reanimation spell…" Enya muttered, shifting uncomfortably atop the creature's spine. "Bones don't smell, but they're not exactly comfortable to sit on either."

Ted.E was the name of this new monstrosity. When it was alive, and not trying to kill her—it looked fluffy and cute. Though now, it just looked like a warped version of Uglyface. It was much… fatter.

She glanced down at Pell, who sat sideways and half-slumped, arms crossed, looking unimpressed. She gave him a small nudge with her foot.

He ignored her.

Enya nudged Pell gently with her foot again. "Pell, go help."

He blinked up at her, visibly irritated. "What? No way. I'm a merchant, not some kind of soldier. Fighting's not my area of expertise, brat."

"But..." Enya hesitated, eyes wide and pleading. She tugged lightly at his cloak, giving him the saddest look she could muster. "Please? I just gave you the new attribute, right? Can't you use it? It'll help everyone."

Pell clicked his undead teeth in annoyance, his soul-flames narrowing slightly. He glared at her through empty sockets. "You've really gotten bossy, you know that? Just because you're suddenly the same level as me doesn't mean you can start ordering me around."

She continued to stare at him earnestly, pleading silently.

Pell let out a dramatic sigh. "Look, there's nothing in it for me. Nakrin and Josier can handle themselves just fine. Those two are plenty strong—they don't need a scrawny skeleton merchant to bail them out."

"But now with the perk I gave you, you get full experience!" Enya insisted. She pointed toward the burning clearing. "And besides, everyone else came here to save me. They fought for me, got hurt because of me. The least you could do is help them beat up that big, mean tree-thing."

"Oh, don't think I don't know you just want me to grab Soul-Energy for you. The instant I got the notification, I knew you were going to have me start fighting everything for you."

Pell groaned again, dramatically raising his skeletal hands to the sky. "And in case you forgot, brat—I was also a part of that 'taskforce' that came to save your sorry self. Actually, I'm the one who organized the whole rescue after you got yourself kidnapped by some zealot."

Enya's shoulders immediately slumped. The words sank heavily into her, dredging up memories she'd tried to push aside—memories of Celeste's cold, cold voice. Her threat. How Celeste knew about Elara, how easily she could hurt her if she wanted to. How quickly Pell would come to hate Enya if anything ever happened to Elara, because of her.

The truth was painful, weighing her down like lead in her chest. Her kidnapping, the battle, everyone's injuries—even Zerus's death—they were all centered around her, and her alone.

Ted.E's uncomfortable gait jostled her slightly, adding to her discomfort. She lowered her eyes, staring blankly at the ground passing beneath them.

Pell glanced at her again, noticing how quickly her expression had changed. His purple soul-flames tightened, flickering briefly with something unreadable. He looked away, staring ahead into the chaos of the burning forest clearing.

"Fine," he muttered softly, breaking the silence. "I'll help."

Enya looked up, startled by his sudden change in tone.

Pell straightened himself up. Right before leaping down, he paused, looking back at her over his shoulder.

"Don't blame yourself for this," he said gently. "None of this was your fault—not your kidnapping, not the rest of them getting hurt, and certainly not that demon girl dying."

Enya remained silent, stunned by his sudden reassurance. Pell didn't wait for her to respond. He simply turned away and jumped off the skeleton boarbear, cloak fluttering behind him as he sprinted toward the twisted ents.

Quietly, Enya watched him go. She tightened her grip on Ted.E, and directed the skeletal beast toward the others—toward Berry, Manny, and Risha.

Pell grumbled under his nonexistent breath as he ran forward. He really didn't like this situation at all. He wasn't built for fighting, wasn't trained for it. Merchants bartered, traded, negotiated—they didn't throw themselves headfirst into battles with demonic trees.

Yet, here he was. Being ordered to fight, not once, but now twice, in the span of a couple days. He didn't even have time to fully explore his new class perks yet either.

Still, he couldn't deny one fact: now he could at least earn some real experience points for killing things. Maybe he'd even manage to level up his merchant class more quickly, though he hadn't had time to properly read through his new class perks yet.

With another irritated groan, Pell swiped his arm sharply to the right. Instantly, a shadowy surge of power flowed from his hand, forming into a large, jet-black scythe—a soul weapon, granted by his new Harvester attribute.

Pell nearly stumbled, surprised by how comfortably it rested in his grip. The scythe felt impossibly light, yet it carried a good, solid heft to it. He'd handled scythes before, sure, back when he used to plow fields, harvesting crops under a bright sky. But this? A soul-bound, combat-ready weapon forged of shadow? Not exactly something he'd ever expected to hold.

He tightened his grip on the scythe, activating the enchantment of his Spectre Cloak. Shadows blurred around him, illusions stacking like layered ghosts. Pell accelerated, his figure splitting briefly into three smoky echoes, racing forward with newfound speed.

A strange thought crossed his mind as he dashed ahead, cloak billowing around him like mist.

"Hah," he mumbled to himself, shaking his skull at the ridiculous idea. "I really do look like some kind of grim reaper now."

With another click of annoyance, Pell dismissed the thought, focusing instead on the battle rapidly approaching in front of him.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.