The Ruined Death Knight

Echoes of metal clashing with each other could be heard through all the cave.

The few bandits who were trying their best to survive the horde of hungry zombies and got a glimpse of the battle playing not far away from them became awed and terrified.

Of course, those who saw the cloaked figure and their boss fight were shortly after one step closer to being devoured by the zombies.

That though was one of many minor details.

But if one were to watch the two fightings and able to follow their fast movements, it would have seen that the cloaked figure who was Danzel had the advantage.

Once every clash Danzel would either take a step back to avoid the brute in front of him or block with his shield while managing to scratch the man's muscles with his sword.

Although they were just scratches that didn´t even were deeper than two centimeters deep. The mana running through his blade was no normal mana.

Instead, it made undead what they are.

Immortals who denied the concept of death and fully embraced it!

Such mana in a mortal's body without any techniques or body modification to keep it check would start eating up the vitality of ones by itself.

So the small wounds that were practically nothing to someone were now begging to show black spots, clear signs that necrosis started to take effect at such parts. And with so many wounds adding up in one's body, it wouldn´t be strange to feel intense pain to the point of collapsing or being tired.

At least that was how it was supposed to be.

`What the hell is with this guy!? Does he have muscles for brains!´ Danzel cursed as he was forced to block the incoming axe with his shield.

The axe in question was engulfed with the lifeforce together with the arm holding it. Making the strike of the shield feel like Danzel was hit by a train or something similar.

Instead of the man feeling any pain from his wounds to Danzel it seemed more like the wounds or the pain from them fulled the man's eagerness to bash his head.

He had to say that he vastly underestimated the man's stupidness.

Danzel would have bet that this man didn´t have the word defense in his dictionary.

Instead of avoiding the small cuts, Farris instead pushed forwarded to have one if not both of his war axes dig through his body. He simply swung the two axes left and right with monstrous strength that Danzel could barely handle.

In a sense, those two war axes were the perfect weapons for a man named Farris.

They are small enough to utilize with a single hand, and instead of some dagger, the full impact of one swing will be fully kept on the axes. Making them an extremely deadly weapon if it struct someone.

But though the natures of the war axe, defending one's attack with them is extremely awkward to do, as the handle could suddenly be cut if one blocked.

For Farris short of fighting style was perfect.

Equipped with two of such deadly weapons, Farris was extremely dangerous even for Danzel who was able to see every one of his movements.

His being on the defense didn´t help either.

He also calculated that even if he were to use [Sin of Wrath], contesting against him with pure strength was a wide dream for the current him.

"Oraaaah!" Flexing his muscles, the axe that stuck in Danzel's shield was starting to push forward, slowly making Danzel himself be pushed away.

`His strength is ridiculous...´ Take a large step back and let the axe be swung in the air. The two of them stared at each other.

"You damned bastard! How long are you planning of running away! You don´t actually believe that those mere puppets of yours will be of any use once they are done with my subordinates, right!?"

"..."

"Or are your belief that such small wounds would actually make me fall!?" Farris said with an angered voice.

To him, it seemed as if the sword-wielding necromancer was playing with him! Something such insulting as him being poked and then running away from the grasp of his axe.

If it weren´t for the fact that his enemy had the potential to harm him, he would already have gone berserk.

Danzel silence also didn´t fair well with Farris either.

With his patience all burn down, Farris was about to charge ahead when he noticed a dark green glow in Danzel's sword.

Swinging his sword to the air, a dark green wind blade was shot out towards where Farris was.

"Heh! Do you believe that a mere wind blade could do anything at me!" Raising his war ax, he was about to swing at the air blade, when suddenly a crippling pain felt through his chest.

A similar sword that of the necromancer in front of him had pierced through his heart.

Farris's mind went blank for a second, trying to process what was happening.

But before he could reason as to why a blade was pierced through his heart, he in sticky re-directed his swing to his back to kill whoever pierced his chest.

Swinging his hand to his back, he got a small glimpse of a hooded figure that disappeared the next second, leaving a confused Farris.

But amidst his confusion, he didn´t forget that the air blade was closing dangerously near him.

"Punny tricks!" Farris yelled as he used his life force to enchant both his axe and hand.

With a swing at the side of the air blade, completely destroying it one-sidely. Farris realized that he underwent some sort of spell that made him illusioned him getting his heart pierced.

