BOOK 4: CHAPTER 13.2

The Wailing Banshee screamed again. An ominous power surged through her, and David was forced to intercept. He relied on [Origin Lightning] to silence her in time before his attention turned back to the Death Knight and the Skeletal King. It was hard to tell what they had done to him, but he couldn’t divert his attention for too long from them. If he did not face them head-on for more than a handful of seconds, his lifeforce would begin to drain.

He would grow weaker just by focusing on others for a moment. Being forced to deal with the most durable Rulers first was a nuisance, but as exhilarating as their physical strength and fortitude were, their lack of coordination was just as disappointing. The Rulers did not work together. They were enemies of similar strength and didn’t even consider working together to take him down. The Lich stayed in the back, casting a few Curses and Banes to appear active, but contributed little.

If anything, the Lich had helped David when he released [Primeval Pulse] at the Wailing Banshee. While David had coated the Class Skill in Vitae to plant Vitae Nihilum in her ethereal body, he had not expected the Lich to assist him. The Lich had reinforced [Primeval Pulse], creating a crimson light that resembled David’s armor.

Though he was sure nobody had noticed the Lich’s interference, it still irked David. He had desired a challenge, a fight in which four Rulers trampled upon him, forcing him to surpass his limits. Not this.

The Lich was scheming. He tried to weaken David from a distance, hoping he would be dead-tired by the time the other Rulers were defeated. Once the others were dead, the Lich would intervene and crush David. It was a simple plan to eliminate equally strong competitors in one swoop, but it was also a nuisance.

The Wailing Banshee was as good as dead. She had tried to attack him, but [Indomitable Will], combined with [Mind Palace] and [Soul Domain], made it increasingly difficult for her to even harm him. She had scratched his soul with her screams, but the sole reason he attacked her was to ensure the nearby Classers wouldn’t die.

[Primeval Pulse] had left a gaping hole in her chest. It wouldn’t kill her immediately, even if it would likely take a long time for the Wailing Banshee to recuperate, but the Vitae Nihilum spreading through her ethereal form certainly would. It didn’t seem like she noticed it yet. She was likely too focused on the battle ahead, thinking the gaping hole ached due to [Primeval Pulse]’s attributes, when she was actually the victim of Vitae consuming her ‘alive.’

In the meantime, the Skeletal King’s sword was broken, and Vitae Nihilum had already begun to dissect the Death Knight’s armor as well. It was battle-worn and riddled with marks that hadn’t been inflicted too long ago.

But his enemies’ lack of cooperation wasn’t something that should affect him. If anything, he should make use of that and end the fight quickly.

David shifted and evaded the Skeletal King’s gargantuan hand as it smashed down before him. He cast [Archaic Shackles] to restrain the towering skeleton and smiled as the trickle of power pouring from his wildly beating Corrupted Divine Heart intensified.

Vitae strengthened him, but it was not only the End’s power that pumped through his veins and Divine Seed. More was happening while he was busy dealing with the Rulers. He blocked the Death Knight’s next attack with Serpent Fang and released [Blood Burst] in the undead’s face. It didn’t harm the Death Knight, but the bloody projectile, condensed and filled with enough pure Blood to cast [True Restoration] a dozen times, damaged the knight’s armor.

Bonds were forming as he pulled back from the Death Knight. New bonds. Hundreds of them—some even with Classers of decent strength.

David requested more information from [Bloodlife Echo] while evading attacks from the Death Knight and the restrained Skeletal King. The Lich changed tactics as well when the Banshee wailed at him, forcing him to act like he was actually trying to defeat David. The attempts were lackluster compared to the Skeletal King’s and Death Knight’s, but David still had to evade the projectiles filled with death.

Why would they bring the survivors this close to the campus? He groaned as several packages of information reached him.

The Echoes had guided the Classers to the already-packed survivors, who didn’t seem surprised by their arrival. It didn’t require hour-long discussions to convince the survivors to leave with the Classers. If anything, the survivors seemed to push the Classers to depart right away. They were even more impatient than Orhain’s fighters and rushed to the surface.

