Chapter 145 - Fruits of Labor

Disappointed, the Duke willed the black mist to attack the King.

With careful and precise control, the black mist surrounded the King's legs. Immediately, the King howled in pain as the black mist consumed his legs, leaving them dried and shriveled.

As the King collapsed on the ground, a pained expression washed over his face. He lost the feeling in his legs completely. What's worse, the pain didn't seem to subside as it started to spread to his torso.

The Duke, however, was entirely unimpressed.

He knew that his brother was a pathetic shell of a man. That much was certain. But, to even abandon his wife at a very critical moment was just blatantly selfish.

"You really are scum," the Duke said as he approached his brother. The Duke wanted to see the pained expression on his brother's face, how he looked getting what he deserved.

It was the last exchange between the two brothers. The last exchange that the King would ever feel as he slowly died by the Duke's hand.

With one last good look on his brother's face, the Duke then turned around and faced the Queen. The woman was terrified, knowing she was next. She was scared of what the Duke would do to her after seeing her husband scared out of his wits.

However, her expectations were far from reality.

The Duke kneeled down and looked at the Queen directly in the eye.

"You'll be back soon, my sweet."

He whispered underneath his breath as he stood back up. From there, he held the Soul Orb in his hands and started to activate a spell. One that would bring fruit to all of his labor.

From where Rynold was standing, he was unaware of what had happened in front. The undead was swarming him by the dozen.

However, Rynold could sense the distinct Mana that the Soul Orb emanated.

Rynold felt a chill run down his spine as he knew something big was happening. He could sense that the Mana that the Duke was trying to use turned vile.

'Shit.'

Despite his reckless advances, though, the number of undead never seemed to dwindle. Every step he made seemed to be of no use. He was constantly interrupted by another zombie-looking creature.

With that, the Duke continued with his plans, uninterrupted.

The Soul Orb in his hands started to absorb the ambient Mana in the atmosphere. With a big smile on his face, the Duke watched as the souls inside the Soul Orb started to swirl. Every rotation, the souls seemed to speed up until, soon enough...

Souls rushed out of the Soul Orb and swarmed around the Queen.

From inside the storm of souls, the Queen screamed in horror, but nobody could hear her.

As she lost all hope, a bright light appeared from above. The Queen, in her madness, assumed that the light was her savior. She willfully accepted the light's embrace, hoping that it would save her from this hell.

But, that wasn't the case.

The bright light consumed her entire being. The Queen suddenly felt unbearable pain as the light swallowed her whole. Each second that passed seemed to be millennia; the pain never subsiding, only growing.

Soon enough, the Queen's body was torn open by the light. The Queen's physical being was no more, but she still felt the pain all the same.

The bright light was eating away her soul.

As the pain was only getting stronger, the Queen suffered tremendously. It didn't seem to fade away until...

Her soul was no more.

From the outside, the Duke's smile was brimming ear to ear. The entirety of the plan had worked. He watched the storm of souls with an eager expression, waiting in anticipation for what it would produce.

In just a few seconds, the storm of souls subsided, revealing a woman in the middle.

The person was wearing the Queen's clothes. Or, to be more accurate, some parts of that resembled the Queen's clothing. Regardless, though, the biggest and most noticeable change was that the woman had a different appearance altogether.

"W-what have you done..?"

With a low, dying voice, the King cried out. His body was close to the point of dying. He could feel death lurking around the corner as the withering of his body was all over.

However, that didn't stop him from asking one final thing. That's because he didn't know what he had just witnessed, what happened to his loving wife, who had begged him for her life.

The Duke, however, didn't bother answering his brother's final question. The thing was, he didn't really care. The King was as good as dead. What's the point of answering the questions of a dead man? Besides, the Duke's focus was on what was in front of him.

A single step.

That one step felt heavy. The Duke was anticipating, planning for this moment for so long. He couldn't believe his weary eyes that the person he had been waiting for was in front of him.

He couldn't believe that it had worked.

After that one step, the woman suddenly flinched. Noticing this, the Duke immediately lunged and stayed by the woman's side.

"You... You're awake!"

The Duke exclaimed in cheerful glee. He carefully raised the woman's head by his hand and stared at her pristine, pale face.

As the woman slowly opened her eyes, the Duke was over the moon. The person who he held in his arms was all it was for. All the sacrifices. All the deaths. All of it was to bring this person back to him.

Boom!

Suddenly, the Duke was thrown back several feet and crashed into the wall. He thought that Rynold had finally caught up to him, but the reality was entirely different.

The woman that he had revived was the one who threw him into the wall. The impact of which was overly painful for his old bones.

"W-why..?"

The Duke didn't understand what had happened. He followed everything to the dot to actually succeed with the spell.

"Foolish humans. Always so easy to manipulate."

