The Ruined Death Knight

"Y-Y-You are from back then..." The ice troll "caster" said in a stutter.

He could already picture himself being cut with the blade that the being of death was drawing.

"I see you still remember me, shaman. You took me by surprise with those trinkets of yours." Danzel said while holding a small wolf totem before crushing it with ease.

"You reminded me of how annoying a magic caster is with teleportation capabilities."

Hearing this, the eyes of the ice troll shaman widen.

"H-How?"

The shaman was clearly confused.

He never told any of his tribe or even anyone about his teleportation spell. It was one of his trump cards and reassurance in case he found himself in a bad situation. So there was no possible way that the being in front of him could possibly know how his spell was.

Seeing the clear confusion on his face, Danzel shook his head.

"Your magic is far superior to the one I have seen. Seeing through your magic is but a small matter." Danzel lied through his teeth.

While the first part was true, the latter was completely false.

At first, when the ice troll shaman teleported away, Danzel was quite surprised as the small totem of a wolf appeared where the ice troll shaman was.

But as he had injured the ice troll shaman, he browsed at his status screen, only to find a spell called [Totemic Beacon of Safe Return].

Basically, a spell that swapped the magic caster with a totem placed not too far away from his location.

Danzel saw through the advantages of the teleportation spell and its disadvantages.

It could be used in an instant without casting, making the spell a life safer, its cons of course were the distance where the totem could be placed between the caster and its limited use of having only one deployed.

Regardless, saying that he could read his spell wasn't something he would tell.

"Regardless if you are a magic caster, I expected the wound to heal already, as you are a troll." Danzel glanced at the wound on the ice troll's shamans chest which he inflicted.

While it did close a bit than it was before, deep necrosis was taking place at his chest to the point he was doubting if regeneration was even possible.

The ice troll shaman wanted to curse and tried his best to free himself from the ice, alas with no success.

"The level of your guy's regeneration is quite pathetic, huh? That might be a problem." Danzel said while shaking his head in disapproval.

The ice troll shaman was digesting the words of being in front of him, but before he could fully understand his meaning, his leg frozen in ice was pierced with the blade of Danzel in a shifted manner.

Widding his eyes, the ice troll shaman let out a shout of pain and anger.

"Kyaghh! Y-You bastard!!!"

Ignoring the words of the ice trolls, Danzel focused on his swords as he was mesmerized by them.

"Come." Danzel said in his cold voice.

In the next moment, one of his Draugrs without bone armor came beside his lieges.

Without explaining further, Danzel raised his hand and touched the ribs of the Draugr.

It took a while before the runes at the Draugr's ribs started to glow in a dark green light.

Once the light of the runes appeared, the ice troll shaman felt an intense ethereal pain going through his leg.

"Kghhh! You bastard...Kghhh!!!" The ice troll shaman gritted his teeth.

The more the blade was inside his leg, the intenser pain was going through him.

He was about to fully scream in pain, but then Danzel drew his sword out of his leg and closed the ice once more, making the ice troll feel a short-lived relief.

As the pain was still there, if not a degree weaker than before, but still there.

Danzel ignored the ice troll shaman and observed the draugr.

For a moment, he could see cracks forming around the letters of the Great Runes of Ruined Vessel before disappearing.

Danzel quickly observed the status of the Draugr, only to find a new addition to have been added in under the [Great Rune] section.

Which was [Ruined Vessel Stacks]: [???(1)]

For a moment, Danzel was confused by the fact he couldn't read through his undead status.

He fell silent for a moment before he sent an internal message to his undead.

'Tell me, what did you feel?'

"My liege, an uncomfortable feeling appeared for a brief moment, but now I feel as if my body became...tougher?"

Nodding at the answer, Danzel scanned the [???(1)] just in case something reveal to him.

He didn't expect much, but the description that came brought him relief.

[???(1)]: The result of the Great Rune of Ruined Vessel, progress cannot be witnessed by others.

