## Chapter 1284 – An Extremely Ominous Presence

Darkness surges.

Ominous darkness, emitted from the shard of darkness, begins to engulf the surroundings. It absorbed the power by being exposed to the breath fired by the skeletal giant.

“You son of a bitch.”

ㅡCrack.

My power no longer works. The shard of darkness floats away, completely beyond my control.

I check my remaining power once more.

It’s impossible to use any more power. I could manage a simple fight, but if I try to do anything more than that, I won’t be able to respond to emergencies.

My coldly composed mind assesses the situation.

“The interception failed.”

I failed to protect the shard of darkness.

If I had just 20% more power left, I could have done something about it… Is this bitter taste the taste of defeat? It’s been a while since I’ve tasted it. My taste buds are stimulated. But I don’t feel very good.

At the same time.

I think it’s pretty good.

A being that can stop this Kim Kat. Okay, I’ll let it go today. But next time, it won’t end like this. The price for daring to steal my spoils is heavy.

ㅡKWAHHHHHHHHH!!!

The floating shard of darkness slips into the skeletal giant’s grasp. ㅡSqueeze! The hand closes. It’s a shame, but what’s taken is taken.

I just need to think about that.

In the first place, I’m the one who fucking slaughtered the Corrupted Hero Ludenkor. It would be annoying if the Lich recovered that shard of darkness. If something similar to that rampages where I’m not, the damage would be significant.

Still.

It won’t be a match for me, Kim Kat.

I can butcher it even more easily and more perfectly than before. Of course, the Lich has a brain. After seeing me get my ass kicked, it won’t create something with similar specs.

It will create something stronger.

“Go ahead and struggle.”

I looked at the gate and flipped the bird at him.

The skeletal giant, the size of a colossus, that came out of the gate, re-enters as if it’s done with its work and is clocking out.

ㅡKugugugugugu!

A roar erupts as the massive body meshes with the gate.

The large hand goes inside the gate, and the skull also slowly begins to retreat. At the same time, the size of the gate slowly begins to disappear, disintegrating from the edge.

The battle is over.

The skeletal giant didn’t cross over, and the Lich didn’t show any other movements. It’s only natural. That skeletal giant is definitely one of the weapons the Lich created. It must be a pretty important weapon.

The Lich is currently flustered by the unexpected situation.

Of course, it expected Ludenkor to kill me. But the result was the opposite. So now. It took a big loss and came to recover the shard of darkness by opening the gate directly.

This is probably a big loss, and at the same time, it must have used a lot of power. Therefore, it doesn’t have the strength to face me now.

If it had the strength, it would have obviously let that thing pass through completely and caused a ruckus here. I would have done that. Missing the perfect opportunity to get rid of the obstacle. It means it has no choice but to do so.

The Lich doesn’t have the strength right now.

ㅡCrack.

That’s when it happened.

The skull of the skeletal giant, which was halfway in, opened its mouth wide. The moment I assumed an emergency and prepared for it.

ㅡGulp.

Something crawled out, covered in an aura of darkness. No. The expression ‘crawled out’ is not correct. What came out was a limp person. The guy came out of the mouth, slumped over as if a marionette doll was being controlled.

And.

ㅡWhoosh.

It slowly begins to descend.

The guy’s identity is none other than a cultist. A cultist with pure white skin. And seeing the dense black tattoos on his face, he was a 100% pure, typical cultist without any lies.

ㅡFlash!

And radiance burst from the cultist’s eyes.

“Ah, is that it.”

I think I know what it is.

That’s a signalman. The cultists who appeared when I killed Andromalius last time. They opened the gate to steal Andro’s soul and crossed over, and they activated that mechanical device.

Of course, we destroyed it all. And then. The Lich controlled the corpse of one of the cultists and tried to communicate with me.

「Saaaa… Grrr… Keudeudeudeuk…」

Soon, the cultist’s mouth opens and an ominous sound pours out. Cough cough. Hack hack. The guy’s voice, which was muttering to himself, gradually begins to take a clear form.

Is he tuning the frequency or something?

“This is communications security brass-plated celestial angel Paladin Kim Kat, you fucking Lich.”

The moment I said that.

「To destroy Ludenkor… you possess… power beyond expectations…」

A terrible voice, like that of an old man spewing curses as if hating something, echoed. Is that. The Lich’s voice? Just as I imagined.

“You’re more of a pushover than I expected, you gamjatang bastard. How are your mom and dad doing? Are they doing well in hell?”

ㅡWhirr.

I immediately spread my grasp and deploy the Heavenly Demon Extermination Jade.

「Foolish…」

As soon as I threw it.

ㅡKWAHHHHHHHHH!!!

The cultist’s corpse disappears.

「In the end, everything will… take its correct… form…」

The guy’s last voice fades away.

“What a load of bullshit.”

It’s just words that aren’t even worth listening to.

There’s no need to talk to a Lich. The guy who has lived against death until modern times will die again at my hands. The only future left for him is to become bone dust. His fate is that even that bone dust will be extinguished, leaving nothing behind.

Soon.

ㅡSwishhhhhhhh.

The skeletal giant completely entered the inside of the gate, and the gate, which was shrinking with it, completely disappeared. The moment the gate disappeared, a gust of wind blew. Sand fiercely swirls in the ruined mountains.

