Chapter 7

Blake

“You call that a block?” The words were followed by a massive impact smashing into Blake’s shield, forcing him to scramble backwards. “My mother can block better than you.”

You don’t say, Blake thought as he fought to regain his footing, looking past his shield as he prepared for the next strike. Blake happened to know that the man before him was the son of a Diamond 3 death lord, an advanced elemental knight class associated with the dark affinity. Of course she could block better than Blake.

Blake steeled himself as his opponent launched another attack. The figure before him was nearly seven feet tall and clad in full plate mail. The armor was completely black, engraved with swirling silver images of skulls and bones. A dark purple cloak billowed at his back, and atop his head was a helm in the shape of a grinning skull, the eyes protected by clear gemstones. His name was Cane, and he was a Platinum 3 death knight.

“If you can’t stand up to my hammer, how do you think you will stand up to your foes?” Cane’s voice was deep yet boisterous as he swung his massive weapon towards Blake. His ‘hammer’ was actually a massive bone reinforced with dark mana. It was rumored to be a legendary drop Cane had received from the God of Death’s dungeon the week after he ascended to Platinum. The bone was said to come from an undead dragon.

“We both know that’s hardly fair.” Blake grunted as he braced himself for the incoming blow, pushing as much mana as he could spare into his shield to strengthen it. Sure, Blake was Gold 7 now, and with his dual affinities he had 2400 mana points total. That meant his body was currently being reinforced by 1920 points of mana, focusing mainly on his physical endurance and strength, leaving him with 480 points to utilize for knight-based skills.

However, Cane, at Platinum 3, had 7200 total points, meaning his body was reinforced by 5760 points of mana and he still had 1440 to spend on skills. To say Blake was outclassed was an understatement.

“Psh, I’m only using a fraction of my strength on you.” Cane’s bone hammer smashed into Blake’s shield again. The legendary weapon seemed to blast away the dark mana Blake had reinforced his shield with, and the rest of the impact went straight into his body. This time, he stumbled backwards. He was pretty sure the blow had shattered the bones in his hand. Of course, that didn’t matter, since it was his left hand.

“Until you land a blow on me, you don’t get the luxury of rest.” Cane stepped forward and swung his mighty hammer in an upward arc, catching Blake’s shield from the bottom with inhuman force. The move would have completely crippled a regular person. However, because it was Blake, the blow just sent the shield – and Blake’s skeletal left hand – flying through the air.

“Really?” Blake let out an exasperated sigh as he eyed the monster before him. The death knight had a dark affinity, just like Blake, so he knew all the ins and outs of how Blake’s dark mana worked. He was also aware of Blake’s affliction, and took great pride in constantly seeing how far he could send Blake’s hand and shield flying.

“Get good.” Cane chuckled from beneath his helm and stepped forward again. He had a habit of switching up his speech patterns randomly, something Blake figured was related to the fact that the death knight spent almost all his time alone. Why else would the death knight flip between proper sentence structures, like an educated lord, and then slang, like a commoner or war veteran?

“I really hate you,” Blake grumbled, stretching his handless arm out in the direction of his lost shield while he dove out of the way of the bone hammer.

“Not yet you don’t.” As Cane spoke, he raised his left hand, pointing it in Blake’s direction. Even as Blake regained his footing, skeletal hands erupted from the ground beneath him to grab his ankles. As a death knight, Cane had the ability to control bones – the same ability that allowed Blake to use his skeletal left hand. This was also the reason Cane preferred to hold their training in a graveyard. And not just any graveyard. They were at the very outskirts of the God of Death’s influence, a land littered with graves.

Blake had already seen the death knight use this trick before, so even as the hands grasped at his legs, he was prepared. With a swift motion, he cut through the skeletal arms, his sword, covered in golden mana, easily severing the dark tendrils of mana animating the hands.

“You know this is desecration, right?” Blake had argued this fact with the death knight multiple times. But he always got the same response.

“The dead belong to the God of Death and his followers. It is not desecration for a death knight to wield these powers.” Another set of hands sprang up and Blake quickly cut them down. “In fact, it would be an insult to the one who has granted me these powers if I did not use them.”

Cane’s last statement was directed entirely towards Blake’s personal beliefs, and he knew it. Both of them were aware Blake wasn’t using all his powers. Abilities that had unlocked for him when he ascended, but which he just didn’t feel comfortable using.

The death knight seemed to take that reluctance personally. Cane had been assigned to personally train Blake; both he and his mother were viewed as extremely trustworthy by Alice, the Diamond 2 Guildmaster of the Adventurers’ Guild. And because Blake’s unique dual affinities needed to be kept secret, Cane had been the perfect candidate to train him.

Not only was the death knight ridiculously powerful, he also lived within the God of Death’s territory – an area most other living things tried to avoid. Mainly because, while the dungeons of the gods usually had massive, bustling cities outside of them, where the ancient societies had initially built their civilizations, the God of Death’s area was filled with, well, death.

The landscape was barren, completely devoid of life, and the very ground seemed to emanate a sense of death. Blake had only been to the fringe of the territory, for that was where Cane lived, but he had heard stories of what existed further in. The God of Death’s realm, it was said, was just a mass of undead beings, and the further in you went – the closer you got to the heart of his land – their numbers, and strength, only grew.

