The Ruined Death Knight

Spending his 80 000 XP somewhat unwillingly, the information drilled through his mind and started to take roots in his mind.

"Ugh!" Danzel screamed from the flooding pain in his mind.

Throwing his helmet to the ground, he grabbed his head in hopes to lessen the pain.

The dead mana contained in his body started to rise up as if it trying to drown him.

While every single bone of him started to get hotter and his headache continued like a hammer striking his head none-stop, the pain was starting to fade together with the heat.

With the excess dead mana going back to his body, Danzel sighted internally out of relief.

"I guess spending my XP in this place wasn´t a bad idea after all." Shaking his head, he went and picked the helmet that he threw to the ground.

Placing the helmet back on his head, he stayed silent so that he can shorten the whole information and his body.

Since this time, 2 skills were activities similar to [Gale Mana Blade] and the other 1 skill was a passive one.

The effect that it bought by learning the passive skill was similar to [Miasma Corruption], though this time it was much more stimulative to the point it even surprised him.

If evolution was feeling like pure euphoria.

This skill was total the opposite.

Added together with the headache he received, it sure made for an uncomfortable experience.

"At least now the dead man is now flowing more smoothly than ever before." Glancing at the skills description he nodded to himself.

[Deaths Influnce]: Following the path of the dark arts, your body has gotten used to the flowing dead mana inside of you, making it flow faster and the quality of itself becomes much better which strength´s the effects of skills that use dead mana by 5%. Though the result of that forever closes the path of being capable to use holy magic. If an Undead possesses this skill, natural regeneration is increased by 25%.

Though a skill that cost a total of 30 000 XP seemed to be lacking, the most important effect that he cared about was the 25% natural regeneration.

The reason he cared so much about it was after some experimentation on his own body he learned that his bones were regenerating much slower compared to when he was in the cave.

Though taking `good' care of his body, he learned that his regeneration was for quite a while getting slower and slower.

At first, he thought that something bad was happening to his body, but he quickly dismissed that idea, since as an undead there wasn´t much to go wrong with this body, to begin with.

After looking at the problem from a different angle, he released where the problem was.

Though every time he increased his own endurance, not only would his bones get tougher but also his HP would increase.

Which resulted in him not having a lower regeneration, but that he needed more time to regenerate.

The bigger the pot, the longer it took to fill it after all.

If before his whole arm was 200 HP worth, now it was worth 500 HP.

Since it needed more time to fill the total HP, it would obviously slow the restoration of the body if the cap is increased.

As for the reason why he does these experiments, the motivation behind it was to learn more about the dead mana that was going through his bones.

Since it literally kept him moving, not learning of it would in his opinion be stupid.

Harming his immortal body that felt no shred of pain and could regenerate slowly was a small price to pay for receiving more knowledge.

"Let´s hope that this helps in the future, the strengthing is also not half-bad at level 1." Waving the skills description away, he focused on his second skill.

[Coating Miasma]: As a Black Guard who should serve as the death's door of your enemies, both blocking and inviting them to their death by your blade. You learn by engulfing your whole body with dead mana and your mana itself, how to increase your resistance against holy and light magic. Last 1 hour.

Sure it doesn´t sound impressive, but having a way to increase my resistance against the so-called bane of all undead would be useful. Since sooner or later he was going to face people who had this such ability.

The effect also lasted 1 hour long so that was also a plus.

Having more options was never bad since you never know when one of them would save your life or not.

"But out of those skills...this is the best one." Drawing Veren out of his sheath, dead mana flowed through the blade which gave it an ominous look.

"I almost feel bad for the guys who would be the first to experience this" Danzel mumbled to himself while his ethereal eyes stuck in the dead mana.

As he was admiring his new skill [Cursed Blade], he was interrupted by some small echoes coming from the stairs.

With this cold gaze locked in the direction of the stairs, he stopped canceling dead mana into Veren and walked silently back to the hall.

`I told them to leave if they want to live, but it seems like their attachment in life isn´t as strong as I had thought to be.´ Danzel thought as the echoes became louder as he came closer to the trap door.

"Where is he-"

"I thought I told you to leav-" Coming out of the door behind the statue, Danzel suddenly froze.

"Hey! There is he! That was the bastard!" A skinny man pointed his finger at Danzel who came out of the trap door.

The ten men behind him looked in the pointed direction with a frown.

"Is that the one who dared to mess with you?" One towering bald man carrying a huge hammer to his shoulder asked

"Yeah, he is the one." A shorter guy with a circular head beside him replied.

Danzel who was looking in silence could already guess why they were here.

`For them to come to look for revenger after I only pressed at his wrist a bit.´ Danzel shook secretly his head.

"So? For what reason have you all come looking for me?"

A vein showing on his head, the skinny man yelled with an enraged look.

