REBORN AS A NECROMANCER : BUILDING THE ULTIMATE UNDEAD ARMY-Chapter 34: New hollow created part 2

The van’s engine screamed as Thompson floored the accelerator, tires shrieking against asphalt.

In his rearview mirror, he could see the dark figure giving chase, moving with inhuman speed across the cemetery grounds. His hands shook on the wheel as he took the turn too fast, the van tilting dangerously before slamming back down.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, pressing harder on the gas pedal.

Behind him, Kaine’s boots pounded against the pavement in a steady rhythm. The hunter’s van was fast, but panic made people sloppy.

Thompson was driving like a man fleeing death itself, which wasn’t far from the truth. The van weaved between parked cars, clipped a stop sign, and careened around another corner with reckless abandon.

Kaine leaped over a fence, taking a shortcut through someone’s backyard. A dog barked somewhere in the darkness, but he was already gone, vaulting over the next fence and landing in an alley that ran parallel to the street.

He could hear the van’s engine growing louder as it approached the intersection ahead.

The chase had lasted three blocks when fear finally got the better of Thompson’s driving skills.

He yanked the wheel hard to avoid a parked car, but overcorrected. The van’s momentum carried it sideways into a cluster of concrete barriers protecting a construction site.

The front bumper caught the edge of the first barrier with a thunderous crash, spinning the vehicle around in a shower of sparks and twisted metal.

The van slammed into a pile of gravel, the impact throwing Thompson forward against his seatbelt hard enough to crack his ribs. Steam hissed from under the crumpled hood like the dying breath of some mechanical beast.

The engine sputtered once, twice, then died with a final shudder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Thompson gasped, tasting blood in his mouth.

He fumbled for his weapon with shaking hands, his vision blurry from the impact. His twin-barreled rifle had been thrown to the passenger side during the crash, but he managed to grab it just as footsteps approached the van.

Kaine appeared beside the driver’s door like a shadow given form.

His breathing was controlled despite the chase, no sign of fatigue in his movements. His fingers closed around the handle, and Thompson heard the metal groan as it bent under supernatural strength. The lock snapped like a toy.

As the door swung open, Thompson was already waiting for him.

The twin-barreled rifle was leveled at Kaine’s chest, Thompson’s finger tight on the trigger. Before Kaine could react, the rookie opened fire.

The first shot caught Kaine square in the chest, the blessed round punching through his jacket and into his sternum. The impact lifted him off his feet, sending him stumbling backward. The second shot followed immediately, tearing through his shoulder and spinning him around.

Pain exploded through his torso like liquid fire. Each blessed round burned like a brand, the holy energy searing through his supernatural flesh with malicious intent.

[HEALTH: 280/420]

[BLESSED AMMUNITION DETECTED - REGENERATION SEVERELY IMPAIRED]

[SEEK IMMEDIATE COVER]

"Why are you following me!" Thompson screamed, working the rifle’s action to chamber another round. "You already killed everyone of them. You can feast all you want. Your kind’s greed sickens me!"

Kaine dove to his right as Thompson fired again, the blessed round sparking off the concrete where his head had been.

He rolled behind a stack of steel beams, black blood streaming from his wounds.

Soulrend materialized in his left hand. His right arm hung useless at his side, the shoulder wound making it impossible to lift properly.

"Please!" Thompson continued shouting, his voice cracking with terror. "I don’t want to die! I’ve got a family!"

The rookie was firing blindly now, blessed rounds ricocheting off construction equipment and sending sparks flying through the darkness.

Each shot was accompanied by his panicked pleading, a litany of desperate promises and bargains with a dead man who had no interest in mercy.

Kaine pressed his back against the steel beam, feeling the cold metal against his wounds. His enhanced healing was trying to work, but the blessed ammunition had introduced foreign elements into his system. The wounds were closing slowly, far too slowly for his liking.

He could hear Thompson trying to start the van between shots, the engine turning over but failing to catch. The kid was scared out of his mind, operating on pure adrenaline and terror.

