Chapter 52: The Dead Zone Demon [Act 1 End]

 “As far as first negotiations go, it is not perfect,” the Reaper smiled. Despite her words, the joy on her lips was impossible to hide. “But it will suffice as a lesson for you. Remember that a weapon cannot bargain for its fate, so if you wish to become more than a mere tool of slaughter, seek to employ the means of diplomacy wherever you ply your services.”

“If I had known I was getting married today, I would have prepared better wedding vows,” Axel snorted. “So, the terms?”

“One Tyrant Soul for every Death you cheat,” she stated. “You already owe me two. Know that should the debt reach three, I shall treat it as unfaithfulness to our promise, and will not allow you another chance.”

In other words, he must not die before he has killed at least a Tyrant. 

Fortunately, there was already one waiting for his return.

But Axel knew if he were to simply resurrect now, he would just die. The Fae King was too powerful; He needed power — an immaculate amount of it, enough to bridge the gap in Levels and Skill Points between him and the Tyrant.

There was only one way forward.

From his phantom inventory, Axel pulled forth an item.

[Illegal Re-Class Potion (Exotic)]

It was the special potion he picked up from the gambling chest, for which he sacrificed all his unused loot and auction coins. With this, Axel would be able to select an additional Class Boon and the much-needed Skill Point bonus.

Even before drinking it, there was only one Class option he had in mind.

“Let’s hope that Class of yours is every bit as powerful as advertised,” he murmured to his Reaper before drinking the potion whole.

A searing pain. And then, a notification popped up.

[Illegal Potion ingested!]

[Making fine-tune adjustments to Candidate UI… Complete!]

[Please select one out of six choices to be your Second Class!]

A mass of text boxes came up. Axel saw a mess of exotic B-rank or even A-rank Classes appear on his UI.

It was a plethora of choices that would have sent any other person into a frenzy. But Axel only had his eyes on one.

~~~

Pseudo-Admin Classes:

[Reaper’s Consort]

[Rank S++ (Legendary)]

[“Hail to you, Beloved Consort. You, who are the Chosen Harbinger of the Pale Rider herself. Death to all who dare walk the Zones you thread. Dread be upon you, your foes, and the entirety of your species. May all come to fear your forbidden name.”]

[Unlock Requirement: Reach Level 500 (NULLIFIED). Gain the Reaper’s Affection.]

[Skill Bonuses: +45 Str, +50 Agl, +30 Dex, +35 Int, +20 Wis, +20 Per, -100 Ser.]

[Class Boon: Tithe +1. Every Entity within the Zone is notified of your arrival. Failure to kill you within 7 Day-Cycles will result in all entities dying, save for those allied to you. All attacks now permanently damage the opponent’s maximum Health in battle. When attacking an opponent below 20% Health, instantly ‘Reaperbound’ (if possible) and kill them. Using ‘Reaper Piety’ no longer inflicts a penalty on your soul.]

[Traits Choices: Death to God Kings, World’s End Embrace, The Seven Trumpets Cometh]

~~~

Axel smiled grimly. It was as he suspected. Had he taken the Class the first time, he would have instantly died. The negative hit to Serenity would have killed him the moment he selected the Class.

But now… He had the tools to deal with the problem.

From his inventory, Axel pulled out a ring.

[Ring of the Immutable Star]

“I choose Serenity,” he said as he slipped the ring onto his right ring finger.

A strange feeling coursed through him. It could not be said to be comfortable. However, in the end, he received the notification he had been looking for.

[Skill Stat Serenity now fixed to value 10. This value cannot be changed under any circumstances while the ring is equipped.]

[All spell or equipment requirements related to that skill are nullified.]

Was it fate or luck that led him to receive such an essential piece of gear in his final moments? Either way, it mattered little. Axel took a breath.

“I choose the Reaper’s Consort Class,” he said.

The Pale Rider smiled. “Brace yourself. This will hurt.”

It did. It was worse than anything he had ever felt in his life.

A flood of power immolated his soul. Axel immediately collapsed to the ground, or whatever constituted as such in the void between worlds. The man twisted and bucked and yelled, his eyes wide and unseeing as blood poured from every orifice on his face.

