The Ruined Death Knight

<strong>"Hahahaha!"</strong> an ethereal replica of Danzel without a helmet laughed full of malice as it pierced his sword through the heart of the magic caster.

Shocking Nevvan in the process.

By turning his head slightly to the side, he saw the ethereal dark green death knight pushing and staring back at him.

"Agh! This is~" Danzel groaned in pain as he tried to continue his teleportation spell. Nevvan based the copy of the death knight to be some sort of illusion created by his unique mana similar to the skeleton hand.

By associating the two spells' mana and what they did, Nevvan was sure that the blade in his heart wasn't really, or at the very least, it was hurting something other than his physical body that he was unaware of. But just to be sure, he made spikes out of ice to come out of his clothes and penetrate the ethereal copy and destroy them.

Doing so by shifting his focus briefly away from his teleportation spell.

And as soon as he had the teleportation spell finished, Danzel broke through the final layer, alas as he swung already, Nevvan knew that he could get away before the sword was swung once more at him.

Before Nevvan could celebrate, Danzel's other hand that was closer made his shield disappear and grabbed Nevvan's hand with extreme force. Activating [Leech Touch], [Drain Vitality Touch] and the [Rune of Eniv] in his hand, rapidly draining and decaying Nevvans's hand.

Not expecting to be suddenly grabbed, Nevvan activated his teleportation spell, engulfing himself, and because of the nature of his spell, the death knight himself too.

In one instance, they both teleported near the wall.

Only thing was that Nevvan only intended to teleport himself and only himself.

"I got you." Danzel said with ice cold tone as his eyes flared up. His killing intent traveling through his raised sword, he swung it toward the magic caster.

'This guy~!?' Shocked and realizing the danger he was in, Nevvan put his whole focus on creating a layer of armor made out of tough ice.

The ice barely made an appearance as the sword cut through the layer of desperate protection and his enchanted robe, opening a lethal wound through Nevvan's chest.

Not even the beard that Nevvan cultivated throughout the years to become so big was spared.

"Aggghhhh!" Screaming out of pain, Danzel's sword draws the blood of Nevvan while leaving the dead mana to further decay the wounded area additionally making and regeneration process all the harder.

For a moment, world Nevvan froze and he could only stare at a large amount of blood flying out of his body.

Although faint, he could also see the world become darker.

'Am I going to die?' He questioned in his frozen world.

Once that thought appeared in his mind, he clenched his teeth in anger.

"You mere insult of magic!" Nevvan yelled with fury as he threw his staff away and pushed his free hand right into front of Danzel's face.

"[Shatter Ice]."

As soon as he cast his spell, several ice pieces were shot like a shotgun right in front of Danzel's face, destroying his helmet and his skull in the process.

Having his skull destroyed, Danzel's grip on Nevvan's hand disappeared and he started to fall from the air towards the ground with no hind of movement.

Suddenly though, Danzel moved forward like how a mortal would regain his breath. Dark green light escaped his armor and turned into mist, the mist, in turn, gathered where his skull was and started regenerating his whole skull in a brief second.

Adjusting midair his body so that he won't fall head first to the ground and instead lands on his feet, once he reached the ground, the ice under him broke.

He next turned his head towards the magic caster who was trying to heal his chest with a hand hovering about the wound. And albeit slow, the wound was slowly recovering.

'I won't let you.' Danzel thought as he cast his spell.

"[Bleed Verocity]"

A crimson magic circle appeared and lighten up with red light and just as it did, a large amount of blood was dragged out of Nevvans wound forcefully, re-opening the wounds that he recovered.

"Agh!! Bastard~!"

Before Nevvan could finish cursing the undead, Danzel raised his free hand and closed it to a fist. Doing so by using every scrap of his remaining mana, he made an ethereal skeleton hand grasp the wound of Nevvan and draw out his vitality and soul essence towards Danzel to heal himself.

The pain was too much for Nevvan, making him lose focus on the [Fly] spell and fall to the ground from several meters high.

But just as he was about to hit the ground, Nevvan created a bubble out of the air, making his fall of over 30 meters only at 4.

But even then, with his wound, he failed to stand on his feet and instead fell on his knees. One hand above his chest and continuously using healing-type magic.

"Haah~Haah~." Letting out heavy breaths while blood was falling out of his chest, Nevvan forced himself up to his feet.

'This vicious bastard, to think he would leave a curse that makes healing less effective.' He thought to himself.

