The first thing Gael did after arriving at the ruins was use concealment technique. The last thing he wanted was to be discovered by an undead.

There were uncountable undeads all over the city, thankfully, most of them were normal undead, also known as zombies. There were only a few zombie warriors and the undead king. Nonetheless, the most dangerous thing about the city were normal zombies. They could swarm even powerful survivors, simply overwhelming them with their numbers.

The fear of any powerful human were enemies that swarmed you. There would be no chance of fighting or showing your strength then.

After making sure that no enemy could detect him, Gael walked to the ruins. He made sure to take a good look at his surroundings, not losing even a bit of information. Zombies were slow creatures, and some of them just stayed where they were ‘created’, only moving after sensing nearby moviment. Being cautious was never too much around such creatures.

The ruins were strewn all over the city. It was rare to find a building that didn’t have any damage. He couldn’t even phantom what kind of calamity arrived at this place in order to destroy such a magnificent society. He knew that the fall of great civilizations were sometimes inevitable, but this was simply too much in his opinion. He knew Earth was doomed, but what they suffered was different.

Concealment showed its usefulness in this city. He moved through the shadows, getting closer and closer to the heart of the city. There, a giant castle stood. And unlike the rest of the city, its grandeur was there for everyone to see. It was almost as if the danger that befell the city had never affected the castle. The construction had a giant statue of a man holding a saber on top of it. Its white walls gave the impression that they were never touched, but the smell of rotting corpses contrasted with the beauty of the building.

After some time, he finally arrived before the castle. its doors were opened, almost as if it was welcoming any subjects that wanted to enter it. Gael didn’t get shy before the place, and entered as well.

He had a hard time avoiding zombies inside the castle, even harder than walking through the whole city to arrive at it. The zombies guards dutifully patrolled the place, waiting for any enemy that could come closer to their king.

Gael knew that concealment wouldn't be enough to go through the castle. Concealment hid the noises he made, and concealed his presence, but didn’t turn him invisible. The corridors where he would have to go through didn’t have many places to hide, and he knew that eventually, he would be discovered.

Sweat rolled down his forehead while his breathing was steady. His knuckles were white from placing too much strength on them. He had faced many things during his training and after arriving in the tutorial, in the two weeks that he had spent here, he saw many creatures and animals that looked supernatural, but none of them were undead. Freaking undeads!!

He steadied his breathing and looked forward while focusing on his objective.

“It’s better to make way from here onward.” He thought while looking at the giant corridors from afar. The place where the king would be was obvious. On the end of the corridor, a giant door was closed, and some undead wearing full plate armor were waiting before it.

“I’ll have to take care of them before entering the place.” Steeling his resolve, he ran like a madman toward the giant door. With all his status at Low (peak), this sprint wouldn’t take long, but he knew the real challenge would come when he faced the six undead that were guarding the door.

Through the way, some zombies saw him passing, and began to slowly jog toward his direction. He ignored these weak zombies and kept going forward.

The corridors quickly passed in a blur, and he was about to arrive before the six armored undead guards. From afar, he could feel that they were different from normal zombies but up close, they were frightening, not only their armor gave them an imposing feeling, but the blue spectral fire coming from within their helmets also showed that. Each one of them had a shield on their left hand and a sword on the other, there was no more flesh attached to their bones

The undead guards faced him and raised their shields and swords, entering a formation to face him. They were arranged in a ‘v’ shape, with two undeads on the tip. knowing that facing them wouldn’t be easy, Gael had to take the advantage of the first clash to take at least one of them down. He raised his glaive, threw the backpack at the corner of the corridor, and ran toward the formation, just as he was about to collide with the enemy. “Shadow steps.”

He ran with an insane speed around the formation, arriving before them in instants. Before the enemies could react, he concentrated mana on his glaive, attacking the undead on the right side of the formation.

The undead tried to react, raising its shield and turning its body around to receive the blow, but it was already too late. Slashh!

The glaive ripped through the helmet and destroyed the creature’s head. The body instantly crumbled into the ground. Gael didn’t waste time looking at the falling enemy, the other five had already turned around and were pouncing at him. Their raised swords and great momentum showed that if he took the attack, he would suffer a lot of damage.