"Don´t think that I forgot what you did to us today! Blame yourself for what you are about to experience!"

With evil grins on their faces, the people beside him started to stroll over with their weapons in hand.

Looking solely at this, Danzel sighted to himself.

"Sigh, right back at your"

Jumping off the stage, the moment his feet touched the ground dark green mana flared tough his legs.

As the men were surprised by the sudden appearance of mana, Danzel accelerated towards the nearest guy to him.

"Huh?" the man blurred unconsciously at Danzel cutting the distance at such speed.

Before he could react, Danzel already swung Veren and appeared behind him.

*Bahm

The man's head was cut off with his shocked expression still remaining on his face.

Seeing the lifeless body of their comrade fall to the ground, fear and rage came at them.

With the latter surpassing the former.

"You! Forget about beating him up! Kill him!" The bald man with the hammer said with an enraged voice.

"Get him!"

Running at him, the remaining nine people rushed at him full of killing intent.

"Ridiculous..." Danzel whispered to himself.

They were too slow.

"Take that!"

The two closed to him rushed with their words and swung at Danzel.

Using this strength, Danzel simply swung diagonally much faster and stronger than the man.

Without being able to finish his own swing, the Veren blade had already cut through his arm before slashing his face which resulted in his Death.

With him doing, he channels the dead man from his body through the Veren blade before swinging it at the other man's throat.

"Guah! You bastard!" The man took a few steps back while putting pressure on the wound of this throat.

`Good thing that the cut is shallow otherwise I would even be dead like him.´

Unfortunately for him though, the cut was made shallowly intentionally.

As the man was thinking about running away, a strong pain came where the wound he was holding.

"W-What is that!?"

The before healthy skin that he had was slowly starting to turn black as if it was losing all his vitality.

"Agh-Poiso?-Agh!" With the man grimacing from pain, he realized that he couldn´t breathe anymore more.

And before long, he collapsed dead to the ground.

The others who watched that were starting to hesitate.

"Tch! Move out of the way!" The bald man with the hammer in hand sprinted at Danzel with rage still in his face.

Glazing at the man, he didn´t try to even move from his place.

"Die!" Swinging his huge hammer at Danzel's chest, a loud sound of metal echoed through the whole church.

But compared to the result everyone had wanted, Danzel was the only force to take a step back.

"Still not enough..." Danzel commended as he looked at the [Mana Armor Plating] that wasn´t enough to hold the full force behind the hammer.

"H-How?" The bald man asked in disbelieve.

Without even bothering to answer him, Danzel swiftly pierced Vern through this chest while holding the man's shoulder with the other hand.

"Cough!" The towering man coughed blood at Danzel´s helmet as he was feeling this strength inside of him fade away.

With the blade being inside his chest, the spot it was pierced started to blacken.

"Let´s try this..." Danzel said with a sinister grin hidden behind this helm.

With the blade already glowing with dead mana, a sudden crimson light appeared too.

What happend next was that the skin that has already been turned black showed red lines coming running from the healthy skin towards the direction of the blades.

"Agh..." With the light of his eyes fading away, the man lost all this strength and collapse to the ground.

"Hmm, although the combination seems to do more damage on one's body, at the same time it destroys the blood that is needed to repair the blade." Danzel mumbled to himself as he gazed at the corpse.

"R-Run!"

Without any hesitation, all men turned around and fled without a second thought.

"Oh no, you don´t" Extending his palm towards the direction of the door.

Mana traveled fast to the ground towards the door.

"I-I need to report that this to the Association!" The skinny man taking the lead ran faster than he ever had towards the exit.

"I made-" With his face turning elated with this arm being already past the door, the ground shook.

And where the door has been a small wall came rising which closed the door's entrance for good.

"Gaagh! My arm!" The skinny man screamed out of his lungs out of pain.

Since these arms were already out, the wall dragged him to the air with his arm being smashed by the frame of the door and the earth wall like a sandwich.

"N-No!"

"Shit! We can´t get out now!"

Seeing that their path has been closed, they all turned at Danzel with fear.

Unfortunately for them, Danzel served no mercy.

Though they screamed and begged.

Everyone was soon slaughtered, except the skinny man at the door.

"N-No! Don´t come closer! Please! Don-t kill me! Forgive!" The skinny man screamed with his running through this face as he watched Danzel walking at him.

Turning a deaf ear to his words, Danzel pierced the man's shoulder.

"Blame yourself for what you are about to experience"

Ignoring his cries, He touched the man's shoulder with his other hand.

The next moment, a crimson light and dead mana ran through Veren, while this hand glowed with a dark green glow.

"AGHHH!"

What Danzel didn´t know though, was that everything that happend here was seen from a pair of eyes looking from some cracks through the wall.