“Welp, that was easier than expected...” I muttered in disbelief. After just a few hours of exploration and no resistance from enemies, I had found the relic I had been sent here for. The single wooden cup looked far more ordinary than I had been expecting, as if to mock the church’s current opulence. Something about the way it glistened without any light present gave it an ethereal vibe, and its pedestal made it stand out from the heaps of treasure located on the floor and walls of the treasury.

Whoever had built this place must have left in a hurry... What kind of fool would leave all of this behind without second thought?

Another possibility was the presence of a trap or ambush, but... could I turn back and give up at this point?

Gingerly, I placed a single finger on the cup. Then, I took hold of it with a full hand, before carefully lifting it into the air. Aside from the dusty markings left by the chalice on the pedestal, nothing happened.

I held my breath, too scared to lower my guard just yet, and tried to store the relic. Unfortunately, something about it made my storage pouch reject it. When I had tried to absorb the chalice with my pouch, it had simply ignored the spatial shift and remained, stubbornly, in the palm of my hand. Seeing no other choice, I stuffed it inside of my robes, creating a knot so that I couldn’t drop it accidentally. I gave the rest of the treasure another look, debating on whether or not to take it as well.

In the end, my greed prevailed. I was simply unable to leave behind such a precious hoard of equipment and gold. Who knew what else hid under the mountain of loose metal?

I slowly reached down to pick up the first item my eyes had settled on, a golden circlet with a black gem set in the middle. Right before my fingers touched it, I heard a shrill roar in the distance. Then, a loud crash resounded and the walls of the castle shook, dust falling from the roof.

A moment later, another roar and crash.

Revan was in trouble.

Immediately, all thoughts of the treasure left my mind and I ran out of the room. As I turned away, the gold and equipment vanished like dust in the wind, as if they had never been there in the first place.

“Fuck! An illusion!” I quickly took hold of the goblet hidden in my robes, and breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed it was still there.

Without hesitation, I continued to run up the stairs and passed through the winding tunnels, right back to the heart of the castle.

I kicked the creaky old bookshelf that covered the secret entrance to the treasury out of the way and into a stone wall, before hightailing it back to the throne room.

On my way there, I noticed several peculiar changes that had occurred in my absence. For one, it looked like Revan had been chewing on a pile of bones he had gathered from the nearby skeletons. The pearly white ivory had rough marks and gashes, while their rusty armor had been crushed. Obviously, Revan had found a way to entertain himself. Unfortunately, this wasn’t without consequences. Several dozen blue ghost-like creatures seemed to be sprouting from the bone heap, wailing like banshees. The ghosts were tethered to the bones, and seemed incapable of attacking. Unfortunately, they were intangible and ignored my passing slashes as if they lived on a different plane.

Soon enough, I found myself in the throne room, where Revan was in a heated battle. Some kind of bone amalgam had formed out of his chew toys and was currently grappling with the giant undead lizard that had created this whole mess. Despite it being smaller than Revan, the bone amalgam was bulky and heavy, allowing it to smack Revan against a wall. Revan gave as good as he got, though, and the bone giant was constantly being crushed under his heavy tail swipes and claw attacks. Seeing that they were evenly matched, I watched from the sidelines while they continued their battle. I could tell that Revan was enjoying this from our bond, his first opportunity to let loose as a tier 3.

At some point, Revan had swiped his claw at the titan, and his nails had gathered some of my overloaded mana spontaneously and created large bladed arcs that followed the swipe’s path.

It crashed into the bone giant, directly tearing it into five pieces. This time, the amalgam didn’t recover.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 7!

“[Overloaded sword]? How the hell did you get your grubby paws on my skill, Revan?” I asked in wonder, more impressed than slighted.

The big lizard shrugged, before lazily starting to scratch behind one of his horns like a dog scratching at its ear.

I was thankful the interruption had only been some rogue bone monster, but was left with many questions. Was the treasure an illusion from the start? What created the amalgam and the wailing ghosts?

Unfortunately, my question would soon be answered...

Suddenly, the throne room’s gates shut, and a blue hue covered the metal doors, as if to dare me to try and open them.

Turning focused, I tried just that. I threw everything but my sword laser at it, yet I didn’t even manage to leave a dent.

Then, a voice came from the throne, and a blue translucent figure appeared. He was the very picture of a necromancer. A deformed skull that formed a crown, a long torn robe that hung limply from his shoulders, and a ghostly staff that was about to turn to dust.

“Ye think to leave posthaste? Foolish...” he spoke to himself.

I drew my sword and Revan growled lowly, ready to pounce.

“Did the dry man put you up to this, graverobber? You will find that for Raverontaberto the great, death is never permanent! Fall under my control, ants!” he spoke imperiously, while a blue wave spread with him as its focus. It quickly covered Revan and me, as we had nowhere to run to.

