“I am,” Krovath responds, severing the transmission before breaking the cup in his hands. “Which Order is wasting so many resources to meddle with me?” His fingernails pierce his palm, drawing blood.

Krovath splatters the blood across the floor, causing the once plain, pearly white room to tremble. “Bring it on, brat.”

“Is that a freaking castle? What the heck is it doing all the way out here?” Tetsu scans the area, confirming the upcoming section to be under Krantz control. But who would have guessed they brought their entire castle along for the ride?

“I meant that as a joke, Maeve,” Tetsu yells at his system screen. “Not to pit me against them! I’ve asked you to show me a way out of this mess a thousand times, but no... the one time I slip up and ask to find them, you lead me straight to their stronghold? Aye-aye!” Tetsu directs the last comment at his luck stat. “Can I even infiltrate such a fortress?”

“He’s talking to someone,” Mor confirms, sharing another Lich’s vision.

“I told you,” Val’s chest inflates. “Command the surrounding undead to catch him.”

“Yes, my lord,” Mor bows. “But...”

“We can figure out how he is manipulating or working with so many armies when we catch him.”

“Yes... of course, you are right, my lord,” Mor sends the command, all the while wondering, ‘We are missing the bigger picture.’

The undead move to box Tetsu in, prompting him to plan to use them to breach the castle’s primary defenses. However, he needs to first witness the situation to discern a proper approach. Based on surveillance, the best course seems to be through the castle itself, as its surroundings were packed with traps and undead.

The Undead might not mind losing a limb or two, but Tetsu has no such luxury or chance to survive the round trip. The castle focuses purely on defenses, so if he manages to breach a transparent, invincible barrier, the rest of the journey will depend on his hide-and-seek skill.

“Ooh... Please, give me a hide-and-seek skill. Here,” Tetsu marks another spot, and a few blinks confirm an additional surprise.

“You,” a lich raises its staff to attack.

Tetsu dodges past the lich, using the sneaker’s boost in quick succession with Terrafarer to cover the distance in an instant. For good measure, he even snatches the lich’s staff.

“You,” a rough growl interrupts Tetsu’s footwork.

“Does all of your skills start with that word?” Tetsu’s smile doesn’t shake off the suppressing effect, leading him to assume it’s a different skill.

The animated Horr’er keeps its finger fixed on the human, black chains circling the tip.

“Yeah... I know,” Tetsu sighs as a shard slices its finger, disrupting the skill.

“My Horr’er,” Val screeches.

Tetsu steps, twists, and heads straight at Val, his anger turning into a smile as he accepts the challenge.

“Wait. He is mine,” Val disrupts Mor’s spell.

Tetsu hurls the looted lich’s staff at Val with all his might.

“You fool,” Mor laughs.

Val flicks it away with his finger and snickers, anticipating the human’s diversionary tactics. Tetsu slides to bypass Val, but Val aims his massive fist at the ground, where they would soon clash.

Tetsu waits for the fist to angle and launch before pushing himself off the ground. He rolls over Val’s back and bounces higher to reach Mor, his true target.

“We humans are more despicable,” Tetsu snickers as he snatches Mor’s staff, storing it in his pouch in one fluid motion.

“No!” Mor roars in defiance, sparks of unstable red dots forming and fading around its fingertips. But before Mor can aim the fleeting spell, the staff Val deflects knocks him unconscious. Although slower, the staff’s momentum carries it forward into Tetsu’s pouch.

“Face me, you coward,” Val taunts, using a warrior-level taunt skill.

“Can’t destroy and can’t store more,” Tetsu frowns, ignoring Val. “Ah.”

A devious smile forms on Tetsu’s face. Advancing forward, he uses the staffs as whacking sticks to deflect, block, and attack the undead. The lower-level creatures couldn’t so much as leave a scratch on them, while the liches provide him safe passage, afraid to damage the Ultum staff.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

{Ultum Staff of the Undead. Level: Warrior. Rarity: Epic. Built from the ash...}

“Fuck you too,” Tetsu dismisses the notification after checking the rarity and level. “I can build one too,” he lies to himself, using the artifact worse than how his mom used a broomstick.

“Stop letting him through,” Val commands, yet the liches are too afraid of the damage.

“All of you are useless,” Lala scoffs. “Get him. I will halt his movements,” she orders the animated Horr’er. “Hellscape lot.” She points the staff at Tetsu and activates the skill.

As Tetsu goes limp and trips, at the same time, the zombies receive a command and pounce on him from every direction. Unable to move a muscle, he waits until gravity pulls him closer to the ground, parallel to the ground. Several [Eye of Providence] appear on the zombies’ chests, and a Rune materializes on a heavy Xome behind Tetsu.

