The Zombie System.

Leon slowly stood, lifting Elise's body with reverent care. He laid her down on stone that had been cracked by their fall, arranging her arms across her chest like she was resting rather than dead.

The destroyer of worlds watched this display with something approaching amusement. "Still performing meaningless rituals. Your species never learns."

"You're wrong."

Leon's silhouette sharpened in the dust-filled air. His spine locked straight with purpose that transcended grief. The healing magic Elise had died to give him pulsed through his system like a second heartbeat.

"Love doesn't weaken us." He turned to face the commander fully. "It makes us dangerous."

Shadow-edge reformed in his hand, but this time the blade carried quiet fury instead of desperation. Death energy flowed along its edge while life force created patterns of light that shouldn't exist in necromantic magic.

Green-tinted power wrapped around his form like armor made of balanced forces. Elise's gift lived inside him now, transforming abilities that had been limited by dimensional programming.

"You've made a mistake," Leon said. His voice stayed steady despite pain that threatened to tear him apart. "You think this is weakness. But what she gave me is the reason you're going to cease existing."

The commander's cosmic presence pressed against reality with weight that made gravity fluctuate. "Bold words from a broken vessel. Your evolution impresses, but finite power cannot challenge infinite force."

"Want to test that theory?"

"Emotions are inefficiencies," the commander murmured. "I have annihilated civilizations who said the same."

"Then you already know how wrong they were," Leon said. "Because they're the ones you couldn't erase completely. Their memory still lingers in me."

Winds swirled as air crackled around Leon's body. His aura shifted, death and life energy fusing into patterns that made the void blade recoil slightly for the first time since manifestation.

The entity's confidence wavered. "Impossible. Mortal magic cannot achieve true synthesis between opposing forces."

"Mortal magic can't?" Leon's system interface stabilized, displaying values far above his former limits.

Power flowed through pathways that had been rewritten by Elise's sacrifice. Not just necromancy anymore. Not just healing. Something that existed in the space between life and death where different rules applied.

The commander raised its void blade with less certainty than before. "You still face me. Your realm will serve our expansion regardless of personal evolution."

"No." Leon stepped forward, each movement sending ripples through dimensional barriers. "It won't."

His enhanced abilities reached toward possibilities that cosmic entities couldn't calculate. The Life-Death Balance didn't operate by rules that dimensional beings understood. It transcended their programming.

"You took my mentor. My friends. The woman who loved me." Leon's grip tightened on Shadow-edge while hybrid energy blazed around his form. "But you made one critical error."

"Enlighten me."

"You gave me a reason to stop holding back."

He felt the presence of those who had fallen, not as burdens, but as anchors. Their sacrifices were written into the power now roaring through his core.

"You think you're a powerful," Leon said softly, "but powerful entities don't fear the truth. Yet right now, you're terrified of what I've become."

The air around them began shifting, everything becoming chaos. Leon's power drew from sources that were not there before Elise's death. Love made manifest in ways that could challenge infinite force.

His undead weren't coming from corpses anymore. They emerged from memories of sacrifice. From bonds that transcended physical existence. From determination that refused to accept defeat.

The warrior zombie that materialized beside him carried Elise's healing magic woven into its spectral form. Not her soul, he'd promised to let her rest. But the echo of her gift transformed into power that void energy couldn't corrupt.

More figures gathered around him, battle ready. Tommy from the qualification dungeon. Iron-fang hunters who'd died protecting civilians. Every soul that had chosen others over themselves.

Each undead blazed with hybrid energy that made the commander step backward. "This violates fundamental laws. Death magic cannot create without corruption."

"I'm not creating from death." Leon's tears had dried, replaced by determination that burned brighter than dimensional fire. "I'm creating from love."

His new army moved with coordination that transcended tactical thinking. They operated through shared purpose rather than magical domination. Sacrifice made manifest in forms that could fight cosmic horror on equal terms.

The void blade trembled as it encountered forces beyond its programming. This wasn't necromancy as dimensional entities understood it. This was something that existed in spaces between realities where different rules applied.

Leon stood surrounded by spectral warriors whose forms blazed with the combined power of life and death working in perfect harmony. His system interface showed readings that climbed beyond measurement while his evolved abilities reached toward infinite possibility.

He wasn't just a necromancer now. He was a paradox. A being born from contradiction, carrying the weight of death and the will of life without compromise.

He pointed Shadow-edge at the sky. The spectral warriors around him raised their weapons in perfect harmony.

A pulse traveled upward, not just in energy but in meaning, an unspoken declaration that We are still here. We are not finished.

The heavens rumbled. Not thunder, belching lightning like the world itself rising with Leon to push back against extinction.

"You took everything from me," he said while raising Shadow-edge toward the entity that had destroyed his world. "Now I take back my future."

The commander's cosmic presence wavered for the first time since manifestation. It faced something that violated every calculation about mortal limitations. Power that drew from sources beyond dimensional mathematics.

Leon stepped forward, no longer prey stalked by cosmic predator. The executioner approached his target with tools forged from love itself.

The void blade pulsed with trapped souls while his shadow-edge answered with harmonies that belonged to hope transcendent. Two forces that should never meet prepared to test which was truly infinite.

Above them, reality held its breath. For this final moment.

For this final battle for Armathor's soul that was about to begin.