After it passed, I noticed no change, at first. For a moment, I thought I might already be dead, but no. I turned to Revan to assess his disposition, and found him to be fine as well, at first glance.

It was then that I noticed it. Blue orbs had appeared in Revan’s previously empty eye sockets, lighting up inside his skull. Revan remained perfectly still and remained quiet, only disturbing me further.

“Hey, Revan! Wake up!” I shouted, trying to wake him. No luck.

Strangely, the ghost of the necromancer was even more distressed.

“You! How did you escape my control?!” he shouted deliriously.

“Wait, don’t tell me! The dry man got you some kind of artifact, didn’t he? Otherwise, there would be no way for an undead to refuse my call...”

“I’m alive, though?” I said, more confused than scared. Revan was still not moving, but maybe the ghost could let something slip.

“Alive? No, you’re not, fool. If you were, the double-plane ghosts in the halls would have long since separated your soul from your body.”

“How so?” I asked, leading the old man on. For a ghost, he sure was talkative...

“Hah! My double-plane ghosts repeat every spell a dark caster has ever cast back at them, tier by tier! How do you think I kept my keep as clean as I have?”

That explained it. I was alive, but not a dark caster. As a result, I had been able to bypass one of the keep’s defenses unharmed.

“Well, it matters not. This creature will serve, for now...”

“Serve for what?” I asked, panicked.

The blue ghost disappeared from his throne, and Revan’s eyes lit up a darker blue. He slowly turned and his ethereal eyes settled on me with a predatory glint.

That wasn’t Revan anymore, was it?

This... this thing had somehow perverted Revan. He was going to pay.

I saw red, and my mana started to roil like a nearby storm to match the fury that had settled into my gut. My muscles strained as I tensed, grasping my sword as if it was my only lifeline left.

Then, everything happened at once. Revan’s controlled body and I charged at each other. A sudden claw swipe flew past me as I used aura step to dodge, creating a cloud of dust in the process.

Revan charged through the cloud unperturbed and twisted his tail at me. I jumped, but the battle axe-shaped end of the tail clipped my foot, tearing it right off of my ankle.

With an angry grunt, I summoned my onyx chains, sharpened them, and sent them to Revan. Even if I couldn’t push this parasite out of Revan, I could just destroy his physical body. Revan was immortal as long as I lived, anyway.

From there, the battle turned into a slugfest. It had slowly escalated as we both started to use more and more ranged attacks. The necromancer quickly got the hand of Revan’s laser attack and overloaded claw, but seemed to move more sloppily. Clearly, he wasn’t used to physical combat.

Unfortunately, tier 3 Revan simply outclassed me when it came to raw power. He had better stats and used more mana. Even worse, Revan was using my mana through our link, which meant that it was only the necromancer’s inexperience that allowed me to keep my edge.

Slowly but surely, we fell into a stalemate. My overloaded sword would clash with Revan’s claws and my relentless orb attacks would send Revan flying with each blast. Revan was resilient to the point of ridiculousness, his bones were shrugging off everything I threw at him.

That left me with only one option.

I used [Hollow essence manifestation], my signature skill. A black dome spread with me at its center, quickly covering the throne room and beyond. The overloaded mana started to flow wildly, circling me like a typhoon. The mana gathered into buzzing little balls that looked a little like how I imagined fairies to look. They flew around me happily, as if to thank me for something. Unfortunately, I had no time to admire them.

Revan was momentarily blinded by my skill, but he was quickly figuring out what was going on. I had but seconds.

“Where are you, little fool?” the necromancer taunted using Revan’s voice.

I pushed down the fury that threatened to bubble up, instead focusing on my real plan. I called all of the overloaded mana around me to action, and sent it right to my sword, as my own pure mana rushed to its core.

Soon enough, a twisting black mass had formed with my weapon at its centre. It had taken everything, but I was ready.

With a single thrust, a sword laser erupted from my sword and hit Revan full-on. The entire room was doused in translucent black light, hiding all under its glow.

It took a few seconds for everything to abate, and when the dust settled, Revan was gone. My sword clattered onto the floor, my hands still bleeding from the strain of holding onto it. Whatever had been left of him had long since returned to the talisman to recover. I had won.

Until, suddenly, an old voice resounded.

“Did you think that would be it, fool? I admit, you’re rather impressive for a weakling. Unfortunately for you, my essence is tied to my seat. As long as I remain here, I won’t let you leave. You might be alive now, but for how much longer...? I can wait...”

After a momentary flash of panic, something about his words alerted me. Essence tied to his seat? As in, tied this castle? No, he was speaking literally...

I dove for my sword and sprinted towards the throne in the centre, running it through with my weapon. A mocking voice appeared, before it twisted into an agonised scream.

“Hah, did you think to harm me with... GAH! Wha! What did... you do!!”

I looked at my gloves with a satisfied smirk.

“Sorry pal. Unlucky.” I mocked back. Today had been my lucky day. Thank the king for giving me these essence annihilating gauntlets!