“Uu, ahh… H-How could someone like you exist!?!?”
That’s why the Undead King too wailed like a child throwing a tantrum.
Were his limbs intact, he would have surely made a run for it or become unable to stand from fear.
“Just what is this!? No… Please, forgive me! I didn’t know! This is too much! Save me! I don’t want everything to end here!”
Such misfortune was just too unlikely.
An astronomically low chance that could only occur when the bad luck of millions of people were put together.
Gulde couldn’t believe that such a thing would lay its eyes on him, and he incoherently tried to escape from that calamity.
To describe such a thing as a devil was too adorable of a description.
The three-hundred years of life he’s spent as a lich lord was meaningless before such an existence.
His question too meant little. With a rank of S in Skill, what the calamity had accomplished must’ve been child’s play to him.
It wasn’t a question of theory or method, no, it was possible purely because he was S Rank.
Before such a thing, principles, theories, methods, and even Gulde’s own head would submit.
Even legendary magic on the level of one’s own breathing would submit.
That was just how abnormal such a rank was.
“I see, you don’t want to disappear… In that case, do your best.”
A cheerful and suspicious smile surfaced on the boy’s face, and with the snap of his fingers, the air that had been shaken by his S Rank became heavy and dark. It was a familiar air that invigorated the Lich Lord.
Then those appeared.
“The vengeful ghosts are… gathering?”
The air was cold to the humans, while it was comfortable to the undead.
Clad in it were none other than those humanoid creatures that were once humans.
Their shimmering spiritual bodies were of a toxic hue due to the amalgamation of negative thoughts.
They all looked the same, with crushed skulls and perforated holes for their their eyes, nose, and mouth.
They gradually increased in number as they groaned and surrounded Gulde and the boy, then the boy turned to them and said.
“…I’ll give you an opportunity. I’m sure you have plenty of grudges, so I’m going to use all of that as my blade today… Look, this is the person that killed you.”
The
In the next moment, their eyes turned red, and a blade of hatred appeared in their hands.
“
In that short moment, someone identified what these ghosts were.
Though their bodies were half-transparent and they swayed unsteadily, they had a body that could interfere with the physical.
They retained their spiritual bodies, but their regrets took shape and gave them a sharp blade.
With their vicious and eerie figures, it wouldn’t be wrong to describe them as armed evil spirits.
If skeletons used bones and corpses as their medium to become undying soldiers, then wraiths used the dead soul itself to gain the power to interfere with reality.
Regardless, both were forbidden arts.
“What have you done?”
That was an act no different from desecrating the death; hence, someone’s cry of lamentation, but the people in question did not care.
The boy just continued to smile, while Gulde was stunned, and fury, hatred, and grief poured out of the red eyes of the wraiths.
『How dare you!』
『Give her back! Giver her back! Give her back!!』
『You took everything from me!!』
『Die, die, die!!』
『Give her back to me! Give that child back to me! Give me back my life!』
Voices and killing intent became so heavy upon taking shape, and even the maids that weren’t targeted by the wraiths moaned at the oppressiveness of the air.
Blades filled with hate overlapped as they pierced through Gulde one after another.
They increased in numbers at an accelerating pace and shot at him from every direction.
Crumbling pieces of white bones rose to the air with the blades, but the tip of the blades were not the bones themselves but the contents within.
Gulde could thoroughly feel the pain from that, but he laughed nonetheless.
“Fu, fu ha ha! This is good! It’s so comfy!!! Hate me, loathe me! That itself shall be a great feast to me!!”
The lich lord laughed loudly as the hateful swords penetrated him.
As someone who has become an undead through the sacrifice of countless people, the regret and hatred of these wraiths were nothing more than nourishment for his soul.
Especially, since these were the same people that he killed with his own hands.
It was curious how the calamity was able to call them here, but it was stupid speculating about the methods of an S Rank, so he just smiled and drank all of the hate the wraiths threw at him.
『OOOOOoo!』
『Kill! Kill! Kill!』
But the wraiths could not understand any of that, and with their nemesis before them, their blades never stopped.
Before long, there were dozens, then a hundred blades, and Gulde just laughed as he took them all.
Not only did his white bones not get wounded, they even increased in number.
“…He’s regenerating!?”
Now that he has acquired more vitality than ever, there was no need to continue displaying such a shameful appearance.
He regenerated the parts he lost and recovered his previous appearance and power. Or at least, that’s what Gulde thought, but then he shook his head and laughed.
“Ku, ha ha ha ha! Amazing! This is amazing! As expected of the wraiths created by an S Rank! What perfection! What purity of hate and grief! It’s the best!!”
The negative thoughts pouring into him was better than anything he’s had until now.
So intoxicating was the aroma of death and resentment that he drank upon now that he could not help but wonder if it was mud he had been drinking until now.
This was not only sufficient to restore him to his former self. No, he would become even greater, and he brimmed with the power of death.
His white bones that were being carried by the countless blades easily regained their limbs, and overflowing malice clad itself over him.
The miasma that gushed out transformed into a jet-black robe, a sinister serpentine staff, and a crown adorned with black jewels.
The evil ki that emanated from him now was in a league of its own compared to the foul aura he once emanated.
“Ah… What have you done? Now his power has grown stronger!”
Someone seemed to have realized that and screamed out in despair, but what a comforting voice that was to Gulde.
Now this was how a true lich lord ought to look, Gulde thought as darkness glimmered from his eyes sockets.
He couldn’t stop laughing. If it was now, then perhaps he might even be able to reach the forbidden abyss that he could not reach before.
The endless hatred that poured out at him one after another made his bones rattle with euphoria and rapture.
It even seemed as though all of his bones were thickening. No…
“But of course! Why didn’t I realize it first!? There was never any need to limit myself to a human’s size! After all, I am the Great Undead King!”
His bones really were getting bigger – thicker, longer…
And Gulde was more than happy with that development. There was no reason for him to be the same size as those lowly ones that could not escape from death.
Indeed, he should become even bigger.
Gulde spread out his arms and treated the sword mountain formed by the blades of the wraiths as his throne and welcomed with exultation all the hate that they threw at him.
Already he had grown 1.5 times his original size, but that was not merely a change to his height or physique.
His volume had increased. Already, the bones on him were not human-sized but of the size of some other species, and they were not done growing.
“Ku ku ku, wonderful! Look how much I’ve grown in just this past few seconds! Indeed, I have lived my three hundred years in vain! Ahahaha!!”
His vessel was becoming gigantic.
That was proof that his soul that has been turned into a lich lord was growing bigger from the sustenance provided by all of the hatred.
He was easily reaching a realm that he could not reach with his research alone.
But he showed know resentment and was simply filled with exultation as though he had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
“This is my true… Huh?”
But then he felt something strange from his arms, and the serpentine staff fell from his hand.
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