Chapter 49

Athos felt as if he were sinking into a dark place. He couldn't see or hear anything and all his senses were useless. He was also unable to move, no matter how hard he tried. Athos felt as if he were dreaming and could not wake up.

But even in this desperate situation, Athos did not forget what happened to him. He vividly remembered his body being impaled and the feeling of having his own throat cut. The agony of feeling your lungs burning for air and not being able to breathe. Athos could not forget such pain, even without understanding what happened to him after his consciousness disappeared.

No, he knew what had happened, but he was unable to accept it. His mind, the only thing that still worked, was filled with thoughts of hatred towards his killers and a feeling of emptiness and despair came soon after, as he realized he wouldn't be able to take revenge.

'You sons of bitches, I will kill you with my bare hands, I swear I will kill you. You motherfuckers... I'll kill them. I will kill them. Athos continued to curse them, as if it were a broken record.

His thoughts began to wander and become incoherent, until only hatred was left. Unbeknownst to Athos, the darkness in his body responded to his deepest desire. The darkness remaining in his corpse spread throughout his body as it corrupted the world's energy from the destroyed core.

The light was extinguished as darkness took its place. The previously translucent world energy was painted black as the world energy became unbalanced. The darkness drained all the nutrients from his body and accumulated it where the mana core had previously been, trying to rebuild it.

His body visibly withered as the darkness tried and failed to convert the drained energy into life force and form a new mana core. His muscles withered, his organs rotted and his skin turned to dust. When only a skeleton remained, the darkness gathered enough life force to support the world energy in his body, but it was unbalanced by the lack of light element, forming a layer of death.

Corrupted world energy flooded the life force, forming a black core. A pulse of darkness shot out of the core and spread through the body. His white bones turned black, while a dark void radiated from his empty sockets. His consciousness, which until now had been wandering, returned to his body.

Athos had returned

*******

A few hours earlier, somewhere underground in the forest of Faltra.

The seven remaining mage team were hiding in the woods, as they guarded Athos' corpse in a makeshift underground hideout built by Ricley, awaiting contact from the mage slayer. The mage order tried to contact the team leader, but he purposely destroyed the communication item itself, keeping only the mage slayer receiver.

He did this to delay the order's information gathering and to have a plausible excuse for not responding. The novice mages were a nervous wreck as they waited impatiently for news.

The team leader assigned tasks to the mages, mainly to keep their minds occupied and keep them from panicking.

"What do you think will happen to us?" A mage asked his companion. He appeared to be in his 20s, but his real age was nearly 40. He was blond with green eyes a thin chin and delicate features.

The two were alone and were ordered to watch over Athos' corpse and ensure that nothing could reach it.

His body had been preserved in an ice coffin, so it was hard to imagine that anything would happen to him, but the leader would have no peace of mind if there wasn't someone constantly guarding his trump card.

"Can you stop asking me that every 5 minutes? I know as much as you do, and none of us know anything!" His companion replied angrily, hearing the same question for the umpteenth time. He appeared to be the same age as his companion, only with slightly more striking features. He had long black hair tied in a ponytail and black eyes.

He glanced at the ice coffin before clicking his tongue. "If it weren't for this shit, we would have left this town by now, instead of rotting underground!"

Frustrated and angry, he got up and walked to the front of the coffin before kicking it, trying to vent. "This is all your fault! Why did you have to have a fucking mana body! It's your fault that someone like me is stuck here!" He screamed hysterically as he kicked the coffin.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing? Stop that shit now!" the blond mage asked in a panic, afraid his mate had gone mad. He took him by the shoulders and hurriedly pulled him away from the ice coffin, before checking that the coffin had not suffered any damage.

He sighed in relief to see the coffin had suffered only minor scratches. The ice was matte, so he couldn't see Athos' body and notice the changes that were taking place.

The blond mage turned around in annoyance and yelled at him. "Have you lost your mind!? Why did you attack our only chance to get out of this situation??"

"Hahaha... do you really think we'll survive?" the ponytailed mage asked with a deprecating laugh, as if he'd already given up. He was fragile-minded and easily gave in to pressure.

He stood up and yelled hysterically, "Do you really think that mage slayer shit is going to include us in his deal? He's just using us to guard the body while he negotiates with the elder! Or worse, he might blame us in order to get away with it, and we're just saving it as evidence! We should destroy the corpse while we still can!"

"Hi, you're imagining things! Try to calm down a bit." The blond mage said trying to calm him down, but to no avail.

"No, we must destroy it now!" The ponytailed mage said frantically, no longer listening to reason. He took his wand from his waist and pointed it at the ice coffin. Flames gathered at the tip of the wand as the mage cast a simple explosion spell.

"Stop it now!" The blond mage tried to stop him, but he didn't listen and kept building up energy. But before he could shoot the flames, the ice coffin exploded from the inside, sending a shower of ice shards in all directions.

"What was this?" The mages said in unison, looking dumbfounded at the place where the ice coffin was. In its place a black skeleton stood, raising its bony hands in front of its skull, as if surprised by what it saw. He opened and closed his hands a few times as if testing their movements, before lifting his head in their direction.

His eye sockets were empty, but they got the impression he was looking at them. Looking with hate.

"I said we should have destroyed the body!" The ponytailed mage spoke, shooting the accumulated flames. The black skeleton stretched its right arm in front of its body, a black gale gathering in its hand. The wind formed in a spiral that extinguished the flames as they approached.

When the fireball finally reached the black skeleton, it was the size of a fist and didn't even leave a burn mark on the bones.

kakaka

The skeleton snapped its jaws, as if laughing at them.

"Cursed undead!" The blond mage yelled drawing his own wand, but Athos was faster. With a wave of his hand, the black wind gathered and turned into a black hurricane, before being fired at the mages.

The ponytailed mage shot fire arrows at him, but the hurricane swallowed them and threw them back. With no other choice, the blond mage conjured an ice shield to protect them.

"Shit...!" The blond mage complained, feeling the ice shield give in to the pressure of the wind. He turned to his mate and yelled. "The shield will give way, do something!"

"I can't...can't...breathe..." The ponytailed mage spoke with difficulty, while holding his throat. He dropped to his knees on the floor as he coughed up blood.

"What happened...?" the blond mage asked, before starting to cough up blood as well. It was then that he realized that the air around him was dark. After the hurricane slammed into the ice shield, it dispersed into a black wind laden with darkness that the mages inhaled, rotting their very lungs.

The blond mage ran out of air quickly and the shield broke a second later, letting the black hurricane hit them full-on, hurling them against the stone wall.

The blond mage fell to the ground after the black hurricane ended, gasping for air. He had activated the cloak's protection enchantment at the last second to save his life, but that only delayed the inevitable.