The Ruined Death Knight

Walking through the gap of the gate.

The first thing that greeted him was the bright sunlight together with a gorgeous room.

"The tower doesn´t have a roof? No wonder there is all this sand and light in this room." Danzel said as he stared at the gaping hole through the roof.

He guessed that the piles of sand in the floor came from the opened-up roof.

Another detail was that they were numerous bones to see hidden well in the piles of sands, most of the bones being destroyed into small pieces.

"What the hell were the people doing inside this tower?" Danzel asked himself as he saw huge bones hold his size, and that was when one it was broken seemingly in half.

`From what kind of being did that bone come from?´ Danzel thought to himself.

Unable to resist his curiosity, he touched the bone and saw this status.

[Bone of an Ancient Hydra (Damaged beyond repair)]: A bone of the might sub-species of Dragons, an Ancient Hydra. Back in his life, the Hydra regeneration abilities were enough to grant him the title of "Immortal Being". After living through thousands of years, his wisdom granted it the title "Ancient" that was capable to use every head to cast devastating magic. Unfortunately for it, it meets a much fiercer flow, making it meet his fate early.

"The heck did I just read..." Danzel said, unsure if should be surprised or not.

Though he didn´t know what a hydra was, he knew what a dragon was from the books that he read, as most authors of such books liked to compare the power of a spell to a dragon. Like the one time, he read that a fireball could potentially be as strong as a dragon's breath.

They were just too many references and illustrations of those fearsome Dragons.

As Danzel understood them, they were just overgrown lizards who have wings and can shoot fire from their mouth. With some books saying that they can cast magic.

But once he pressed to see the details of a [Ancient Hydra], he found them way scarier than Dragons.

Endless-like regeneration with multiple heads reaching a number of 10 at best.

With every one of those heads being capable to cast magic.

He already had trouble facing magic casters as they were, but having one counting as 10 was way too scary to imagine.

`I don´t even want to imagine what the other bones are...´ Danzel shook his head away from the other bones.

In the first place, he could neither fix them nor use them.

Instead of going through useless information of various bones, Danzel decided to look at what was in front of him.

To be more precise, the walls of the tower itself.

Although he took notice of the throne that had a part of the back broken and was seemingly made out of gold, as except sand, there was not a single piece of rust in the throne.

What take his intention attention instead was the carving of the wall that built a masterpiece of a picture, which almost looked lifelike to Danzel.

`How much time would one take to carve such things on a wall?´ Danzel thought honestly as he skimmed through the variety of pictures to find a start.

Not short after, Danzel noticed something on those carvings.

"It's...a story?" Danzel thought as he saw how one carving developed the meaning of the other one beside it.

`If it´s a story...then it should also have a start.´ Danzel thought as he searched was the start of the story that those carving were pointing at.

A few seconds later, he found a picture that had the number one in a form similar to the Roman number, just a bit more curved.

"Let´s see..."

The first picture.

In the carvings of a sandhill, there was a man wielding simple pants and a robe turned seemingly to shreds, making the robe only cover his both arms and bits of his chest.

Together with it, the man carried a staff that resembles that of a spear that was purely made.

It was so carved that even though the man looked like a begar, he had by far the most details in the picture itself, from his firm muscles to his spear, he was the main focus.

And in the picture, that man stared through the distance in the direction leading to the next carving.

In the second picture, he seemed to like people worshiping that men who controlled the sand to drag down various beasts he did not know of. The man appeared as he was flying in the air and being the light of those people that Danzel guessed he saved.

The sand that he controlled went through the next picture where he could see it was split into three different parts.

In the bottom part, the man was teaching other people with knowledge, while the building of the tower could be seen to have started.

The middle part carving was of the man saving furthermore people and guiding them in the tower where it has grown much bigger yet different from how it looks now.

The third part was of a man teaching others to what he saw could be interpreted as magic, in that picture the top of the tower was finished and looked very much the same as of now, but less decayed by time.

