Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1351: Joining Hands! (1)



<MASTER SOUMEI WILL BE EQUALLY DELIGHTED IN YOU AS A PRIZE, OR PERHAPS MORE THAN HE REGARDS THIS RICH WORLD.>

There was something about deific power that transcended even something like a language barrier. But of course, it was only natural. Becoming a Deity meant being greater than the sum of many worlds and their concepts.

Skullius' face hardened, but he wasn't too dismayed.

It was all but obvious, given what the Repented Lich Soidon had told him about the true power of Liches, that this Doom Knight was under the charge of one. And it was also obvious that it too would be attracted by his Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz.

But Aurolio, far from looking as shaken as Elita, Uyuniya and even the Doom Knight, laughed.

He had been watching Skullius closely, silently. He had gleaned much, including the funny fact as his offhanded statement from before had suggested - that literally everything was revolving around the Hybrid Warmoth.

And that was the reason he had dived in to 'save' Skullius from Void.

Wherever Skullius was, there was ample opportunity for humility and growth.

But the Hybrid Warmoth hadn't been oblivious to the pale man's attention to his every move. In a way, they both shared a sense of cool calm. After all, even when a Deific Undead minion had resolved to take him on, Skullius was unconcerned.

It wasn't the first time someone much stronger than him had decided to kill him.

He instead focused on the threads of Maximum Jaqquezjaqqz swirling around his fingers. Aurolio paid them great attention too.

But then...

Without warning, Skullius' hand burst apart violently!

He cursed. Aurolio whistled. Kenno frowned.

"Yeah. It's dangerous alright," Skullius said. His hand had regenerated before he finished his sentence.

"Well, well, well. Now this is interesting! That was the critical detonation point! To think you're actually using Void's powers...in a way," Aurolio said, grinning.

Skullius turned to him. He meant to ask him what Aurolio meant right then, but instead, he gave a sharp look to the towering Doom Knight. It had raised its great sword and was pointing it at him. This was no more than a gesture - perhaps to also mark him as its own - but Skullius knew this was where the struggle for life and death would begin.

Thus...

"Kenno. I need you to make the environment as stable as possible. One serious exchange with this thing on Pelian will sink Feinheath in less than a second," he said.

Kenno acknowledged, though he did wonder why Skullius didn't just order Araeyn to swipe everyone into a Null Remnant if he was worried about Aigas.

Still, he got down on one knee and planted his hand on the ground. A staggering amount of mana surged through his body and as it met the skills branded within it, it was expelled as a peculiar effect.

The mountainous region plagued with very sparse, rich vegetation and a mix of different soils suddenly turned an iron-crusted scape spanning over thousands of kilometres from Kenno. The iron lacked any lustre and looked a little rusted. A bit of a nasty yellow hue ran along it, making it look unnatural; but of course, it was unnatural. Anyone with even the most modest appreciation of mana could tell that the iron was sucking up ambient mana at a furious rate. Kenno had a Hidden Class called Matter Monster. He could freely change the state of existence - shape, composition, mass etc. - of any non-living object he came into contact with. The more non-magical the object, the more alterations he could make; at times, it would appear as though he had created something from nothing at all.

When it came to living things, Kenno didn't have as much freedom, but he could affect any phenomenon in their immediate surroundings like gravity, light, air, space and so on.

Skullius imagined that the reason Kenno had survived against the Doom Knight was because he had abused Araeyn's ability to drag opponents to Null Remnants to the extreme. Because the Null Remnants were unclaimed by any Deity and seemingly couldn't be claimed at all, he had manipulated the various, queer conditions around the Deity while Araeyn kept transporting them all to different Null Remnants - with different environments - so that the Doon Knight couldn't adapt. (He had still died several times though.)

At present, Kenno had changed the composition of every non-living thing in the surrounding area to a special type of iron that absorbed mana in order to make itself extremely resistant. He had encountered this type of iron in the Timemould Mirror Box. (One of the infinite armour sets that could take on any appearance.) Its natural durability was already slightly greater than the entirety of the land on Aigas, but with mana involved, it quickly grew much stronger.

Aurolio gave the iron a tap with his foot.

"Sturdy," he said to Kenno. "But I doubt it will hold for long."n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The Unlimited Star turned to Skullius. He had similar doubts. Skullius knew this.

"What I'm aiming for won't take long. Hopefully," he said, and in a blink, he had teleported everyone - including Elita and Uyuniya - high into the air. (The still unconscious Sila was held up by Araeyn.)

Uyuniya seemed to have an opinion about the abrupt teleportation, but...

"Boss!" Kenno cried. Skullius had already perceived IT. In fact, he had hoped for the enemy to be prompted to make the first move because of his choice to move everyone into the sky.

Quite lackadaisically, the Doom Knight raised one of its hands and made a claw gesture at them from the ground.

<CAPTURE.>

There was a dreadful pulse of Undeath the likes of which Skullius had never felt before. He felt the Rules around them get eroded and corrupted, and like burning hairs, they coiled and broke. Space receded around the group and shattered, leaving the mix of Stagnant Space and the darkness of the void. But then even that was forced away.

Undeath energy condensed into a prison around the seven and while surrounded on all sides by darkness, they were trapped in crimson.

The prison was shaped like an irregular nonagonal prism from the outside, shiny and sturdy. It hardly had enough space for the seven, but it contained them all the same. Skullius gave a chuckle. For an instant, he was tempted to transform into his War Body. "This sockethole is really underestimating us," he said. He was sure the damn thing was all too pleased with itself. To be sure, this prison was likely to be extremely tough, Skullius new, but he was all too sure this wouldn't hold him if he really wanted to break out. Raw Null Life was superior to raw Undeath, after all.

He was happy to see that Uyuniya felt the same. The scowl on her face brought out the beauty in her furious, three-pupiled eyes. Well, he imagined it did. Her face was hidden. Skullius turned to her and Elita, positioned oddly above him, Aurolio and Kenno in the prison.

"Now, surely, I think we can agree that our ideologies may not align, but when something as dreadful and arrogant as an Undead Deity makes the effort to trample its fellow anomalies, that might be cause enough to join hands, is it not?"