Dragon Necromancer: Starting With First Dragon Bloodline-Chapter 58: Rat King

The system spoke to him.

It rang repeatedly for a moment, then materialized a transparent panel before him.

[Dragon ashes detected]

Hovering for a full second, it dissolved into the air, only for another line of text to replace it.

[Claim part of it and start reigniting the forgotten legacy]

Seeing this, Noa blinked.

He hadn’t expected to encounter ashes so soon, especially on his first tomb experience.

His heart raced. His breathing quickened.

’This is good,’ he thought, letting his senses wander around the maze. ’Now I can finally see how it works.’

Suddenly, Noa’s every ability activated.

They ignited nearly every part of his brain, squeezing it like a lemon, draining every ounce of its energy to find whatever he was seeking.

Even Ashe stirred.

She, too, sensed something and wanted to find it.

So she pulled Noa.

The pull was faint at first, but every step Noa took increased the feeling of closeness, as if mana threads bent in his brain.

They twisted in a single direction.

Noa couldn’t pinpoint its exact location, but he knew he was getting closer.

Thalia was an excellent guide as well.

Somehow, she showed them the safest turns to take, and not once were the traps triggered.

Yes, she had seen this place in her dreams.

But knowing where to go came from her honed instincts.

They were augmented by Luna and her unique disposition, enhancing her ability to find the correct path.

Every turn of the maze felt deliberate.

’Tomb is steering us towards danger, but she outperforms it,’ Noa thought, his gaze darting down the shadowed corridor.

Thalia might have been a prophet, but she wasn’t all-knowing.

Seeing the future wasn’t her strongest suit, and when Noa noticed a shift in the shadows, he didn’t blame her.

"Get ready," he announced to the girls.

The practice sword was tightly clutched in his fingers, Ashe hidden within the darkness.

Noa was the only one who could peer into this gloom.

He was also the only warrior on the team.

Claws dragging across cold stone and a short, repeated hiss also caught Thalia’s attention, snowflakes emerging around her immediately.

Gleaming red lines shone from the shadows.

The eyes of a hungry creature reflected its special, yet deadly condition.

"Corruption," Thalia muttered.

She took one step closer to the creature, hoping to see it up close before finishing it off. But before she even closed the distance, Noa caught her wrist.

Just then—

A pack of sewer rats, each the size of a small cat, emerged from the narrow gap.

"Be careful," he warned, standing in front of her.

"How manly!" the other two girls mumbled, watching Noa with awe. Still, their legs trembled with fear, especially after receiving a deadly glare from Thalia.

The rats didn’t hesitate.

With a short squeak, they circled Noa’s group and threatened from afar.

They didn’t sit still for long.

The first one lunged at Noa, and he had to step into its path and swing his sword in a clean arc.

His attack smashed the creature and almost split its tough skull in half.

It tumbled to the ground, but wasn’t dead.

Two more rats darted from the flanks. Thalia reacted quickly, and raising her hand, she released frost and covered the grassy floor with a thin layer of ice.

One couldn’t regain its footing and crashed into the wall.

The second one slowed down, and Thalia’s spear, forged from hardened snow, pierced its heart. Blood gushed out of the wound, exuding a familiar rotten scent that worked like a poison.

"Don’t inhale it," Noa warned, and finished the rat with another strike.

Then he scanned for the next attack.

His bloodied blade itched for more, and the corrupted beasts delivered.

Their minds were twisted, and despite gaining more strength from the corruption, their movements seemed unnatural.

Seeing this, Noa shifted his stance.

He had to be a stronghold and slow the enemies down while Thalia could handle them from afar.

Both Liz and Lily hesitated. They stood frozen in place, beasts unsummoned, watching the scene in silence. The trembling didn’t go away either.

Thankfully, they didn’t hinder Noa’s movements.

He dashed from one place to another and controlled shadows in silence.

Ashe helped him as well.

She stayed hidden in the darkness and acted as a proper support by augmenting his mana manipulation skills.

Noa weaved shadows onto his sword.

His hands became blurred, harder to notice, and impossible to predict.

The blade he wielded was nowhere to be seen, yet he still held it, slicing through one rat after another.

Thanks to Ashe, his speed was boosted as well.

Even the weight of the sword had shifted, allowing him to dive from all the different angles he couldn’t before.

