The Ruined Death Knight

It was a decision between quality and quantity in which each option had quality on its own.

The question lay, what was the right choice.

On one hand, [Cursed Hands] had a better potential than [Grand Undead General], but the bonuses of [Grand Undead Genral] were far superior that [Cursed Hands]. In fact, it seemed like an essential talent for raising undead armies.

But did it really fit him?

He had several curses by now that could make use of [Cursed Hands]. And picking it will also grant him two other talents, which weren't that impressive.

He wondered, even though he didn't have the time to think things through.

*Crack~

Hearing cracking sounds coming from his ribs, Danzel was forced to make his decision.

'Dammit, let's hope this doesn't come to kick my underbone in the future.' He cursed as he raised his hand and picked his last talent.

It being [Cursed Hands].

In the end, he decided on individual strength.

'Though I more often use raised undead, curses are for opponents that are at my level. And based on what I have seen of 4th-tiers, they are easily able to annihilate armies.' Danzel concluded in his mind.

But there was another reason that weighed in picking this talent.

And that was the [Rune of Living Legion].

It a proof that runes alone can create undead far stronger than those made with necromancy.

'[Grand Undead General] wouldn't increase the strength of "runed" undead anyway as they weren't raised but created by runesmithing. And by the growth that [Greater Raise Undead] has shown, at best I would have the ability to create a peak 3rd-tier undead if I am lucky a barely passable 4th-tier undead.'

'I have better chances in creating a stronger undead in runesmith, where I have lots of bonuses there, I bet there is a way to make a better version of [Rune of Living Legion], as a "god of death" tried to bind his body using those runes.'

"Yeah, instead of raising an army I can just make one.' Danzel mumbled to himself.

It would take him a long time and would put another project on his list of stuff to learn and do. But he was fine with it.

He was an immortal being after all.

[Can temper one single Talent of your choice]

Seeing the last window, Danzel clicked on the [use] option in the window, stretching the window to be larger and showing all his options.

Talents: [Exalted Undead] [Sin of Wrath] [Reinforced Soul] [Superior Unique Consciousness ] [Rune Vision] [Dead Rune Knowledge] [Undead Carver] [Dead Mana Affinity] [Dead Mana Resilience] [Undying] [Lower Class Death Magic] [Mastery of Himself] [Affinity Carving Mastery] [O Fearful Death] [Soul Nemesis] [Carving Fate with Death] [Deathless Will] [Cursed Hands] [Leech Touch][Drain Vitality Touch].

'And here I thought I will only be able to temper only 1 of the 4 new talents, but instead, it allows me to pick 1 out of all my talents.' He pondered slightly surprised.

If it was only the 4 of them, Danzel would have either picked [Soul Nemesis] or [Carving Fate with Death]. But now able to pick one of all his talents, he discarded that idea.

He could choose to upgrade [Undying] and probably give himself another life or two, depending on how much the talent improves from this tempering.

[Dead Rune Knowledge] was also a nice option, but he had no idea what will happen with this if he upgraded it.

If he had gone the route of intimidating others and inflicting fear just by standing there, [O Fearful Death] was a nice candidate also.

The only big no-no would be upgrading [Sin of Wrath].

Though powerful, it was an extremely annoying talent to use.

[Dead Mana Affinity] was also an option to think about. Though he wasn't sure how it would turn out.

His best guess was becoming a new affinity similar to [Soul Affinity] or just a bonus on all death attune abilities, which was tempting just alone.

Alas, Danzel had already decided where to put the tempering point.

Among all his talents, the strongest of them all was currently a considerably new talent.

That being [Exalted Undead].

The talent that could be considered his race talents.

Born from the [Superior Undead] and it is from the [Undead] talent.

[Undead] being his very first talent if one ignored [Sin of Wrath].

The talent itself was the benefit of being undead and the [Superior Undead] was just like it but with all his stat multiplier being increased from 1.0 to 1.1.

A whole 10% bonus on all his attributes

And now [Exalted Undead] gave him a total of 1.3 stat multiplayer.

Which was essentially a total worth of 1214 attribute points.

It was the simplest and yet the strongest talent of his essentially.

If the 5th tier was the highest point that a being could achieve and he achieves the limit of attributes that his body could handle, he would be a fool, not t choose the option that will allow him to pass over the limit.

Upgrading [Dead Rune Knowledge] might unlock runes of unknown power, but this power wouldn't be his own and even carving runes in his body would have a limit.

