The Undead King of the Palace of Darkness

“I had a terrible ―― terrible dream.”

The cold voice instantly made his anger disappear. Avicord certainly felt the pounding of his heart, which he should have lost long ago.

There was no presence. However, that itself was the origin of the mirage. The king of the abyss. The perfect dead. That King, known as the ultimate zero, had no presence.

Therefore, he was feared. That King was the hollow shadow. And, the troops that received his power were once called the shadow army.

The Death Knights took distance all at once.

The dancing black dust gathered and formed a shape. The shape of a small black skeleton. It wasn’t a coincidence. Its eye sockets were clearly looking at Avicord and the Death Knights.

The ritual had succeeded, after all. Avicord instantly calmed down. It must’ve been because all power hadn’t been poured in. His body was weak and far from a complete resurrection, but the King hadn’t perished yet.

Avicord was ready to die with the enemy but he couldn’t stay like this. It took time to accumulate power.

He had to run away at any cost. The expressions of the Death Knights changed. “Aah… my liege, I have been waiting for you. Please forgive me for meeting you while standing, as we are in the presence of enemies.”

It would be easy to run away. Avicord still had power remaining. Even if he was up against 3 Death Knights, he could at least let his King escape. The King’s gaze stopped on Avicord. That alone evoked an extraordinarily strong emotion — happiness in him.

“You have, done well… ahh, the weight of this body, the pain, it is not… a bad feeling.”

After 10 years of hiding in the land of humans, his mission had finally been completed.

The vigilance of Death Knight had completely switched over from Avicord to the King. Their positions had switched. They’re planning on stopping the King with their lives. Before he would regain his powers.

However, Avicord wouldn’t allow that. He turned his back towards the King and glared at the Death Knights.

That nostalgic voice seemed to permeate his body, his very soul. And the King said.

“However, this is not a complete… resurrection. I will be taking your power, ‘Avicord’.”

Avicord didn’t even have time to understand it. Power left his body, that had transcended death. By the time he realized it, Avicord was looking at the ground. His left arm, outstretched on the spur of the moment, turned into dust.

The enormous amount of mana he had stored disappeared — no, it was sucked in. His consciousness faded away, without even giving him a chance to resist.

Avicord was created by the Mirage King. He was freed from the wedge of death, but that merely meant that his ruler had simply changed.

On the verge of his consciousness disappearing, what the Night Lich, who had lived for eternity, felt was the long-forgotten fear towards the looming death.

☠☠☠

That was something that went against the rules of this world. Complete darkness. The King of the Abyss that was released from the wedge of death by the horrific spell.

Death Knights referred to the evil mages that threatened all living beings and reigned over them as the ‘Kings of the Dead’.

The Lich, which was so powerful, crumbled away. It happened in the blink of an eye. Even the contents of the Lich’s tattered robe turned into dust.

It was the restoration of power. Those who transcended death with a curse, however, also return to dust with the curse.

Senri’s nearly inexhaustible blessing was also temporarily depleted after several attacks. Having lent their powers to Senri, Lufry and Neville also had bare minimum left.

But Senri reflexively concentrated the power and released it. The tip of her holy silver sword shone.

Her Death Knight instincts were telling her that she had to absolutely kill this undead here. Before he could completely recover his powers.

“’Photon Delete’”

She lost strength. Concentrated power, the power that turned everything into nothingness, was released.

The magnum opus of Epèe the destroyer, which she had repeated many times and practiced until she had bled, activated perfectly even when exhausted――

And, just before swallowing the gathering fog, it ‘refracted’ grandly.

“?!” The curved light burnt the night sky. She thrust her sword in the ground, supporting her body that was about to collapse after losing power.

Sometimes it was evaded. Sometimes she also couldn’t destroy her target. But it was the first time that the light had been refracted.

An emotionless voice echoed. The voice that was hoarse and faint until just a while ago, had clearly recovered power.

“The first necromancer is said to have created three ways of transcending death with his madness and wisdom.”

“?!”

She gasped. Rebuking her powerless body, Senri pointed the tip of her sword at him. There was not a trace of impatience in his voice.

“Fleshmen are the demonic beings of blood, Wraiths are the demonic beings of the soul―― and Skeletons are the demonic beings of the earth.”

A wall that didn’t exist just a second ago appeared before her. The wall was so polished that she could clearly see her face. It should have received the Photon Delete but there wasn’t a single scratch on its surface.

The wall crumbled down. Appearing from the other side of it was a black-haired man. He was wearing the robe that Lich had just worn and gave a small sigh. A pale skin. The enormous amount of mana that could be felt from his body. It was obvious when you looked at him. His skin, flesh and blood were made from death. But no signs of his presence were leaking out at all. As if he was wrapped in a very strong shell.

“That castle… was made by, me. Fuu… Avicord, you good-for-nothing. I still lack power.”

“A mage with the earth attribute…!”

Photon Delete was a light charged with the power of destruction. It couldn’t be reflected by a mirror.

But this man did it. He refracted it. What’s more, he did it in the middle of resurrection. Photon Delete was a technique created by her master. It should have been unknown for this man. At the very least, it wasn’t something that could be dealt with in a second.

From that fact, she could deduce that he had ―― an overwhelming sense and battle experience.

The Mirage King was exterminated because of his very dangerous power. But, if one were to put it in another way, it also meant that until he built a castle on this land, he successfully fended off his pursuers and survived.

Nowadays, the number of mages has decreased due to the development of science. But it was different in the era of the Mirage King. With the expansion of the Order of Death Knights, the number of mercenaries had also decreased. But that wasn’t the case during the era of Mirage King. The flow of time was cruel. Some things progressed, while some things declined. The Mirage King looking around. His eyes were red as blood. Nobody could move. His figure seemed to be full of openings, but there was something intimidating about him that didn’t allow Senri and the others to attack carelessly.

“Well, it is fine… let me try it. The body of the demon of blood――”

The ground shook and a single was formed, like a tree growing. It was a spear with a jet-black handle and the blade. The Demon King grabbed it with one hand, shook it lightly, then pointed its tip towards Senri and blinked his eyes.

“Do the mages of this era not engage in hand-to-hand combat?”