And.

“…”

When the storm subsided.

What remained was a disturbingly quiet world.

The Lich has completely retreated. But even though he suffered a little loss, he achieved some of his goals. Recovering the shard of darkness is a huge gain.

Now he’ll be holed up in his room, creating monsters stronger than the Corrupted Hero Ludenkor.

“I will wait for it.”

And when the timing he thinks of arrives someday, he will bring those monsters and invade this world. That much is clear.

ㅡ…

I grabbed my sword and surveyed the situation for a moment.

What I need to do now is to survey the situation for a moment and then deal with the Death Knights that spread out in all directions earlier.

“I can’t even sleep.”

ㅡKWAANG!!!

Sensing that there was nothing wrong, I kicked off the ground and sprinted through the ruins.

* * *

ㅡKWAANG!!

With a light swing of my sword, the upper body of the Death Knight explodes and disappears. The Sword Spirit Qi surrounding the sword is my true power. There’s no way a Death Knight bastard like that can withstand it.

I immediately shoved my hand into the cross-section of its lower body and pulled out what was inside. What came out was a part of the black spinal bone and, again, a black pelvic bone.

And.

“Hmm.”

Many small black metal artifacts came out.

I pulled them all out and then organized them. This small cursed artifact is an essential element that makes up the Death Knight. Their bodies are filled with these evil things instead of internal organs. They are not living creatures. They move with these artifacts that emit an evil aura, and spells like curses. And evil magic.

ㅡRummage rummage.

I immediately rummage through the corpses of the other Death Knights as well. I tear off the flesh, debone them, and pull out what’s inside.

With that simple task, I could tell.

“Mass-produced Death Knights.”

These were mass-produced.

Eight Death Knights. The small metal artifacts that came out of them all had the same shape. They all have the same shape and the same weight. They are uniform, as if they were made in a factory somewhere.

This suggests that these Death Knights are being mass-produced.

The machine that harvested the souls of the Great Demons last time, too… He must have a technician and some kind of production facility. They’re really tricky bastards.

“Has it reached this far.”

The Lich has reached the point where he can mass-produce these powerful Death Knights. Just as I have become incredibly strong, he has also been building up this kind of strength. He and I are getting stronger at almost the same rate.

It’s not a good situation.

Death Knights are pushovers to me, but not to other people. Anyway, I casually threw the Heavenly Demon Extermination Jade at the undead corpse pile. ㅡKWAANG! A white flash bursts out with the explosion. That’s the end of it. Their corpses disappeared without a trace.

I was able to crush them all by diligently sprinting and flying around without sleeping and tracking them down.

Just a little more to go.

I can rest after cleaning this up.

ㅡCrackle crackle!

Light bursts from my eyes. In the brightened vision, I could read the location of the guys emitting evil power.

Setting the direction, I immediately headed there.

* * *

Cleaning up the remaining undead was not very difficult. After finishing the work, I didn’t return and went to the nearest city and stayed at the inn there, focusing on recovering my strength.

In times like this, just eating a lot and sleeping a lot naturally restores your strength.

Well… there were some ghouls left, but in the first place, ghouls are pushovers that don’t even get caught in my detection. Any city would be able to handle that much on its own.

Anyway.

After sleeping soundly, I grabbed Vügal, which was next to my head.

Vügal was no longer black. It had been completely bleached by my power and turned white.

“Hey, Andro.”

I called him, but there was no response.

Andro was clearly delighted that he had absorbed the dark energy to the limit in the barrier created by Ludenkor’s paper doll. He said that he was overflowing with power because of it.

ㅡSword Spirit Qi.

Thanks to absorbing the power to the limit, Vügal was able to withstand my power for a moment. And that moment was enough. In that short time, I put my ultimate Sword Spirit Qi into the sword.

The Sword Spirit Qi, which completely overwhelmed Vügal’s power with that, completely transformed its nature by engraving the power on the blade.

As a result, Vügal was filled with my power.

So now I could feel my power from the sword. In name and reality. The magic sword has been upgraded to a true holy sword. There was nothing more joyous than this. In other words, it can be said that it was reborn. That means that I have become like Vügal’s new mother.

“Andro.”

Instead, that fucking Andro doesn’t respond at all. Could he be dead? Well. With the weak soul of a Great Demon, he wouldn’t have been able to withstand the storm of energy that occurred at that moment… But well. He survived even when the blade was broken.

Maybe he’s hibernating right now.

I can check that later.

“Anyway, it’s a good phenomenon.”

I can use the sword again. Sword Spirit Qi is a natural step, of course. I can even do Sword Spirit Incision. This is fucking amazing. With this alone, I am invincible.

When I grabbed the sword, I finally felt like I was free from my disability. Yes. I was originally a swordsman. A swordsman who is also very good at using his fists and feet. If I have a sword, there is nothing I cannot cut.

“Hehehe.”

This is great. My women will love it. If there is any gain from this, it was that.

“Good.”

Lich, you bastard… bring all the undead armies or whatever you want. I’ll slaughter them all. Corrupted Hero? Skeletal Giant? Fuck off. Even if a Bone Dragon or something comes out, it won’t be a match for me.