The Ruined Death Knight

"No-!"

Hearing the cries of their fellow explores, everyone got suddenly dense up.

Before they could question them from the other side of the door, a snapping sound was heard. After the sound, the two explorers had gone silent.

"Hey! What is going on!?"

"Is the enemy there!?"

"Respond!"

Many cried their question to the duo who went past the door. Since the door opening was only capable to fit one person, they couldn´t get a good look at what happend.

At least everyone except Herald who was in front of the opening couldn´t see what happend.

Herald though saw every single second of them.

The face of those who he personally sends out to turn that into horror and panic.

The desperation in their eyes.

That was the last thing that Herald could see before a huge mouth bites half of their body.

Even now, he saw how the mouth slowly dragged itself upward with blood coming out of the mouth. The blood of those two explorers.

"You!"

With his life force rushing in his hand, he dashed towards the door.

Going through the small gap of the door, he raised his torch into the wall. Making him see the culprit of the one who eats the two explorers.

An undead skull wolve that was twice as big as the one he fought outside the door with claws seemingly out of metal. Keeping itself up the wall of the tower while staring him those hollow eyes.

Instead of getting surprised by the undead size, Herald let out his torch fell to the ground while glancing his fist.

"It was you bastard!"

With finding nearby wind gathering to his fist by the use of life force. He sends out a punch in the air towards the direction of the undead.

In the next instance, the wind that was gathering was pushed out like a cannonball with the life force enchanting the wind itself.

The undead who was raising his body felt a sudden wind pushing his body back. And without even realizing a huge see-through twisted hole was made in the undead chest.

If the undead hadn´t raised his body in the instance where the armorer man came from the door, her now skull would have that huge hole and end up reaping her out of her undead state.

That wouldn´t have been in any way acceptable as she still had a mission to follow.

A hole through their chest big enough to fit a small child was to her of now problem.

Why?

Because she was an undead!

"Gweaaaaagh!"

Howling towards the living, she raised her claw and swung it towards the directions of Herald.

"Tch, that thing moved." Without showing and spread of panic, he gathered wind through his legs, and once he did, with the support of the wind he accepted to the side to avoid the huge metal claw coming to turn him into pieces.

*Grrhhhh!

Carving the ground using her claws, Skull Claw smashed the place where Herald was standing not long ago.

"This thing-Hey! How long are you guys waiting outside already! They are is only one-!" Being interrupted mind sentence by two additional growls not far by him, Herald frowned.

`Did that Necromancer hide his best undead on this floor? If they are two more of that thing, then it would be troublesome.´

"Hey! Move you a*ses already! Where are you!?" Herald yelled as he stared at the door.

But once his eyes landed on the door, he froze like a statue.

The door that was once slightly opened, was now closed with a slight glow surrounding the door.

"Hey- It can´t be..." As Herald thought of something terrible, Skull Claw came down from the walls and showed her entire body at Herald while standing beside the now-closed door.

The wall's light seemed to show ripples from time to time, but the door itself showed no shaking at all.

"Grweaaaah~"

"Grweaaaah~"

"Grweaaaah~"

With three growls now echoing in the entire floor, Herald cursed under his breath.

"To think that this would a trap..." Gathering the wind around him, he knew what to do.

That was to crush that three undead around him.

But before he could let another wind attack of his, he noticed how the big one stopped his advantage right in front of the torch that he had dropped.

Noticing the undead staring at the torch, Herald's face paled up in an instance. As a huge problem surfaced.

"Wait! Don´t tell me-!"

Skull Claw instead of staring at the living had his howl eyes focused on the torch in the ground.

Raising her leg, the supposedly mindless undead stomped at the torch, thus removing the only light source of the whole floor.

"Grwe-grew-grew~"

With a laugh-like growl, she glanced at the living with pure killing intent.

That glare of the undead was the last thing he saw before the whole floor was engulfed in darkness.

