The Ruined Death Knight

Dashing towards the dark knight, a red glow covered the phoenix swordman's body.

With the glow also came an explosive amount of strength to him, allowing him to appear in front of the dark knight with his sword raised up.

But even with such speed, Danzel was still capable to react.

*Thing!

"Hmpf, [Curse of Primordial Decay]"

Casting the spell, another dark mist left Danzel's body and leached into the Phoenix warrior's body.

"Tch-!" Annoyed by the fact of having another curse in his body, he swung his sword with a speed and precision that the other 3rd-tiers couldn't even compare to.

Alas, the path of his blade was blocked by the kite shield of the dark knight with ease.

But he wasn't very fond of being meatshield any time soon.

The moment he blocked one of the swords and swung, he spread his mana all around his body and moved to the side with his sword ready to be swung.

He moved so fast that the swordsman didn't have enough time to block the swing of the ominous sword.

"Die."

The chilling voice said as the reaping blade went to claim the sword and life.

But before that happened...

"[Fire Emprace]!"

Suddenly flames started appearing around the sword and body like in a bumble.

Once Danzel's sword made contact with the flames, not only was the flames tough like a wall of steel, but the flames themselves exploded right towards him.

*Baahm!

With the area they clashed bring engulfed in flames, the swordsman didn't stray idly.

Jumping right in the flames, he swung his sword, only to be met with the ominous sword.

*Thiing!

"A barrier, huh?" The chilling voice said as he pushed this swordsman back together with the flames.

"Elementals of the burning plain! Head my call! [Summon Fire Elemental]!"

The flames that were about to be snuffed out were suddenly moved to two locations with the flames growing stronger.

By the magic caster's will, the two flames came to life and two 4 meters tall figures with a whirlwind of flames being the bottom part of their body where the top was of a humanoid armored figure with their hands being claws.

Of course, they were made out of purely mana and flames themselves.

"Summoning magic?" Danzel said surprised.

Though surprised, that didn't stop him from charging at the swordsman.

Swinging his sword down with incredible speed, the swordsman was forced to block it if he didn't want to die.

*Thing! Buagh~

The ground under the swordsman cracked the moment he blocked the swing.

That was when he released the sheer strength difference between them.

The curses also started to take effect and slowly weigh down on his body.

'If this continues, it's a matter of time when I am going to die. For now, I have to create some distance and think of another strategy.'

Using his life force on his sword, a huge force exploded, pushing the ominous blade away.

Using that chance, he was going to retreat.

But it wasn't only the sword that he had to take into consideration.

The moment their blades were pushed to the side, Danzel had been using the skill [Shield Charge] on his shield too, directly slamming the swordsman.

"Gah!" Feeling the huge amount of force on his chest, the swordsman rolled several meters to the ground.

Through his experience, he managed to get his footing back, the blood he coughed proved that it quite hurt him.

But there was still a smile on his face.

As he achieved this by creating some distance between the dark knight.

"Fruitless efforts." Danzel said while looking at the two fire elementals that came from both his left and right.

'I guess I will deal with these things first...'

With dark green mana engulfing his sword, he threw a [Soul Reaping Wind] at one of the fire elementals.

As the elemental movement was too slow, it decided to swing its fire claws right at the incoming wind blade.

But alas, the moment the wind blade came in contact with the fire elemental, he cut through him in half like butter.

"Wgaaah!" A loud unnatural stretch came from the fire elemental before the flames disappeared into nothingness.

"Huh!?"

Seeing that the magic caster was shocked beyond belief.

'My fire elements can reform even after being cut Into pieces! How come it was destroyed by a single attack!"

In turn, Danzel was somewhat disappointed at the strength of that element.

It was his first time seeing such kind of magic and it was quite interesting. The fire elemental seemed quite strong appearance-wise.

"So weak."

Throwing another [Soul Reaping Blade] at the other fire elemental, Danzel felt truly disappointed.

The fact was, the fire elementals were incredibly strong.

Other than their slow movement, they received minimal damage from both physical and magic damage. Wherever cut or blown to pieces, they could have gathered their lost flames pieces to reform once more.

Other than ice or water magic, they were incredibly hurt to kill.

From strength size, they were a bit stronger than the average arcanic mutants, but each attack was filled with flames.

The reason they lost so easily was because of the nature of [Soul Reaping Blade].

