The Trial of Death
What the hell is going on now?
Even before my regression, nothing like this had ever happened. I'd never once heard of a skill being absorbed into a stat.
If the effect got stronger, I'm not complaining….
Still, the system's logic was impossible to figure out. I puzzled over it for a moment, then gave up. The system had always been a power with no discernible origin to begin with.
Wasting time agonizing over this only loses me more than it gains.
Reviewing my combat techniques would be a far better use of it.
— Trial of the Hunt (Cleared)
— Trial of the Senses (Cleared)
— Trial of Survival (Cleared)
— Trial of Death
— Trial of Overcoming
Only Death and Overcoming remained. I deliberated for a moment, then chose the Trial of Death. A trial like Overcoming — where I had to push through something — would weigh too heavily on my mind right now.
"I challenge the Trial of Death."
"Grraaaagh."
The place I'd been transported to was drowning in undead. Ghouls and skeletons shuffled about as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and every so often I caught sight of higher-tier specimens among them.
One wrong move and this becomes a real nuisance.
Fighting this many undead at once was not something I was willing to do. The terrifying thing about undead was their staying power. Lose an arm, lose a leg — it made no difference; they kept coming. Even high-tier awakeners hated that relentless endurance.
It wouldn't be like this if I had holy power.
To anyone who wielded divinity, undead were easier prey than any other monster. They collapsed at a mere touch of sacred energy.
I wish I had it.
Even before my regression, undead had given me quite a bit of trouble. I held my breath and waited, and the trial's conditions appeared.
Defeat death and destroy the core.
The moment I confirmed the contents, I closed the system window. I had a rough grasp of what the trial demanded.
The death I have to conquer is the undead.
And then I had to find the core of this space and shatter it. The problem was its location.
I can't see the end of this place even at a glance.
I couldn't fathom how I was supposed to locate a single core in an area this vast. The undead I could simply avoid — but the core needed to be found before it could be destroyed.
I'll be stuck here for weeks.
And that would be weeks spent surrounded by undead. With undead around, I couldn't even eat properly — food rotted from mere proximity to them.
First things first — I need to relocate.
Lingering here wouldn't change anything. Better to move around and search for the core. With that thought, I began to move.
Crack.
And just like that, I committed the greatest mistake of the day.
Why is this here?
A branch lay beneath my foot. Already broken.
"Grraaaoooowr!"
Just as I'd feared, the undead turned toward me. And then they started running.
"Damn it."
I felt a surge of irritation at the sheer cliché of it — straight out of a comic or novel. I hastily gripped my broken hilt and black scabbard.
"Grraaaoooowr!"
What began as one or two lunging at me swelled in no time. My screams of the undead were drawing even more aggro.
Every ounce of the Pye's power slammed into the ground beneath my feet.
A circular ring carved itself into the earth around me.
Anything that crosses this line gets dealt with.
I had used the Pye to dig a kind of trench. The question was how long it would hold. Every corpse that piled into that pit became another stepping stone for the undead — a road built of their own fallen.
The sound play here would be to run, but I decided against it.
Not enough mana.
I'd burned through my reserves messing around with enhanced senses in the Trial of the Senses. Masking my aura with Am (Concealment) was impossible, and even if I tried, the effect would unravel right in the middle of that seething horde.
Then fighting here is the better option.
If I thinned their numbers here as much as possible, there would be a gap before they respawned — and that gap was my best chance to slip away.
The real question is whether I can hold out long enough.
While I was worrying over that, the undead finally began climbing out of the trench.
Shffk! Thud!
I severed a neck with my dagger and shoved the body back down. Even an undead dies when you take its head.
A lower-tier undead, that is.
Nothing to do but repeat this.
Shffk! Thud! Shffk! Thud!
I kept slicing down and shoving back the undead that clambered up, hour after hour. By the time several had passed, their numbers had finally thinned enough to notice.
Time to get out of here.
Erasing my pulse now would be wasted — first, I had to put distance between us.
I sprinted toward ground the undead hadn't touched. Once I'd put enough distance between us, I shifted my footwork and erased my aura.
I need to rest.
Pushing my body any further would push it past its breaking point. I found a tree free of undead and climbed it.
Just a little sleep.
If I didn't rest now, I'd collapse — whether in this trial or the next. I closed my eyes atop the tree and drifted off.
"Hm."
Opening my eyes in the tree, I felt a strange flicker of déjà vu — and immediately spread my senses wide.
