Seeing the dark ice slowly spreading at Skull Claw's body, Danzel couldn't quite explain what he was feeling.
"Why did you do that?" Danzel asked as he walked closer to Skull Claw, her ethereal eyes looking at Danzel.
"Kouugh~" Skull Claw let a small growl which could be described as a puppy begging for a treat or to be praised by his owner.
"..."
Staring that the dark ice has already touched a portion of Skull Claw's skull, Danzel knew that saving her from the ice wasn't possible. All he would do was accelerate the growth of the dark ice, hasting her travel towards the realm of the dead.
"My sole command was for you to get out of here, and yet here you are." Danzel said as he pierced his sword to the ground before getting on his knee.
"K-Koughh~" Skull Claw growled like a puppy trying to be forgiven for breaking something with her cute growl.
Since she was undead and couldn't express pain as she didn't feel any, Skull Claw behaved just like she did when Danzel would come out of his room and hang out with her when she was on "guard" duty.
Making Danzel feel bitter from the inside.
"To tell you the truth, Skull Claw, you were my favorite and yet most untrusty worthy undead that I had ever created." Danzel said as he caressed her skull with his skeleton hand.
"You were the strongest of all my creations, but the fact that your connection with me wasn't as strong as the others, I couldn't bring myself to fully trust you..."
"K-Keeegh~"
"Sometimes you would follow my orders and other times you will twist my orders to do it your way, honestly, I always thought of you as unreliable." Danzel said while staring at the flaring eyes of Skull Claw.
Though he wasn't sure why he could imagine Skull Claw ready to burst into tears.
'I guess I could be considered the father of Skull Claw, despite being the one who killed the living version of her.' Danzel said as let go of her skull and risen up to his feet.
"Maybe it was because of my past experience making me doubtful of others that it made me I couldn't trust you completely..." Danzel said while walking away, before stopping in front of the storage rings that were dropped from having his hand blown away.
Picking the storage rings and putting them into his finger with a bit of force, Danzel looked at Skull Claw, the dark ice now covering one of her skull sockets.
"I guess you wouldn't know as you weren't yet born at the time that this happend." He said as he walked back to Skull Claw and back to his knees.
"Skull Claw." Danzel said as he caressed the side that wasn't frozen with his still-armored hand.
"You have disobeyed my orders, your master and creator." He said while staring directly at the middle eye of Skull Claw.
"Keeughhhh~"
"Doing so though, you saved my...life. Despite being not ordered to do so, you still didn't hesitate in sacrificing yourself to save me. And for that... I thank you." Danzel said, with an ice and heavy voice.
He lowered his head and touched heads with Skull Claw, his ethereal eye staring back at Skull Claw's middle eye. Meanwhile, the dark ice covered her second eye and all of her body except bits of her skull.
"That's why, Skull Claw, I will have to ask you to wait." Danzel said and suddenly Skull Claws' last eye flared up in surprise.
Surprised by the fact that Danzel pierced a dagger inside her skull, a dagger which had its runes lit up in a dark green light.
"Your loyalty towards me...I won't discard."
The runes of the dagger started to begin to work, slowly dragging the soul of Skull Claw out of her body.
"Keeeugh~?" Skull Claw growled confusedly as to what was happening.
"Skull Claw, though it might be uncomfortable and it might take a while...maybe even years. I promise you to find a new body to host your soul. A body much stronger than your current one, so..."
Danzel distanced his head so that he wouldn't get the dark ice on him and showed a smile at Skull Claw.
'Can you wait till I get you the coolest body out there?' Danzel said with an internal command to Skull Claw.
Being unable to respond with her whole jaw being covered in dark ice, Skull Claw could only flare her ethereal eye.
And once she did the [Rune of Þolian Repent] activating, sucking her soul inside the dagger and trapping it just before the dark ice was about to touch the dagger.
Danzel swiftly pulled the dagger out of Skull Claw and watched how the dark ice fully covered her body.
"..."
Staring silently at the husk of Skull Claw's body, Danzel raised to his feet and looked at the dagger inhabiting the soul of Skull Claw.
[Death Hunts Dagger]: A sharp dagger that was created with alchemy from a dark elve and has been used as an experiment by a runesmith. The dagger hosts the soul of a rare variant of a death hound, granting the dagger the special ability to allow the wielder to locate people wounded by the dagger. Also, the edge of the dagger has dead mana massively running, making the weapon have a decay effect.
Reading through the description, Danzel couldn't help but get surprised by the fact that the dagger gained an enchantment-like ability thanks to the rune.
Though Danzel wasn't planning to use this dagger at all. After all, he just promised Skull Claw to give him a new body.
He didn't know how he was supposed to do it, but he was sure it was possible as it was hinted by the supposed "God of death" Uzal.
A fellow runesmith tried making an army with souls with armor being their body. It wasn't stated if he had succeeded or not, but if someone who reached the level of being called a God by others had thought that it was possible, then it might as well very well be.
"I had to learn how to craft undead out of runes anyway after I discarded the grand general talent." Danzel said with a bitter tone.
He brought out the sheath of the danger and sheathed the dagger inside while putting it at his back.
Sadly, he couldn't store soul-infused equipment in his storage rings, forcing him to carry them at all times.
"Now...let's see what the soul of the magic caster did to my sword."
Picking his sword from the ground, the hole in the ground let out white smoke. From cold air.
[Sand Emperors Chilling Frost]: A blade made by a master blacksmith that was acknowledged as the best among his people by the emperor itself, who was tasked to make the best blade for one of his sons. The emperor himself enchants this weapon and the soul of a powerful Archmage allows the blade to use [Frozen Wave], [Breath of Frozen Field], [Frozen Ice Lances] and reach a temperature that freezes flesh by just a second of touch. In an attempt to harm his user, the enraged soul makes the handle extremely cold, making holding the weapon impossible for being below the 4th-tied, alas, the undead isn't of the 2nd-tier or above and isn't affected by this...
"That's...quite impressive if I have to say." Danzel mumbled to himself as he read the description.
The soul of an Archmage granted his sword a total of 3 spells to use and a beneficial passive.
As far as he read, the speaks sounded around the 3rd-tier, [Breath of Frozen Field] and [Frozen Ice Lances] we're similar to what the magic caster used against him, but at a lower tier.
The former was the lesser version of the ice field. Releasing cold air into the surroundings and slowly freezing his surroundings where the latter was the ice spears he saw countless times.
[Frozen Wave] in turn described itself as creating a wave of ice spikes in the swing direction.
They all sounded interesting, but with no mana to play around them, all that Danzel could do was sigh internally.
As he was near the wall Danzel didn't have to walk for long until he reached the ice wall.
And with a swing of his sword, Danzel managed to break a small hole big enough for him to fit and go to the outside, seeing that the undead advantaged much further.
"Ugh...here I thought I could recover myself with some nearby weaklings."
Though he said that, he still waited to regenerate a bit of mana to use blood magic on his weapon, so when he kills he recovers mana.
Waiting outside the wall, Danzel suddenly remembered Azrael. That was fighting several magic casters with the same power as Nevvan.
Raising his head to see if he was alright, Danzel became speechless as he saw Azrael's clones holding 3 bodies of those supposed Archmages.
'Yeah...I shouldn't look for trouble with Azrael.' He thought, internally calling Azrael a monster.
Here he fought to his bitter end to win against one single Archmage. But seeing that at the same time the dark elve managing to do what he had done, just times 3 more without looking like he was having a hard time.
"I guess I should catch up with the others..." He said as he finally got the required mana after a few minutes.