"I’ve got sisters!" Thompson screamed, firing another round that struck the beam inches from Kaine’s head. "Two little girls! Please, I just want to go home!"

Kaine studied the construction site, mapping out the terrain in his mind. Concrete barriers, steel beams, a crane towering overhead like a mechanical giant. The van was positioned near the center of the site, giving Thompson a clear field of fire in most directions.

But not all directions.

The rookie had made a tactical error. He was so focused on where Kaine had taken cover that he wasn’t watching the vertical space above him. The crane’s boom extended over the van, and there were steel girders crisscrossing the construction zone at various heights.

Kaine flexed his injured shoulder, testing the range of motion. It hurt like hell, but it would have to do. He only had one chance at this.

With a burst of supernatural speed, he broke from cover and sprinted toward the nearest concrete barrier. Thompson’s rifle barked behind him, blessed rounds chewing up the ground at his feet. One grazed his thigh, sending another wave of burning pain through his leg.

[HEALTH: 265/420]

He reached the barrier and vaulted over it in a single bound, his enhanced strength carrying him fifteen feet through the air. Thompson spun in his seat, trying to track his movement, but Kaine was already moving again.

He leaped from the barrier to a stack of steel pipes, using them as a springboard to launch himself toward the crane’s support structure. His boots found purchase on a crossbeam, and he bounded upward like some predatory cat.

"Where are you?" Thompson screamed, swinging his rifle in wild arcs. "Where the fuck are you?!!!"

Kaine was already above him, moving along the crane’s boom with perfect balance. The rookie was so focused on the ground level that he never thought to look up.

Classic mistake.

With calculated timing, Kaine dropped from the boom onto the van’s roof. The metal buckled under his weight with a sound like thunder. Before Thompson could react, Kaine was moving again, flowing like shadow toward the driver’s side.

Thompson tried to bring his rifle around, but there was no room in the cramped cab. Kaine’s hand closed around the door handle and yanked it clean off its hinges. The metal shrieked as it tore free, taking part of the door frame with it.

"No, no, no!" Thompson fumbled with his weapon, trying to reverse his grip.

Kaine grabbed the rookie by his tactical vest and hauled him out of the van. Thompson’s finger was still on the trigger, and the rifle discharged into the air as he was pulled from the vehicle.

The round went wide, but the muzzle flash lit up both their faces in stark relief.

Kaine spun and hurled Thompson across the construction site. The rookie hit the ground hard, rolling through gravel and debris before coming to rest against a pile of concrete blocks. His rifle went flying, clattering across the asphalt beyond his reach.

"Please," Thompson gasped, trying to crawl toward his weapon. "I have a family. I have sisters."

Kaine advanced on him, Soulrend gleaming in the moonlight. The cursed blade thirsted for blood, and it had been denied too long this night. The rookie’s terror was visible, filling the air with the sweet scent of fear.

But before Kaine could reach him, a sound split the night.

A snarl. Low, guttural, and filled with inhuman hunger.

Kaine spun around, his enhanced senses immediately identifying the threat. Something was moving in the shadows beyond the construction site, stalking through the darkness with predatory grace.

The figure that emerged from the shadows barely resembled the hunter who’d died minutes earlier.

Chad’s hair had grown longer, hanging in lank strands around a face that had become gaunt and predatory.

His eyes glowed red in the darkness, reflecting light like a nocturnal animal’s. His mouth hung open, revealing teeth that had elongated into fangs—not the neat, surgical points of a vampire, but jagged, uneven things that looked like they’d been carved from bone.

His skin had taken on a grayish pallor, stretched tight over muscles that seemed to have doubled in size.

The wounds that had killed him were still visible—the crushed ribs, the broken nose—but they no longer seemed to hamper him. If anything, they’d become decorative, like scars on a warrior’s chest.

