The Ruined Death Knight

"A [Death knight], huh?" Danzel mumbled to himself as he took a better look at the undead standing on top of corpses.

Except for the fact that he was a bit taller than he, they had the same body build.

Neither need to carry ahead nor have another set of arms.

Similar to the [Lich], a [Death Knight] looked much similar to a skeleton.

Lowering his gaze towards the description, Danzel started reading it.

[Death Knight]: Beings that wield death itself in their very hands. In every single existence of such an undead lays the blood of ten thousand who lost their life. Out of the few heroes who achieved such a feat are capable to turn into beings known as Death Knights. They have one of the purest dead mana out of the undead, making their body registered to otherwordly influence and also allowing them to dwell deeper in the arts of Necromancy. Those who fell at the hands of a death knight will never be able to experience a peaceful death.

After finishing reading the description, Danzel stared back at the [Death Knight] in the picture.

He found this description similar to that of the [Dullahan] and yet different.

The [Death Knight] option had many smaller details that were rather vague, such as their resistance against some kind of influence or their pure dead mana. But overall, Danzel found the description satisfying.

Not only would the evolution of a [Death Knight] be an improvement of his current race, but he will also keep his head in the same place where it belonged.

`There isn´t much of a choice, huh.´ Danzel thought as he briefly gazed towards the [Lich] option before turning his head towards the [Death Knight].

Raising his hand and pointing at the picture of the [Death Knight], a small window appeared in front of him.

[Will you turn into a Death Knight?]

[Yes]

[No]

[Your choice can´t be reversed]

Without much of any hesitation, Danzel tapped at the [Yes] option.

As soon as he was confirmed his choice, the dead mana that was being released spiked up like some raging flames and started to go inside Danzel´s body.

Danzel wasn´t surprised by the dead mana returning to him, but he was surprised by what was happening towards the four pictures of the different undead.

While the three pictures of the [Dullahan], [Gravekeeper], and [Lich] started to show signs of cracking and breaking apart.

The pictures started to become alive.

The [Dullahan] who had its head risen up, looking towards the terrified mortals suddenly started to move and turn his attention towards Danzel.

Raising his sword, a huge wave of dark mist gusted out between his skeleton horse. The dark mist that traveled towards Danzel seemed like it could go out of the picture any second, but before it did the picture cracked and the dark green mana spread to the surrounding dead mana.

Similar to the [Dullahan] picture, the [Gravekeeper] who was picking pieces of bones from the ground suddenly raised its head and looked towards Danzel with the two swords being engulfed in mana.

With his ethereal eyes being revealed on every single skull that was fused in his chest, it ran towards the "outside" of the picture.

Alas, the picture broke apart and fused with the dead mana.

The [Lich] in comparison to the two, just had his head turned, silently staring at Danzel with its ethereal eyes till his picture also grumbled.

The last picture that remained glowed in an ominous dark green light and was the only one that didn´t come to life.

And instead of crumbling apart, the [Death Knight] option turned into a dark green mist and flowed inside of Danzel´s body together with the nearby dead mana at an extremely fast pace.

Danzel who awaited for the euphoria-like feeling that evolution brought every time felt this time an intense pain in his mind.

"Aggggh!"

Grabbing his helmet, Danzel screamed from the intense pain that he was constantly assaulted with.

"W-What is going on!" Danzel yelled as he threw his new helmet to the ground and grabbed his skull in hopes to lessen the pain.

The dead mana that he released and was now getting back inside his body made his view pitch black, making him believe that he found himself inside the realm of the dead. The only way he knew that this wasn´t the case was because he could feel his equipment still being on his body.

Gripping the hilt of his sword, Danzel swung to the air and released a dark green wind blade in hopes to cut through the dead mana.

Alas, it was useless.

While his bones were getting large, Danzel could hear countless unintelligible voices yelling inside his head, which made him almost want to bang his head towards the floor.

It was such an intense pain that one wouldn´t be surprised that one would go insane from it. Danzel though wasn´t one of those who would go insane. While he was in constant pain, he didn´t stop thinking of ways out of his situation.

