The silver-haired man continued to walk toward the west. He surveyed the place, but he found nothing.
'I don't feel any presence,' he thought after some hours of walking.
Then, not far from him, he found a huge castle clouded with undead energy. He decided to enter and ask what happened to the place.
However, upon opening the castle door, thousands of death knights greeted him while a man without eyes was sitting on the throne that was made of bones, and at his side was a burning death knight.
The man's expression changed after he saw the translucent blade that the death knight held.
"Where's Cinhard?" He asked with a straight face while looking at the man sitting on the throne.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Cadaver laughed at the young man's question, then spoke with anger in his tone. "Who are you to enter my castle without notice? Are you here to avenge the man you're looking for?" He shouted.
"Avenge? Is Cinhard Beelze dead?" The man asked once again, but Cadaver stood up on his throne and ordered his knights to bring the man in front of him.
"Yes, and you will follow him soon. Catch the intruder!" He said.
Then, the kneeling knights stood up and dashed at the man standing at the entrance.
"Tss," the man hissed upon hearing Cadaver's command, and he tossed the black cube to the first knight that approached him, and it got killed as soon as the dice pierced its head. Then, it spun in the air, and the five dots on one of its surfaces lit up.
It transformed into a jet-black battle scythe with five white dots aligned in a curve on its chime. And the dice levitated in a small hole at the blade's center.
The man leaped and caught the scythe in the air, and he rotated it on his hand before he dashed forward. Several knights were slaughtered in that instance, and he swung his scythe with a smile on his face. Some lost their heads, while most were cut in half.
"A battle maniac," Cadaver commented, then he placed a huge magic circle under the man. However, before the spell got activated, the man slammed his scythe on the floor, and the circle broke.
"How? Who are you?" The Undead Summoner freaked out and questioned the man, but he got no response.
He couldn't believe what he had witnessed. This was his first time to see a magic circle get shattered, and to cancel out a spell that had already been cast by breaking the circle meant that the man had a full understanding of the type of magic, which was an impossible feat for a demon.
'There was no being that understood the properties of a magic circle with a single glance,' Cadaver thought.
Due to this, he felt terror, a similar feeling he sensed from the Fallen Demon King, but he chose to believe in his army, and he summoned undead magicians to support his vanguard from the rear.
But the man was not bothered by the long-range spells fired at him; he dodged or used the death knights' bodies as a shield for the incoming projectiles, while he continued to fling his scythe at the enemies that pounced at him.
In every few seconds, the number of the undead legion diminished, and this made Cadaver restless. Then he commanded the burning death knight at his side to attack the man. But at that moment it moved; the jet-black scythe hurled at its body and cut it in half before it returned to the man's hand.
"Don't you even dare try to run; I'll save you for last," the man threatened Cadaver while smiling with menace.
Cadaver remained frozen at his throne; he had already summoned all of the remaining undead from his arsenal. But they were nothing in that man's overwhelming presence.
When almost half of the death knights had fallen, the dice at the center of the scythe rolled once more, and two dots lit up. Then, the scythe transformed into a pair of jet-black twin daggers with a single white dot on each blade, and the dice was hanging through a chain in one of the dagger's handles.
It was a massacre. The twin daggers butchered the remaining undead at an incredible speed. When it was almost done, a huge orb of undead energy was thrown at the silver-haired man; it was Cadaver's last attack. But the dice rolled once again, and a huge jet-black shield with a dice engraved at its center appeared, protecting the man from explosion. Four white dots could be seen on its four corners.
All of Cadaver's remaining energy was condensed into that orb, but it got blocked just like that. He threw away his pride and kneeled on the ground upon seeing the man walking closer to him. The shield had already disappeared, and the dice had transformed once more into a scythe.
"Do not kill me, please! I'll abide by all of your commands and answer your queries; just spare this humble servant," Cadaver kowtowed while begging for his life.
But the man didn't halt his movement and sliced Cadaver in half without a second thought.
"Your soul is not even worth collecting," the man said before he picked up the cane and left the castle.
. . . . .
A few weeks later, near the edges of the Mountain Range of Phantasms, a group of three people were traveling together. They looked like mercenaries out on a specified assignment.
"Are you sure we can do this with just the three of us?" A red-haired woman equipped with a bow, asked while walking behind the two men. Her eyes were full of doubt, but she still continued walking.
"Eliana, I already said that if you're afraid, you can go back and just wait for us in the town," the black-haired man wearing light armor said as he stopped and confronted the woman. "We need to, for Clive." He said it with a hint of worry in his eyes.
The red-haired woman yielded as soon as she heard the name, "Clive." It was for her brother, who got poisoned during their last mission. He blocked an arrow from a goblin, using his body to protect her from danger.
