Everything was getting closer. And even more of them appeared, and their clothes became wet from the rain. And, to his annoyance, no one fell.

Running through the cemetery, he fell again. Getting up, he tried to run again, but with horror, he realized that a bony hand from the ground was holding onto his leg.

The nearest zombie jumped on him and began to bite. But here's the strangeness: he couldn't tear off a piece of flesh. Or rather, skin. But this zombie didn't give up and continued to bite, creating a sea of pain. And in the next second, another one came, and then the whole army.

Everyone started biting, trying to eat him, and even the first successes came.

At the same time, at first, he was scared to death. That's why he didn't move from the spot. But the pain quickly woke him up, and his brain began to work at maximum capacity.

"Remember, any idea... right, one of those stories I watched for half an hour. An old man, before he died, tried to kill the undead by sucking the mana out of the corpse... But I'm not a mage, how can I... ah, these bites... you like to bite? Then I'll bite you myself."

He began to bite and tear at each one, fighting off their attempts to bring him down.

"You want to eat me? Then I'll eat you myself!" he yelled, but no one heard his words. The melody continued to play in the background.

Blood drops dripped onto his body, just like onto the bodies of the dead. All the zombies surrounded their prey, wanting to eat him.

He bit and tore, but at first, he began to lose strength and noticed that drowsiness was coming over him. But he knew that if he fell asleep, he would die. He fought with all his might. At one point, he heard a voice in his head.

"Why am I fighting? For life? For life in this empty hell? Sleep, fall asleep. Forget about all the troubles."

This voice tempted him to give up. But in the next moment, a fire of hatred began to burn in his eyes.

"I died once. And I don't want to lose a second chance at life."

With this silent scream, he began to eat the dead himself. At first, nothing happened, but very, very slowly, but surely, his strength began to recover.

***

The skull was shocked. At first glance, it seemed like an easy prey. But she fought back!!! And then she began to steal his strength. The fire flared up stronger... How dare she!!!

***

At the same time, the blood on the ground began to gather into a huge bloody snake. It opened its mouth and swallowed the zombie and its prey whole.

Everything became dark. All the zombies that wanted to eat him disappeared. Looking around, he saw dense darkness. Trying to take a step, he realized with horror that something was holding him.

Suddenly, a light enveloped him, but it was like a theater light. It illuminated his body, which was bound in chains, while everything else remained in darkness.

Thousands of pairs of eyes began to sparkle, and it seemed like they were all looking at him. Strangely, these eyes were of different colors. Some were green, some blue, and some violet. All the pairs of eyes were symmetrically arranged on all four sides.

Doing calculations and using multiplication, he realized that 1000 creatures were looking at him. Of them, there were 999 creatures, and one place was empty. After that, he wanted to know how many creatures had eyes of different colors.

But that was not his fate. The place was lit up, and he could see who was looking at him. They were paintings. Thousands of paintings hung on the walls, and they depicted people... No, on the paintings were depicted all the armies that had pursued him. And each of them had their own painting and looked down at him, as if they possessed intelligence, not just walking crowds controlled by instincts. And where there were no pairs of eyes in the darkness, there was only the frame of the picture, black with gold streaks of violet. And all the other frames were purely black.

The design of all the paintings was the same - bones, skulls, ash, and some illegible words that he could not read, but which were familiar to him because he had seen them on tombstones.

Unnoticed, the chains began to tighten around him. They entered his flesh and bones, but not his soul.

He realized that this world was a land of dreams, and he was now only a soul.

After that, memories and thoughts of 999 creatures began to flood his mind. He understood from these thoughts that they wanted to eat his soul, as it was a pure and delicious morsel for them.

They tried to impoverish his soul with theirs. All these personalities were a collective mind that wanted his soul, but the personalities would be erased.

This method was very good, but its downside was that by the end of the process, the victim was already connected to the guilty mind. In this case, all the personalities were united in a collective mind, and he could read their thoughts and see their memories. All of this flowed like a river into his mind, straight into his soul.

He would have gone crazy if he hadn't been in such a deadly situation.

Like it or not, he filtered all the data related to him, ignoring the unnecessary ones. He desperately searched for a way to escape, but they had prepared everything down to the smallest detail. From the moment he woke up in the graveyard and saw each of them killing to have shared memories for an easy and quick completion of the ritual.

At the same time, a person appeared on the empty canvas, sitting with his back to them. Because of this, only his long black hair and straight back, dressed in a white wizard's cloak, could be seen.

"How can I escape? How? My mind is starting to ache from their memories and thoughts... As well as those I transmitted to others... I have a bad feeling about this." Everyone was waiting for the end of the ritual. But all of them, shocked and even a little scared, looked at him. Some even tried to leave the canvas but couldn't, as if there were invisible walls at the entrance.

At the same time, everyone heard a very familiar word in an unfamiliar language until today.

"STATUS!!!"

In the next moment, a hellish grinding, screaming, and songs that could shatter glass began in everyone's heads. And so on. Their minds went through the most terrible tortures, just like their victim.

The ritual, which was supposed to have been completed already, fell apart and disappeared.

***

The skull was waiting for this pure soul to become his. He even began to dream, but the hellish sounds in his head brought him back to reality.

The fire that always surrounded him went out. He himself fell to the ground and writhed in pain.

***

All of them fell down and started screaming, except for two people: our hero, who fell on his feet and suffered, but not as much as the first time, and the man who was sitting with his back to them.

