Myths Reawakened

Violent wind swept through like a crushing force. The terrifying pressure instantly demolished half of the office building. Five visible wind blades rapidly expanded, slicing through the air and plowing through the tiled floor. In the blink of an eye, the blades struck the defensive barrier covering the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, leaving five claw marks with a screech.

Amid the ruins, Edward and Carol had their four bodyguards circle them. Elizabeth was protecting the cross-dressing Alistair, while Juno and her two maids stood at the very front. Gripping her spear of Holy Light, Juno stared at the demon with a grave expression, sensing his formidable power. She was tempted to transform into an angel to fight properly.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t.

Setting aside her inability to explain the source of her evolution, the hostage in the demon’s grasp alone gave her pause.

At that moment, two figures flickered into existence: Vice Minister Yvette and Captain Hermann of the Order of Holy Light.

Seeing all three members of the royal family present, they shuddered. One misstep could lead to all of them being wiped out. The pressure was overwhelming even before the battle began.

The two legendary mages’ arrival drained the tension in Juno’s heart. “Demon, this is the Ministry of Magic’s headquarters. You cannot escape. Release the Queen, and perhaps you’ll get to live.”

Her warning only riled Douglas up further. Tightening his fingers, he lifted Sophelia into the air. “Thanks for the reminder. That’s all the more reason I can’t let her go.”

Deep disappointment flashed in Sophelia’s eyes. Remembering how her husband had arranged for their children to come to the headquarters in advance, she realized that he had been targeting the throne all along.

Douglas, having lost his mind, saw only a cheating wife and two children who were the proof of her infidelity. He burst into maniacal laughter. He was ready to play.

While his mind was unclear, the mysterious man hidden in the dark was perfectly rational. Black light radiated from his eyes as he conjured a barrier of projection with both hands, isolating the ruined office building and creating a chaotic, disorderly space.

At the same time, he sent in two legendary mages whose minds had been tampered with: Bourne and Bedfrith.

Two days ago, at the dinner banquet held on the cruise ship, these two unlucky souls had willingly surrendered as captives, knowing that they couldn’t resist. On the way to the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic, they had encountered a mysterious figure who suddenly descended from the sky.

They were about to break the seal and fight back, but collapsed at first contact, tragically becoming the mysterious man’s puppets.

The two legendary mages needn’t feel frustrated. The seals had nothing to do with how quickly they were defeated; the gap between them was so big that even without the seals, they would still end up on their knees.

A dark portal opened. Wayne arrived on his undead warhorse, looking at the ruined office building with the white light in his skull wavering violently.

“Master, I can sense it. The demon is right there,” Julia said telepathically.

“You don’t have to sense it. I can see him.”

Wayne’s heart sank. Not only was the now demonic Douglas there, but all of the royal bloodline were with him. Moreover, four legendary mages were facing off in pairs. The situation was messy, to say the least.

The worst part was the chaotic space disrupting Julia’s teleportation. She should’ve opened the portal behind the Queen, but they ended up thousands of miles away.

“Can you get in there, Julia?”

“I can, but it’ll take some time to calculate the patterns in the chaos.”

You know calculus?

Wayne swallowed his quip, telling Julia to take her time. He dismounted, scanning the area with glowing eyes.

The tattered cloak of Death energy fluttered as he walked. With each step, the surrounding space creaked and corroded. The turbulent, spreading flows stirred the Death energy, and the intangible pressure further accelerated the collapse of space.

After more than ten steps, the Death Knight stopped. Opposite him was the mysterious man in a suit and white gloves. They weren’t in the same space, but Wayne saw the mysterious man, and the mysterious man was also watching Wayne.

Clang!!

Brilliant white light shattered the space. Wayne stepped forward into the mysterious man’s space. Tentacles of Death swung around, surging toward the mysterious man like tides.

The mysterious man dared not touch the Death energy, wary of the powerful Law it contained. While modifying Douglas’s thoughts and urging the Prince Consort to hurry, he twisted space to isolate the Death energy.

Wayne was now a Gold-ranked mage with a stable balance. Wearing the Death Knight’s disguise, he was able to further unleash Shadow Nightmare’s power. At that moment, the Law of Death transcended space and rendered it fragile.

“Death Knight...” the mysterious man murmured. He didn’t want to face a chosen knight head-on, not even when the knight was only a successor who had acquired Shadow Nightmare not long ago, rather than the terrible monstrosity from the great catacombs in Palis.

If he didn’t step up, though, no one else could.

His strongest puppets were the two legendary mages, and their strength was compromised due to a loss of rationality. They couldn’t slow down the Death Knight.

“Who are you?” x2

Wayne stood his ground with Shadow Nightmare. Grey tentacles coiled around him, the Death energy withering and corroding the spatial barrier the instant they made contact.

This was his third encounter with the mysterious man: once at the Snow family’s fief, another time at the Lando Estate, and now, with Prince Douglas involved.

Mysterious enemy with great power and a tendency to hide in the dark was the kind Wayne most despised and feared. There was no telling when the enemy would appear and strike, and whether the enemy was making preparations against him.