Unfortunately, the surface was flooded with undead heading toward the campus, forcing the Classers and survivors to make a detour underground. They traveled underground for a while and returned to the surface once it became clear that the undead didn’t care about them. The vast majority of undead creatures had charged past them and toward the massive beacon of light that burst through the sky. David saw images of survivors bawling their eyes out as they stared at the Beacon of Life and the geysers of all-consuming darkness surging into the air.

The Echoes’ information packages and images were curious, and so was the manifestation of hundreds of bonds.

Is it really this easy to accumulate Favor?

Was it really enough if the survivors saw him fight the undead? Did they even see him from so far away? All the images showed were the Beacon of Life, a portion of the Domain of Vitae, and the towering figure of the Skeletal King, restrained by grayish-white chains, facing a figure that looked like a crimson dot in the distance.

They don’t need to see me directly, do they? Or, at least, they do not have to see me in detail. All they have to know is that I’m fighting the undead for their sake, and that I conjured the Beacon of Life. Favor accumulates as long as they see… something I did. Is that it? They don’t even have to know who I am, do they?

He was still oblivious to the entire truth, but it felt like he was getting closer.

The ground underneath him burst apart, and a gaseous pillar of condensed Vitae erupted. It burst through the clouds and joined the Beacon of Life momentarily, until David fully grasped Vitae. Vitae Nihilum bent to his will. It heeded his command and gathered within and around Serpent Fang.

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The blade elongated and changed shape as it reached a length of more than ten meters. The end of the blade shifted and grew in width, forming a voluminous warhammer head that whistled through the air like true death as David swung down.

The Skeletal King closed in, but the colossal hammer of Vitae was faster. It whipped down, fast and lethal, and struck the Skeletal King’s forehead with a sickening crunch.

David’s attack struck true, and Vitae surged into the Ruler’s skull in a tidal wave, sloshing through the cracks that formed upon impact. However, he did not believe for one second that it would be enough. He lifted the monstrous warhammer once again, ignoring the projectiles of death and wailing screams as they reached him, and attacked again.

Once. Twice. A dozen times.

It was not until the Skeletal King’s cold soulflames were extinguished that he stopped his attack.

The colossal Ruler’s body fell apart, and the warhammer of Vitae erupted. Tendrils of Vitae surged toward the bones and devoured them rapidly.

David let it be. He only retracted a small portion of Vitae to circulate through his body as the Death Knight emerged before him, sword brandished to strike. The undead’s cursed weapon whipped forward, piercing [Crimson Bulwark] and the layers of [Bloodbound Bastion] with ease. The cursed sword didn’t even halt at Scalemore.

It penetrated the thick, dark-violet scales with ease and plunged into his chest, right underneath his rib cage.

The cold soulflame beneath the Death Knight’s visage flickered and expanded just as crimson sparks of life-force flowed out of David and into the cursed sword.

David stared at the Death Knight in surprise, and it took him a moment to respond to the cursed sword’s life-draining trait. The oh-so-familiar power, which he had used on thousands of enemies before, only to become its victim as well.

He dismissed [Crimson Bulwark] and [Bloodbound Bastion], and drained the pure Blood resting within the abilities. He pushed the pure Blood into Deryadus’ Arm and released the energy stored within the Sacred Beast Core as well. Coughing up dark blood, David could feel the ailments inflicted by the cursed sword take hold in his body.

The presence of death sloshed through his weakening body and tore through him as the life-force that had protected him so well was drained and absorbed.

He could feel the strength of his body leave and grimaced as weakness threatened to take over. Yet, he did not remain unmoving. He gritted his teeth and lifted Deryadus’ Arm. The Ancient Relic rippled and transformed. His left hand bulged and split apart.

