The Ruined Death Knight

Currently in an unknown place at an unknown time.

Where endless darkness was the only thing to see.

There was only one single light source of a dark green skeleton standing there lost in his thoughts.

Staring at his hand, the skeleton who was Danzel would even have smiled bitterly if he had any skin.

"I am back into this place, huh?" Danzel muttered to himself as he looked around him, only to see nothing but pure darkness.

"To the realm of the dead..."

At least that´s what Danzel called the place that he was currently at.

With the only way to enter this place being through his actual death, he found the name quite fitting.

"I wonder what face those fanatics will make after learning that after death, the only place that awaits them isn´t beside that goddess that they believe but a void of endless darkness," Danzel said to himself, still remembering the burning feeling of that priestess.

He wasn´t very interested in that religion that those guys were following, but rather at the holy magic that those what he considered fanatics could unleash.

That is the bane of all undead, holy magic which he experienced firsthand how effective it is against the undead.

`At least everyone from the tower should end up here...´ Danzel thought as he tried to remember what happend.

"Mhm...was I eaten by that devil or buried alive by the collapsing tower? I can´t remember..."

His last memories were of how he collapsed the tower's last two floors using [Stone Wall] in the walls of the tower itself. He remembered how the collapsing stones grumbled the ground that he was standing at and the devil that was falling together with him.

"Let´s hope it´s the latter..." Danzel thought as just the imagination of being inside the devil's stomach made his mood much worse than it was already.

"Well, no point thinking about it. As soon as I can go out of the realm of the dead I will find out." Just as he finished saying that, by the corner of his eye he saw a figure covered in black waters slowly revealing itself.

"Ah, that´s right." Moving his hand swiftly and gripping the figures to what he considered the head, Danzel said.

"You guys appear wherever I stay here too long..."

Since the figure struggle to get itself free from Danzel's grip, Danzel started to raise his dead mana,

"Since time works here differently, I can´t tell when you guys appear."

Without hesitating, Danzel released his dead mana into the figure covered in black waters.

"[Curse of Scourge]" Danzel mumbled as the darg green mist went inside the figure he was holding.

"!!!"

As soon as the mist went inside, Danzel could only see how the figure opened his mouth as if it was screaming. Since the figure wasn´t making any audible sound, Danzel considered it that it was screaming as he considered the effect of the curse.

Throwing the now cursed figure away, it disappeared as if it merged with the endless darkness.

"I see..."

Danzel was in no way a sadist being doing that, at least he didn´t consider himself as one.

Cursing the figure which could potentially be a soul of all he knew sounded terrible considering what type of curse it was.

The reason why he did that is for the sake of finding answers.

"I can sense the figure being not much further away for me but not see it, huh?" Danzel said in understanding.

It was as if he cast a curse at someone invisible and standing in front of him.

He could sense him, but not see him.

Being in his own thoughts, more of those figures covered in dark waters started appearing and trying to reach out to him.

"Here they come..." Danzel said solemnly.

His gaze though wasn´t focused on them, but on another one that he recognized immediately.

"Is this the third time that it shows up´s?" Danzel questioned as he gazed at another silhouette covered in black waters.

Although the black waters made every one of them look practically the same. In every each of them there was a small difference to be found.

Be it how tall they were or their body structure, there were small changes to be found.

When he died for the second time by the hands of Hanson, among the black water-covered silhouettes, he could only recognize the one much stronger one that grabbed his jaw from the first time he came into his place.

Ever since then he always appeared when he came to the realm of the dead.

"Here I thought the second time you appeared was a fluke, but seeing you for the third time..."

Watching how that silhouette was reaching out to grab him, Danzel could only sigh internally.

`It isn´t pleasant.´

Since by now he learned how to return to his physical body, he didn´t worry much about does black watered silhouettes. As long he could sense the connection with his body he could escape the realm of the dead.

"Since the connection is still strong...putting a fight wouldn´t hurt, right?" Danzel mumbled as he started casting a curse towards the being in front of him.

But before he could do that, he felt a similar strong grip compared to the silhouette that was following him on his shoulder.

`Another strong one appeared?´

Turning his head slightly, Danzel froze as he stared at the one holding him.

"What the-"

The silhouette holding him was in no other way different compared to the other silhouettes trying to grab into him.