One could be a thief for a thousand days, but none could guard against thieves for a thousand days. Now that they were face-to-face, Wayne had to take down this enemy no matter what.

Whoosh!

Afterimages flickered. Time seemed to slow as the spatial barriers shattered one by one. Wayne went up to the mysterious man with his sword. The distance between the two heads covered in black mist decreased. The white light in the Death Knight’s empty sockets flickered.

The next second, Shadow Nightmare pierced through the mysterious man’s chest, the tip of the blade emerging from his back. Surging Death energy cascaded down and corroded the mysterious man’s body until there was nothing left.

Instant kill!

Wayne ignored the gradually dissipating corpse at his feet. Raising his sword while turning to the side, he raised his hand suddenly, shattering the mirror-like space and dragging the mysterious man out by the black necktie.

With a simple swing, a pale head flew. Before hitting the ground, both the head and the headless body rotted.

The pale flesh came from the Astral Plane. Once it landed on the Death Knight’s black armor, it slowly writhed and attempted to proliferate, thereby corrupting his flesh and mind.

Death was serene. The flesh of an Astral creature could never shake its eternity. Conversely, Death, the end of a life, brought the flesh to its end like an accelerator for time.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Countless mysterious men were dragged out from various corners by Wayne. Shadow Nightmare rose and fell repeatedly. While his heart quieted, his hand continued to move. Heads rolled everywhere.

In no time, Wayne had acquired the hundred-kills achievement. He had no interest in meaningless slaughter. The white light in his eye sockets jumped as he searched for the mysterious man’s real body.

Soon, he found something. Dancing white light locked onto a certain point in space. Powerful thoughts emerged from him, weaving into a hair-thin thread that penetrated space to make contact with the mysterious man.

“Got you!”

Hearing the Death Knight’s hollow, menacing voice, the mysterious man’s heart jumped in shock. He had made a detailed assessment of the Death Knight, concluding that the knight wouldn’t pose a threat in the short term. While he dared not touch the Death energy, it wouldn’t be easy for the Death Knight to confront him head-on. How had the knight suddenly become so much more powerful?

The mysterious man was cautious by nature. Faced with uncertainty, he conjured another space.

As soon as he turned around, a dark portal opened up. The Death Knight raised his sword high as his undead warhorse reared up, breathing out purple supernatural flames as she appeared behind him.

Chilling blade aura fell. The snow-white blade swung toward the mysterious man’s neck. The Death energy was even faster, corroding the mysterious man’s flesh. Before the blade even made contact, the mysterious man’s neck was left with nothing but a section of bones.

Whoosh!

The head hit the ground. Unlike before, the fallen head didn’t corrode. Powerful energy of Hell surged. Unable to resist Death energy, it chose an alternative: the mysterious man gave up half of his head to salvage his thoughts and escape.

The other half of his head and his headless body ended up corroded by the Death energy and scattered into nothing, not even leaving ashes behind.

Everything below the crown of the skull was disintegrated!

Flesh regenerated, and bones reformed. The creature of Hell revealed its true form. It looked similar to Douglas once he turned into a demon familiar. It was sickly pale like a corpse submerged in formalin. Its lips and nails were black, and a carapace mask covered half of its face. Its fangs and flesh wings resembled those of a bat.

“Bat... a familiar of the Lord of Pride?”

The undead warhorse smashed through layers of spatial barriers. Facing the trip wires and caltrops formed by space itself, the horse forced her way through with her teleportation ability.

The mysterious man touched his still cold neck with lingering fright. The six eyes on his mask stared at the Death Knight unblinkingly. “I’m Master Pride’s agent in the human world. Death Knight, who are you waiting for in Londan, and why have you not gone to the great catacombs in Palis?”

That made Wayne suspect that the mysterious man might know something. Worried that saying too much would expose himself, he maintained the Death Knight’s ruthless and silent persona, riding Julia to charge forward.

The mysterious man spread his bat wings, drawing two pitch-black rapiers from the void. His pale skin took on a metallic shine, as if donning a bodysuit.

The two rapiers crossed, blocking the forceful Shadow Nightmare.

Wayne looked at him in surprise. The Death energy had failed to corrode his body. Instead, the mysterious man had pushed the energy aside with spatial ability or something else.

No, the Death energy wasn’t completely blocked. It worked. However, the mysterious figure had attached complex spatial turbulence to the surface of his body, directing part of the energy away. As for the remaining energy, he had resisted with astonishing regeneration power.

The speed at which his face recovered was absurd.

So that’s possible? Wayne marveled. Being thick-skinned really did make one fear death less. That was another useless tidbit he learned today.

The mysterious man cackled. “The Law of Death isn’t unbeatable, or at least your Shadow Nightmare isn’t. Leave now. You’re not my target.”

“But you are my target!”

Holding his sword with both hands, Wayne utilized his astonishing arm strength to bring the mysterious man from midair to the ground. The mysterious man straightened his back and lowered his wings to help prop himself up, supporting himself against the terrifying force.

He didn’t realize that the Death Knight wasn’t fighting alone.

The undead warhorse suddenly leaped and raised her two front hooves high, kicking the mysterious man viciously in the face.

“Get lost!”