The Ruined Death Knight

Standing in front of the tall gate, Danzel raised his sword up high and swung against the gate.

*Tinnnk!

Hitting the gate that was seemingly made out of stone, the sword that Nersan created for him broke into two pieces, with the blade falling to the ground.

"Ugh! What is this made from!?" Danzel said frustrated.

Reaching out his hand and touching the gate, a floating window appeared in front of him.

[Entrance Gate of the Sacred Treasury of Azur´rah]: Out of the few places out in the desert, the sacred treasury was one of the few where it didn´t get affected by the event of the past. The gate array that survived enchants the gate to be near indestructible as long as mana is being input.

"An array? So there is a barrier in this whole building?" Danzel said as he checked the floor and walls only to see similar descriptions.

"I am surprised that you noticed the arrays..." Nersan´rah said with an indifferent voice.

"...even if I did figure why this place is so sturdy, I got no clue how to get past it." Danzel said.

He didn´t bother explaining that the only way he found out about the arrays was thanks to the status descriptions that he had access to.

"You don´t have to worry about that, I can open the gate. But not right now."

"Why not? Does it require some sort of preparations?"

"Well, it´s because of you. The gate is so made that once attacked, for some sort of time it will go into a lockdown state. Making except the master of this place to open the door. As long as this lockdown state is active, we can´t get in."

"...Seriously?" 

"Yes."

Turning to look back at the gate, he cursed at the gate.

Walking back, Danzel looked at the half of the sword.

"Can you repair or create another one of those?" Danzel asked.

The next moment, the nearby sand floated in the air and flew towards the broken sword and fixing it to his original.

Nodding in satisfaction of the wonders of Nersan´s magic, Danzel reached where he could see all the stairs who by now were engulfed with a bunch of sand.

"..." 

Staring for a bit, Danzel sends out a command.

`Skull Claw, rise up.´

The moment the command finished, the piles of sand shook and then the next moment exploded in the air.

Appearing from the sands came the appearance of Skull Claw looking towards his liege.

Shaking her body like how a wet dog would do, she threw the piled-up sand away from her body and walked towards her liege.

"It seems like I will soon have to remove that flesh from you..." Danzel muttered to himself as he saw the part where she was hit with the ice magic falling to the ground.

Though Undead could regenerate their body, that wasn´t the case for zombies that Skull Claw essentially was.

She was capable to regenerate her bones just like any other skeleton with the usage of dead mana, but such a rule didn´t apply to the flesh.

Though he didn´t know the exact reason for that, he guessed that the flesh didn´t align with the dead mana itself with a zombies stage.

Since he had experimented with the rune that turned a corpse into a ghoul, he obviously checked the ghoul´s status.

And among one of its abilities was [Cannibalize], which essentially allowed them to regenerate their decayed flesh by eating the flesh of a living that hadn´t died long ago.

`That can wait for later though.´ Danzel thought as he watched how the wraith-possessed body started to rise while holding the body of the explores of before.

"Did every one of them die?" Danzel said with a hint of pity hidden in his voice.

Walking towards the top, the wraiths threw the bodies of the explorers in front of him and kneeled with their voulges in front of him.

Only in the fact that they were kneeling towards their true master who was Nersan´rah.

"Hmm...if those guys together with the magic caster were the strongest, then I don´t think it´s necessary to put wraiths within them." Danzel said as looked in the crystal.

"I agree," Nersan said which after his crystal let out dead mana fly towards the few corpses.

Seeing that, Danzel imminently figured out what Nersan´rah tried to do.

"Lesser Raise Undead, huh?" Danzel commented as he saw the corpses stand up and make small growl sounds.

"Lesser? What do you mean by that?" Nersan of course didn´t like much of Danzel declaring his spell as `Lesser´.

Danzel in response simply shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, lesser. As this is the true raise undead." Danzel said indifferently as he shot his dead mana in the remaining explorers.

"Be made to serve~"

With the dead opening their eyes, the newly created zombies looked at Danzel.

"Though similar, my version makes the zombies a bit stronger and holds better understanding in your´s orders intent."

"...I see." Nersan´rah said after a long moment of silence.

"It seems like you guide you will into the dead mana as there are in the middle of transforming into an undead and then..."

Ignoring the whispers from the crystal in his hand, Danzel walked towards the only one person who they didn´t turn as undead.

"Honestly, I thought you would choose him as your vessel that the other magic caster."

The man laying in the ground dead was the most powerful magic caster sharing his tier he faced till yet.

He honestly found the man quite strong.

His fast casting spells were as strong as his [Gale Mana Blade] which he cast much faster than his wind blade. If they were to fight only in long-range, then he of no doubt would have lost, for obvious reasons.

But even if they were to fight on equal terms, without Nersan it would have been very difficult to avoid the spell [Chaos Core]. 

The only way to fight back against that was to cast [Stone Wall] under the guy\'s feet to stop his casting but in a place such as this where he wasn´t capable to move his mana through the ground that option was scratched away.

"Wasn´t he powerful enough to use as a vessel?"

"Powerful might he has been, but he was one with bad blood." Nersan´rah said with a cold voice.

`Blood?´

Looking at the blood of the magic caster, Danzel didn´t understand Nersan´rah´s meaning of `bad`.

Raising his hand to guide his dead mana towards the outside, Nersan´rah interrupted him.

"Wait, don´t turn him into an undead yet, though one with bad blood, his body has much better usage than becoming a part of...those." Nersan said as he looked at the zombies in disgust.

Though he hadn´t a face to see his expression, just by his speech Danzel saw the hints of disgust.

"..."

Storing the corpse of the magic caster into his storage ring, he seated in front of the gate waiting.

***

After several hours inside the sacred treasury, on the other side of the wall...

"Are you telling us that we suck here like some trapped rats!" One of the villagers said as he pointed at the large gate in outrage.

"Yes..." Sasha believed the cruel truth of their situations towards the villagers.

Together with her and the people who managed to escape Danzels manslaughter, they explained the situations outside and we\'re for evident reasons stressed out.

Learning that most fighters died fighting a bunch of undead with a sword-wielding necromancer leading them was quite too much for a few people to keep calm and look at the bigger picture.

"Are we supposed to starve here to death!? We only have for a few weeks\' worths of food in here!"

They say that in face of death, people show their true colors.

And that couldn\'t be more true at the villages who would usually joke among themselves to start cursing at each other.

"S-Sasha dear, would those sand puppets really be able to break through?" A woman said with concern.

"Yes...I am sure of it. Don\'t worry." Sarah said in a calm tone to comfort the scared woman.

Starting at the 40 or more sand soldiers that she created she felt tired.

\'With those numbers, we might be able to do it.\' She thought to herself.

Though the past hour, she was creating sand soldiers and recovering her mana to make more of them.

But soon she was reaching her limit.

"Everyone please stay calm! I will handle the necromancer and the undead! Just like I had done!" Saying so, everyone calmed down and whisper to themselves.

They all knew Valdenz as a strong magic caster, but if they all had to decide which one is stronger then they would had decided for Sarah.

With her being literary a one-man-army with her sand soldiers, she fended off countless bandits and beasts out of their village.

"Yeah...that\'s Sasha we are talking about-"

"She can definitely defeat the evil magic caster-"

"The goddess is watching over us-"

While others tried to comfort themselves and others prayed to a goddess.

The large gate that was supposed to be only capable to open from their side, started to open.

"Ah! The gate!" One of the purples said as he pointed at the gate.

And with the gate opening, the undead and their lives walked inside.