The Ruined Death Knight

Being grabbed by Vanessa, Danzel was forced to halt his steps.

He couldn´t move.

It was as if several ankers were bound around his arm and keeping him in place.

By reflex he tried to brush her off, but even with using his whole strength, there was no sign of his arm escaping.

Feeling annoyed by the woman, Danzel turned around his head towards her.

"I ain´t intere-"

While mid-sentences, Danzel's dark green flaring eyes lighten up.

If one were to rate Vannesa based on how she looked, she would be classified as a killer babe or an otherwordly beauty. Her pair of violet eyes could make one get lost in them, while the bloodline of the elve races tunned her to be a natural beauty. Even if she might be a sub-species of the elve race, a dark elve was still an elve.

But her beauty wasn´t why the current Danzel was so shocked.

His shock came from the figure standing right beside Vanessa.

The figure had long black hair which matched her clothing.

It was some sort of clothing that Danzel never had seen in his 3 years after awaking from the cursed lake.

In a time long past, the current "Danzel" might have recognized those clothes as suits that businessmen or women would use. Alas, the current couldn´t.

There was a small dark green light escaping from the tip of the newly appeared woman. Making Danzel believe that the appeared figure was another kind of illusion that he kept seeing from time to time.

Seeing that Vanessa wasn´t reacting to the woman´s appearance, proved that further.

Most of the time, there would be only 3 different figures appearing.

One was a female who kept telling him that he could even do better.

Another was a male that continued blaming him for something that Danzel wasn´t aware of.

Those two, in particular, he learned to ignore, but the last one was one of the most annoying ones.

The last was another male figure that compared to the other two, didn´t repeat the same thing over and over again, but kept mocking him for all his decisions.

And the current female figure standing behind Vanessa was a new illusion plaguing his mind.

Once he carefully glanced at the face of the new illusion, similar to the other ones, he couldn´t quite right see her face.

It was as if a fog was preventing him from doing so.

The only noticeable part of her was her golden eyes behind the fog.

Just looking at those eyes made Danzel feel frustrated and angry for a reason unknown to him.

Recognized that his mind was being influenced by something which he guessed was the newly appeared illusion, Danzel raised his free hand and pulled a long sword out of his storage ring.

His dark green mana seeped out of his body and entered his sword.

"Huh?" Blurting out in surprise at Danzel's reaction, Vanessa immediately lets go of him as he senses a genuine bloodlust inside his sword.

Disappearing from her position, Danzel cleaved the female figure while the dark green blade that was released cut through the ground till it hit a tree in the distance.

At least that´s what he believed, as the figure that he thought cut in half, was nowhere to be seen.

`So it was another illusion...´ Danzel thought while looking at the cut ground.

"Bastard! Is that really your way of telling a maiden like me a simple no!?" Vanessa stomped the ground and pointed her finger at Danzel.

Coming back, in reality, Danzel turned to look at the Dark elve and then back at the arm that she was holding.

*Ting

His dark plating that was enough to brush off an attack of a 2nd-tier combated around the middle level had several cracks to be seen, with some of the platings falling to the ground.

"As far as I am aware, maiden's don´t have the strength to destroy my armor platings..." Danzel said bitterly.

By putting some mana in the enchantments, dark sand covered the cracks and missing parts of the plating before hardening.

Vanessa who saw what she did was slightly embarrassed, but it wasn't all her fault for damaging Danzel's plating.

Through his sudden outburst, Vanessa had for a split moment forgotten to keep her strength in check.

"Still! Swinging your sword at me is too much! If I weren't careful, I would even blast your head away without thinking!"

Although Danzel wanted to tell her otherwise, he couldn´t.

Although he didn´t see how Vanessa fought, as far as he knew, she often sparred against Sartan and injured him heavily. Heck, she even managed to cut a hand of Sartan.

"Sigh~why did you want to talk about me? Or did you just come to see if I am interested in your body or not?" Danzel said in a cold yet tired voice.

As an undead, he couldn´t get physically tired, but mental exhaustion was still possible.

Sometimes he couldn´t help but feel helpless around the whole group of 4th-tier. Just the idea that a single slap from them would send him directly on a journey on the realm of death made him feel exhausted.

"Ugh~it isn´t like that! It´s don´t go and do it with just any guy! I just heard something from my brother and wanted to see if you are willing to do a trade with me..."

Connecting the gears inside his head, Danzel understood why Vanessa came to him.

`Again...´ He lammed internally.

"So you came for my runes...but still, why offer your body to me?" Danzel asked slightly half confused and half understanding.

He understood that his runes had an incredible value, but offering one's body to an undead...

Sure, she didn´t know that he was undead, or at least he believed that to be the case.

But still.

Hearing Danzel's words, made Vanessa frustrated for several reasons.

"Ugh! It´s because compared to my brother and the boss, who are both magic casters, I got nothing else to offer! And compared to them, I only want one item to have your runes. Doing it once with you is a cheap price! At worse, I will consider it as some light exercise." Vanessa said while opening her cloak for Danzel to see her fine-structure body.

Her body was almost like that of a sculpture, with fine muscles that made her figure appear more appealing to the eye. If it weren´t for her pointy ears, one might have accused her of being a succubus with such a hot body.

Together with the cloak, the only thing he wore that hid her private places was a sturdy black colored bandage which looked though enough to be a metal of some sort. Not only that, but seeing the button black bandages which resembled short pants, he could tell that those bandages were extremely thin.

Alas, as one of the undead, he lacked the senses and the mindset to feel any sort of lust inside him.