An unfamiliar voice suddenly called out from behind the throne. The shadow the thrones cast blocked the man's face.

However, the Duke already knew who it was.

"You! What the hell did you do to my wife?!"

The Duke could barely look straight. He didn't have any defensive magic that would've protected him from the impact of being thrown against the wall. Despite that, he endured and faced the man who had been secretly pulling the strings all along.

"Me? I did no such thing!"

Feigning innocence, the man mocked the Duke as he came out of the shadows.

Standing tall, the person that came out had physical characteristics that were similar to that of an ogre. Tall, hideously large beasts that had a taste for humans. However, this particular ogre was different.

He was proper and even exuded some point of elegance. What's more, he was wearing glasses and a red suit that compliments the ogre's black skin tone.

The ogre walked slowly towards the Duke's wife, who was standing completely still. Her pale face carried a blank expression as she spaced out.

"For the record, I am innocent in all of this," the ogre mocked the Duke as he walked in circles. The ogre wasn't even looking at the Duke's face.

No, the creature was engrossed with the woman who was in the center of the room.

"Truly, I feel bad for you. Going through all that trouble and for what? To bring back your dead wife? What's wrong, then? Not what you expected?"

Unable to take the ogre's constant mocking, the Duke finally acted. He yelled out in great anger and attacked the creature, with no regard for his own safety.

The black mist was homing in on the ogre to which the creature whisked it away with a simple wave of his hand. It was a direct insult to the Duke's cursed magic that Rynold had struggled with before. What's worse, the ogre didn't even look at the Duke when he attacked.

The power difference between them was way too big.

"Now, now. Let's keep quiet while the big guy is talking, hm?"

The ogre's words fell on deaf ears as the Duke still continuously threw out attacks. With every swing of his arm, every spell that he cast, the Duke's desperation spoke for itself.

However, no matter how desperate he was, the insurmountable wall between their strengths was too gigantic. The attacks that the Duke threw out were immediately dismissed. With a wave of the ogre's hand, no less.

With another desperate throw of his hands, the Duke's target suddenly disappeared. Questioning if he were hallucinating, the Duke did a double-take, only to find a voice suddenly spoke to him from behind.

The Duke tried to get away but was unable to. He was incapacitated. The Duke didn't understand what was happening. All he knew was that he couldn't move.

While being unable to move, the Duke was in the palm of the ogre's hand. However, instead of killing him right away, the ogre instead whispered in his ear.

'Finally!'

Rynold, panting, was finally free from all of the Undead. He was glad but, at the same time, had a weird taste in his mouth.

It wasn't strange. Considering the fact that he had just fought against a bunch of moving corpses, it was natural to feel strange. But, he didn't let that get to him as there were other things he needed to take care of.

'What happened there?'

Rynold raced along the throne room and soon reached the area where the Duke, his wife, and the ogre were.

"Ah! You've finally come!"

Before Rynold could do anything, the ogre was the first to greet him. It bothered Rynold that the ogre looked like he was expecting Rynold to show up.

"Who are you supposed to be?"

"No need to be so hostile! My real name has been lost in time, but you can call me the same as everyone else does. They call me Skeem. A pleasure to meet you."

The ogre was unnaturally, uncharacteristically polite. One might go as far as to say that he was a proper gentleman.

Rynold, naturally, was a bit skeptical of the ogre's attitude. He immediately made a fist with his Mana Gauntlet in Strength-form, ready to strike at any moment.

"A sharp one, huh? No wonder Shado lost to you."

Hearing the ogre mention Shado immediately put Rynold's senses into high gear. The creature standing before him was part of the ASS, a known enemy by the gods.

Unfortunately, Rynold wasn't in the best condition to fight an elite of the association. The Undead had worn him down severely. All Rynold could do right now was to glare at the guy.

"You misunderstand. I'm not here to pick a fight. Sure, you killed off one of my comrades, but we weren't really that close. Besides, that guy was an absolute jerk. But, him, on the other hand..."

The ogre pointed at one of the walls.

There, the Duke was standing all so silently. However, the moment that Rynold and the Duke made eye contact, the latter pounced at Rynold.

Luckily, the distance between them was too far, and Rynold was able to evade the first advance. Unfortunately, it didn't stop there.

"As much as I want to stay here and chat, I'll let you two... well, discuss your differences."

Suddenly, a shadow vertically and shaped itself into an oblong as tall and as wide as the ogre. From there, the creature went into it and didn't appear on the other side.

The shadow was a gateway to someplace else.

"Wait!" Rynold called out, but the ogre had long disappeared.

As the ogre left, the woman moved to the shadow gateway as well. Rynold tried to stop her, but the Duke stopped his every advance.

And, just like that, the two disappeared, and the shadow gateway was no more.