The Light of the Demigod (1)
A sharp, piercing sound sliced through the air as a disc of light vanished, leaping across space.
Even a high-ranking vampire couldn’t fail to recognize the artifact axe for what it was.
“What the…!”
“Why now of all times… No, that’s not the point!”
While the two vampires were caught off guard by the sudden turn of events, Dalen winked at Sienna.
“I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“Gladly.”
[Step Forward]
With a thud, the warrior’s massive form blurred. Magical platforms gathered in the air, and with a sound like a bowstring snapping, he accelerated.
A storm of feathers surged behind him, accompanied by the deafening roar of a dwarf lighting fuses, echoing through the corridor.
Dalen paid it no mind. His focus was solely ahead.
He fixed his gaze on the massive gate, half-open and halted, with a giant purple skull embossed at its center.
Boom!
He kicked through the air, moving faster than sound. The air displaced by his reckless charge became a shockwave, sweeping through the wide corridor.
His tightly clenched, magic-infused fist struck the center of the purple skull, which was split but not fully opened.
[Piercing Strike]
He broke through, not just shattering metal but tearing apart the intricate spellwork behind it.
The gate leading to the Blood Lord’s altar was formidable, its metal strength and weight surpassing that of most city gates.
With layers of defensive spells accumulated over centuries, it was one of the most heavily fortified places on the Blood Lord’s ghost ship.
Rumble
As magic clashed with magic, a vortex formed. Ignoring the shards of magic cutting into his skin, Dalen took another step forward.
Magic resonated from his shoulder blades to his fist, twisting into five spirals.
[Iron Strike: Heavy Smash]
The sharp energy gathered into a spearhead shape, extending beyond his fist, obliterating the dozens of defensive spells engraved on the door.
Crash!
The gate was torn apart, not just forced open but with its central seam blown out, hanging like a broken hinge.
Dalen stepped over the fallen door and entered the chamber beyond.
[…It’s been four hundred years.]
It was a grand hall, with floors and walls grotesquely interwoven with bone and stone, and a ceiling as high as a royal palace.
At the end of the desolate, empty hall was a staircase of hundreds of steps.
Dalen looked up. At the top, on the Blood Lord’s altar, sat a solitary throne.
[To think someone could harm my physical form, both avatar and true body.]
The figure on the throne resembled a human, but it was made of a sinister red aura, not flesh and blood.
With a clang, the artifact axe fell from its hand to the floor. It was the very weapon Dalen had thrown from outside the door.
The being on the throne raised a hand, brushing back its forehead, where a scar was already healing rapidly.
Dalen took a deep breath and walked forward. The reason he had come all the way from the distant northern Eclahim to the southernmost part of the continent was right before him.
[Welcome, warrior. I am the father of all undead, the ruler of those who defy death.]
The red aura figure spoke, its voice dripping like blood.
[The source of necromancy, the lord whom all necromancers across the continent serve. The god of death and decay…]
“The god of decay, Temomron. And the god of vampires, the Blood Lord.”
[Oh, you know of me.]
“Of course. I know you very well.”
Dalen nodded, pulling another axe from his subspace.
“How could I forget, after you stabbed me in the back?”
[I found the corpse of a necromancer who screamed at the end of the apocalypse.]
The words floating in the air above the Blood Lord’s now fully healed forehead meant only one thing: Temomron had betrayed a powerful subordinate who had served him loyally, consuming him at the last moment after the apocalypse.
There is no rule that says you must always walk the straight path to your goal.
At least, that’s what Dalen thought before he ended up in this world, sitting in front of a monitor.
Back then, he would stop at nothing to achieve his goal of clearing the game.
He awakened the Sandstorm Dynasty beyond the western desert from hundreds of underground tombs, and he didn’t hesitate to blow up the barrier tower of the labyrinth city to descend into the depths more easily.
It was around that time he dabbled in necromancy, searching for a way to clear the game as a dark mage.
‘There are five evil gods. To play as a dark mage, you had to choose one of them.’
Lapilem was only interested in the elves across the sea. The Dragon God wouldn’t accept a human as a subordinate.
Without purchasing the cross-species DLC, there were only three evil gods to choose from.
After being backstabbed by Enaxagus several times before the apocalypse even began, and realizing that the only manageable one, Suum, was a battle-crazed lunatic, the choice narrowed down to one.
‘Join Temomron and become a necromancer.’
In one of the late-game playthroughs, Dalen stood on the side of the evil god and witnessed the final pages of the apocalypse.
