Chapter 34

Deioden swept his surroundings with sharp, piercing eyes.

"The air has changed."

"What do you mean?"

Zeon looked at him with a puzzled expression.

Deioden didn't answer.

Zeon's face twisted slightly at the silence, but Deioden paid it no mind.

Explaining everything from start to finish doesn't help growth.

One has to feel it, question it, and struggle with it to truly grow.

That was how Deioden himself had grown, and he applied the same method to Zeon.

So far, Zeon had followed remarkably well—but he was still lacking.

He needed to think more fiercely, struggle more deeply. Only then could he become far stronger than he was now.

As expected of the middle of the desert, the air was still scorching hot.

But within it lingered a damp, ominous presence.

They had roamed the desert for a long time, yet this was the first time he had felt something like this.

After a moment, Zeon also seemed to sense something strange and tilted his head.

Thinking that reaction wasn't bad, Deioden continued forward.

This was unfamiliar land, even to him.

People often think deserts all look the same, but in truth, they differ greatly.

Each region has its own distinct characteristics.

Some places stretch endlessly into valleys, while others are filled with quicksand that flows like rivers.

From such traits alone, one can usually guess where they are.

But he could swear—he had never seen a place like this before.

At least, not anywhere he had wandered.

It felt as if the very air itself held hostility toward humans.

Hummm!

Crayon let out a resonant hum.

Deioden nodded.

"I know, my friend."

Even after wandering the world for a hundred years, he had never felt loneliness—all thanks to Crayon.

Because it was always by his side, he hadn't sunk into madness and had been able to maintain his reason.

Crunch!

The sand beneath his feet crumbled finely and scattered in the wind.

It clearly felt different from any sand he had stepped on before.

Desert sand normally has no cohesion at all. It doesn't clump together, so there's no reason for it to crumble just from being stepped on.

But everything here was different.

Deioden moved forward without letting his guard down for even a moment.

Yet despite his vigilance, nothing happened for several days.

Then suddenly, something strange entered his view.

"What's that?"

In the distance, he saw a stretch of ochre-colored land.

It was clearly different from the sand they had been walking on.

Though he had lived in the desert for a hundred years, he had never seen such a color.

Beyond that ochre land, far in the distance, something towered upright.

It was too far to be certain, but it resembled a castle—like something out of a storybook.

"A castle in the middle of the desert?"

Deioden's gaze deepened.

He had seen many colonies with his own eyes, including Neo Seoul Colony.

Yet none of them had a structure like that.

There was no need to think further.

Deioden headed straight toward the castle.

Behind him, he could feel Zeon diligently following.

Zeon had already served his purpose by removing the barrier that had blocked Deioden's path.

Strictly speaking, he was no longer needed.

And yet, Deioden didn't tell him to go back.

As Zeon had said, since they had come this far together, it was only right to see it through together.

No matter how it ended.

After walking for an entire day, they finally reached the ochre land.

The moment they stepped onto it—

Crunch!

Something suddenly burst through the ground.

It was an arm.

Flesh rotted away, bone exposed, it planted itself into the earth and pulled the rest of its body up.

What emerged onto the ochre land was unmistakably a corpse.

A corpse clad in armor.

Half its flesh had decayed, leaving bone plainly visible—yet somehow, it moved as if alive.

Deioden instantly recognized what it was.

"An undead?"

A phenomenon where a corpse moves as if alive.

He had heard of it before, but this was his first time seeing it in person.

And it wasn't just one.

Behind it, countless undead began to rise, bursting through the ground one after another.

Cloaks fluttering in the wind, armor clanking, swords gripped in their hands—

They looked exactly like a medieval order of knights.

Deioden scanned his surroundings.

For a moment, he wondered if he had unknowingly entered a dungeon.

If it were a dungeon, nothing here would be strange.

A place where anything is possible—

A fragment of another dimension, separated from reality.

In dungeons, things beyond human imagination could happen.

But this wasn't a dungeon.

This was reality.

Undead… rising in the real world.

"A phenomenon like a dungeon, yet this isn't one. Looks like I've found the right place."

Deioden grinned.

A familiar madness flickered in his eyes.

"Come at me! You who have found no rest!"

His arrogant shout became the trigger.

"Kuwooooh!"

The undead knights charged at Deioden like madmen.

Though their bodies were rotted and decayed, their movements were anything but sluggish—proof that their former skill had not faded.

Clang! Clang!

Steel rang out as Deioden's sword collided with the blades of the undead knights.

The battle between Deioden and the undead knights was fierce.

As if demonstrating the level they had reached in life, the undead knights' martial prowess was extraordinary.

For a time, they managed to hold their own against the overwhelmingly powerful Deioden.