The end of the tower was turned into sand which was used for the next picture to show a massive city standing on said sand, while the tower was in the middle of them all.

The sand that continued 'flowing' led further to the next part of the story.

There was the man from the first picture which much more refined clothing and weapon. But in the essence wearing the same style.

The man was holding the spear in front of him when the huge wave of sand turned into soldiers.

There was a mix of both human and inhumane soldiers, them being golems that we were covered in sand.

And among those soldiers, a woman with long hair was to be seen closest to the man of the spear.

The soldiers in the picture mixed together in form of sand that lead to by far the largest picture.

Danzel who saw it immediately noticed what this picture was.

"It's the map..." Danzel mumbled as he brought out his own map I confirm.

'They are a resemblance there...' Danzel though.

Holding one of the maps of the people that he died by the skull wolves, the places where was written as old ruins and such, we're in the carving a former city or villages of some kind.

"This actually might be a more accurate map..." Danzel said as he started marking all the unknown parts from his own map.

The map's edges of the carving were guided to turn into another picture, it being the man of before together with the woman soldier, that now held three baby's in her embrace while showing a gentle smile.

The top of the picture soon guided into what Danzel thought were the adult forms of the previews kids, kneeling before the man with the staff that sat on a throne.

The three of them had different looks.

One hiring his face with a hood while caring for staff.

One much larger than the other two wielded a sword.

With the last one, who Danzel recognized imminently.

"Wait...this staff...isn't that guy who kneels in the door? Daniel thought as he looked at the door.

'I will confirm it later.' He thought as he didn't want to stop looking at the story that was being told by those beautiful carvings.

With the throne end extending, it lead to the next carving which confused Danzel.

The man who he recognize as King stepped out of his throne and walked leisurely at different places, it being more hinted at that as in his handheld a planet with a miniature him walking the small planet.

"Hmm. Did he step away from the throne and let his kids take responsibility?" Danzel thought.

But as he looked at the next picture that wasn't being led by something, he was stunned for a second.

Compared to the other carvings that were seemingly made as one painting to create a story.

Till yet the story shows how a man built a whole kingdom with the help of his magic and finally accrued to what would many consider a perfect life.

But the next carving was different.

It was carved as if someone was in a rush or just didn't care more about the previous style of the carvings. It was rough and detailed.

Yet the most intriguing from them all as yet.

The last carving, the king who set out to this world with a carefree attitude was now kneeling to the ground while gnashing his teeth in front of a giant hole in the sky, which in the middle was a small spark of light that bleed something on top of the kneeling king.

Confused, Danzel turns to see the next picture to make sense of what he just saw, but Danzel looking at it was still confused.

As the few more looked around, he noticed that the carvings that he still hasn't been read had now been destroyed.

Tracks of huge claws similar to the one he saw of the gates.

Looking up through the roof, they were many such scratches in the left and right, making him wonder what could possibly go up there to scratch the walls.

"Hm...So I basically stay in a palace of some kind, huh?" Danzel muttered to himself as he turned around the door.

Going outside the door, Danzel stared at the kneeling dead man who held a staff in his hands.

"Hmm...he looks really similar to that of the story." Danzel said, recognizing him from one of the kids that wielded magic.

Though he didn't know the reason for his death, he also didn't care.

Danzel was for only one thing there...

The crystal.

Taking the staff of the dead man, he pulled the piece of metal that was in the crystal.

*Fwuuu~

*Tiik

Throwing the metal away, Danzel stared at the gray mana crystal in front of him, with a grin on his face.

"After two years I got to see another one of those."

[Mana Essense Crystal (Damaged)]: A extremely rare crystal that had all its impurities removed, making it turn into an Essence Crystal. Making the mana inside the crystal be much purer mana and capable to hold mana.. It becomes heavily damaged in which it lost its nature, turning into just a mass crystal of pure mana.