Jonathan knelt on the cold stone floor, his knees pressed against ancient rock as he struggled to keep his breathing steady. The silence around him felt oppressive, as if even the air demanded caution before being drawn into his lungs. When he finally lifted his face to look at the being before him, the shock hit instantly.

  It wasn’t human.

  Jonathan’s heart lurched, a sharp tremor rippling through his body. This wasn’t just fear. It ran deeper than that, something instinctive and humiliating, a weakness blooming in his chest. It was the primal awareness of prey recognizing a predator before understanding what danger truly meant. Like a rat staring at a massive wolf, knowing that a single wrong movement would be its last.

  “My name is Tobias. I hold the Twelfth Seat of the Reaper Court,” the being said calmly.

  The voice was steady, restrained, completely devoid of emotion. Jonathan’s body reacted before his mind could catch up. His lips moved on their own, and a single word slipped out.

  “M-monster.”

  The air froze.

  Jonathan immediately felt Dmitri’s gaze slam into him, sharp and heavy, like a blade about to fall. Before he could even flinch, a powerful hand forced his head down, pressing him fully into a bow.

  “My deepest apologies, Lord Tobias!” the Grand Master said urgently. “He is ignorant.”

  “I don’t mind,” the Reaper replied, without the slightest hint of irritation. “I am well aware of what I am.”

  Jonathan kept his eyes lowered, but the creature’s presence was impossible to ignore. Even without looking directly at it, his mind kept reconstructing the image over and over.

  It wasn’t a man. It wasn’t human.

  The figure before him was a warped humanoid shape, something between a corpse and a mockery of life. Its skin resembled that of an ancient mummy, dried and cracked, marred by darkened patches as though time and death itself had gnawed at the flesh. A worn, heavy cloak draped over its frame, carrying the faint stench of something long divorced from the world of the living. One of its eyes glowed purple, an unnatural, constant light that seemed to see far beyond the surface of things.

  “Chosen Jonathan, I am what they call a Lich,” the Reaper said. “But I was once human. I simply chose a more monstrous path to power within the system. Just as you chose to become a vampire. The difference is that my transformation came through a powerful artifact.”

  The creature stepped forward.

  Jonathan’s body stiffened before his mind even registered the movement. In one skeletal hand, a staff appeared as if it had always been there. In the other, cadaverous fingers extended toward him. Before he could react, Jonathan felt something seize him, not physically, but from within. His body rose from the floor on its own, muscles obeying a will that was not his.

  He was standing, but he was not in control.

  “It’s better if you stand,” the Lich said flatly. “I don’t enjoy looking down. It irritates me.”

  “Of course, Lord Tobias,” Dmitri answered without hesitation.

  “Sit.”

  The Lich gestured toward a nearby table. The chairs slid across the stone floor by themselves, stopping neatly in front of them.

  Jonathan walked to one, each step unsteady. His legs trembled, his thoughts tangled and sluggish. He couldn’t speak. What overwhelmed him wasn’t just fear. A sudden sadness washed over him, an inexplicable loss, as if something inside him were being siphoned away. Happiness simply… vanished.

  This wasn’t natural.

  Jonathan was certain of one thing. Whatever he was feeling had everything to do with being so close to that creature.

  “And to think that after all these years of waiting, the Chosen of Lasiurus has finally appeared,” the Lich said, walking slowly across the hall.

  “He arrived only recently, but we’re already making every preparation to accelerate his growth in power,” Dmitri replied with clear reverence. His voice was calm and measured, and the severe expression Jonathan knew so well was nowhere to be found in the presence of that entity.

  Jonathan listened, doing his best to focus, but his mind struggled to keep up.

  From what little he knew, the only way a vampire could create other vampires was by reaching Rank D.

  “O-only humans can become vampires,” Jonathan said, forcing his voice to remain steady.

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  The creature stopped.

  Its violet gaze locked onto him, suddenly heavy and sharp.

  “Are you calling me stupid?”

  Fear surged through Jonathan in an instant.

  “N-no,” he answered quickly. “I’m just saying I’m new to all of this. I don’t know if I’ll meet expectations. From what I studied, only humans become… vampires, right?”

  The Lich raised an eyebrow and began walking toward him, the staff tapping against the floor with every step. When it reached him, it lifted a skeletal hand and touched Jonathan’s chin with its dead fingers.

  Jonathan felt an overwhelming urge to run. He swallowed hard, convinced he was about to die.

  “Still Rank E,” the Lich said at last, stepping back. “Very weak. But better than nothing.”

  The creature moved a few steps away, then extended a hand toward a chest resting near the wall. The gesture was casual, almost careless, yet the result was immediate.

  The chest opened on its own.

