MMORPG: Rise of the Peerless Pumpkinmancer
chapter-256

"Perish, foul creatures!" The mighty shout resounded across the battlefield as if a death sentence.

— Crush! —

— Holy Glow! —

As Jack exited the trial, he witnessed a scene of destruction. Bones, bones everywhere, bones overwhelmed by holy light weakening them and hammers cracking their skulls.

There were tons of players, led by a mastodon of a man. The paladin's armor glowed in the dark environment, akin to a sun that no undead could stare at directly.

"Is that a ghoul?! Seize it at once!!" The paladin growled, locking on Jack.

"Buy me some time," Jack whispered to his party as he devoured the Memory Crystal he had just received.

The paladin snorted, seeing this pitiful effort. Devouring a power-up item? It would take far too long to absorb, possibly hours. This ghoul sure was naive!

Jack was instantly overwhelmed by visions of the Death Knight's life, ones from an age far gone.

- Getting summoned by a dark shadowy figure. (Lich?)

- Learning its power and growing stronger through training

- Waging war against the humans to grow even stronger

- Eventually getting sealed by a divine power that was out of this world

There were so many scenes that he could only stand in place, immobile while he learned it all. At least the undead ignored him, sensing their master's aura invading him.

"Woo!" (Count on me!)

The little wolf's eyes glowed with resolve. Its master wasn't in any shape to fight, and it was now its duty to protect him. It rested its eyes on the cackling paladin.

"They're like loose sand, all stupid. Push forward and—" The paladin started only to suddenly freeze, flabbergasted as plenty of "woo" resounded.

An unassuming wolf had suddenly taken control of the battlefield. How?! It howled orders toward the undead legion, and they obeyed?!

Death Knight's aura —> Affecting Jack's pets too

Had one observed closer, they would have noticed two tiny undead rushing along with the others and helping with undead control.

The Skeleton Chicken and Macabre Rat had just been promoted to legion commanders! Their current aura was sufficient to convince the mindless undead to follow them.

A Brave quickly noticed this.

"Target the rat, the chicken, and snipe the wolf! Otherwise, those bony bastards will move as an army!" Forsaken Hero warned.

Thus began a pet hunt, one that was characterized by the countless magic bolts being sent toward the dodgy pests. Why were they so good at evading?! It defied all logic!

At this rate, could the pet/ undead army win?! Sadly, the human party still had many cards under its sleeve.

"Oh holy one, please shine your light on the sinners and show them the errors of their ways!" The paladin chanted.

— Holy Pulse! —

It spread in all directions, stunning anything remotely undead for a short instant. Luckily the pets were as safe as possible, hiding between their "brethren". But, would it suffice?

"Now! Homing!" Suddenly the players' hands glowed with blue light as they summoned plenty of magic missiles, special ones.

The magic flew toward the bigger undead, but it changed trajectory right as it was about to collide with them! It bypassed the surrounding enemies, landing straight unto the targets!

— Homing Magic Missile! —

— Shatter! Shatter! —

Just like that rat and chicken perished, disappearing with unwillingness in their eyes. They could only leave everything to their wolf big brother.

Moon Moon shuddered in rage. Those annoying humans really were persistent! They really had chased all this way just to mess with them?!

It gave one last loving glance at the unconscious Jack before resolutely charging in the fray. It fought claw and spells to the best of its capabilities.

— Fiery Chicken! —

The enemies started burning, losing a few of their members. But even then, there were still about 30 of them.

"Woo!" (Follow me!)

The little wolf called out to the undead, but they seemed more reluctant to follow the living. With regret, it witnessed the undead army slowly but surely dwindling.

"Victory will be ours. Get me that ghoul's head!" The paladin called out, already considering the battle won.

But there was a sudden shift on the battlefield. The unruly undead began acting as if one being, showing incredible coordination. How?!

In the back, a young ghoul had just opened its pitch-black eyes. Jack had a large grin on his pale face. Legacy obtained!

[Congratulations on Absorbing Memory Crystal!]

[Acquired Death Knight's Experiences!]

[Acquired Born Undead Leader!]

[Acquired Undying Sword E!]

[Acquired Necromancy E!]

[Bringer of Chaos Activated!!]

[New Class unlocked! Acquire Death's Chosen?]

[Thanatos ~ Bring me more gifts, bring death to all.]

[Accept? Y/N?]

!?

Jack felt like there was something wrong with this offer. A Chosen was kind of a big deal. It wasn't exactly at the same level as a Champion, but it was still significant.

The weird part was that he had never managed to interact with Thanatos. Had she been following his adventures without him knowing?

The whole "bring me gifts" part was the only condition to this power. How simple of a requirement!

"Accept!"

[Acquired Title: Death Bringer! Grow Stronger with Death!]

For a second, the entire world seemed to still as if a disaster was about to befall Infinite.

