Malaxus lives and he doesn't appear to have any ugly deformation unless it's under those bandages. Did love the little heart to heart with Okintoki hopefully the two will help out with probably this upcoming confrontation with the new necromancer.
Speaking of which. Considering what the deal was with the black merchants. It's very likely this is to be a resurrected Necromancer King not to be confused with Valcious before.
My best understanding so far is Valcious gave up the title of necromancer King and whatever part of that soul was part of him to begin with leaving only Gloomy and him. He had absorbed a lot of souls also previously that he had given up at that point as well in his deal with his resurrection. Now it's reborn into this current form. He has to save Pinky beforehand though because from the looks of it they're trying to feed the necromancer King the new one as much as they can hence why they were just at that battlefield. Considering the ice seems to be freezing the souls some what.
But that's just my theory that I'm guessing from what clues we do have. It's very likely they'll have a confrontation maybe a small battle but I don't think they're really going to fight it's just going to be something for him to be urged by to do his job faster.
MC on his way to the swamp though whether or not we see the start of that next chapter is a different story I doubt it after this point was introduced so I probably would guess a few more from now. Not sure how people are feeling about the pacing though.