The giant door was behind his back, and he knew that he wouldn’t have enough time to open it. Seeing no other options, he jumped and kicked the door projecting his body upwards. He flew above the undeads toward the open space of the giant corridor where he could move with more freedom. However, he felt a great danger approaching from below!

He glanced down and saw that one undead had jumped with the help of the others, and was going like a cannonball toward him, with it’s sword raised. Gael’s eyes were wide open, this level of cooperation was too great for normal undead.

He attacked with his glaive, intercepting the attack.

BOOOM.

He was thrown toward the corridor, far away from the undead. The blow was so powerful that he felt his arm was aching. He looked toward the crumbling form of the undead that was falling from mid air and smiled. In the clash, he had destroyed the creature’s arm and torso while clashing against it. He felt lucky by being thrown toward the corridor, if that didn’t happen he would be in a pretty bad situation.

He only heard the sound of bones and armor hitting the floor, but soon enough, his excitement was destroyed. The undead slowly began to reform, Gael suspected this would happen, but he would at least take the opportunity while it was reforming to destroy another one.

He kicked the floor and dashed forward. The other undeads surrounded their fallen companion, and waited for Gael’s attack. They raised their shields only showing their helmets above it. Gael took a deep breath and concentrated his mana. “It seems that I have to spend more mana than I thought to take these minions out quickly.”

Mana bubbled inside him, reacting to his will and concentrating on his right arm and glaive, the strain of concentrating much mana in his arm made some part of his skin burst. He felt great pain coming from it but he gritted his teeth and continued the attack.

He dashed forward and threw the weapon! Swoosh! The glaive cut the air at a fearsome speed, the undeads that were both in front and behind the formation didn’t even have the opportunity to react before their heads were blown to pieces. Craash! The Glaive lost some of its momentum after hitting the two undeads and was embedded on the giant door. It’s body vibrating by the fearsome impact.

It was indeed a fearsome attack, taking most enemies by surprise. The mana concentrated on the tip of the weapon carried a great destructive power. Of course, this technique was still being developed by him and would only show its true power much later, but for now Gael knew that its power was more than enough.

The two zombies that were left standing, didn’t even flinch by having their companions destroyed. Gael took the opportunity of having the front and back of the formation open, and slid on the ground between the undeads, grabbing the head of the one that was reforming. The undeads were not there for show, and attacked with their swords. Gael placed the head he grabbed in front of one of the blows, and took the other with his back. Crassh! Slasssh!

He arrived before his glaive and instantly got up. Thankfully his armor was enough to tank the blow, he ignored the pain from the impact, got up, and grabbed the glaive. He faced the two undeads that were already pouncing at him. He didn’t have time to waste, the legion of zombies were slowly jogging forward from the end of the giant corridor.

Facing only two enemies, Gael made short work of both. He only stepped to the side, using the but of his glaive to disarm one undead. He spun his weapon, concentrating mana on it, and destroyed the head of the undead. The one left jumped from behind its fallen conrade and attacked. Gael used the mana and momentum that hadn’t dissipated from the previous attack and stabbed forward, destroying the last one.

“Shit, I’ve spent almost thirty percent of my mana in this short fight!” He cursed in his mind while opening the door. The thing was very heavy, but after a few seconds of effort, he finally pushed it just enough so that he could enter. He grabbed the backpack and went through the small passage without hesitation, closing it after entering.

The giant hall before him was simply magnificent, The ceiling was at least fifteen meters high, paintings of the empire were adorning it. The pictures described a great empire that conquered all it’s enemies, and a benevolent king that reigned its subjects with love. The masses were all bowed before him, showing great respect. This sight awed him.

Gael took his eyes away from the ceiling and inspected the rest of the place. Eight giant pillars supported the whole structure, four on each side. Dragons were sculpted on the pillars.

He averted his eyes from the magnificent room and looked at the throne. Sitting there, a skeleton donning robes was looking at him, the blue flames dancing inside its skull gave him chills.