The Sorcerer's Handbook

Lys and Annan felt a sharp gust of wind flash past. In the next instant, Ashe was already there, desperately clapping a hand over Harvey's mouth.

"Harvey just loves talking nonsense. I'll help everyone shut him up for now..." Ashe muttered, quickly trying to pivot the conversation. "In any case, these future rankings must be a mistake. Fine, I can accept having some connection to the Senheiser family, but why on earth am I tied to so many others as well?"

Iger stepped in to back him up. "Exactly. The Senheiser family has ties to us, and the Aldo family holds a grudge against us. But we've never even heard of these other names. On what grounds is the Gospel linking all of them to Ashe?"

Annan let out a long, weary sigh. She pulled Lys into her arms, ruffling the girl's white, fluffy hair with a look of pure irritation. "Don't ask me. I don't know either. All I know is that, aside from Aldo, every single family mentioned is a prominent financial conglomerate, a Red Hat family, or a powerful political clan in the Gospel Kingdom. Even if their scale doesn't quite match Senheiser's, their influence is just as formidable."

She paused, her expression darkening. "Compared to the vague 'apocalypse' accusations in the Art Ranking, the fallout from this Family Ranking is going to be much worse. Threatening the end of the world is like yelling into a crowd. Everyone hears it, but none of them bother to respond, and they all just stand around waiting for someone else to step up. But this time, Ashe, you've explicitly dragged these families into the mud with you. You've tied them directly to an undead army. If they want to escape that fate, they won't wait around. They will do everything in their power to eliminate you."

Ashe protested, "It's not me, it's the future me! You can't pin crimes I haven't even committed yet on my head."

Annan snapped back, "Sorry, but that is a Gospel Kingdom tradition. If you don't like it, feel free to leave."

Deep down, Annan knew this wasn't really Ashe's fault. After all, he had spent the last few days trapped in the dream amusement park with her. Still, she couldn't suppress her mounting frustration.

She had already anticipated becoming a target after the release of the second ranking. "Deceiving the Gospel" and "foreseeing the rankings" were dangerous enough to draw massive, unwanted attention. What she hadn't expected was a worst-case scenario where she directly offended every major financial, political, and aristocratic house in the country.

Just imagining the impending barrage of attacks made her head throb. Her already risky plan would have to be completely rewritten. If they had been walking a tightrope before, they were now doing weighted push-ups on it. At this rate, pre-ordering a few coffins from Harvey didn't sound like a bad idea.

And the man responsible for this entire headache was standing right in front of her, looking thoroughly infuriating.

Meanwhile, Lys, whose head was still being rubbed raw by Annan's restless hands, slumped listlessly, feeling as though she were enduring a punishment meant for Ashe. However, because Lys was keenly sensitive to the emotions of those around her, she picked up on something strange.

Annan wasn't actually furious with Ashe. In fact, their relationship seemed to have grown unexpectedly close. The way Annan bantered with him felt natural and playful, almost on the same level as her dynamic with Aunt Perskin.

More importantly, Annan's underlying irritation seemed less about the danger and more about why Ashe was so tangled up with Quinna and the other women...

Annan... no, Aunt Annan, Lys thought, a realization dawning on her. Could she actually be—

"Speaking of which," Pankey suddenly interrupted, breaking the tension, "that man who appeared in the projection alongside Ashe..."

The group instantly fell silent. Every eye in the room turned toward the most suspicious candidate present. Even Ashe looked over.

"It wasn't me," Harvey said calmly, shaking off Ashe's hand. He shook his head. "I would never do something like that."

"But aren't you obsessed with necromancy?" Ashe asked, skeptical.

"I am willing to dedicate my life to necromancy, but that does not mean I would turn living people into the walking dead," Harvey replied, his brow furrowing with genuine displeasure. "Do you all truly believe necromancy is just some antisocial, death-worshipping magic meant for slaughter?"

The others exchanged uneasy glances, none of them willing to voice their disagreement.