***

Going back around the times when Danzel received the XP notification, Danzel who was on the last floor didn´t stay waiting for his enemies to come.

Walking down the stairs, shortly after he received multiple notifications.

[You received 34 000 XP]

[You received 35 000 XP]

[You received 28 000 XP]

...

Glancing at them, he made the windows disappear.

"It seems like they are still fighting the skull wolves outside. It´s too bad that I can´t spectate their fight..."

Though he quite liked that he received the XP, as it would save him hours of training. The fact that he received up to 6 notifications was something that made him uneasy.

He clearly remembered how many people he let getaway when he arrived at those ruins. And the numbers were definitely not 6.

He would very much like to believe that his undead killed all the intruders that came into the tower. But thinking of the possibility that his undead have been already dealt with and more enemies were ascending the tower. Danzel didn´t mind sparing some time of his training for preparing for the possible guest.

While ignoring the wraiths doing their wraith stuff, which were flying around him and being generally annoying. He went towards the library floor is where he let the Skull Claw and the two bodyguards skull wolves there.

Entering the room, he found the two bodyguards wolves just standing there and looking aimlessly at the roof while the Skull Claw was resting similarly to how he first found her.

"If those guys guarding the tower have already been subjugated by the enemy, then I can only use those three on this floor." Danzel mumbled to himself as he stared at the three much large skull wolves.

Since he very much doubted that the stairs could support those three or even use their large bodies for their advantages, they could only be used on this floor, or rather, there wasn´t a point moving them to the lower floors.

"The question is how I use them to the fullest..." Danzel asked himself.

With only so many resources there to use, Danzel had to use whatever was there to use.

"Hmm...maybe the door?" Danzel mumbled as he looked at the door.

"If I were to block the door with something and let the opening allow only one person to go through, maybe the three of them could finish the enemy one by one..."

Though it sounded like a good idea, Danzel quickly shook his head.

Even if the door let one person at a time come in, one second was probably enough to pass through the door. Not only that, with the enemy's powers being unknown, the speed at where those three killed the enemy was also unknown.

"Ugh... I lack information."

Thinking of what to do, there was only the idea of using the door to his advantage.

"Even though I could kill everyone inside the tower if I were to use `this´ spell. That will be my last resort. For now, let´s see how things go..."

Walking towards the door, he inspected the sides in hopes that he could close it somehow.

But after searching for a while, he was puzzled not to find a lock or anything the like.

"Hmm, are those things really doors?" 

Confused at the door, he opened their status to see if there were any hints of how to close it.

And what he read surprised him.

[Gate of Azu´rah Knowledge (Damaged)]: A gate crafted by master craftsmen and enchanters. Putting all their effort to create the gate guarding leading through the library of Azu´rah. Though the door had many enchants written in the gate. Because of a certain event, the crystals fueling the enchantments had been damaged. Though the gate has mana to support the enchantments, there is no way to regenerate the mana. Once there is no mana in the gate, both self-locking and protection enchantments will be no more.

Reading through the description, Danzel couldn´t help but stare at the door in surprise.

"You...aren´t you actually amazing?" He praised the door.

Knowing now that the door will lock by itself if closed and protected at that, many more ideas came into his mind.

"If my guess is right, the event that the description is talking about has something to do with the carved pictures in the throne."

Bringing out two swords from his storage ring, he pierced them through the ground to make the door not open more.

"Well, it isn´t like it matter if I know what this event was. The past doesn´t matter."

Staring at the Skull Claw laying lazily around, he specifically gave her a command.

`Skull Claw, try and hold yourself up the gate.´

Standing up, she walked slowly to her master and followed through his command.

Because of the command involving his will too, she knew exactly what to do.

Doing what she was asked, she stared down at him.

`Alright, wait until someone goes through the door and kills them. After you have done so close that gate below you.´

`Let´s hope that this will achieve something...´ Danzel thought as he walked back into the last floor.

"What matters is the current present."