The Ruined Death Knight

"Awooogh!"

A pained howl echoed through the forest.

The four wolves who heard that turned around only to see one of them have this whole body split into two by a tall figure.

But before they were able to see clearly what this figure was, it vanished into thin air.

Without even trying to take revenge on the death of their companion, they continued running away with heavy breaths.

The only thing that was on their mind was what they did to deserve this.

The moment their pack woke up early in the morning and were about to go hunt, something so fast that their eyes couldn´t keep track suddenly appeared, killing them all by one without any mercy.

Usually, such a scene of death could be considered normal in this forest, since the rule of kill or be eaten was the norm.

But that figure that moved like a shadow killed them one by one just for the sake of it!

`Why would you kill us if it isn´t about our meat! When did we offend you?´ The wolves though aggravated.

`He already killed ten of them, and the only that remained where us four-

*Baahm!

A swift wind passed through them.

And without even realizing it, the two wolves heads in the back were cut cleanly as if a scythe cut through wheat.

The wolf´s still managed to make a few steps before crumpling to the ground.

Cold sweet runs through the two remaining wolves.

"Ghhhh!" Knowing that they couldn´t escape, they turned around and growled at the cloaked figure.

Usually, the instinct of every animal would be to run away from danger, but thanks to the mana accelerating their grow the wolves although in capabilities were like some normal wolves.

Their intelligence where increased.

The wolf in the front turned his head to the female one and mentioned it to go.

With some hesitation, the female nodded and began running away.

"Heh, playing the hero huh?" Swiping the blood from Veren, Danzel scoffed at the wolf.

Walking slowly towards the wolf without much care, the wolf jumped with this maw wide open.

"Move" Punching the wolf to the ground, he was about to chase after before he heard a low growl from the wolf at he punched.

"Grhh~"

"Quite the resilience you have there..." Danzel said while ending his misery.

[You received 3000 XP]

"Wooogh~"

Looking at the cry, the female one stopped and looked in my direction.

"..."

Raising this hand, dead mana surged out of this palm.

"[Curse of Decay]" Casting this newest spell, similar to how [Curse of Exhaustion] worked. A dark mist flowed out of his hand until it pierced through the wolf's body and entered his body.

"Embrace your last moments..." Turning around, he left the female wolf alone.

Bring out the [Sun Timer], he nodded to himself before putting it back.

"I guess a week has passed..."

With this figure disappearing through the woods, only the female wolf remained.

"Woof~" Walking towards the now dead wolf with a sorrow full howl, she sniffed and even lick the corpse hoping for a response.

Alas, to no success.

Although the black smoked scared her and his mate died protecting her, as long as she survived the pact could be revived.

But the moment she turned around, her throat started to become dry while the feeling of weakness came at her.

She thought it was because of the whole stress, but after the symptoms became that of pain she knew that something wasn´t right.

Her pelt started to lose color and slowly revealed the necrotic skin that was growing by the second.

Confusion together with fear showed in her eyes.

When the unbearable hunger started to erupt, she rushed and eat the corpse of her mate.

Though after a few minutes, she fell to the ground looking like a mummy besides the now skeleton of her mate.

***

[You received 2300 XP]

"Hmm, a whole of ten minutes...Not bad for level 1" Danzel nodded to himself as he gazed at the notification.

[Curse of Decay]

One of the few skills that were shown in the [Lower Class Death Magic] and he decided to buy.

Similar to the skill [Cursed Blade], the cursed would stick to the target and burn this vitality through all parts of the body.

Although the effect was much weaker of the [Cursed Blade], the effect generally was good.

Just imaging the higher level of the skill brought Danzel excitement.

Although the skill required a whole 10 minutes to kill a wolf at the 1nd-tier and it would take a much longer time for someone at his level of strength.

The skill could be a nice annoyance and subconsciously put a timer insider his enemy's mind, which in turn might lead them to make some mistakes.

Overall, he was satisfied with this skill.

Although they some other Death spells that he could buy, he decided to just get that for now.

With so many skills in need for a level up and wanting to increase the sub-class once more. Putting more on this list to upgrade wasn´t that appealing.

"Even in that week, I was only able to gain only 340 000 XP. Though it´s enough for the twice improved skills, above that the cost rises too much..." Shaking his head, he walked out of the forest and looked in the direction where Nercana was.

"It took me around 20 minutes from here, let´s see how much is now." Taking a poster, he pushed the ground and dashed towards Nercana with incredible speed.

***

In Nercana around the popularized area.

In front of a charming shop...

"I would like to buy those flasks" A cloaked figure with a mask said with a deep voice.

Hearing that, a woman behind the receptionist table looking at her 40 turned around and gazed at the man in front of him in surprise.

"Oh, mister. Are you preparing for the fire festival too?"

"Something like that..." The cloaked figure nodded.

"Hoh, it´s nice to be young~" Putting the items in a neat serving as a bag, he gave it to the man with a smile.

"That would be 1 gold."

Giving the lady a gold coin, the cloaked figure who was Danzel walked out.

After he put the stuff he bought into his storage ring, he made his way towards the church.

Before long, he arrived in front of the church.

Opening the door, a similar sight of the kids playing and running around was to see.

However, that lasted just for a few seconds before everyone's gaze was upon him in silence.

"..."

Ignoring their gazes, he walked towards the trap door while observing if anything changed through the week.

But the only thing that he noticed was the few children having black circles under their eyes with some looking at the food the others were eating.

`Don´t they have enough to eat?´ Danzel thought for a moment before opening the trap door and going the stairs.

"It seems none has come down here." He nodded as he observed the contracts that he had left to be still here.

If a contract were to be missing be it burning or being stolen, he would consider the ones missing to have broken the contract, even if one of them might be innocent.

Seating with legs crossed in front of the stone table, he pulled out what he just bought together with the contract he did with the man a week ago.

*Pop

Opening the lid of a small bottle that had a string attached, he wrapped the contract multiple times before putting it inside the bottle.

Closing the lid, like a necklace he wrapped it around his helmet so that even he moved fast, the bottle wouldn´t fly on its own.

"Hmm...good enough." Nodding to himself, he has done the same with all the other contracts and placed them onto the stone table.

After he removed some of the non-important items inside the [Ring of Spatial Storage], he moved back to the first floor where the statue was.

"Why did he come out so early?"

"I thought he came to spend a month down there."

"Shhh, be quiet. he will hear you!"

`I already heard you...´ Shaking his head internally, he walked out of the church while ignoring the few remarks.

Going outside the church, he waited for their motionless.

And after standing for around half an hour, a silhouette of a man appeared in the distance.

Comming running, he halted upon seeing Danzel.

"Ehmm...are you Danzel?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, that´s just the mask." Danzel said, slightly embarrassed of forgetting to put the mask away.

"Anyway, here is the bag of the contract´s tha-"

"Sorry, Sir Danzel. But I will have to stop you there." The man said anxiously.

"You got something to say..." He said with this voice growing colder.

"Well... you see. Though all around the week I tried finding a merchant according to your description. But amongst them all, I only found one, that demands to see your."

"Did you tell him that the items are runed...?"

"No, I just told him that someone is selling some magic items. nothing more."

Pulling out a contract, he wrote down `Is what you said in the following last 10 minutes true?´ and input his mana.

"Here, drop some of your blood." Danzel gave him the contract, which the man received with a bitter smile.

Having done that and seeing that the contract hasn´t burned, Danzel nodded to himself.

"Alright, I will meet him. Where do we need to go?"