'Mgh, making his body tougher, huh? It isn't simply an increase in endurance as his health didn't increase. I wonder how much it increases. Also, the uncomfortable should make sense considering what the rune does. But the bigger problem is...' He thought as he looked at his hand with difficulty.

'Soul Essence...It's so weird to direct something that you can't see.' Danzel thought with a grin on his face.

Well, he didn't have a face, but oh well...

"It's so different compared to mana..." He mumbled to himself.

He concentrated for a moment on his hand.

And after a few minutes, he felt something starting to leave his hand that he could control.

It was unpleasant, but not painful.

'So that's soul essence, but being unable to see it is quite the problem.' Danzel thought as he carefully put the stuff that he dragged out into his hand, making the unpleasant feeling disappear.

Closing and opening his head, he looked at his own status silently and stared at a specific skill.

Which was none other than [Eyes of the Damned Lv.6]

He was thinking about wherever he should upgrade it in hopes that he would gain the ability to see through soul essence.

And after thinking for a while, he bitterly chose to upgrade it despite the XP that he saved was to be for his [Black Guard] class. Though, the ability to see soul essence casually was something he thought he needed considering some of his more potent skills had something to do with it.

'It's only a 2nd-tier skill anyway...'

He could also choose to upgrade [Blood Sense] to achieve the same effect, but he thought that it was more suitable for [Eyes of the Damned] and more likely to achieve that effect.

So with bitter feelings, he threw his XP into the skill.

[Eyes of the Damned level has increased from Lv. 6 to 7]

[Eyes of the Damned level has increased from Lv. 7 to 8]

[Eyes of the Damned level has increased from Lv. 8 to 9]

[Eyes of the Damned level has increased from Lv. 9 to 10]

The skill Eyes of the Damned has reached the modification stage!]

[Choose 2 of the given option for the skill to focus on]

[Dead Mana Affinity]

[Soul Affinity]

[Range]

[Overall Improvement]

Danzel recognized the common options which were pretty self-explanatory.

One of that choices had to be [Soul Affinity] considering what he wanted to achieve.

The trickier part was what to choose next.

The skill was already considered a death-attuned skill, so choosing [Dead Mana Affinity] would bring an uncertain factor and by his experience, would add a new effect on top of the skill.

[Range] he could imagine to be quite useful, but for most cases, a neat tool.

[Overall Improvement] would as its name suggested, improve everything, even range despite the increase being inferior if choosing [Range].

But because of that, he chose to pick it.

So not that his range would increase, but his actual sight would become better.

[The modification for the skill of the Eyes of the Damned has been chosen]

[Eyes of the Damned Lv. 10 becomes Eyes of Damnation Lv.1]

Once the message appeared, compared to the sudden rush of knowledge that usually happend with skills, he felt those ethereal flames that were his eyes change.

There was no pain or something like that.

He just felt that things started to clear without him actively trying the skill.

And as he started around dumbfounded, he could see a dark green color on himself, the draugrs, and the ice troll shaman.

Without even going out of his way to read the skill, Danzel tried to control his soul essence just like he did a moment ago.

And under his gaze, the dark green aura that was previously invisible to his naked eyes without the use of other skills was now fully visible.

"So that's how it usually looks like..."Danzel mumbled before sucking his soul essence back into his body.

Then he gazed at the shaman.

The prolonged silence made the shaman incredibly anxious.

He tried his best to stay silent in hopes he won't notice him.

Alas, Danzel had plans for him.

"Don't misunderstand me, I don't favor the actions of torture, but..."

Without finishing his sentence, Danzel pierced his blade at the shaman's chest.

Invisible to the naked eyes except for his, Danzel could clearly see the burst of soul essence that was being sucked from the shaman's chest.

"Death is something that I don't hesitate to deliver..."

In the next moment, the house that they were in was filled with screams of pain.

All this happend while two eyes of a small magic caster were watching this scene.