"Sorry, but I ain´t interested. Although it isn´t a big deal to carve some runes for you, I would need some sort of minimal payment for my skills. As long it´s information, items or anything else that you might think would bring some sort of value to me, then I might accept."

"Till then, I would have to refuse your offer. Sorry, but as of now I am quite busy so..." Danzel said while turning his back towards Vanessa.

Behind him was Vanessa biting her thump nail in frustration while shifting her gaze to Danzel continuously.

Her brother, Azrael had told her the significants of runes.

By Azrael's explanation, runes were another set of enchantments that can be put in an item that already has reached the limit on its enchantment.

She that possessed an artifact of the highest tier, couldn´t help but get excited at improving her artifact which Velkir himself said reached the limit.

`I have to find something to convince him to do it, otherwise, my brother will...´

In her desperate attempt to think something up, a sudden idea came to her.

"Wait! Rue Danzel! I got something to that I can trade."

Halting his steps, Danzel turned around and stared at her, implying for her to continue.

"Though it isn´t much, how about my knowledge? I know no magic but I been in places that you might have not. I... I can also talk about our group's capabilities! Since you are someone of the 3rd-tier, I doubt you've seen or experienced any fights. Wouldn´t that be a nice reference for the future?" Vanessa said in quick succession.

At this point, she was saying whatever came to her mind, wherever it was useful or not.

Danzel who also notice her somewhat desperate reaction sighed inside his mind.

"Alright, I will do it." Danzel said while walking back to where Vanessa was.

"Realy!?"

Hearing what he just said, Vanessa's eyes sparkled and she almost jumped in joy, only a shred of common sense kept her from doing such. She thought that her offer wouldn´t be attractive to Danzel.

And honestly, she wasn´t that far off.

Although it did interest him a bit, what Danzel aimed for was to have a chance to carve a rune on an item of her.

`I originally had thought that she would ask Azrael for runed items. Although the info shouldn´t be of much use, it´s still something.´

"Mhm, since it´s so late, how about you tell me about everyone in our group? You can tell me the rest wherever there is time. And as for me carving the rune, I would have to see the item and discuss what you mind want for the runes effect to be. How does that sound?"

"Y-Yeah! We will do as you just say!" Vanessa said slightly uncertain.

"So introducing our group huh... except that miser grandpa and the cute Shiro, I can tell you about the others. As I myself don´t know them too well."

"It´s alright, just tell me what you know." Danzel nodded in understanding.

Her not knowing the new members of the Deathfull Skulls group wasn´t a surprise.

"Where should I start...hmm, you haven´t seen what I specialize in right?" Vannesa asked, and in response, Danzel shook his head.

"Let´s start with that then, me and Sartan are the melee fighters of the group. My specialization is that of a Pugilist. My main weapon is my whole body itself, but most of the time I use my fist to crash my enemies."

"Though I hate to say it, out of all except little Shiro and you, I am the weakest of the group. But thanks to an artifact of my, which I want you to carve runes on allows me to reach the very peak of the 4th-tier."

"Next is Sartan, his species are known as high trolls, which allows them to use regenerated at high speed. In fact, his regeneration is so absurd that cutting his head off wouldn´t kill him."

"Out of all of us, he got the highest brute strength. He is so strong that he can hold on against someone of the 5th-tier and possibly inflict a fatal wound on them. He sometimes loses himself in battle and becomes berserk, so wherever you see him become like that, you should better run. Also-"

While letting her continue speaking about the High Troll Sartan, Danzel couldn´t help but doubt her words.

`His regeneration is indeed incredible, but he can survive without his head!?´

Unbeknownst to Danzel's dumbfoundedness, Vanessa continued with the next member.

"Next one is my brother Azrael, as you might know, he uses something called blood magic which has regenerative properties and physical ones. Depending on the situation, he is weaker than Sartan, but once he is on a battlefield, he surpasses the 4th-tier. If the situation is the latter, my brother is the strongest one out of our group." Vanessa said with a hide of bitterness and a mix of being proud.

"As for the Boss, he holds the most war potential out of any of use with the use of his necromancy. I've seen him summon armies of undead, but I honestly don´t know the limits of his. I heard that out of the people that "reside in the center of the world", he is the strongest out of his current tier. I ain´t much knowledge about it, but supposedly he holds a high ranking position among the-"

"Vanessa!" A voice yelled behind her, cutting her mid-sentence.

Recognizing the voice, Vanessa looked towards the door of the stone base.

"Azrael? I thought you will be busy with an experiment of your-"

"Vanessa, don´t say anything else." Azrael said while moving beside the confused Danzel.

"Vanessa...Master Velkir doesn´t want Danzel to know about the ones that "reside in the center of the world". Didn´t he tell you?" Azrael said with a harsh tone, which made Vanessa lower her head slightly.

"I sorr-..."

"There is no need to apologize, I know why you did that, but let me help you with your request."

"Azrael! I don´t need your help! I-!"

"Vanessa. I am you brother?" Azrael said with an emotionless face.

Compared to his usual affection towards his sister, Azrael's eyes could resemble the ones of the undead.

Hearing such a question, Vanessa became speechless and walked inside the base.

"Of course, you are" Those were the last whispers of her, before leaving Azrael and Danzel standing there.

"...Now Danzel, how is the progress with the item that I requested again?"

***

At the same time, in the tent of the aged general.

Bringing a communication device out of his pocket and inserting it into a large table, the aged general activated the device.

As the mana crystal lighten up, the aged general opened his mouth.

"Your royal majesty, I have some news to share with the Great Dynasty."