If it weren't for the fact that 4th-tier beings had much greater vitality than normal people, he would have long ago died from blood loss and as for pain, he wasn't currently feeling any as he shut down his pain receptors, or at the very least numbing them just enough to not interfere with his focus.

In such a moment of weakness, Danzel wasn't going to miss the chance to finish him off.

And with not a drop of mana left, Danzel was glad that [Swift Movements] was lasting till this far.

"Haah~[Astral Explosions]!" Nevvan yelled as he pointed his hand towards Danzel making 3 balls of intense energy appear and be sent flying toward the death knight.

Nevvan knew that in his current state and unable to move without making his wound worse, he couldn't rely on his ice magic and instead decided on other types of magic. Ending up casting an arcane spell.

Danzel saw the 3 balls of intense energy flying toward him instead of getting out of the way, he raised his shield in front of him and activated the enchantment. Making the skull of the shield glow up in dark green light.

And suddenly, 1/3 of the mana that was contained in the 3 [Astral Explosions] was pushed out of the spell and made the mana disappear into the air. This sort of effect also affected Nevvan's healing spell for just a brief second.

The now 3 [Astral Explosions] that had lost 33% of their mana content, making them essentially weaker came in contact with Danzel's shield, resulting in an explosion that was made out of blue and purple flames.

But out of those flames, Danzel kept running, using his shield to push away the flames.

Nevvan continued to bombard Danzel with [Astral Explosions] and once he reached the 10-meter mark, a magic circle appeared under his feet and on top of him.

And those magic circles simultaneously created a similar explosion to that of [Astral Explosions] while trapping the explosion from getting outside with a minor barrier.

"Did I get him?" Nevvan said with a weak voice.

And just as he said that a wave of bloodlust escaped from the flames inside, only for Danzel to appear out of the flames and break the barrier with his sword raised up, ready to thrust at the magic caster.

Reacting to the death knight coming out of the flames, he raised his hands aiming for the weakness of Danzel's kind, his skull.

But once he positioned himself and aimed at the death knight's skull, the ominous was thrust down into his chest and pierced his heart.

Nevvan looked into the ethereal dark green flaring eyes of the undead looking like countless souls trapped inside those ethereal flames, seeking to come out and screaming to be set free.

"Ah~' Nevvan let out an almost inaudible sound of his mouth.

*Thuad.

He heard his heart pump one last time before the sound was gone.

Though after having lost all this blood.

Having his heart pierced and his inside slowly decaying.

The mana in his hand was gathering like never before.

"[Ast-][Astral Explosions]!" Nevvan yelled as a ball of energy shouted right in front of the death knight.

*Baaaaahm!!!

Receiving the explosion head-on, Danzel's body was sent flying and rolling to the ground for several meters, his sword still left on the magic caster's body.

Once Danzel stopped rolling to the ground, he lay emotionless to the ground with his skull and the hand that wielded his sword missing.

"Buagh~! Baaah!" Nevvan faltered a few steps back as he threw blood out of his mouth, staining the remains of his beard full of blood.

Slowly with shaking hands, Nevvan grabbed the cursed blade piercing his heart and pulled it out, and threw it to the ground.

With the pressure that the sword was giving now released, more blood fell to the ground filled with ice.

Nevvan felt overwhelming dizziness plaguing him, his mind begging him to sleep as his body grows colder and colder.

Falling with one knee to the ground while having one of his hands attempting to heal his heart. but with too little and too slow of progress.

"S-Something like this...won't be my death." Nevvan whispered weakly as he focused his mana all around his body.

Using the very mana that he studied for his whole life to replace the work that his heart was supposed to do. His mana forcefully guided the blood to travel around his body, and wind magic generated air into his lungs to breathe more easily.

Though because Nevvan wasn't familiar with blood magic, his forcing to do what his heart was supposed to do only prolonged the total shutdown of his body.

Essentially bringing him into a state where his body was neither alive nor dead. Just something in between.

'To think I will be forced to do something like this...' Nevvan thought to himself as he tried standing up, only to notice dead mana traveling into the air.

"Dead mana? Why is there-" Before Nevvan could finish his sentence, a sudden thought crossed his mind.

"Impossible! It can't be!!!"

He followed where the dead mana was gathering, only to find it was traveling toward the death knight's body.

The dead mana in which slowly recovered the death knights missing hand and skull.

And once against the eye sockets of Danzel were filled with those ethereal dark green eyes as he slowly raisen up with the support of his shield up to the ground.

Seeing that, Nevvan couldn't help but yell.

"Why!? Why won't you die!?"