Knight: from Apprentice to the Almighty

’The Arrays... are they all destroyed?’

As if he had sensed something, Ellis stopped his exploration of the empty room.

’I’m sorry... Holland. I’m sorry... Van Buren...’

A faint glimmer seemed to flash from the depths of his empty eye sockets.

’But... I still have unfinished business to attend to.’

A long, heavy sigh escaped from the Witch Demon’s shriveled chest cavity.

’When the dust settles...’

He muttered to himself, as if speaking to an unseen audience.

’I will go to the Wall of Souls myself to repent to you, but...’

A bitter twist formed on the Witch Demon’s horrifying face, a visage made ghastly by his long-dried blood.

’I wonder where the Divine Envoy Kelanwo will banish me? Tianhe Mountain?’

He let out a short, hollow, dry laugh.

’With my mountain of sins, I’m afraid I deserve only to be cast into the bottomless Abyss...’

Shaking his head lightly, Ellis cast aside his pointless thoughts, reached out with an arm as withered as rotted wood, and brushed away the clutter piled on the wooden table before him.

In the dim light, an object shaped like an eight-sided dice, as if held aloft by an invisible force, hung strangely suspended in mid-air.

The moment the Witch Demon’s withered fingers touched the dice, a cold, mocking sneer squeezed through his clenched teeth.

"Schmidt, you’re as filthy and hideous as ever."

"Acting so high and mighty all the time, wearing a false mask of compassion, yet secretly using such a forbidden ritual to seal your treasury, really..."

Ellis seemed to want to curse further, but in the end, he just shook his head again, swallowing his unfinished taunt.

’Then again, in my current state, I don’t suppose I’m in any position to judge you.’

He whispered, his voice laced with a hint of self-deprecating weariness.

’Because...’

Before he could finish, Ellis had already taken out a prepared Sheepskin Scroll from the depths of his tattered robes.

He slowly unrolled it, revealing densely packed, interwoven magical patterns on the scroll, so complex they would dazzle any mortal.

’...we are now despicable partners in crime.’

Following this almost inaudible declaration, a dense wave of Negative Energy, so thick it was almost tangible, surged violently from his deep eye sockets like a viscous black fog.

This Energy twisted in the air, transforming into countless invisible, pitch-black tendrils that swiftly enveloped the Sheepskin Scroll before him.

The tendrils precisely probed the intricate patterns on the scroll, slowly merging with them like ink flowing into grooves.

After the last wisp of cold Negative Energy had completely merged with the scroll’s patterns, the once-wrinkled Sheepskin Scroll seemed to come to life, floating up on its own to hover in mid-air.

Immediately after, a massive fluctuation of Magic Elements erupted from the scroll’s core.

It rapidly expanded in all directions in the form of a visible, ring-shaped shockwave.

In an instant, this tide of Magic Power swept through the entire empty room, surged across the battlefield in the Demon City where humans and Magical Guide Structures were locked in fierce combat, and finally...

...spread to the farthest corners of the Land of Mist.

A moment later, the spreading wave of Magic Power began to recede rapidly like an ebbing tide, surging back toward the floating scroll.

However, when it returned, it carried with it more than just pure Magic Elements...

The invisible tide grew heavy and, with a faint shimmer, swiftly converged into a surging sea of souls.

Countless souls were forcibly dragged from the Land of Mist by the terrifying gravitational pull of the scroll’s core.

Within the churning torrent, the souls of human soldiers were the clearest and most pained, letting out silent screams.

The murky, wild souls of Demons followed close behind, their forms twisted with bestial rage and resentment.

Deeper in the torrent tumbled the lingering obsessions of Warriors from ancient battlefields, fragments of vanity from decadent nobles, and countless life imprints so faint they were on the verge of disappearing.

All lingering remnants of the deceased not claimed by the Deities or assimilated by the planes were ruthlessly scavenged by the Magic Scroll, its patterns acting like a ravenous maw and a soul-furnace.

The core "essence of being" of each soul was stripped and absorbed, becoming fuel for the scroll, before quickly dissipating in a flash of light.

The scroll’s light, in turn, transformed from a dim glow to a piercing, sinister radiance, finally coalescing into a deep, purple-black hue.

