This spell was not ordinary either.
It was a spell Kanzaki Rei had created by adapting his own talents.
After entering the Path, he had gradually come to understand something.
Talents were also part of one's own abilities.
They represented a personal method of wielding the laws of reality.
Until now, he had only used his talents directly. At most, he had extended or modified the way they were applied, but he had never created entirely new spells based upon them.
And yet, Izparut had begun doing exactly that long ago.
For a very long time, Izparut had been observing him and creating new magic based on the talents Kanzaki Rei displayed.
"But for me to reach this point on my own… I really took the long way around."
[Origin Art: Necrotic Rebirth — Perfect Undead Summoning]
To extract the application of a talent and reconstruct it as magic.
That was what Kanzaki Rei was doing now.
This was a spell that should not have been permitted to exist.
A spell that twisted the rules of the world.
One undead after another was created out of nothing, each modeled after the half-draconic monster Kanzaki Rei had slain.
No medium was required.
Despite being death magic, it did not even need a corpse.
Nor did it require the sacrifice of a single soul.
Its only flaw was that it could be cast only within this world.
However, once the undead were summoned here, they could still be taken outside.
Whoosh—
With another thought from Kanzaki Rei, countless massive silhouettes appeared behind him.
He had killed far more than just that one monster.
At this very moment, the entire army of monsters from the Moon Sea manifested at his back.
There were over a thousand Rank 8 undead monsters alone.
And every single undead was stronger than it had been in life.
Then—
Tap.
Kanzaki Rei unleashed a torrential surge of mana, pouring an ocean of magical power into Perfect Undead Summoning.
Dark shadows condensed and took shape.
Using a single undead as a template, he summoned hundreds more.
Then thousands more.
By the end, within his World of My Own, more than one million Rank 8 monster undead had been brought into existence.
"If it's purely a matter of numbers…"
"The advantage is now mine."
Kanzaki Rei gathered his thoughts and stepped out of his World of My Own, returning to the real world.
He spread his hand lightly.
One phase rift after another opened before him.
He had recorded a great number of phase coordinates.
Lorren's coordinates were merely one among many.
Beyond that, he could reach Boundless Mountain, the Murky Sea, the Insect Hive…
There were quite a few places he could go.
"Izparut and the others are still at the World Tree at the center of the world. I wonder how Kumironi is doing."
In the end, Kumironi had never received his warning.
Sophia had been watching her.
There was no way to know whether Kumironi had fallen victim to Sophia's schemes.
Kanzaki Rei took out the Life Compass.
The Life Compass pointing toward Izparut and the others spun chaotically.
It had already become useless.
That reaction did not resemble anything located in the real world.
They were likely in some special space.
A nest.
A ruin.
Or perhaps a forbidden zone.
"Come to think of it…"
"I really am lacking a true weapon."
Ever since arriving in this world, he had been trapped in a cycle of searching for weapons and discarding them.
Even after painstakingly forging a decent weapon, it would be obsolete within a few days.
Even now, he was still using temporary weapons.
He could forge one directly with magic.
Though not "official" weapons, the strength of these magically created arms was still extraordinary.
They were unquestionably superior to many Rank 8 weapons.
And if Kanzaki Rei wished, he could permanently solidify them.
Among his Origin Magic was a spell capable of making magical constructs permanent and everlasting.
But if he devoted serious time to forging, he could create something far stronger.
"Hm…"
"I should travel a bit more first."
He felt that he understood far too little about the world ten years into the future.
If he buried himself now and focused solely on leveling his three crafting professions, he might miss important events unfolding during this period.
With that thought—
Whoosh—
Kanzaki Rei took a single step through a phase rift and arrived at Boundless Mountain.
A distance that ordinary mortals could never traverse in several lifetimes.
For him, it required only one step.
"Phase Magic was developed by Izparut. That means if he sees the Insect Hive, he should be able to comprehend Phase Magic."
"And he'll be able to move through phases just as I do."
"Akasei should have seen me during the Path Entry Ceremony. If they're traveling together, he should have given Izparut that information."
"But there still hasn't been any news."
"Which means they're either handling something important… or Akasei and Izparut have separated and he has no way to pass on the message."
As for the possibility that Izparut had failed to comprehend Phase Magic—
Kanzaki Rei dismissed it immediately.
With nest monsters descending into the real world in large numbers, they had almost certainly already encountered the Insect Hive.
There was no reason Izparut would fail to understand it.
The mountain range of Boundless Mountain stretched endlessly.
Compared to what Kanzaki Rei had seen ten years earlier, however, the landscape was far more desolate.
Everywhere lay blackened, scorched earth.
Extending his perception, he saw ruined cities.
He also saw humans and elves struggling through harsh lives.
"So this place was invaded by monsters as well."
The wilderness teemed with monsters.
But unlike the Moon Sea, the overwhelming majority here lacked intelligence.
It seemed that monster sentience had not yet spread across the entire world.
His perception, accompanied by a keen spiritual awareness, swept through every detail.
Kanzaki Rei's ear twitched.
Following the wind, his hearing locked onto a blurred halo of distorted space.
A dungeon.
The boundary where the nest and the real world overlapped.
Kanzaki Rei's gaze ignored the separation between dimensions.
His perception pierced into it like a spear and revealed the scene within.
This was…
A Rank 5 dungeon.
"ROAR!"
The dungeon was already littered with corpses.
A child no more than eight years old cowered behind a warrior.
Standing before the warrior was a Rank 5 nation-destroying monster.
"Tch."
"Why would anyone bring a child into a dungeon this dangerous?"
Kanzaki Rei frowned.
His body vanished from where he stood.
Slash!
The mountain-like monster of flesh was instantly split down the middle.
Chaotic rays of light erupted, shredding it into countless fragments.
Tap.
Kanzaki Rei appeared before the child.
Behind him stood the warrior.
"He's already dead…"
The figure standing before the child was the warrior's corpse.
His blood was still boiling.
Even his heart continued to pound.
But the man was already dead.
The dead could not be brought back to life.
Even someone as powerful as Kanzaki Rei could not resurrect the dead.
The power to restore the deceased belonged to only an extremely small number of beings.
In the past, he had believed resurrection was a skill that any Level 6 Healer could learn—albeit under strict conditions, perhaps only achievable by exceptionally gifted healers.
Only after gaining vast experience and knowledge did he understand the truth.
Under normal circumstances, the only way to resurrect the dead was to accumulate sufficient merit within the Church of Life and petition the Life Goddess, Sophia, directly.
Aside from that, there was ordinarily no other method.
He had now encountered many healers.
Yet the only healer he had ever met who could truly perform resurrection was still Kumironi.