The wind was easily able to cut down their fire body, allowing for the soul essence of those elementals to be cut in a large amount.

And as elementals were newly formed beings and mostly considered of a mana body. Their soul essence was all the more vulnerable.

So when it was cut down, they couldn't keep their bodies from existing anymore.

In short, Danzel severely countered the fire elementals!

It didn't take him long before he switched his focus back on the swordsman.

The swordsman cursed internally as of not even have enough time to recover.

Moving at an incredible amount of speed, both of them appeared in front of each other and began clashing with their swords.

The sounds of swords clashing echoed everywhere.

The soldiers looking at the fight were extremely nervous were the undead were...expressionless.

The magic caster tried to intervene in their fight, be it by giving the swordsman buffs or using offensive spells. But the situation didn:'t change.

Whatever buff he gave the swordsman, he was always overpowered by the dark knight and offensive spells could harm him too.

The swordsman holder was quite well, but after the wounds started to grow in number, his body started to fail him.

Not only was his skin showing the effects of necrosis but he also felt physically and mentally weak as if his own soul was growing weaker by the second.

Under such conditions, Danzel was finally able to drive his sword right tough the chest of the swordsman.

"A-Agh!!!"

Drawing his blade out Danzel watched how the man struggled to keep swinging his sword at him.

Unfortunately with his heart destroyed and decaying, the man fell to the ground.

In turn, Danzel wasn't even hurt once.

"Compared to the other guys outside, you were quite strong-"

Without being able to finish, a wave of scorching flames washed over him.

Once the flames were gone, Danzel appeared totally unfazed.

"Right, there was also you..."

Turning his killing undead to the magic caster, he shudders in fear.

"W-What are all of you guys do! Don't allow him of coming any closer! Keep him busy until I finish my next spell."

Hearing that, the soldiers showed their unwillingness on their faces, but they still followed the magic caster's orders.

Seeing the hundred or so soldiers coming at him, Danzel scoffed out loud.

"Hah! To think you would resort to that."

In the next moment, the 30 Draugrs of his stepped forward.

Though they were secretly outnumbered, it didn't matter.

This undead had only to keep the others from completely surrounding him and allowing him the chance to cleave through the living.

With his command, he leads the undead to charge toward the living.

"Spears! Push the spears forward!"

'Useless.'

Covering his sword with his mana, 3 [Soul Reaping Blades] cut through their lines, allowing his undead to fight the soldiers evenly.

Those in front of Danzel's path were cut down mercilessly filing at the same time his cursed sword with their soul essences. Making their pain all the more painful.

It didn't even take a minute for new undead to raise from the available corpses.

The magic caster tried to cast whatever spell he knew at the dark knight, even if it hit the soldiers following his orders.

Each physical type spell was blocked by his shield whereas AoE spells seemed to do nothing to him.

In fact, those spells were harming him, but the damage was quickly recovered by the spell [Necromatic Restoraction].

He had enough time to spare and he even used the swordsman to regain bits of his own mana by blocking his attacks with his shield.

Though annoying, he is still on the winning side.

Once the majority of soldiers became undead, they started to focus on the magic caster too.

The now turned soldiers looked at the magic caster with hate, making them look as if they were blaming him for their deaths when actually it was purely the curse of the undead that made them hate the living.

Once Danzel decided to step in, the magic caster met his fate.

His fate was joining the ranks of the undead.

With everyone killed here, Danzel heated his sword back in his scabbard.

"You all! Search the castle! Kill anyone you find! But try to not break stuff in the castle."

His undead nodded and went exploring the castle under their lieges command.

"That took a while..." Danzel mumbled as he walked outside the gate of the castle.

"I should notify the others..."

Making his shield disappear from his storage ring, he raised both his hand in front of him.

"Let's see if it works this time..." He mumbled before pushing his mana into the middle of both his arms.

Controlling his mana just like the books had written, his dark green mana of his slowly turned into a bright red color.

And in the next moment, the mana turned into a small ball of fire.

"Here you go!"

Pushing the small ball of fire up into the air, the ball of fire was soon shot several meters up high, working as a beacon of light in the middle of the night.

Mentally exhausted, Danzel fell to his knees.

Reason being that this ball of fire wasn't a skill of his, but was actually made by using his very own knowledge of magic.