Harvey didn't particularly care about being misunderstood, but under the circumstances, he felt compelled to clarify. He said firmly, "Necromancy is not about creating death. It is about utilizing death, obeying death, and ultimately, conquering death.

"From my perspective, the living and the undead are equally important, but there is an insurmountable boundary between them. A creature struggles with all its might to survive until its final breath. Only then does it become a corpse, a vessel beautifully engraved with the experiences of its life. To a necromancer, that is nature's most precious gift.

"I despise the Blood Saint Research Institute, but only because they monopolize the supply of bodies. Personally, I actually respect their operational model. They don't interfere with the lives of the living. They watch life being born, watch it grow, watch it burn, and watch it wither away, stepping in only to claim the ashes left behind."

He paused for a moment, then continued in a steady voice, "That is the proper path of a true necromancer. Corpses obtained that way are the finest materials.

"Turning a living person into the undead is equivalent to cutting their life short, forcibly extinguishing the brilliance of a flourishing existence, and destroying every possibility it held. That is the act I detest above all else. Better to just kill them outright.

"All sorcery exists to help people live better lives. Necromancy is no exception. The dead exist to serve the living, not the other way around."

Harvey looked around the room. "I respect life, including my own, and that of strangers. I am willing to calmly plan both my own demise and that of others, but I will never desecrate life itself."

It sounded like a paradox, understandable yet deeply alien. Nevertheless, as fellow sorcerers, everyone in the room understood exactly what he meant.

To learn a sorcery class was not just a matter of studying it diligently, but of shaping one's worldview, values, and core philosophy through its lens. Just as Iger believed that manipulating rules was an essential skill for survival in a civilized society, Harvey believed that only by making full use of the dead could the living move toward a better future.

Sorcerers inevitably interpreted the world through their own systems of knowledge. While many might find Harvey's way of handling corpses utterly unhinged, it did not mean he lacked restraint when dealing with the living. On the contrary, throughout his years as a "controller," he had always pursued efficient, silent killing.

His greatest difference from ordinary people lay in his strict separation of life and death. Life was life and deserved respect, while a corpse was a corpse, nothing more than material. It was a cognitive divide most people could never achieve, yet it was precisely this cold mindset that allowed Harvey to elevate his necromancy to the Gold Rank.

Therefore, Harvey's words were entirely sincere. He truly did not believe he would ever commit such an atrocity. To him, turning the living into the undead was equivalent to asking a cutthroat like Iger to devote his entire existence to selfless charity, a level of moral corruption that belonged only in fairy tales.

Right at that moment, the Family Rankings finally revealed tonight's luckiest award recipient.

Ashe sighed, rubbing his temples. "Come on, then. Let's see which major family I've offended this time—"

[Family Ranking No.1: Blood Moon Corpse King Clan · Harvey]

Blood Moon Corpse King Clan: The most fearsome undead unit Archibald Harvey created through the fusion and interweaving of vast numbers of living beings, further infused with Blood Saint and Moonshadow lineage. Each Blood Moon Corpse King contains thousands upon thousands of tormented souls within its body. They possess the following innate traits:

1. Blood Devouring Aura

2. Wargiant Corpse Transformation

3. Indestructibility

4. Tombstone Soul Binding

5. Immunity to Weaving Miracle

Family Leader: Archibald Harvey

Ashe looked at Harvey and blinked. Everyone else slowly turned their gaze toward him as well.

So, about that beautiful speech regarding your respect for life? The Gospel doesn't seem to buy it.

After a long moment of heavy silence, Harvey suddenly took a few steps back, pointedly distancing himself from Ashe.

Ashe grumbled, "What? Are you afraid I'm going to hit you?"

"I'm afraid that when the Gospel strikes you with divine lightning later, I'll get caught in the blast," Harvey replied, pointing a finger at the glowing Book of Gospel. "You see? This is what happens when someone stands too close to you. Even I got wrongly accused."