  Objects began to rise from within, floating slowly through the air as if gravity no longer existed in that space. Thick, timeworn books. Glass vials filled with dark liquids, some clearly blood, others impossible to identify. Preserved eyes suspended in viscous substances. Small animal corpses. Chairs. Tables. Everything poured out in a steady stream.

  Jonathan watched in silence, his body rigid.

  The furniture began to shift across the hall. Armchairs slid aside, tables unfolded and rearranged themselves, objects positioning themselves with eerie precision. The room itself was being reshaped. Where there had once been a simple hall, something entirely different took form.

  A library emerged. Tall shelves packed with books in countless sizes and languages, interwoven with workbenches covered in strange instruments, bubbling glassware, and arcane symbols carved into stone. It resembled an alchemist’s laboratory, but older. Darker.

  “My race is undead,” the Lich said, moving between the benches. “But originally, my corpse was human. Once I receive vampiric blood, the bloodline will lie dormant within me. And when I evolve in rank, the magic will occur.”

  It stopped before a table engraved with symbols.

  “When the system reconstructs my new body, instead of continuing my evolution as a lich, the bloodline will awaken and fully resurrect my body. I will become a vampire.”

  A chill ran down Jonathan’s spine.

  The creature displayed something close to a smile as it continued walking through the improvised laboratory. The stench of death grew stronger as more bodies were revealed, some large, others small, all arranged with unsettling precision.

  “I have no sense of smell or taste. I do not sleep. I feel no emotion, or if I do, it is quickly suppressed,” the Lich continued. “But as a vampire, I will be almost human again. And I will still retain the powers of a lich.”

  A book materialized in midair and drifted down, landing softly on the table in front of Jonathan. Its cover was etched with strange symbols and bore the detailed, unsettling illustration of a lich.

  “I am not a fool,” the creature said. “When I chose to become a lich, I knew exactly what I was doing. As a vampire, I retain the powers I acquired while walking the path of an Archlich.”

  The Lich turned slightly, as if weighing his own words.

  “I can no longer advance my race level. The risk is too great. Every step further along the lich’s path complicates the process. It was a gamble… but one that paid off.”

  Jonathan lowered his gaze to the book. The pages began turning on their own, arcane symbols translating automatically through the system before his eyes.

  “Liches are creatures who, as they level up, gradually have their former selves erased and corrupted by—”

  Jonathan looked up.

  The creature was standing far too close now, staring directly at him.

  “Unfortunately, the path of the lich has consequences,” Tobias said. “I no longer remember much of my life before the system. The further I progress in this race, the more my personality is eroded and overwritten.”

  He paused briefly.

  “There will come a day when I become a slave to the urge to be a malignant force, one that seeks to extinguish all life,” he finished, letting out a soft, almost amused chuckle as he said something profoundly grim.

  The creature stepped back and seated himself in a nearby armchair, settling in with unhurried composure.

  “I invested heavily in willpower to keep my inner self alive,” he continued. “But… as a precaution, I stopped leveling.”

  His gaze shifted to Dmitri.

  “Fortunately, I became friends with my precious Dmitri.”

  “It is an honor, Lord Tobias,” Dmitri replied at once.

  Jonathan drew a slow breath, the weight of the revelation pressing down on him.

  “Are all Reapers like you?” he asked.

  “Oh, no,” the Lich replied. “They are people like any other. Some human, others whatever they wish to become. It’s a cosmic joke that I hold the title of Reaper while being undead.”

  The laugh that followed was wrong somehow. Measured. Practiced.

  Jonathan felt that something still didn’t add up.

  “Then why didn’t you try becoming a vampire of another bloodline ?”

  Instantly, Dmitri shot Jonathan a look sharp enough to kill. The question had clearly crossed an invisible line.

  “Because among the vampiric bloodlines, this one is among the most powerful,” Tobias said, his voice returning to its cold, impassive tone. “If I calculated my transformation into a lich deliberately, then I was not foolish enough to choose a weak bloodline. This one suits me best.”

  The air seemed to grow heavier as he spoke. Tobias’s words echoed in Jonathan’s mind, yet something about the answer still felt incomplete.

  The creature gestured, and another book floated into existence before Jonathan. He took it carefully between his fingers, feeling the cold, worn cover. It was filled with illustrations and texts in languages he could barely comprehend, but one image seized his attention: a lich mid-transformation, bones reshaping, flesh returning to life while still retaining the unmistakable aura of death and corruption. The sight was deeply unsettling.

  “Now, Jonathan,” Tobias said calmly, his patience stretching thin in a way that felt timeless, “I will guide you through my teachings to make you stronger. I have no intention of letting you die while attempting to reach Rank D.”

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