What is happening?

Did something go wrong?

How can I stop this pain?

Did the evolution fail?

Have I wasted too much time on my choice?

Is this part of the process?

Having such thoughts in mind and his vision being overwhelmed by the dead mana, Danzel wasn´t able to notice that a dark green illusion-like copy was overlapping with his current body and fading away only for it to appear once more.

While his scream was seemingly endless, the dead mana that was in the room started to turn the corpses of the villagers into natural-born undead zombies.

Raising up their chest, the dead screamed alongside Danzel.

"Arghhh!"

"Graghhh!

"Greagh!"

And before Danzel knew it, his vision that was pitch black started to form into different surroundings that Danzel saw before.

***

With the presence of the pain no more, the darkness that plagued Danzel's view was removed, but to his surprise, he no longer found himself in the sacred treasury that he was a moment ago.

In fact, he was currently moving without him knowing.

`What is going on?´ Danzel though.

Once he tried to look around, he found himself he couldn´t.

Taking a better look at his surroundings and seeing the hands of a man moving as he was running, Danzel felt confused.

It was as if he was sharing a first-person view with the man who was running in a hallway.

`He is quite slow, at best he might be a peak 1st-tier. But that doesn´t matter, I got to find out what is going on.´ Danzel thought as he tried to control his mana that he always passed.

Unfortunately similar to the rest of his body, he could only be a bystander and watch how the man was running in the hallway.

Soon after the man stopped right in front of a door.

As the man brought some keys out of his pocket, he suddenly put one of his hands on his mouth.

A second after he did, the man spitted blood out of his mouth, although his hand caught most of the blood, some did go towards the door.

"Dammit..." The man muttered in a voice that was for some reason extremely familiar to Danzel.

`Who is this guy? Is he one of the illusions that keep appearing before me?´ Danzel thoughts didn´t interrupt the man from opening the door and slamming it close.

Although the room didn´t have much light, Danzel was capable to see his surroundings thanks to being undead, while the man moved as if he knew this place.

Hasting his steps, the man walked towards a cabinet with a set of mirrors.

But before his face was about to reveal, the bloodied hand of the man touched the mirrors and open them up.

The inside cabinet was many different things that Danzel didn´t recognize. The item that got most of his attention was the one that the man grabbed in his hand.

It was some kind of cylinder glass container that had some kind of liquid inside.

As soon as the man touched the cylinder container though, a knocking sound came from the door that he closed.

Turning his head around, the room that they were supposed to be suddenly changed into a large room that seemed like a huge theater that had it's seeling opened for the people who were sitting inside to stare at the sky.

`Huh? What just happend?´ Danzel confusion further continued as the man who once held the cylinder contained now held a violin bow instead.

"Why..." The man muttered to himself as the violing bow suddenly started to crack, the cracks showing a bright red light.

Before Danzel could make sense of what happend, the light engulfed his whole vision and the man was thrown back as if an explosion had just occurred.

The people who were in the opened-up theater became some dark mist that turned the surroundings into a similar dark mist till everything into a pitch-black that Danzel recognized imminently.

"The surroundings changed into the realm of the dead?" Danzel wondered, finding himself still in the first-person view.

And suddenly, he felt an immense danger coming from the unending darkness.

He wanted to realize, but he couldn´t

Out of the darkness, a massive hand grabbed the man.

"A fortunate unexpectantly, for a soul like you." A cold voice sounded through the darkness.

*Crack!

Danzel heard a sound similar to a glass breaking, his focus though was on the terrific figure that was before him

"What the hel-"

Before he could finish, the cold voice appeared once more.

"Very well, your wish has been acknowledged"

Amid his confusion, the surroundings changed in an instant in the place where Danzel was originally from.

In the Sacred Treasury.

Looking at his surroundings, Danzel was found himself collapsed to the ground.

"What was that?" Danzel said with a cold voice as he stood up.

The moment he raised his hand though, not only did he see all the zombies walking aimlessly around.

But he also found a floating window in front of him.

The content of the floating window shocked him.