And now, their assignment was to gather a bottle of troll's blood. This was the main ingredient that the town healer needed to create an antidote for the poison. However, Eliana knew how dangerous this mission was. The mountain range they were heading toward was full of different kinds of beasts. And they couldn't afford to hire someone to do the job for them.
An attack party of five people was the minimum requirement to explore the mountain. The common party was composed of a tank, two damage dealers, a magician, and a priest or healer. But now they were going with just the three of them: a tank, an archer, and a warrior. Their magician left their team with the sole reason that a party without a healer was as good as dead inside the mountain.
Though they didn't blame the magician for leaving, if not for the thought that Clive had stood up as their brother since they were children and treated them like a real family, they wouldn't have done this dangerous mission.
After some walking, they arrived at their destination. The odds were with them; not a single beast approached their party since they climbed up the mountain. Then, they crouched in the distance and saw a cave.
According to their map, this was the place they were headed—the hideout of trolls.
"So Henry, what's the plan?" asked the large man holding a shield and a large hammer hanging on his back.
"We'll wait until a single troll leaves the cave, follow it, and hunt it down," the warrior named Henry answered without averting his gaze from the cave.
"Eliana, scan the surrounding area with your Legacy; we need to set up an ambush," Henry commanded.
"Okay, let me do it," she replied, and then she touched the land and made a circle out of a thin white line that enlarged its size until it covered a fifty-meter radius with her as the center.
"Duck!" She shouted, and then several arrows flew in their direction in the next few seconds.
Afterwards, five trolls walked out of the cave, and they were looking at the young mercenaries hiding in the shrubs.
"Shit!" Henry dropped from his back, then he shouted. "Run!"
Then the group fled from the cave, but the trolls kept on chasing them. They even fired arrows at the mercenaries, and Eliana tripped over the roots of a giant tree.
"Eliana!" The two men shouted in panic upon seeing her fall.
They returned and got her up, but her feet were swollen, leaving her unable to run.
"Henry! Carry Eliana and run, I'll block them," the large man said with a determined look.
"No! George, you two, just leave me here, please," Eliana suggested.
But Henry didn't say a word; instead, he nodded at George, and he ran as soon as he carried and hung Eliana on his shoulders.
"Put me down, Henry! George! Put me down! No! George!" Eliana cried while the figure of George became smaller and smaller to her eyes.
. . . . .
"No one is allowed to pass as long as I'm standing here," George said after he smashed the troll that tried to sneak into his side to chase his friends.
Then he touched the big rock on his side, and his body turned into stone. Despite his large build, George was flexible, and his senses were sharp. The trolls couldn't approach him without care.
"Human. Strong. Stone," the troll that was smashed by the hammer, talked to his companions, but they just laughed at his remark. Then, the four trolls dashed at the man with their spears.
George didn't evade the attack; instead, he let them pierce his body. But the spears broke the moment they touched his skin, and the trolls were caught unawares due to this, and they just stayed there with questions on their faces.
"Fools," George conveyed before he smashed them with his huge hammer and shield.
The trolls shouted in pain, but they got up as soon as they fell to the ground. However, their regenerative capabilities were so good that the mark from George's attack was nowhere to be seen the moment they stood up.
'This won't do; a blunt weapon doesn't work,' George thought.
He looked around and tried to search for something he could use when a small axe propelled itself in his direction.
He raised his giant shield to block the weapon, but he was pushed a meter away when it collided with the axe. He was surprised by the strength of the attack.
Then he looked where it came from, and he lost all of his hope to come out alive upon seeing a group of trolls smiling at him, and at the center of them was a troll warlord whose body was twice as big as the normal one.
"Human. Meat. Delicious!" said the warlord while licking its mouth.
. . . . .
After running for a few hours, Henry dropped the crying Eliana. The two of them arrived in a river bed with large trees giving shade to the area.
"Why? Why do we need to leave George?" Eliana yelled at Henry.
"Stop crying. Will you? Do you think I wanted to run without him? We did it just to save you," Henry said.
"Let's get back to the town," he added.
"How about my brother? George's sacrifice? If we go back now," she complained, but Henry had already made his decision.
"Listen, he sacrificed himself for you, for us to get away from this place. And for your brother, we'll search for an alternative to the troll's blood. Let's get out of here alive for now." He explained while holding Eliana's shoulders and looking at her straight in the eye.
Then they heard a weak voice coming from a distance.
"You guys are loud," a man said after leaping from the branch of the tree that was standing behind them.
He was dressed in tattered white clothing, and his hair was silver in color. At his left ear, he had an earring with a dangling red dice which suited him well. But it wasn't his nice looking appearance that caught the attention of the two mercenaries; it was his eyes.
Those dull and lifeless ones.
. . . . .