Still, Noa was hindered.

Though he was using the techniques Selaira had taught him yesterday, and then he enhanced them with shadow affinity, his muscles still ached.

Thalia was going through the same thing.

But in her case, it was her brain that throbbed harder than her muscles.

There was nothing they could do except fight against the pain and rats simultaneously and hope that they could claim victory without a single injury.

On one hand, defeating a single rat wasn’t hard.

Noa started one-shotting them after getting used to the muscle cramps.

Thalia already had higher damage output than him, and she had no problem dealing with scrawny rats.

The problem was the poison they released after death.

The stench couldn’t really kill anyone, but even a whiff was enough to make them dizzy.

And just because Noa was fighting them up close and had to smell them with every hit, his nose started bleeding.

It clung to his throat and made breathing heavier.

Thankfully, Noa wasn’t so weak as to lose his ground because of that.

He clenched his fingers tighter around the sword and forced his legs to move faster. Soon, his dodge rate increased, giving him more breathing room.

Five more minutes were enough for him and Thalia to defeat the first wave of rats.

Despite killing every enemy in sight, their eyes remained focused.

Thalia, in particular, didn’t even blink.

Her focus stayed strictly on the darkness ahead, afraid something might emerge and attack Noa from behind.

She was also worried about the blood on Noa.

But seeing his condition, she sighed in relief, ignored the two girls, and approached Noa with a smile.

He was the one to pose the first question.

"That’s it, right?"

Based on his observation, no more monsters waited to ambush them. Yet he eyed the girl with interest, waiting for her final confirmation.

"For now," she corrected, scanning ahead. "The path... we need to follow it."

Noa nodded and let her lead the way again.

Liz and Lily, meanwhile, flocked to them like flies, showering them with praise.

"You two are amazing. I have never seen a fight like that. These filthy rats were so scary, but you managed to take them down with ease."

"I know, right? They are fearless heroes we can always depend on!"

"That’s what I would expect from Queen Selaira’s friends. We are so lucky to be in the same group, and thank you for accepting us."

If their ridiculous ass-kissing ceremony couldn’t have gotten any worse, it did just now.

Noa wanted to make them stop, but he was getting good at ignoring small fries.

They moved deeper into the maze.

Carved from moss-covered stone, the walls pulsed with faint runes. Noa only darted his eyes for a moment and shifted his attention back to the road.

He wanted to learn about them, yes, but time was ticking, and he didn’t come here to study ancient architecture.

A few turns later, Noa saw his first chest.

It was buried in dirt, and though rusted, its lock was still intact.

Not everyone could have found it, as it was hidden beneath a thick layer of grass, but thanks to Dragon’s Gaze, Noa had noticed slight mana fluctuations.

Thalia didn’t say anything.

Her eyes shone with excitement as she sprang into action.

She crouched beside the chest, gathering frozen mana particles at her fingertips.

"I wonder what we will get," Liz asked, her face showing obvious signs of greed.

"Me too," Lily agreed. "I hope it is staff or rare elemental essences."

Thalia, meanwhile, didn’t react to her words, completing the self-created spell by freezing the lock to its limit.

Then she pointed at Noa to finish the job.

He snorted, correcting his stance.

With a single swift motion of his bloodied sword, Noa broke the lock.

He pried it open with his blade, spilling out green, soft glows that nearly ignited the surrounding walls.

"It’s pretty," Thalia exclaimed, and Noa nodded.

The lightning flash lasted only for a heartbeat.

Inside the chest were two crystal vials, each swirling with a different elemental essence.

"Wind and..." Thalia started, glancing at Noa.

"Fire," he ended the sentence, and felt something gripping his heart. The visions came back, but after shaking his head, the flashing images vanished from his head.

Seeing this, Thalia pocketed the crystals.

No one in the group needed either wind or fire essence.

Though only Tier 1, their potency was higher than usual, reaching up to an uncommon rank. What’s more, no evolution ritual required just a single essence.

The more the merrier wasn’t the rule either.

The dose had to be exact, as even a single mistake could be fatal.

Exchanging them with the academy for credits was the correct course of action, and that’s what Thalia intended.

The corridor ahead opened into a wider chamber.

And from there, a deep, sleeping sound was heard.

"Rat King." Seeing this, Noa muttered, thinking about how to take down a creature ten times his weight.