He heard the curse of Lucia, the demon slayer, as she drew her last breath beside the corpse of Edgar, the paladin commander.
‘Necromancer, the god will punish you eternally…’
He saw the single tear shed by the Seer beneath the ruins of the burning Diamond Palace.
‘Does the river of fate always flow in a closed cycle?’
He toppled the Eclahim Palace of Charina.
He instigated a massacre in the eastern Three Kingdoms.
He turned the imperial capital into a city of the dead during the Second Vampire War and crushed the western Guild Alliance with an endless army of undead.
Even from behind a monitor, the slaughter wasn’t entirely joyful.
Though they were mere polygons and data fragments, the sight of hope being extinguished in the eyes of people lingered uncomfortably in his heart.
He endured all that and survived beyond the world’s end.
He thought survival itself might be the key to clearing the game.
‘But even after the entire continent burned and the surface turned into hell, the game didn’t end.’
Feeling empty, he quit the game for a long time.
When he finally returned, more than a month had passed.
Since he had survived past the apocalypse, he thought he might as well descend into the labyrinth to see if the Stone of Wishes truly existed.
But less than an hour after restarting the game, he found himself stabbed in the back and offered as a sacrifice to the Blood Lord.
‘What did that necromancer feel?’
After realizing that every playthrough was someone’s reality, Dalen often pondered.
What thoughts did the dark mage, who became a pawn of the apocalypse and turned the world into hell, have after being betrayed by his master and meeting his end?
And there was only one way to find out.
Defeat the Blood Lord standing defiantly on the altar and find the necromancer’s corpse among its remains to inherit his legacy.
‘Arbor.’
[Yes, Master.]
With a mental signal, the subspace opened.
A cold chain retrieved a hand axe, placing it smoothly into his grip.
With a flick of his wrist, the axe vanished into thin air.
Whizz—Crash!
The disc of light skipped through space, embedding itself in the protective barrier that appeared before the Blood Lord, unable to fully penetrate it.
[An impressive throw, warrior. But it won’t work twice.]
The Blood Lord laughed, a sinister smile.
“It won’t work twice, you’re right. But you see…”
Dalen grinned back, raising his hand again. Arbor’s chain retrieved another hand axe, placing it in his grasp.
Knowing he was facing the avatar of an evil god, Dalen hadn’t left the labyrinth city unprepared.
While researching high-grade skills and enhancing his abilities with dragon bone grafts, he decided to make use of the surplus wealth in his subspace.
He chose to monopolize the auction house, buying up all the artifact weapons released into the market, and even opened the Diamond Palace’s treasury for additional acquisitions under the guise of payment for the labyrinth city’s defense.
Whirr…
The hand axe, imbued with the power of a fierce wind, was one of the artifact weapons acquired during that time.
Seeing the Blood Lord’s expression twitch slightly at the magic emanating from the axe, Dalen stepped forward with his left foot.
“Do you really think you can hit the mark, no matter how many times you try?”
[······!]
“Stalemate.”
Thud—
Suddenly, the world tilted, and the ceiling of the grand hall seemed to rush toward him. The altar, which had loomed high above, was now beneath him, as if he were looking down from the heavens.
With a swift motion, he swung his hand toward the red figure standing defiantly before the throne.
Swish!
Before the axe could reach its target, he raised his hand again.
Whoosh!
The moment he felt the familiar grip of the handle, he hurled the axe once more.
The air was filled with the rapid succession of slicing sounds, dozens of shimmering afterimages trailing in their wake. Simultaneously, portals to subspace opened, spewing forth relics and weapons like spears and long swords.
“Exi.”
The spirit of the Sandstorm Dynasty seized control of the weapons with an invisible force.
“Tatsum.”
The second spirit unleashed its power, pushing the weapons to their limits without self-destructing, teetering on the edge of chaos.
Zzzzz…
A golden trident crackling with blue lightning emerged, known as the ‘Calpheon Spear,’ once left to gather dust in the vault of an unknown magnate from the Golden District.
Hiss—
A sinister aura emanated from a cursed sword, corroding the very air around it. This was ‘Lilith’s Fang,’ a treasure stored in the vaults of the Diamond Palace.
Each weapon, radiating its own unique brilliance and warping the space around it, was deadly enough to challenge even the most powerful beings.
All of these were items Dalen had either wielded himself once or twice in his countless lifetimes or gifted to comrades who fought by his side.
[Where did you get all these…!]
Ratatatatata—
There was no time to catch a breath. The relics, imbued with lethal magic and spells, rained down like a torrential storm, painting the hall in a kaleidoscope of colors.