His fingers transformed into tendrils and surged toward the Death Knight. They split into twenty tendrils, then into forty, yet the tendrils didn’t stop there as they reached the Death Knight’s helmet. They pushed onward, pierced the small opening in the visage, and headed toward the soulflame flickering vibrantly yet ominously within the Death Knight.

He tried to reach out to the Death Knight’s soulflame, and was ready to pump every trace of Vitae in his heart and the surroundings into the undead when the Death Knight twisted his blade. Something seemed to change as the sword’s curse spread through him faster than before. Even the amount of life-force it drained increased manifold all of a sudden.

Was that an Intent at work? David couldn’t be sure, but his overwhelming victory was in jeopardy. No. His victory was not important at this point. He might even lose his life here if he didn’t stop taking this lightly.

Goosebumps spread all over his body as more strength fled him, yet it was not all bad. Pure Blood surged into the Death Knight, augmenting Vitae with [Herald’s Blessing], overclocked with as much energy as the Skill Rune could handle. Yet the Death Knight seemed more resistant to Vitae Nihilum than before. Its resistance kept growing… just as more and more of David’s lifeforce was drained.

You’re using me to build up a resistance to Vitae? David’s eyes widened slightly, and panic threatened to settle in his heart.

But before panic could anchor itself deep within him, he noticed something. Various bonds formed and changed around him as he fought the Rulers, yet he never felt closer to the Weave than he did right now. He was fighting for his life, struggling to make it through the mess he had created with his lackluster attitude, but the Weave was there. He could feel it clearly—truly. And he didn’t even have to rely on the connection of the strongest bonds around him to access it.

The Weave… He had access to it, and he reached out for it.

It was magical. Overbearing and powerful. Capable of crushing him with ease, yet it was calm as a pond.

Flickers of color of every hue flooded him, but they weren’t alone. He was warm—hot, even—yet also cold and freezing. There was death, life, and the Cycle that encompassed them all.

David could feel it all with surprising clarity. His senses perked up and truly opened to the vast cosmos for the first time. He allowed the Weave to look into him, just like he stared into the Weave even as his body threatened to fail him.

His Source thrashed within the confines of his vessel, and while it looked like the Source was about to break apart, it didn’t. Quite the contrary. The Source twisted and rippled, and it unraveled before the Weave, connecting to it. Beating rhythmically to the flickers of color. To the Intents and Laws flowing around him. It was almost like he could reach out to them and use them, except he was never close enough to touch them. There were only a few Intents and Laws close enough to touch. Powers willing to heed his command.

But only one of them was useful to him. Right now, only one of these powers could change the tides of the battle. And it was out of his reach. A hair’s breadth—maybe even less. He could feel it. See it. Taste it. Yet he couldn’t grasp it properly.

A defiant roar escaped his lips, and he pushed further. He was unwilling to die like this. He wouldn’t die. Not today. Not to a Death Knight, and definitely not to the End and its creations.

His fingernails almost touched it. He was so close, yet so far. But the Weave didn’t budge.

Yet, as David was unable to move a finger and not even pure Blood willed to his command within the Weave, the End’s power heed his will. All-consuming darkness surged forward. It coiled around his finger and leaped from his fingertip onto the only thing he needed to survive, and it connected them.

David gasped for air as he was thrown out of the Weave. He didn’t even know if he had actually been in the Weave or if it was all a hallucination: an illusion caused by his drained strength. However, the truth didn’t matter. The Death Knight’s sword was still wreaking havoc within him, draining his lifeforce, while the curses anchored deep within David’s being made it increasingly difficult to heal himself.

The Death Knight didn’t look well anymore either. The battle-worn armor had been consumed by Vitae, leaving only its helmet and the wreck of a skeletal body covered in dry, half-rotten skin. Not even the Death Knight’s soulflame was as vibrant as it used to be. Still, it would survive longer than David if things went on like that.

But he wouldn’t allow that to happen. Something was forming deep inside him, and he unleashed it without hesitation.

He unleashed Rend, cast through the Law that encompassed it all.