Born in apocalypse

’What should I do now?’ Azarex thought, looking at his master turning into an egg.

He was supposed to protect the egg, but there was nothing here to protect it from.

Deep down he wanted nothing more than to be just there, keeping an eye on the egg of his master. But knowing that the quest was about to end and so much was to be done in this dungeon, Azarex couldn’t stand still.

In order to prepare as much as he could, he connected with his undead.

[Bring the queen’s corpse to the throne room. Some of you go and collect all the magic tools and every other useful item from the market and collect all of them in front of the castle.] Azarex sent a mental signal distributing the work among the undeads.

At this moment he has about 300 tier I crystallce. 50 or so tier Ⅱ undead and 4 tier Ⅲ undead. The 4 tier Ⅲ was the commander of the guards protecting the city wall.

After upgrading Unholy Death Crystal, Deathforged Core, and Unholy Cortex all to tier Ⅲ, he was able to create a good synergy between the organs.

With this synergy, Azarex is capable of giving complex commands to tens of undead at the same time. If he wanted, he could even give two or three undead the capability to have simple thoughts... but Azarex had been refraining from doing that.

After some research, Azarex found out that when he gave the undead the ability to think, they always began to attack him. For whatever reason, they don’t like him giving them commands.

Of course, they couldn’t harm him as he could simply put them into eternal slumber. But still seeing his own undead attack him put a bitter taste in his mouth... making him stop using the ability for the time being.

There is one exception to all this. He has a glimmer of hope that his Ice Golem won’t be like those ungrateful things, so he plans to use the ability on it after getting out of the dungeon.

Paying some attention to the egg in front of him, Azarex began looking at the world through the eyes of his undead.

Following his command, the royal and most of the other undead turned around and began moving toward the heart of the town. Most of them enter different parts of the city while the royal undead moves toward the destroyed part of the town.

Reaching the queen’s corpse, the undead lifted it carefully. Putting it on its back, the royal guard began to move toward the castle. After walking for a few minutes it reached the throne room.

Looking around the room, it put the corpse right in front of the throne. Doing that he returned to help other undead.

Even with this much undead, It took him several hours to clean up the city. Now most of the valuable objects were piled right in front of the castle.

When the work was done, the royal guard undead left the others in front of the castle gate and entered it alone. After walking for a moment, it reached the section of the castle where the staircase was situated.

During their stroll through the castle, the duo found about the basement and upper floor of the castle but they didn’t get to see them due to urgency.

’So what’s the queen is hiding there?’ Azarex thought, unable to hide his curiosity.

For obvious reasons, he first thought of looking in the basement. Following his command, the undead increased its pace. Reaching the staircase, it began to slowly descend into the darkness.

For some unknown reason, this was the only part of the castle where the light was absent. Like everywhere else this area wasn’t adorned with shining crystal and chandeliers.

Following the order the undead summoned a sphere of ice. Slowly light began to emit from the ball as darkness retreated.

In the presence of the light, Azarex looked around. After a few seconds of wandering in the basement, he didn’t find anything, but it didn’t take long for the situation to change.

’What is that?’ Azarex thought, looking at a strangely shaped object.

As he looked at it closely Azarex found he knew what it was just didn’t remember. Continuing looking at it he tried to remember where he had seen it. After a while, he was able to come up with a word.

’Lotus... yes! This looks like a lotus flower. No, it’s not exactly a flower,’ he thought, noticing the metallic nature of the object.

’It’s more like a machine of sorts,’ Azarex thought, looking at it through the undead’s eyes.

Azarex found that it was intricately designed to resemble a blooming lotus flower. Each petal was made from a combination of enchanted silver and some unknown blue alloy, giving it a shimmering, ethereal appearance.

The petals were slightly translucent, allowing the inner glow of the machine to shine through. From what he understood, the glow was coming from a monster core.

’Is this thing a monster?’ he thought, ordering the undead to activate mana sense.

’No! This thing is not alive in any sense,’ Azarex thought after assessing the flow of the mana.

The complexity of the design didn’t stop there.

Azarex looked at the base, where a special compartment held some sort of orbs. While at the upper petals of the lotus, he found a complex array of enchanted lenses and mirrors.

None of the materials were ordinary either; all of them were made out of really high-quality mana above tier IV.

’What is this... machine... no, more like an artifact. And what is it used for?’ Azarex thought, looking at the strange artifact in front of him.

Instead of its origin, he was more interested in its use and how to operate it. Azarex understood that the artifact could be very useful for the island.

Being an undead lord, there was a way for him to get more information about the artifact. Thinking about extracting all the information from the royal guard’s memory, he called it back.

While the guard was returning, he sent another undead into the basement.

After a while, the guard reached him. Putting his hand on its head, Azarex was about to activate the skill when he felt something.

Suddenly, an aura traveled throughout the city as Azarex felt a sense of awe, fear, loyalty, devotion, and many more emotions creeping over him in an instant.

"My lord..." Azarex bent on his knees as he heard the sound of the egg cracking.