But that was only possible because he was holding back.

Crack!

With a single strike from Deioden, one undead knight was split clean in two.

Severed from the waist, the corpse tumbled helplessly to the ground.

For a normal human, it would have been a fatal wound long ago.

But these were already dead beings.

Something that had died once could not die again.

Sliiide—

The upper and lower halves reattached themselves, restoring the knight instantly.

Zeon muttered,

"So that's why they're called undead…"

He did not join the fight, merely watched.

This was not his battle.

It was Deioden's.

Just as Deioden had done in the Sand Dungeon, now it was Zeon's turn to observe.

His role had already ended when he removed the barrier that blocked their path.

From here on, he would remain a bystander—

Unless Deioden wished otherwise.

"Khhahaha!"

Deioden's savage, unrestrained laughter echoed.

He looked genuinely delighted.

Though his opponents were dead, they were still knights—

Warriors of the sword.

The swordsmanship they had mastered in life was being expressed through their rotting bodies.

It had been a long time since he had fought purely blade against blade.

Deioden didn't even use mana—he fought them with nothing but pure swordsmanship.

Even so, the undead knights were no match for him.

Slash!

Each swing of Crayon split an undead knight apart.

Yet moments later, they regenerated and charged him again.

They felt no fear, no pain.

In some ways, they resembled the Sand Soldiers Zeon had fought.

There was another similarity.

Their numbers.

Burst! Burst!

More undead knights kept emerging from the ground.

At a glance, there were easily hundreds of them.

They rushed Deioden like a relentless tide.

Even though Zeon stood nearby, they paid him no attention—

Their focus was solely on Deioden.

Cutting down every undead knight in his path, Deioden advanced.

His destination was the castle in the distance.

Now it was clearly visible.

The castle resembled a medieval fortress—

But not entirely.

It was far more elegant, yet sharper in design.

The walls were covered in countless unfamiliar symbols.

Time had faded them into a dark gray, but they must have once been brilliantly vivid.

Something about those symbols felt familiar.

After a moment of thought, Zeon pulled out a booklet from his subspace.

It was one he had taken from the elf village Deioden had annihilated.

Opening it, he saw symbols identical to those carved into the castle walls.

"Is it related to the elves?"

But something didn't add up.

From what he had seen in the destroyed elf village, they lacked the ability to construct something this massive.

More importantly, the undead knights blocking Deioden were all human.

If the castle truly had ties to the elves, the undead knights would have been elves, not humans.

The undead knights threw themselves at Deioden without hesitation.

But he was like a massive tidal wave.

Everything in his path was destroyed and swept away.

Even as the undead knights regenerated and charged again, the outcome never changed.

Breaking through them again and again, Deioden finally reached the castle.

Boom!

He smashed through the gate and stepped inside.

At that moment, the undead knights that had so desperately tried to stop him suddenly ceased their attacks.

Zeon looked at them with confusion.

Like machines that had been powered off, the undead knights stood completely motionless.

"What…?"

Thanks to that, Zeon was able to enter the castle without resistance.

Deioden drove Crayon into the ground and shouted,

"Come out! Master of this castle!"

Hummm!

His voice surged like a storm, shaking the entire structure.

Then—

As if in response, a bright light began to glow across the castle floor.

The light formed lines, drawing a massive pattern.

In an instant, a grand design was completed.

A hexagram surrounded by multiple circles, with elven script densely inscribed between them.

"A magic circle?"

Suddenly, the circle blazed with intense light—and something emerged from within.

A towering figure, easily twice the height of the undead knights.

A massive, imposing physique.

It wore a helmet with three horns, armor forged from an unknown metal, and a tattered gray cloak draped over its shoulders.

At its waist hung a greatsword as large as Crayon.

Within the helmet, a crimson glow flickered like fire.

A sinister darkness clung to its entire body.

This was the master of the castle.

Deioden bared his white teeth in a grin.

"What is your name, knight?"

Zeon assumed the knight wouldn't be able to answer.

Its vocal cords should have long since rotted away.

But the result defied his expectations.

"Ah…ka…ruk!"

A voice echoed, like something reverberating from within a cave.

Deioden spoke.

"My name is Deioden. Akaruk!"

"Dei…oden! Kill me… free me from this curse…"

Suddenly, the knight's words cut off.

Instead, a sinister gray aura began to rise from its entire body.

The aura spread over the cloak, writhing like a living entity.

Whoooosh!

The same gray aura ignited along the knight's massive sword.

Rumble—

The castle trembled violently, as if struck by an earthquake.

Deioden gripped Crayon firmly.

"Very well! I will grant you death… former knight!"