His body was burning, melting. Reduced to a lesser, primordial ooze, then built up again. Stronger. Better. The strength vaulted already as superhuman among his kind grew to something completely unholy and unnatural. The power that broke his form and remade him was not one bound by physics or biology. 

Then the pain, impossibly, became worse.

[Class Boon ‘Pathless Wayfarer’ activated]

[All Skill gain doubled]

Flesh tearing. Bones liquifying. His brain swelled, cracked his skull, then condensed its matter into incredibly concentrated strains of alien neurons.

Time was unreal. Nonexistent. Every moment was an eternity of agony, every aeon of peace left in an instant. The pain continued, seemingly to no end.

Until, inevitably, it did.

Axel breathed. The man spat blood, the vile crimson hissing into pale mist.

After a few seconds had passed, he stood up, his body foreign and alien.

It was as if he had become sculpted from marble. Every minute sensation held an indescribable weight.

Axel clenched his fists, and the demonic fibres of his muscles flexed with him. His skin had grown even paler. His eyes glowed silver. His mind raced with so many thoughts, so much precise calculation and theorisation of his new existence, it would have rivalled the computational power of lesser machines.

Axel felt like a demigod reborn.

“What do you think of my blessing?” The Reaper’s voice was soft, teasing.

Axel breathed out, his voice steady: “A good start, but not enough. I need a weapon.”

The Reaper laughed, her radiance upon her pale steed shining brighter. “Yes, I suppose you do. It seems it falls on me to provide for your inadequacies once more.”

Axel smiled. “You won’t have a god-killing blade lying around, would you?”

“Oh, you of little faith, my Harbinger. Do you believe the living to be the only creature that has tasted finality at my hands? I have killed even that which could never conceptualise Death,” the Reaper giggled, heralding primordial dread.

Somehow, even with her mocking, haunting laughter, her words carried not even the shadow of a boast. 

“I am the Pale Rider. I am She who rings the Clarion Bell. That which is Immortal may deter the hand of mortality, but any bulwark of the soul is but ash before my reaping touch. If a being can be said to exist and think, no matter how metaphorically, it is not beyond my means to kill it.”

The darkness of the abyss flickered and died, leaving them only in pale light. Within that moonfire radiance, the flames swirled, churning into a silver froth, rivulets flowing to Axel's open hand. 

“One more gift for you, my Harbinger. Let this be the physical proof of our Pact. I am told such trinkets are… customary, for the newly wedded.”

The fire coalased, forming the shape of a small object on his palm.

A ring of wrapped wood, bearing a pale gemstone. It was warm in his hands, almost burning.

A wedding ring.

Axel huffed, smiling. Without hesitation, he brought it to his left ring finger.

An instinctive surge followed. Axel channelled his will into the ring, and a God-killing blade manifested in his hand.

A simple scythe, its haft of ancient wood fastened to a length of crudely hammered iron. The metal could not be called sharp. There was no slicing edge. 

But Axel knew it would reap all the same.

The power of the sycthe resonated to his will and bloomed around him. Balefire swallowed his body whole and transformed him into an instrument of death.

In the space of a heartbeat, a pale marble pauldron settled over his right shoulder, from which flows a cape of pale mist that reached down to the ground. White chitin encased his torso and limbs. Every joint was extended into a blade, its edge sharp enough to cut.

A laurel crown, spiked with moon pale horns, encircled his head. They burned with white flames, dripping pale wax over his face and forming a smooth, featureless mask — the crown of white, drenched in death.

A foreign sensation crawled upon his spine, and Axel flexed the muscles of his back. Vast wings of marble stone unfurled, boasting a span over two metres and sharp beyond any natural creation. The chill of death poured from his new form, stiffening even the inhuman muscles beneath his pale armoured frame. Ancient white letters, as old as the first Death, flared along the scythe's blade. Entopic energies gathered across his ivory flesh, infusing his body with burning white lines of tattoos, hissing into his new skin.