*!Blink, blink, blink, blink...!*

Within a split second, several Eyes are conjured on the undead around Tetsu. The zombie upfront accelerates mid-jump, crossing Tetsu and ramming into the Zeech behind him. The rest still have a clear shot, yet their aim misses by an inch, and only after striking mud do they realize their error.

“Target.”

A misshaped, hefty Xemo plunges its axe hand into another zombie. “Killed,” the Xome conveys to the closest lich.

“Why, though?” Lala asks.

“You. Ask.”

“Human. Kill the human. You nut case,” Lala yells at it and cuts the connection.

The Xome stares at the zombie’s legs that got back up while its torso charges the human on her hands. “No. Human?” It tries to understand where it went wrong, yet it only remembers targeting the human’s torso.

“Do humans turn zombies so fast?”

“Yes. They do. He did,” the Xome tells itself and chases the zombie.

“No!” Lala yells in vain.

A Rune flips Tetsu’s foot around, while another Rune over the Zeech’s face pulls him away from the onslaught.

By using the Runes over the Xomes on his far right and left, Tetsu pushes himself off the ground while pulling the horde of zombies around him closer.

They collide, their weapons stabbing into each other.

With a vast pile of undead becoming heavier than himself, Tetsu could finally use them as anchor points.

Two Runes activate to change his angle, an Eye on the zombie pile feeding him information about the Zeech’s position behind him.

Tetsu angles and slams butt first into the Zeech, sending it stumbling back. A Rune over the Zeech’s back, working with the tangent Rune on his foot, flips him upright, and another Rune on a Xome continues the flip into a cartwheel.

Lala loses huge amounts of mana to keep such a high-level skill active, but all the skill does is trip the human once, and now he spirals across their soldiers like a snake, even more agile than before, while she continues losing mana having the skill active.

“Such skills do not work on him. Did you seriously think none of us tried it already?” Another Lich, Zeeka, the third highest lich among their ranks, snaps at Lala through a mental link.

“But... I...”

“Cancel the skill already,” Zeeka yells and cuts the connection.

Angry over receiving orders from a lesser undead, Lala swallows her pride and switches skills instead. “Depths of the Void.”

She loses half of her mana pool, yet the humans only stop for a brief moment before digging into the ground to cancel out the skill.

“This one too?”

“Of course. Who made you second in command?”

Lala glares and tries to find the connection, but Zeeka has already severed the telepathic link and hides amidst the army.

“The skill is off!” Tetsu burrows upward after a short underground detour to trap the Zeech and Xome following him.

“Mine,” the animated Horr’er claims as Tetsu emerges from below.

“Do I know you? You do look familiar,” Tetsu activates the movement skill while pushing the sneakers to their maximum speed in one go. The Horr’er was already slow, and with the sudden upgrade, from its perspective, the human seemed to teleport away.

[Ding! Terrafarer rarity upgrade to Epic. Distance: 3 meters.]

Tetsu didn’t like relying on gadgets, but he had to try the theory out before it gnawed at his brain. “Happy?”

———<>|*|<>———

“He is definitely talking to someone,” Tarah and Val confirm, their gazes drifting to each other, both marking the other as their prime suspect.

“Working with the undead,” Krovath spits, confirming Tarah’s initial doubt.

“But that makes no sense.”

“Looks like my past won’t let me live a peaceful present. Won’t be a problem,” Krovath’s ominous laugh fills the enclosed room, the sounds bouncing off the walls and increasing in intensity.

After absorbing his blood, the room turns into one massive screen that encompasses the entire room. Krovath has an unobstructed view of the battlefield, the screens creating an illusion of him floating inside a transparent cube, while in reality, he is still inside the castle. The “Clairvoyance” skill erases any obstacles that he deems unworthy in his line of vision.

“Want me? Come get me.”

Several red lights blink around the castle as Kriantz rushes to their designated stations. The castle parts into two halves. At first glance, it looks imbalanced, but then the halves topple over and morph while revealing a bottom stacked with several sets of arrays, cannons, and Krantz with snipers.

“Of fucking course,” Tetsu mutters as he blocks a knife, sword, and some teeth with the Ultum staff, causing the zombie’s teeth to crumble away. “I don’t think the staff had anything to do with that, does it?”

The zombie is too busy checking his soft toothless gums to answer. Tetsu picks up a tooth and shoves it back into the zombie’s gums. “There,” he smiles and whacks him on the head.

Tetsu flips the second staff he looted from a normal Lich over his shoulder and into his free hand to smack the pair of Xomes.

*!Blink!*

{Light Rifle. Level: Initiate, 01. Rarity: common.}

{Light Cannon. Level: Initiate, 01. Rarity: common.}

“Where do they even fucking find em…”

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