The Ruined Death Knight-Novel

[You acquired O Fearful Death]

[Strength Increased by 50, Agility Increased by 40, Intelligence Increased by 30, Endurance Increased by 60]

Danzel who saw the top part of the window was pleasantly surprised by the sudden increase in his attributes and acquired a new talent.

And yet he couldn´t get happy as he continue reading the text below.

"W-What?" Danzel stuttered as he got closer to the window, wondering if he read wrong.

If Danzel had skin, it would already have been pale by now.

[You failed to meet the requirements to become a Death Knight]

[After finishing the requirements, the evolution will take place]

[Click Here to see the requirements]

Danzel stood there frozen like a statue, unable to understand what the message implied.

You didn´t meet the requirements.

You failed.

Those words echoed through his mind like a broken radio that wouldn´t stop repeating the same crappy song.

Danzel didn´t have the strength to see the requirements to become a Death Knight.

Or rather, he never felt as strong as he was now.

As he gained a whooping of 50 Strength and 60 Endurance and the fact that he couldn´t control his strength, he felt like he could actually damage the sacred treasury walls if he tried with his sword.

His rationality though stopped him from doing just that, as he knew that doing that would probably break his sword. If the Flesh golems didn´t manage to leave a scratch on this material, then Danzel´s mere 495 strength would do nothing.

Even if one counted his stats multiplier.

Alas, Danzel was too shocked as he never expected to see such a thing.

Although he would have expected it if it were one of his classes since they always gave him dump missions, a requirement for him to complete.

An evolution till now never gave him any kind of requirement that was needed to be done.

So the sudden appearance of one took him off guard, and not in a good way.

"It´s alright, the status window says that as long as I meet the requirements, I will be able to finish my evolution. It´s good enough that nothing bad happend."

`If I weren´t counting the enormous pain that I receive that is...´ Danzel grumbled to himself.

Raising his hand and pressing on the window to see the requirements, once he did, he couldn´t help but laugh helplessly.

"Haha~, are you kidding me?" Danzel asked the status.

He knew that no reply would come as always and also knew that to others he would seem like he was talking in the air.

But he couldn´t help it as the requirement in front of him was too absurd.

"I should have known with the nature of the statu- or rather with the description of the evolution options." Danzel said as he read the two given requirements.

[Requirement: Raise you [Undeath Corruption] into the fourth stage.]

[Requirement: Kill over 10 000 of the living by your own hand.]

[Currently achieved: 386/10 000]

As if he was just hit by a sledgehammer in his skull, Danzel didn´t know what to think of such requirements.

He found the first requirement quite easy to achieve.

As it needed only the use of XP to finish it, Danzel could easily farm the required XP in just a few months. Heck, if he went out of his way and isolate himself as he originally planned to do in the devil´s tower, then it would be much faster.

It was just a matter of time before he completed the first requirement.

But he couldn´t say the same for the second requirement.

Kill 10 000 people.

Or rather 10 000 of the living.

Seeing the counter of 386, Danzel was sure that he didn´t kill as many people as the counter said. Although the majority were people, quite some amount was from beasts such as goblins, Ravenous Eyes Hounds, and even a Devil that wasn´t from this dimension.

Although he only mentioned those, they were a few more of the normal beast such as normal wolves and deers, but they were just a few of the many.

Most of his kill count was from him working for the shadow merchant Hanson. Since Hanson knew that he was learning the arts of necromancy, he mostly request living `experiment material´. He still remembers how Hanson's face grumbled when he asked this request.

If only he knew that all the trouble that Hanson had to take to bring living `material´ to Danzel would not be for actual experimentation on the dark arts, but to fill Danzel XP wallet a tiny bit more.

Although it was petty for him, Danzel saw that as a small victory against Hanson through those 2 years of essential imprisonment.

And even after emerging from the cursed lake 3 years ago.

He only killed 386 of the living from the required amount of 10 000.

A number that could easily win him the title of a mass murderer.

Yet the status told him to kill more than 10 times the amount of his already kill count.

Absurd.

"Sigh...I should have known." Danzel said in self-loathing.

"The description of the other undead weren´t there for nothing."

The [Dullahan] description had said that for a Dullahan to be created, he has his head cut off and have a strong resentment against the one who did it.

The [Death Knight] said that only those who killed more than 10 000 people can become a [Death Knight].

And the biggest hint that he missed was the Lich option.

He felt incredibly stupid considering how he ignored an essential detail that he lacked.

He lacked a Phylactery.

He long knew that the undead called Lich needed a Phylactery which they could bind their souls into and essentially grant them immortality.

So if Danzel had chosen to become a Lich...

What about the Phylactery that he lacked?

It wasn´t like a Phylactery was something easy to make or an object you could choose to make to be your Phylactery.

He couldn´t just bind his soul on his sword or a mere.

A Phylactery was supposedly a magic item of the highest regard according to his Necronomicon. An item that all Necromancers desired to know its secrets.

"Good thing that I didn´t choose to become a Lich... Although the amount of people that I need to kill is absurd. I can see the goal out of the long path. Compared to learning how to craft a phylactery it´s much easier..." Danzel said to himself in self-comfort.

He didn´t mind killing any of the living to say the less, but he couldn´t imagine the consequences that it would bring of doing as such.

"..."

After staying silent for quite some time, thinking of any solution to that requirement, Danzel sighted to himself.

"That problem can wait for later..." Danzel said as he looked at the zombies around him.

"I command you, gather in front of me." Danzel said with a deep voice.

His body had a vastly of increase death aura around his body traveled together with his voice through the whole room, making the zombies turn to look towards Danzel.

Seeing their not follow his command, Danzel shook his head.

"Even though I was the source of their waking, they don´t seem to follow my orders." Danzel said as he disappeared from his current place and reappeared in front of one of the zombies with his sword raised up high.

Without much hesitation, Danzel cut the zombie into pieces with ease. Ignoring the XP notification, he went left and right and killed every single zombie that was present.

As the zombies didn´t consider him as an enemy for being a fellow undead, the zombies waited there without going to stop his rampage against Danzel.

Well, even if they all rushed at Danzel, they wouldn´t manage to do much.

"Now that I have finished with those, let´s see a new talent..." Danzel said as he opened his status and pressed on his new talent [O Fearful Death]

[O Fearful Death]: From a being that surrounds his body with the element of death, the ones that start to fear for their life in front of you have their mind more attuned towards that fear. Being affected by this will decrease their mental stability by 20% and make you appear like the fear they envision as such inside their mind. Because of that, a small part of dead mana is surrounding your body constantly.

"Not a combat-oriented talent, huh? I guess better than nothing." Danzel said, not particularly excited about his new Talent.

As far as he knew he only had one ability that affected one's mentality directly. But even then, the talent by itself wasn't particularly exciting.

Compared to what he envisioned from getting his evolution done, this was nothing.

"Right, I almost forgot about Nersan'rah's items..." Being suddenly reminded and wants to distract himself from the failed evolution.

Danzel went ahead and started carving runes into various items.