Academic gathering with a lich

"I should have thought of this earlier..." In the icy tide, Lyle whispered in the darkness as if possessed. Nia’s tentacles were tightly wound around him, and even though they completely swallowed his vision, Lyle’s eyes remained fixed on the hollows in the center of the white bone mask at his feet.

"Even I, a Spirit Summoning Apprentice, after witnessing the omen, was able to learn Advanced Remodeling and create a Flesh Aberration. Arnold, that madman, that flesh-worshipping freak, how could he be satisfied with mere imitation?"

Darkness is its cradle, and coral is its throne. It slumbers at the bottom of the sea, waiting for the day of awakening. It is incomplete, but will ultimately be whole.

The Deep Sea Omen is the forbidden creation of Arnold, the chief professor of the Flesh Sect.

Arnold seeks to create a god.

Although it still slumbers, Lyle had already seen the future from the revelation. It would eventually be called Him.

Merely slumbering, the rising and falling of its breath already created whirlpools and undercurrents. How vast a life must it be to exist in such a vile and filthy form. Like a gate to hell standing before him, Lyle could only watch in panic as the doomsday bell swung back and forth, seeing the omen become reality.

No, there’s still a chance to remedy this.

Lyle tore off the tentacles of Nia from his face, his eyeballs threaded with blood vessels, and his mind began to think in an abnormal state.

"You’ve said it, Professor Arnold, we can twist and torment everything in these waters. Of course, that includes it..."

"Yes, that is how it should be..."

"Yes, this is normal procedure..." Lyle moved his cold legs stiffly and swam toward the black tentacles below.

The wide and flat tips of the tentacles were the size of a normal tiger shark, and at this moment these dangerous appendages lay unprotected as they slumbered with their master. Lyle was delighted by their vulnerable posturing, ignoring Nia’s slapping on his arm, his hand unfurled the red spell taught by Arnold.

Lyle named it Flesh Liberation. After his own research on flesh and many attempts, combining the power of his dual-locked talent, Lyle created a spell targeting flesh. It required contact to activate, but its effect was far more terrifying.

Water is the source of life. Liberate the flesh, returning it to life’s initial state.

At first, it’s like shedding clothes; your skin and muscles will fall off in pieces, painless, for even the nerves will not escape the fate of decay.

Then, like rain. Red rains trickle through the crevices of your bones, and after the shower, your white skeleton shines anew. Beyond that, what else is there? Without flesh, you’ll be left with nothing but bones.

And now, Lyle had applied the spell to the unawakened Deep Sea Omen.

At first, it was effective; decaying flesh scattered into black fragments in the sea, just like the shadows gradually dissipating from Lyle’s heart. But among the cleanly erased and decaying tentacles, on the crumbling fringes, as if in divine mockery, the flesh regenerated, undulated, and reshaped. The reformed flesh mocked Lyle, his obsessions, and his shrewdness were laughable in the face of true power.

Arnold was a Spirit Summoning Master and a higher professor of Spirit Summoning Studies, part of the Flesh Sect. How could he allow his masterpiece to be ravaged by what he considered an inferior student? Unless, his masterpiece simply could not be ravaged.

Accelerated Regeneration, Fury Healing, this is what flesh is best at.

Lyle, whose plan had been exposed, faced no retribution from the Deep Sea Omen Giant.

This was not mercy, but disregard—an upper being’s mockery and scorn for a powerless lesser existence.

Lyle regained his composure, the sad calm after realizing madness wouldn’t work.

He finally noticed the tentacles of Nia and the coils of Medusa, who were still calling his name in their minds.

"It’s okay now, Nia, Medusa." With the weariness that comes after burning out, Lyle murmured softly.

"Nia can do it," Nia’s voice lifted Lyle’s spirits again. She imitated Lyle’s past mannerisms and stroked his head, "Nia can make this big guy, die."

Nia climbed from behind Lyle to face him, her enormous yellow eyeball in the center of her chest staring at Lyle’s face.

"Does Lyle really have to kill this big guy?"

Feeling the seriousness in Nia’s eyes, Lyle just solemnly nodded. This was not just an omen from my dreams, this was a disaster, the beginning of fear, that needed to be stopped.

"I see..." Nia bit her own tentacles, nodded her head, and made up her mind. Underneath her, one of the tentacles, which served as a support for her tentacle skirt, separated from the dense group and was bitten off by Nia. The wound did not heal quickly but bled as a human’s normal wound would. The large yellow eye at the center slightly squinted, and the black eyelids flickered as if shivering, as though enduring pain.

A chunk of bloodied flesh was placed in Lyle’s hand.

"This is Nia’s flesh, very important flesh. If you use this as the material for casting a spell, it will have a terrifying effect, a miraculous power that not even the Evil God can defy!"

Lyle hugged Nia in his arms, "Thank you, Nia."

"Hehehehe." Nia patted Lyle’s head with her tentacles and twirled them around his neck before slipping back into the shadows.

The deep black chunk of flesh, edged with rose-red blood, showed beautiful muscle tissue, healthy enough to make any doctor feel content at a glance.

Lyle caressed Nia’s tentacle, and a red spell flickered on it.

Flesh Liberation.

Falling away, breaking down. The original fleshly parts of Nia fell like decolorized petals, tracing their distinct patterns in the water, clinging to the tentacles of the Deep Sea Omen.

Decay grew upon the great being like a swarm of ants attacking an elephant. That brilliant blood-red spread across the surface like flames, igniting the entire coral reef.

The vibrant colors at the bottom of the sea spread to the upper levels, and the curious Liches who were still studying, including Arnold who rapidly dove underwater.

All of this had nothing to do with Lyle, for the moment the light appeared, he already had floated up amongst the group of Liches, pretending to watch the commotion with an innocent face.

In the end, the class was disrupted, and everyone was driven out by Arnold.

"What nonsense, just as we were finally learning something proper, we got kicked out like that."

Along the way, members of the Necromancer Figure Club were discussing the incident.

"Professor Arnold doesn’t seem to be a qualified educator. I don’t think he deserves the title of professor, perhaps he should dedicate himself to research."

"Plague Doctor, what do you think of the harvest from the flesh transformation?"

Lyle answered casually, "Not bad, Mr. Arnold indeed has some real skills. Let’s hope this incident doesn’t demoralize him."

All alone in the water, Arnold was bathed in red by the colors spreading across the surface of the Deep Sea Giant.

He wasn’t as panicked as before, though his body still trembled slightly in the water.

The water muffled his whispers, and nobody heard him.

A surge of water rushed up from the depths, like a huge palm seizing Arnold’s body, dragging it into the gloomy abyss.

The surface of the surge flowed with colors, like a torch that had been completely lit.