"I might be wrong and I might regret it- But~!" Picking [Exalted Undead] to receive the tempering pointing.

"I have long surpassed the point of regret!"

At his shout, the dead mana that built inside of himself was released and an overwhelming aura of death spread for everyone to see and feel.

The thousands upon thousands of corpses through the battlefield began letting out their own dead mana, which was attracted by the overwhelming aura of death like a magnet and travel.

It was like a dark mist of death began being sucked towards a central point.

The mortals near enough to sense the aura of Danzel felt inherent despair. As if they knew the being that was about to be born or ascent wasn't allowed, otherwise only death awaited them.

In turn, the undead that Velkir controlled stopped what they were doing and looked toward Danzel's direction despite them being ordered by Velkir.

The very own dead mana of that undead was being leaked out of their body only to join in the sea of death.

The dead mana wasn't being absorbed by Danzel, in fact, it simple travel around him as if the dead mana itself waited for the being of death to ascent to his new form.

Velkir who was witnessing from afar showed a frown on his fake face.

"So he finally met the requirements, but this amount of dead mana....is not normal." Velkir said.

"What is happening, Master Velkir? Is it something bad?" Shiro asked from the side, her eyes under the hood staring at the aura of death inside the mist of dead mana.

Giving Shiro a glance, he simply pointed at his army of the dead.

"Your fellow discipline is simply ascending to the 4th tier, is just that it seems much more impressive than I originally know." Velkir said but didn't explain why it was not normal.

Hearing that, Shiro pouted, feeling surpassed by Danzel.

The abnormal part of this was that his very own undead stopped following his orders and even willingly let their dead mana out of their body, which was something unheard of.

'Even his aura isn't normal...' He thought to himself.

Others attracted by his aura were the immortal juggernaut, who looked in the direction of Danzel, with a huge smirk on his face.

"It seems like I will have another sparring partner." He mumbled in excitement before several swords of light penetrated his body.

Gazing at the Archmage that took him off guard, he "tch".

'Annoying. I guess I will ask him after the mission.'

Others who took notice of the sudden surge of dead mana and Danzel's aura was the Archmages who were fighting Azrael with his angelic demon clones.

"This feeling of mana! Someone is reaching the 4th-tier!" One of them yelled as he teleported away before one of the angelic demon clones was about to impale him.

"For damn's sake! Someone go and deal with it!" Another said while summoning spears of magma to fly toward Azrael.

Nevvan who looked at the mist of death to the ground frowned.

"I will go, I have fought him before." Nevvan said.

"Then go and make it quick!"

"Of course. Hold on till then." Nevvan said as he started flying down back to the battlefield.

...

As for Danzel, his body started to crack open and be repaired by his own dead mana itself over and over again as a wave of notifications started to appear right after another.

The weird part of them was that they were shaken unnatural, something that was a first. But he put this anomaly in the back of his head.

Instead, he focused on the information of said notifications.

[You acquired Soul Nemesis]

[You acquired Carving Fate with Death]

[You acquired Deathless Will]

[You acquired Cursed Hands]

[You acquired Leech Touch]

[You acquired Drain Vitality Touch]

[[Exalted Undead] becomes [Mythic Undead]]

[Your Talent Superior Unique Consciousness gets upgraded]

[Proficiency and skill cost reduction of soul-based skills becomes 35% and all attributes increase becomes + 30]

[You acquire the Race Talent [Armor of Death Knight]]

[You acquire the Race Talent [Wielder of Death]]

[Strength increased by 300, Agility increased by 250, Intelligence increased by 200, Endurance increased by 300]

[Talent limitation has disappeared. Achievable Talents are now Available!]

[You Became a Death Knight]

As soon as the last window appeared, the circling dead mana exploded through the battlefield like a wave.

The dead mana that passed through the undead empowered them as their howling battlecries sounded through the air as if to celebrate the manifestation of a Death Knight.

The dead mana that passed the corpses of the arcana soldiers in turn sipped inside their bodies and made them raise once more as undead far stronger than they were before.

From [Wight]'s to [Bane Walker]'s and many other skeleton-type undead of the 3rd-tier, they began rising once more with their weapons in hand as newly born undead. And they numbered thousands.

The dead mana traveled kilometers far and wide, killing rats and other small animals unable to withstand such death energy and raising them as undead.