Of course, that completely suited Cane and his mother’s preferences. Not only did they do their best to stay away from the living, but they were two of the only living beings who had gone deep into the God of Death’s territory and survived. In fact, Cane’s mother was there now, training against high-level mobs of darkness. Mobs whose mere descriptions sent shivers down Blake’s spine. He was really glad Ryan’s dungeon didn’t seem to have most of the creatures that Blake had heard of. Skeletons and zombies were one thing, but vampires, ghouls, liches, and monsters called abominations… Blake could do without facing those nightmarish horrors. He didn’t know much about them, but the stories Cane and his mother had told him made Blake hope he never came across one.

“If you think you have time to daydream, you’re in for a world of pain.” Cane’s comment pulled Blake from his moment of musing just in time for him to see the massive bone club coming right for his face. Because of his lapse in judgment, and without his shield, Blake knew he had no hope of blocking this next attack. The only thing he could do was close his eyes and prepare himself for what came next.

This wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he ascended to Gold.

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When Blake ascended to Silver, a wealth of knowledge had flowed into him. Years upon years’ worth of it. Teachings regarding the skills that came with being a knight. This ancient information, shared through the ages, had been the foundation of his training as a Silver-tier knight.

Nothing like that had happened when he ascended to Gold. Yes, more power had flowed into him, and the amount of mana he could control and hold had increased massively, but that had been it. No new knowledge. No skills passed down from generation to generation. Just an emptiness.

At first, he thought the ascension had failed. If it hadn’t been for the mass influx of mana, he would have been certain it had. But the dungeon core, Ryan, had assured him the ascension had been a success, claiming the class information he could see on Blake confirmed it. According to Ryan, Blake had become a Gold 7 Specter of Balance. Whatever that was.

This knowledge seemed to excite the dungeon, but it had left Blake feeling empty. The whole reason he had gone through the process with the dungeon was so that he could become a paladin like his father – paladins, of course, being the Gold and Platinum versions of elemental knights with a celestial affinity. At worse, Blake figured he would have become a death knight, like Cane. An option that didn’t sit well with him, though one he had resigned himself to.

So when he had instead become a completely unheard-of class, with no knowledge of any new skills, he was more than a little worried. He immediately left the Bone Dungeon and rushed into town, seeking out Marcus, the Platinum rogue in charge of the dungeon town. The rogue was of little help, and directed Blake to contact the Guildmaster. If anyone would have any knowledge on the situation, it would be Alice. She did, after all, have a dual affinity herself. And, apparently, a unique class, though Marcus wouldn’t tell Blake what it was.

Blake had sought her out, hopeful she could shed some light on his current predicament. However, once he secured a meeting with her, he had been left with more questions than answers.

Alice had been ecstatic about his new class; so excited, in fact, that she had used her strange eyes to hold him still while she inspected every inch of him. She poked and prodded him with her mana, seeing what reactions she could cause. She had been extremely excited about his left hand, the skeletal appendage controlled purely by his darkness mana.

After her experiments were done, she informed Blake he would need to figure out the unique class skills on his own. She assured him some of the paladin and death knight class skills were likely available to him, and actually provided him with two books detailing the skills each class unlocked at Gold, with descriptions on how to use them.

She then gave him a sealed scroll and a port crystal. The port crystal, she claimed, would take him to someone she felt would be capable of helping him master his new class. The scroll, she told Blake, was a letter of introduction, as well as a message to his new trainer.

He had been hopeful, excited, and naïve. That had been three months ago.

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Well, I’ve definitely learned a lot. Blake pulled his mana deep within himself, slowing his breathing and calming his mind even as the bone club came swinging downward in a dangerous arc. He knew Cane wouldn’t kill him with that blow. But it would hurt, and likely knock him out. The death knight seemed to take a sick pleasure in sending Blake into near-death states, before bringing him back just enough with his death knight abilities to allow Blake’s celestial mana to heal the rest of his wounds.

With all his mana flowing through his body, Blake merged the two opposing forces; his bright, pure celestial energy, and his black, heavy darkness mana. He had found, when he was Silver, that combining the two created a new type of mana, called ethereal mana. Blake hadn’t been sure of what exactly it was capable of when he was Silver, just that it doubled the cost of his skills but made them a lot stronger than if he had used just celestial or dark mana. It also hadn’t been weak to darkness, like his celestial mana was.

Once his two manas merged, Blake sent the ethereal mana flowing completely throughout his body. He opened his eyes, hating what was going to come next, and mentally activated the skill.

Over the past three months, he and Cane had discovered a multitude of skills relating to his ethereal powers. This was one of them. Cane seemed extremely interested in them; Blake, not so much. When he used them, he felt a closer connection to… death, perhaps? … than he ever wanted to have.

The entire world lost all color, becoming dull shades of black and gray as Blake activated the skill. The moment he did, his sense of smell, taste, and touch all disappeared. In his current state, he knew Cane’s weapon could no longer touch him. He grinned darkly as Cane’s legendary hammer passed harmlessly through Blake’s now ethereal, incorporeal body.