Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 895: Final Choice

Nine classes. And out of all of them, only three had looked fitting.

Michael exhaled slowly, his gaze moving back through the list one final time as he accounted for each rejection.

Death Knight had been the first real temptation. Strong, dark-aligned, even compatible with his existing abilities. But twenty contract slots per advancement was not a good trade. It was crippling. Everything he had built traced back to those slots. No matter how powerful the class itself was, giving that up was not something he could justify.

Elemental Mage had been simple to dismiss. Pure casting with a flat intelligence boost that would have been genuinely absurd given his current numbers. But it offered nothing for his undead and pointed him in a direction he had never intended to walk after coming this far.

Magic Knight had barely registered. This kind of class was simply not for him.

Blood Warlock had caught his attention briefly, and honestly for good reason. If the description wasn’t exaggerating, he might have been able to match some of his stronger undead in pure physical output. But everything about it ran on cost. It also didn’t preserve his current foundation.

Shadow Slave had been the most interesting rejection. The potential ceiling was genuinely terrifying. Borrowing thirty percent of an extremely strong creature’s power while still growing independently was not a weak concept. But the dependency was the problem. His strength had always been his own. Tying it to something above him, something he did not control and could not guarantee, went against everything he had built.

Michael, who was also extremely cautious, did not like this feeling of dependency. Of course, if it was something he could control, the temptation of this class would have been much stronger.

Abyss Caster had been the strongest replacement on the list. Sixty percent amplification, defense penetration, abyssal energy conversion. If he was starting over, it might have been the answer. But he was not starting over. There had been no mention of undead, no mention of contracts, nothing that acknowledged what he already was. The strongest clean slate was still a clean slate.

That left three.

Death’s Heir. Soul Binder. Grave Warden.

Michael’s gaze settled on them quietly.

Soul Binder had surprised him. Shared growth between him and his undead, a feedback loop that meant every time one of them advanced in power, it would push him forward too, and vice versa. This seemed different from the usual feedback he got whenever his undead advanced in rank, and it also seemed that Soul Binder’s feedback was not limited to his undead alone. The class preserved everything he had and then built a deeper connection between him and his army. Balanced stat distribution, six points per level, no conflicts. If the other two hadn’t existed, he would have chosen it without a second thought.

Grave Warden had felt less like a new class and more like a natural continuation of what he already was. Perfect compatibility. Domain control. Passive conversion of fallen enemies. His undead becoming harder to destroy, harder to stop, stronger within his territory. It was the cleanest path forward for someone who intended to fight through numbers and attrition. No sacrifice, no adjustment, just more.

And Death’s Heir.

Michael’s eyes lingered there last.

The only class on the list rated Perfect compatibility alongside Grave Warden, but pointing in a completely different direction. Seven attribute points. Near absolute dominance over undead. Fifty percent enhancement to all death and dark-related abilities. An engraving mechanic he didn’t fully understand yet but could tell was extremely powerful.

There was a difference, and Michael felt it clearly. Grave Warden made him more of what he already was as a necromancer. Death’s Heir asked what he could become alongside his undead.

Michael stared at the three names for a long moment.

Then slowly, a decision began to form.

The first one he crossed out was Soul Binder.

It wasn’t an easy decision. On paper, Soul Binder worked almost perfectly with everything he had. The shared growth feedback, the deeper connection between him and his undead, the preservation of his existing foundation. If someone had described it to him months ago when he was just starting out, he would have said it sounded tailor-made.

Michael leaned back slowly, his eyes dimming slightly as he thought it through.

As he had grown stronger, one thing had become increasingly clear to him. Too much was inconvenient. Not in a general sense, but in a very specific and personal one. His current contract limit was already more than enough of a foundation to keep growing.

Soul Binder, for all its strengths, would make the relationship between him and his undead more apparent, which would then lead to questions, and that would lead to scrutiny.

And scrutiny led to exactly the kind of attention Michael could not afford.

His talent was the one thing he had protected above everything else. Infinite Evolution was not something the world could know about. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Soul Binder increased that risk. Subtly, perhaps. But in Michael’s world, subtle risks compounded.

Sure, he could create contracts with anything just to increase the number of evolution points he gained daily, but was that even necessary anymore?

He already had enough.

In fact, he had more than enough, yet he still could not fully utilize it.

Even with the advantages Soul Binder provided, it did not seem like it would give him the greatest boost in either potential or immediate strength.

He crossed it out and turned his full attention to the remaining two.

Grave Warden and Death’s Heir.

Both classes were rated Perfect compatibility. Both preserved his foundation. Both pointed in directions he could see himself walking.

But only one of them asked something more of him.

Grave Warden was the safer answer. A direct continuation of his current path with no friction, no adjustment period, and no unknowns. His undead would become harder to kill, his territory would become a death trap, and enemies would feed directly into his army. It was clean, efficient, and demanded nothing from him except to keep doing what he already did.

Death’s Heir was different. It didn’t just strengthen what existed. It aimed to refine what he was at a deeper level. The engraving mechanic alone told him that. He still didn’t fully understand it, but the weight behind it was unmistakable. Classes did not list effects they considered minor. If engraving was listed, it mattered.

And then there was personal strength.

Michael’s eyes narrowed slightly as he sat with that thought. Grave Warden made his army stronger. Death’s Heir made him stronger alongside his army. For someone who had always been aware of the gap between his personal combat ability and the power of his undead, that distinction was not small.

He had relied on his undead. He would always rely on his undead. But there had been moments, more than a few, where he had found himself in situations his army could not immediately resolve. Situations where what mattered was what he himself could do.

Grave Warden did not close that gap.

Death’s Heir did.

Michael’s fingers stilled against his knee.

"...I’ve already decided, haven’t I."

He hadn’t realized it until he said it out loud. But somewhere between the two names, the answer had already formed.