Something's out there.
Call it physiological, call it instinctive — something about it made my skin crawl. It didn't take long to learn what.
A Death Knight?
But it was unlike any ordinary Death Knight. The jet-black armor, the sword, the nightmare steed — those matched. What didn't was the viscous, clinging power seething inside it.
Demonic energy?
Too weak to be demonic energy, though. But it wasn't the knight's own mana either.
"Ugh."
Now I could even smell it. At the stench that stabbed into my nose, I clamped a hand over my face on reflex. Lower undead swarmed thick around the Death Knight.
"Huh?"
Just as I was drawing my senses back in, something odd pulsed near the knight's heart. I probed that spot with my senses — and found a jewel-like orb brimming to the brim with killing intent.
Found it.
That orb had to be the core. An aura this strong explained how an undead field this vast kept running.
It's inside the Death Knight's chest, of all places.
Destroying the core meant killing the knight first. The sleep had restored a fair chunk of my mana, and my body felt serviceable.
A reckless charge is out of the question.
Against ordinary lower undead, I could hold my own all day as I was. But a Death Knight was another matter — as strong as me or stronger, right now. Challenging one head-on would be suicide.
Not that I have many options….
And then, in the middle of my scheming, a genuinely brilliant idea struck me. Without a second's hesitation, I put it into motion.
The Death Knight had always been there.
It wandered without purpose. It killed every living thing in sight and pressed them into servitude, over and over, as it moved. Then, one day, a revelation descended from its god.
Kill the Challenger.
At those words, it moved at once. It roamed endlessly in search of the Challenger. For reasons it could not name, it felt it had no choice.
But for all its searching, the Challenger was nowhere to be found.
Where has the Challenger gone?
A Death Knight bound by divine revelation to slay the Challenger began to grow restless. Then it noticed the lower undead around it thinning. By the time it realized what was happening, half of them had already vanished.
The Challenger!
The Death Knight understood instinctively: the Challenger was the reason its legions were disappearing. If anyone could do it, it was the Challenger — the very one its god had commanded it to kill.
"Hiiiieeigh!"
Its partner, the nightmare steed, shrieked. The Death Knight drove the steed into a gallop, charging in the direction the undead had vanished.
"So it noticed."
Part of me had wanted to wipe out every last lower undead before facing it, but there hadn't been time. Dagger in hand, I watched the Death Knight thunder toward me.
"Hah."
I stepped in and charged it head-on.
Clang!
My sword met the Death Knight's — and I was flung backward in spectacular fashion.
"Tch."
Landing on the ground, I clicked my tongue. In raw mana, I held the advantage over the creature. In physical ability, I was hopelessly outmatched.
I have to end this fast.
When the body falls short, a drawn-out fight only tilts the scales further against me.
Skill has been activated.
"Veil."
I melted from sight. As I vanished, the Death Knight began scanning its surroundings, searching for me. I circled behind it and stepped into my footwork.
Pye (Destruction).
The ground beneath the nightmare's hind legs shattered. My Veil broke with it, but that didn't matter.
"HIIIIEEIGH!"
The panicked steed bucked and thrashed wildly — and finally threw the Death Knight from its back. I didn't waste the opening.
Pye (Destruction).
I hurled shards charged with Pye's mana straight at the knight. Naturally, its armor wasn't so much as scratched — and that suited me fine.
It's only bait for its eyes, after all.
The knight batted away every fragment, then locked its gaze on me. While it was busy deflecting, I pooled my mana into my stance.
The gathered mana drew in still more, coiling like a spring.
Then I took the next step.
Hwan (Illusion).
Wobble.
The instant my foot fell, the Death Knight began to sway. That kind of heavy plate had one defining flaw: once it went down, getting back up was hell.
Come on. Fall.
I charged and slammed my body into the swaying knight. The Death Knight toppled over backward, completely.
"Whew."
It wouldn't be going anywhere for a while now. I severed the flailing knight's arms and legs — the last thing I needed was an interruption while I crushed its core.
Crunch!
My dagger stabbed into the Death Knight's heart, but it couldn't reach the core. I drew out the black scabbard, then slid the broken hilt into the hole instead.
"Form Shift."
And in that state, I transformed the shape from dagger to full sword. The blade's reach was more than enough to shatter the core.
Kwajik!
The sound of the core splintering rang out enormously loud. The thrashing Death Knight went still.
You have cleared the Trial of Death.