But that silhouette in question had something that all other ones hadn´t.

That was one ethereal golden light similar to his who was glowing dark green in his eyes sockets.

And it was staring directly into his eyes.

`This thing! It´s time to leave!´

Not knowing how dangerous the golden eye silhouette was, Danzel imminently forgot about him experimenting on the realm of the dead.

In the next moment, following the connection where his physical body was, he disappeared from the realm of the dead.

The weaker black water-covered silhouettes having lost track of Danzel merged back into the darkness.

Only the golden-eyed stared together with the other stronger silhouette to where Danzel once was. With the latter merging into the darkness too after some while.

But the golden-eyed silhouetted remained there staring.

And before long in this realm where time flowed differently, the golden-eyed disappeared similar as to how Danzel did.

****

In the middle of the tower of the ruined city, where now only masses of blood and the remains of the tower lay.

In those very grumbled stones came an immense wave of dead mana under the rumbles. The dead mana continued to flow for some sort of time before it dissipated completely.

But once it did, the remains of the tower started to shake.

Pushing some stones to the side, a skeleton arm appeared dragging itself out of the stones.

Once the remains of the tower were pushed back, a figure with destroyed black armor came out and looked to his surroundings confused.

"So I wasn´t eaten." Danzel said in relief.

Looking at his armor though, he cursed to himself.

"Sigh, and here I was getting quite used on that piece of armor. At least it lasted me quite a while."

Observing his surroundings, his gaze soon meet a large spot that was covered in stones together with a river of the blood being in the ground.

"That should be the Devil..." Danzel said as he equipped another sword from his storage ring.

`Thankfully the ring wasn´t destroyed.´ He thought in relief.

If it was indeed destroyed by something he cause, that would have been bad.

Though Danzel instead of going to check if it was dead or not, the first thing he did was to open up his status screen.

And what he saw made him relieved in many ways.

"I am so glad!" Danzel yelled out loud.

Looking at his XP Storage having increased by a whopping amount of 2 000 000 XP, he saw sure that it came from the Devil.

`There shouldn´t be anything else capable of giving me such a big amount of XP in that tower, nothing except the Devil!´

Though their meeting was short, Danzel was relieved that their meeting was as short as their farewell.

"Compared to what else I met, this by far reaches the top of the list that I don´t ever want to meet again."

Standing up from where he was seating, he moved down the remains of the towers. And once he did he saw many of the wraith´s sand bodies floating and aimlessly staring down the ground.

"So those guys survived, huh? That´s undead for you." Danzel mumbled to himself as he went closer to the place where the devil's corpse was.

`If I remember right, that thing was pretty injured when I saw its status window. Otherwise, I would even doubt that it actually died...´ Danzel thought to himself.

He doubted that a being that he wasn´t able to see the attributes of and its size could have lower max HP than himself.

"Haha...I guess I have to thank the one who injured you." Danzel said as he imagined the future of this being actually surviving the fall of the tower.

"Hmm... now that I think about it, didn´t that thing say something to give it back? What did this thing mean by that?"

Remembering the way the devil looked at him and yelled at him in furry, Danzel found it pretty bizarre.

"I don´t remember taking something from him though...maybe it´s because I took residents in the tower? Or was it just screaming at- wait, there is something!"

Remembering how he actually took something from the tower and had it in his storage ring, Danzel brought it out to his hand.

"Did it want this [Mana Essence Crystal]? It´s the only thing that I can think about..." Danzel mumbled as he stared at the crystal confused.

While he was thinking of another item that the Devil could possibly want from him, he sensed a strong surge of dead mana coming out of the remains of the tower.

`Dead Mana?´

Jumping the remains with a certain distance on where the dead man was coming out from, Danzel stared cautiously in that direction.

Soon after, a smoke made out of dead mana was being leaked from the rumbles.

And the smoke soon moved together to start forming a body of dead mana.

"A wraith?" Danzel said as he stared at the newly made being made out of dead mana that looked similar to a wraith but also different.

The wraith looked as it was wearing some kind of armor mixed with a robe together with a scarf to his face made out of dead mana similar to his whole body and armor.

Turning his head towards Danzel.

Danzel ethereal dark green eyes meet with the other's undead ethereal golden eyes.