Although it wasn´t an illusion in a sense, his lacking education in magic made him think that it was one.

Usually, even amidst one illusion, pain and other gruesome images could be replicated to make someone feel as if they were real. Once the illusion was done, everything would go back to normal, with the pain to be forgotten.

As if someone was having put into an illusion to have his limps cut off while feeling the pain, once it ended. The target's pain of having his limbs cut off would no longer be there. At least the physical pain that is.

But to Danzel [Mortal Reminder], the pain inflicted although a lie.

An ethereal pain would still linger for a short amount of time at the target.

Making the [Mortal Reminder] effect feel semi-real.

Making it, if one didn´t had the knowledge of it, to be extremely surprised and confused.

After all, who wouldn´t when a large sword would pierce your heart while you feel the pain out of the blue?

Alas, the effect only lasted a few seconds.

And for Danzel who dashed in front of Farris, not have enough time to end his attack.

Learned from his previous attacks, instead of slashing Farris's body, Danzel now aimed for the man's heart!

Farris got managed to get his grips together from his confusion, saw the situation that he was in, and reacted to it.

Letting one of his war axes fall to the ground, he blocked the incoming sword that wanted to pierce his chest with his hand.

Grinding his teeth from the pain, the blade that went through his palm was shortly stopped a few centimeters away from his muscle as he was able to catch the blade in time.

"I got you now you bastard!" Farris shouted with a malicious smile on his face.

He ignored all the pain of his hand and raised the other axe that he hand on the other hand high up like an executioner who was about to do the deed.

Unfortunately for him, as he now held his enemy in place and also withstood his attacks, it brought him a sense that was nothing else to come.

Making him miss the dark green light that was coming behind his back.

Before he was able to swing his war axe down, a familiar pain was felt through his chest, making him halt for a second.

Looking down on his chest, was a sword piercing his heart.

Witnessing that, Farris wanted almost to laugh at the Necromancer using the same trick on him.

But as soon as he tried, instead of a laugh a mouthful of blood came out of his mouth,

He wanted to swing his war axe and destroy the necromancer's head off, but him suddenly feeling dizzy made him unable to.

Waiting for the illusion to stop as it did before, Farris felt worse by the second.

Finally noticing a sword, that was different from the illusion before was still pierced through his heart.

"W-What!?" With a hint of horror in his eyes, he tried to turn his head to his back.

Seeing him distract and weaken, Danzel wastes no time drawing his longsword out of Farris's grip.

And with a smooth movement, he cut the throat of the confused man.

With blood coming out of his throat and having the dead mana burn the vitality around the area. Farris let go of his remaining war axe and grabbed his throat in hopes to stop the bleeding.

Falling to his knees, he stared at the Necromancer's feet with fear as he felt weaker and weaker.

The sword that was pierced in this heart was suddenly drawn out.

Amidst his last moments, Farris forced his head to look at the sword only to see dark green arms holding the sword in the air.

"Although I originally planned to trade blows with you and then come back to life... I guess that works too."

Farris who heard that didn´t understand what the necromancer was.

Where it for the content not making sense for him or seeing his whole world turning into black water who engulf him.

Danzel didn´t care.

The only thing he cared about as of now was the floating window in front of him.

[You received 70 000 XP]

"Although my shield is a bit damaged...it was worth the trouble."

Dragging the corpse of Farris through the ground, Danzel inspected the work of his undead.

"Hmm...it seems they finally finished too." Danzel said as he saw the last of the bandits crying out to be saved from the surrounded zombies who were eating him alive.

As the undead he created would transfer the XP to him, Danzel didn´t much care who would kill those guys. He was just glad that he didn´t have to waste his time chasing after those punches.

`Although I found them eating disgusting...´ Danzel thought as he walked and inspected the corpses.

As he was about to look deeper inside the cave for any survivors, he heard a loud yell from a different tunnel.

"Kyaaah!"

Turning his head towards the voice, he saw three of his zombies who were influenced by his command to rush towards a duo of a small girl and an elderly wielding a curved sword.

Danzel at first was just going to let the zombies kill those two.

But what he saw next surprised him.

The elderly who raised his sword a little, and with incredible speed, he turned the three undead into pieces.