Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 566: These Two

A/N: Read Author’s Note. New discord link for art update in the comment section.

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With a blur, it didn’t take long for Michael to arrive at his keep.

The exam Michael was part of was the unified entrance trial of the ten First-Rank Awakener Academies.

Each had sent representatives to observe.

On paper, each academy admitted only a hundred students per year. But that number was not a guarantee—it was simply the maximum they were willing to take. There had been years entire academies refused new blood altogether, and others where they accepted barely a handful.

This round, all ten academies had extended invitations to two hundred applicants each. Two hundred from one academy, multiplied across ten... two thousand participants thrown into the Land of Origin.

Each academy dispatched a teacher to shadow their applicants, silently watching every clash and every choice. These observers were there to judge. To see who among their candidates might be worth their time and resources.

Awakeners were rare by nature. But rarity alone meant little. In the eyes of Awakeners, most of their own kind were not "special." They were simply another stone in the pile. To truly stand out one needed to be unique among awakeners.

Michael was one such anomaly. So was Brian.

Brian’s rise had been meteoric, his ’two-class’ foundation earning him instant attention. For much of the examination, the teacher assigned to his group had watched him alone, ignoring others entirely at certain times.

When the time came for the academies to distribute offers to the top 50 based on their rank within the ten first rank academies, Brian’s name was among the first selected.

Michael’s offer had been different. He had drawn interest, yes, but not the same obsessive focus. His strength was undeniable, but his performance was... quite lacking for his class.. For him and several others, the invitations extended were as much about formality as recognition.

This was how the top fifty candidates of the penultimate round were divided. Each academy claimed their share, regardless of whether every chosen candidate truly met their standards.

From the moment Brian first appeared in the trial, the teacher had marked him.

It started with the ruthlessness he showed after his arrival on the island. Nineteen teammates—supposed allies—had stood beside him when the trial began. But Brian hadn’t wasted time pretending to be their equal. He beat them all, one after the other, until they knelt. By the end of it, command was his, not through consensus but through overwhelming force.

The teacher hadn’t been angered. On the contrary, he was impressed.

From there, Brian’s progress was frighteningly smooth. He led his three man group like a warlord, and within the span of two hours he had already taken five castles.

The teacher, who had overseen hundreds of candidates in years past, could only watch in amazement.

Everything went smoothly.

Until he encountered the undead.

At first, the teacher had dismissed it. Necromancers were fragile by nature; their strength came from their summons, and against someone like Brian, it should have been a brief clash. A setback at best.

But then two undead fell.

And before Brian could even regroup, someone else suddenly appeared.

The strike came like thunder. An elongated spear swept out with such brutal force that the air itself seemed to splinter, and in the same breath Brian’s two remaining teammates were run through as though they were made of paper.

The impact crushed the ground beneath them, tearing apart trees, stone, and earth in a single motion.

The teacher’s eyes widened. He had seen countless Awakeners in the Land of Origin, but this—this was different. The sheer weight behind that attack wasn’t something he could reconcile with the profile of a new student.

And then he saw the face.

"Michael..."

Recognition struck him like ice water. He had watched this boy yesterday on the public broadcast. Unlike many of the other observers, who didn’t focus much on real life matters, he did.

That’s why he recognized Michael and the sight unsettled him.

Enemies of yesterday, now crossing paths again. Was this fate... or inevitability?

But one question hammered hardest of all: why was this necromancer wielding a spear?

Necromancers did not fight like this. Their strength lay in their minions, their control, their soul bonds. To see one abandon his legion and charge headlong into combat, to wield a spear with such monstrous precision—it was absurd. Reckless. Wrong.

Surely, the teacher thought, he didn’t intend to act here the same way he had in the virtual space. To fight like a warrior rather than the commander of undead.

And yet, with his own eyes, he watched Michael lunge forward without hesitation, spear in hand, cutting across the dust-filled air as he charged straight for Brian.

The teacher’s eyes widened by what he saw next.

Brian should have been unstoppable. A dual-class Awakener was already a monster among peers, and yet here he was, pushed back blow after blow. His gauntlet cracked, his robes shredded, blood flying with every clash—and still the necromancer advanced.

How...?

The teacher’s thoughts spun. Brian’s strength was undeniable. Even among the prodigies of his academy, he could have stood tall. And yet this—this necromancer—was besting him outright in close combat.

The contradiction was staggering.

And it wasn’t just the clash itself. The force of it—the sheer firepower erupting from these two barely-fledged students—was something that could suppress not just their peers, but even many assistant teachers in the academies themselves. The air quaked with each impact, ground splintering beneath their feet, shockwaves rippling out like the blows of seasoned warriors.

The teacher’s expression grew stranger with every exchange.

"What... are these two?" he murmured under his breath, the words escaping him before he realized it.

Brian’s dual-class foundation had once seemed like an ironclad explanation for his brilliance, but seeing him barely holding against Michael shattered that certainty. And Michael—why? How? A necromancer should be buried behind their undead.

The teacher’s throat tightened.

If this was the level of talent entering the academies this year, then what would they become after a decade of proper nurturing?

And, more pressing still—if these two ever became enemies again in the real world, what disasters would follow?

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Next Title: Commotion Caused By Sudden Quest Change: Eliminate Castle 37 (Total click bait from author *Evil laughter*)