Evolving My Undead Legion In A Game-Like World

Chapter 745: Painful Comprehension [2]

Each time an undead fell, something vanished for a fraction of a heartbeat before the backlash arrived. In that gap, Michael felt it clearly. It was not death. It was absence, as if a limb had been removed rather than destroyed.

That was when he realized it.

The destroyed bond seemed to return something that had always belonged to him, though in a less complete state that would either naturally recover or, depending on the damage, remain incomplete.

Blood dripped from Michael’s chin, but his shaking slowed.

When another undead was torn apart above, the pain struck again, but this time Michael felt something else.

A perspective. A way of being.

His vision blurred.

Michael’s pupils constricted.

He understood then why it hurt so much.

Because they were not dying for him.

They were dying from him.

Michael’s chest rose with a ragged breath.

The battlefield noise faded until it sounded like it was behind thick glass. The only thing he could hear clearly was the snapping of bonds, one after another, like threads being cut inside his skull.

Then he saw it.

Not with his eyes.

With the part of him that had been stretched across those contracts.

Lucky was not just Lucky.

Fade was not just Fade.

Ghost was not just Ghost.

They were containers.

Bases.

Bodies built to hold another him.

Yes, they had different edges and different instincts, but they were still him.

A network of selves.

A distributed existence wearing many masks.

Now it made sense.

To raise an undead, one did not necessarily need to sacrifice a part of the soul, but while it was not the only way, it was the most complete one.

Now Michael was starting to understand something.

Michael’s lips parted.

No words came out.

A cold understanding slid into place.

For the first time, Michael did not feel the contracts as chains.

He felt them as veins.

And through those veins, he felt the undead as chambers of his own existence.

The pain returned.

A fresh bond snapped.

Michael flinched.

But inside that pain, he caught the echo again.

A part of him had returned, even as the base it occupied had disappeared.

Michael’s eyes widened slightly.

Michael finally understood the deeper nature of his bond.

His undead were not separate lives he puppeteered.

They were his existence split into different pieces.

And if they could contain pieces of him, then he could contain pieces of them.

The thought landed like a silent bell.

Michael’s blood-stained fingers curled against the earth.

And deep inside him, something grew.

If anyone had been paying attention to Michael now, they would have noticed the change happening to him.

Michael was stepping through the first gate any supernatural had to pass to draw closer to the universe.

In doing so, he had uncovered another secret of existence.

And found his own truth.

Michael awakened a law seed.

A whisper of the universe recognizing the truth he had just touched.

"That which is mine can reflect me.

And I can reflect it in return."

What Michael touched was not death, nor creation, nor authority.

It was continuity.

He understood that the universe did not exist as a single, distant whole. It existed as layers within layers, each complete on its own and each a fragment of something greater. A forest was not separate from the land. A cell was not separate from the body. A star was not separate from the void it burned within.

The universe was the universe.

And everything inside it was also the universe.

Life did not flow from a single source outward. It circulated. It divided, nested, returned, and divided again, endlessly preserving itself through form rather than isolation. What mattered was not shape, but connection.

Perhaps this was how races first came into being. Humanity may have begun from a single individual, or maybe two, and even if their numbers later grew to millions, in the bluntest sense they were still extensions of that original figure or figures.

Michael finally saw where he stood in that truth.

He was not a singular existence commanding lesser ones.

He was a core.

And his undead were not followers orbiting him, but a means for existence to continue outward from him.

When one fell, it was not loss.

It was collapse.

And collapse always returned something to the center.

Michael’s breath steadied.

In that moment, his body felt small, kneeling in blood and ruin.

But his awareness did not.

He was not surrounded by undead.

He was inhabited by them.

Or perhaps they were inhabited by him—

the distinction no longer mattered.

Because Michael finally understood the part of the universe that answered him.

Not the part that ruled life.

But the part that allowed life to exist everywhere at once.

And in that understanding, a quiet, absolute truth settled into his soul.

Michael was no longer just a being within the universe.

He was a universe.

The universe answered with recognition.

The law seed inside Michael stabilized, its name forming as a fact the universe already accepted.

Law of Echoed Existence.

Existence was not singular.

Existence was reflected.

Michael did not announce it.

He did not need to.

The law turned inward, then outward, along the veins that connected him to his undead.

And instinctively, without thought or intent, Michael borrowed something from one of them.

Beginning.

The Law of Brutal Rebirth.

Its name and concept surfaced clearly in Michael’s mind.

Born from agony and forged in survival, this law transformed pain into fuel. Severe wounds triggered violent regenerative surges. The closer to death, the stronger the rebirth.

This was Beginning’s realized truth.

As Michael’s law resonated, Beginning’s truth echoed back.

A low thrum spread through Michael’s shattered body.

His torn flesh burned.

His cracked bones screamed.

Then his blood reversed its flow.

Muscle fibers knotted and reforged themselves thicker.

Cracks sealed violently, as if his body rejected the idea of remaining broken.

It felt like rebirth.

And with it came strength.

The closer Michael had been to collapse, the more violently his body responded. Every wound became fuel. Every tear in his flesh became pressure forcing him forward.

His spine straightened.

His trembling stopped.

Mana roared through his veins.

Michael gasped as air filled his lungs like it was the first breath he had ever taken.

And he felt it clearly now.

This was Beginning’s law.

Brutal Rebirth.

And Michael was using it.