The air in the room seemed to freeze. All that remained were the sighs and Curses of countless souls.

’Using the dead as a key...’

Ellis’s voice was almost lost amidst the wails.

’To open a defiled hoard... How... laughable...’

Before he finished speaking, the scroll erupted with a powerful, yet very fine, pillar of purple-black light, which struck the eight-sided dice hovering in front of Ellis.

VMMMM!

A resonant hum rang out.

Under the impact of the light pillar, the forbidden Runes on the dice’s surface flickered violently, twisted, and then...

...shattered, piece by piece.

It was like breaking a layer of invisible, solid ice.

A stale, cold stench, mixed with faint Arcane Dust and the tang of rusted metal, erupted from the cracks.

The space before him collapsed inward and spun, forming a distorted portal.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Ellis stepped through, wreathed in the not-yet-faded wails of souls and the embers of Negative Energy.

The treasury’s interior was not filled with mountains of gold and silver, but was a deeper void that seemed to devour even light itself.

Countless items, each encased in powerful wards, floated within it like stars in a dark cosmos.

A Dagger gleaming with the light of a Curse, a bizarre biological organ sealed in crystal, an ancient scroll emitting ominous ripples...

Each one occupied its own small space, isolated by Magic.

But Ellis ignored these treasures, which were enough to drive any mortal mad.

In his empty eye sockets, two points of Soul Flame, as ghostly green as will-o’-the-wisps in a tomb, precisely locked onto an unremarkable corner deep within the treasury.

There, a palm-sized box, made of neither metal nor stone, floated silently. The wards upon it dissolved without a sound as Ellis approached.

His Life Box.

Its entire body was as deep as Obsidian, its surface covered in countless twisted, etched Runes, between which a faint, dark purple glow flowed.

On the box’s eight corners, fine Mithril threads formed a complex binding Array, locking in any escaping Energy.

At this moment, the Life Box was pulsing faintly, like a sleeping heart sensing its master.

Each pulse sent ripples across its dark purple glow, creating a cold resonance with the Soul Flame in Ellis’s eye sockets.

Ellis reached out a skeletal hand, his fingertips trembling from the Energy’s resonance, and gently caressed the box’s cold Runes.

A torrent of Power, a mixture of liberation and belonging, instantly flooded into his body.

The Soul Flame in his eye sockets flared violently, its ghostly green light illuminating his silently opening and closing jaw.

Immediately after, his skeleton let out a hum as if overloaded, as if undergoing a reformation.

Within the light, his ghastly white bones were rapidly covered and filled out.

Tendons wove together like writhing shadows, and pale skin covered them once more.

Deep in his empty eye sockets, the ghostly green Soul Flame rapidly shrank and solidified, finally transforming into two cold pupils belonging to a living being, though they held an indifference that transcended life and death.

When the light faded, what stood there was no longer a decaying skeleton, but a tall, slender man with a cold, stern face.

He had deep-set eyes and thin, tightly pressed lips. Beneath his tattered clothes, the Obsidian Life Box could be seen embedded in the center of his chest, right where his heart should be, as if it were a living thing.

Dark purple veins spread out from it, faintly visible beneath his pale skin before fading from sight.

An aura of pressure—far purer, colder, and more suffocating than before—spread out from him like an invisible, freezing tide.

"Finally..."

Ellis lowered his head, his cold fingers tracing the spot on his chest where the Life Box was embedded.

There was no wound, only the tangible feeling of flesh and an eternal core completely fused as one.

After a slight shake of his head, he stepped out of the dark portal.

As he departed, the treasury’s entrance began to fluctuate violently.

It was like a reflection on the surface of water being disturbed.

The space began to twist and shrink, finally sealing itself completely.

「And in the next moment...」

A silver-white blast of Fighting Spirit, seemingly capable of tearing through all Darkness, descended from above without any warning.

BOOM!

The solid stone roof, as fragile as paper, was instantly torn open, leaving a massive gap.

Rubble rained down like a torrential storm amidst swirling dust.

A piercing, silver-white light cut through the dust, precisely locking onto the reborn Witch Demon.