[RESURRECTION COMPLETE]

[BLOOD BORN CLASSIFICATION: CONFIRMED]

Kaine stared at the system notification, his blood running cold. He’d expected a ghoul, maybe a thrall if he was lucky. Something controllable, predictable, bound to his will by the necromantic forces that had resurrected it.

This was something else entirely.

Thompson made a sound like a wounded animal, his eyes wide with shock. "Chad? Oh God, Chad, what happened to you?"

The thing that had been Chad turned its red-eyed gaze toward Thompson, tilting its head with the curiosity of a cat examining a mouse.

"Chad, it’s me," Thompson said, his voice breaking. "We’re partners, remember? We’ve been working together for six months. You taught me how to load the blessed rounds, how to track bloodsuckers through the city."

There was no response from the creature. In that moment, Thompson realized his colleague was long gone. What stood before him now was the very thing they used to hunt together — with Chad.

He fumbled for his dropped gun, but the creature was faster than thought. It covered the distance between them in a single bound, moving with inhuman speed that made Kaine’s enhanced abilities look sluggish.

Its foot connected with Thompson’s head with a wet, sickening crunch. The sound was like a watermelon being dropped on concrete—organic, final, terrible. Thompson’s skull collapsed inward, brain matter and blood spraying across the gravel.

But the creature wasn’t finished. It lifted its foot and brought it down again, and again, systematically crushing what remained of Thompson’s head into paste. Each impact sent fresh spatters of gore across the nearby monuments, turning the hallowed ground into an abattoir.

When it was done, the creature threw back its head and released a sound that was part scream, part roar, part something else entirely. Its eyes blazed brighter, the red glow intensifying until it seemed to burn in the darkness.

Without so much as a glance at Kaine, it leaped onto the roof of the crashed van, then bounded from monument to monument until it disappeared into the night’s embrace.

Kaine stood frozen, staring at the spot where it had vanished. His system offered no additional information, no reassurance about control or loyalty. Whatever he’d created, it was operating on its own agenda now.

"What the fuck have I done?" he whispered.

The smart thing would be to pursue it, to try to establish some kind of control before it disappeared completely.

But Marcus was back at Gwen’s apartment, still in critical condition, still needing the organic matter Kaine had come here to retrieve.

He looked down at Thompson’s mangled remains. The choice was obvious—Marcus needed help now, and every minute wasted was a minute closer to losing his most loyal hollow.

"Shit," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

This was bad. Very bad.

And now it was loose in the city.

He glanced at his hands, noting the way they shook slightly. The encounter had rattled him more than he cared to admit.

The Hollow had been faster, stronger, and more intelligent than the Abomination he’d faced before. If it hadn’t been distracted by Thompson...

Marcus was waiting for food. Real food. And if Kaine didn’t get back soon, there might be two monsters loose in the city tonight.

He jogged back toward the cemetery, his speed carrying him through the darkness.

The corpse he’d been exhuming was still where he’d left it, half-covered in loose dirt. He picked up the parts he had "borrowed". Two arms and a leg. Which he guaranteed should be enough and bolted off.

Amidst all these chaos he realized he’d lost his phone when he wanted to reach out to ask her if she still lived at her old place or not. He knew where she lived because he’d dropped her off once after work while still working with the organization.

As he ran back, his mind kept returning to the Hollow, trying to understand what had gone wrong with Chad’s resurrection. freeweɓnøvel~com

The ritual should have produced a standard undead servant, not some Hollow with strange intelligence.

The building was quiet when he arrived, no signs of disturbance from the street. He scaled the fire escape with his grisly burden, moving silently up the metal stairs. Each step felt like a countdown to disaster.

Gwen’s window was unlocked, when he found it. He slipped inside, setting the corpse down carefully on the floor. The apartment was dark, but his enhanced vision picked out details with crystal clarity.

Too much clarity.

Silence greeted him.

No sounds of struggle, no voices, no breathing. Just the kind of heavy quiet that usually meant something had gone very, very wrong.

He dropped into a crouch, every sense alert. Where was Gwen? Where was Marcus?

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