Suddenly, he turned around and said in a commanding voice, "Enough!" The hellish torture stopped, and everyone stood up. All the undead population looked at the culprit of their torture and shouted with hatred. But then they quickly looked at the one who saved them. Seeing who it was, many were shocked and fell silent.

When complete silence fell, the man nodded and looked at the now freed man, who was also looking at him.

He saw in his eyes not fear, but a thirst to squeeze out everything he could from himself. But deep down, he himself was shaken. The man guessed why he was shocked but quickly got up and waited to see what the mysterious beauty would do next.

Yes, this man was young and very handsome. Even if he was deathly pale, it only added to his image.

***

The skull, rolling in circles from the pain, came to a stop. It flew up and approached the book, glaring angrily at the culprit not only of its pain but also of its shame. However, it couldn't do anything because an unexpected event had occurred.

Now it had to wait and obey.

The man, looking at everyone again, said loudly, "Are you all hungry?" Everyone began to nod, showing that it was true.

He realized that the main culprit also understood what this handsome man was talking about. But no, it wasn't strange. After all, thousands of memories flooded into his soul and became a part of him, even if most of them were sealed. It was understandable, but still strange.

"Nothing strange, I sealed all your memories," the handsome man answered his mental questions. Looking suspiciously at the handsome man, he said nothing, nor did he want to say anything.

Looking at him, the handsome man shook his head regretfully and said, "From now on, you will feed them."

"What?!?" shouted the main character in shock. "Does that mean I will become the caretaker of these zombies?"

Even they were shocked, and for the full picture, they needed to open their mouths. They understood what those words meant. From now on, he became their new master.

"Don't touch them, you've already become one of them, whether you like it or not. But you're weak now, and even one of them can destroy you. So I will seal them," the handsome man said.

All the zombies fell, and in the next moment, the paintings became empty, after which they darkened and turned black.

"Remember, you're not in hell, but in a scarier world," warned the handsome man.

As he turned off the light, it went out, leaving only darkness. And he himself plunged into a real sleep.

***

The skull, which was waiting, became more and more shocked. Next to it appeared black smoke, which became denser and denser, after which it turned into a painting depicting a handsome man.

In the painting sat a beautiful man who looked at the half-alive, half-dead body on the floor and smiled. Then he turned to the skull and said, "You have changed," with a soft smile.

"And you haven't... why?" the skull shouted angrily at the man in the painting.

"Is it what will save you, or what he will take your place?," the man in the painting taunted the skull.

"Both. It's my rightful place. How..." The skull didn't finish as the man's hand came out of the painting and hit him.

"I think you've forgotten who you gave what you have to," he said, dragging the skull into the painting. After that, he turned to the book, which lay quietly on the ground.

"Teach your new owner," he said before disappearing.

***

Opening his eyes, he saw a familiar environment. Standing up, he began to examine himself, but he saw nothing ordinary - everything was black with a tinge of gray.

"I survived. I survived!" he began shouting with happiness. But he quickly calmed down when he saw the book.

He knew the book was responsible for this ordeal. Or rather, the person who hid behind it was to blame. He was ready to get rid of this threat, but a feeling of something familiar was growing in his heart.

Looking at the cover, he noticed that the horrifying skull was no longer drawn on it. Instead, there was a triangle. On each corner was an eye, each with its own style and color.

The blue eye was in the right corner, it looked angry, and the pupil was white-yellow. In the left corner was a green eye with a black pupil full of red veins. And in the top corner was a purple eye, all in a sharp style, if you consider a golden pupil a normal phenomenon.

Opening the book, he saw that the lock had disappeared and was now on the first page. The white sheet was slightly filled at the top: "Life and death are so different, yet so similar. And only necromancers can use them together."

"Life and death? They are so different. But what can be similar in them? What can have both sides? They exist. What is the point if you cease to exist and no one will remember or fear you?" he pondered.

"Well, what can I say? There is a point, what's next? Ah, a necromancer. Hm, so he uses not only the energy of death but also of life. Thinking about it, there is a point, but still unclear." He flipped to the next page and stopped. Then he flipped back.

"I can understand what is written. And no, not intuitively... I can read and know all the letters written here... Hmm, are these even letters?" He looked at the words and saw no familiar letters or anything similar. It was a mixture of Egyptian drawings and hieroglyphs, not Chinese or Korean. How do I know what Chinese and Korean look like? Very simple: manhua and web novels. And so what? I read books with pictures... And if you think I'm stupid, you're wrong. Because they helped me the most at that moment."

Well, thanks to them, I didn't drown in this reality. I could have been sitting where I woke up, suffering from bullshit. It was from them that I learned that status can cause such suffering. They literally saved me.

But let's close this topic. We could endlessly talk and argue about who's right and who's wrong.

"Oh... Who am I justifying myself to... I'm afraid I'm starting to slow down... I'll solve the problem when it arises. For now, let's see what happens next." On the next page, there was a big writing in capital letters: "Who is a necromancer?"

Underneath it was a very long text in small font. He settled comfortably and began to read.

***

At the same time, the white rat continued to walk towards each burrow. But while at first she was alone, now an army of grey and black rodents followed behind her.

Stopping at one point, the white rat stood on her hind legs and began to sniff. Almost imperceptibly, but with a very slight smile on her face, she turned around and ran back to where that strange bipedal creature was sitting. And behind her, the army slowly followed.