His UI was changed — no longer neat blue boxes of digital text. Now, burning, torn pages of archaic language appeared before him. 

~~~

[God-Killing Covenant of the Pale Rider ]

[Rank S]

[“Even the gods are not immune to longing. She loved once, and with lonely breaths, crafted for her chosen Consort a crown. This ring, wrought of pale moonstone and dusk-bitten flesh, bears the mark of Death’s affection for a Demon who cried for an end to bloodshed. And so now, he wields her Scythe and bares her wings, bringing her Pale Touch to the Worlds Beyond.”]

[Activation Condition: Axel Roukin must equip the ring item. Once equipped, it can never be removed, even after death.]

[Effects: Tithe +1. The ring can transform the wielder at will into the ‘Scythe of the Pale Rider’, an Angel-Type Entity whose power scales with the wielder’s maximum Tithe. Effects expire upon receiving a fatal blow.]

[Scythe of the Pale Rider: While in this form, gain +100% Max Health as Entropic Armour. Gain Immunity to Entropic DMG. Gain extra limbs as wings, enabling flight. Can expend Tithes to activate ‘Pale Arts Ascendant’, manipulating Entropic-Elemental Spells. Upon receiving a fatal blow, negate damage and revert transformation.]

~~~

Axel flexed his new form. Every motion — from his steps, to the mere movements of his fingers — felt parodically light and heavy. The sensation was somewhat familiar to the UEC’s Power Exoskeletons he had worn before, though it felt profane to compare them in any way.

There was no denying the near-divine energy coursing through him then.

“I am ready.” Axel’s voice echoed in haunting reverberations. “Send me back.”

The Pale Rider smiled and lifted her scythe. “May your name be the last word upon their lips, Axel. Teach them to fear the Reaper once more.” 

She slashed down. Axel knew oblivion.

Darkness. Void. Then the sensation of reality kicked in.

The freezing cold. The smell of blood. The taste of violence upon his tongue.

The once-corpse of Axel Roukin breathed a winter’s air into his stilled lungs, and woke.

Bringing woe and death to the Zones once more.

Act 1 Complete: Birth of the Dead Zone Demon

---

Sponsored Candidate ‘Axel Roukin’ Data

Character Sheet

Participant: Candidate Axel Roukin

Level and Class: Level 38 <Pathless Wayfarer> <Reaper’s Consort>

Title: <Heroic Isolation> <Friendly Fire Advocator> <Null> <Null>

Current Maximum Tithe: 5

Skills

Free Skill Points: 2

Offensive skill

Strength (Str): 163 (73 + 90)

Dexterity (Dex): 85 (25 + 60)

Perception (Per): 65 (25 +40)

Intelligence (Int): 93 (23 +70)

Defensive skill

Endurance (End): 50

Agility (Agl): 200 (100 + 100) 

Serendipity (Ser): -184 (Immutable: 10)

Wisdom (Wis): 80 (40 + 40)

Available Titles 

The Reaper’s Emissary (Rank S) (LOCKED)

Heroic Isolation; Upgraded (Rank B++)

1st Place (Rank C)

Friendly Fire Advocator; Upgraded (Rank F+)

Traits

Reaper’s Denial (Rank S) (LOCKED)

Reaper’s Tithe (Rank A) (UNLOCKED: Legendary)

Reaper’s Piety (Rank A) (UNLOCKED: Legendary)

Slaughterhouse Master (Rank B)(Exotic)

Herculean Glitch (Rank C) (Exotic)

Zero Latency (Rank C) (Exotic)

Bane of Friendship (Rank D) (Exotic)

Fae Royal Wishing (Rank D) (Exotic)

First Blooded (Rank D)

Last Stand (Rank E)

Leader Focus (Rank F)

All I Need Is One (Rank D)

Goblin Slayer; upgraded (Rank F+)

Bugbear Slayer; upgraded (Rank F+)

Troll Slayer; upgraded (Rank E+)

Boss Slayer (Rank E)

Leader Slayer (Rank E)

Death Severance (Rank EX+) (LOCKED)

The Right to Continue Your Existence (Rank EX)