The holy party held their breath in fright…but then nothing seemingly happened?! In any case, they were way too busy with the undead legion swarming at them.

"Woo!" (Rejoicing!)

The little wolf happily howled as it took its rightful place next to its master. It couldn't help but admire how awesome he was at ordering the army.

"We need to destroy this ghoul!" They quickly realized.

That's when the Braves changed tactics. Instead of slowly crushing the undead, they charged straight into them like an unstoppable spear.

"Bony Shield Wall," Jack casually murmured.

Shield wall? They didn't even have shields! But then the skeletons wordlessly picked boulders lying around, using them to defend their bodies.

This was sufficient to reverse the situation. Undead could not tire. The longer they stalled, the better. Sadly the paladin wouldn't accept this.

"This vile ghoul is full of tricks, but tricks are useless in the face of true strength!" The paladin bellowed.

He took out a golden vial. Oh god, holy dew?! This thing was mainly for healing, but it could increase a paladin's Holy power threefold!

"Vanquishing evil at all cost." The paladin uttered, drinking the whole thing.

That's when his body started radiating overwhelming golden energy. A second later, it was spreading to the players. Incredible dread appeared on the ghoul's face.

"CHARGE!" The entire party was temporarily in a near-invincible state as they powered through the undead ranks.

With every step, they crushed their enemies as if wet carton. Finally, they would have the ghoul's head. Finally, they would—

Just as they reached the middle of the undead army, Jack's look of horror suddenly disappeared, replaced by a playful expression.

"Ever seen a beautiful explosion?" He winked at them as he snapped his fingers. The undead all started shaking, and then….

— SHATTER!!!! —

They didn't just crumble. They exploded, sending bones fragments all over! The humans didn't have time to react at all and were instantly turned into sieves.

[Congratulations! Leveled up!]

Near-invincibility? The keyword was near.

The undead army was gone, but so was the human army.

Actually, there remained one man standing. The paladin's body was bloodied all over, was missing a leg and an arm, was out of mana, but he was still alive?!

In his eyes, there was great hate, one that killing Jack wouldn't suffice to appease. Still, he was an arrow at the end of its flight. Everything would be alright— or so he thought.

Suddenly another dusty figure appeared, drawing closer to the weakened paladin. Another human had survived?! More importantly, he held a potion in his hand.

"Stop him!!!" Jack shouted hurriedly.

"Woo!" (Die!!!)

Moon Moon targeted the potion with its fire, but the crippled paladin was even faster. The next second he was already gulping the potion.

"Hahaha, this is the end! This is finally over!" He gloated before glancing at his ally. "You did well! History will remember our triumph: holy paladin Helort and Brave…."

"Derek, you can call me Derek." The human playfully uttered. He looked a the holy warrior as if an utter fool for some reason.

The paladin jerked in shock. Something was wrong! But before he could understand what, the cold invaded him, freezing him from the inside as he fell lifeless.

"Yep, they always fall for it…." Jack shook his head with a mocking smile.

"M-master, what's with that appearance?" Derek asked in a whisper. Had he been a monster all long? Was this why he was so unique.

"I'm technically still human if that's what you're asking for. But know this, in Infinite the body is just a vessel. What truly matters is the will that drives it." Jack remarked.

But for all his wise words, he was already busy looting the battlefield as if a common scavenger.

Those players were surprisingly rich! There were enough armor pieces for him to equip himself from head to toe (minus the special gear slots).

"Woo!" (Victory!)

Moon moon approached, tail wagging, rubbing its fur against its master's hand. So what if he had become a ghoul!

But it suddenly started sniffing, perplexed. Why was it that it could smell a familiar scent from Jack? It wasn't the ghoul thing either. It was something else… the death realm!

Yep, there was really something different about its master! Just as it was about to investigate, something happened.

Out of nowhere, the corpse of the holy paladin suddenly shook before a vengeful holy ghost came out of it, rushing straight toward Jack! A second later, it was entering his body!

[Marked by Paladin Helort's Spirit!]

"Goddammit, this is beyond terrible!" As Jack checked his status, he couldn't help but curse. This mark would pinpoint his location to the other paladins.

It had taken an undead army to kill Helort and his Brave cronies. Now, 11 paladins of similar strength were heading their way! RIP!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

:crossed_swords: [ STATUS! ] :crossed_swords:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Player: Jack' O Level 24

Class: Death's Chosen

Title: Death Bringer

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

HP: 68 +10

Mana: 34

Condition: Tired

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Armor Rating: 27 (50%)

Defense Type: Balanced

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

STR: 29 + 6

AGI: 1 + 14

INT: 50 + 17

SPI: 1 + 11

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Resilience 16

Leadership 35

Fire Affinity 42

Water Affinity 10

Holy Energy Affinity -37

Demonic Energy Affinity 53

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

- Necromancy E+

- Shield Mastery E

- Undying Sword E

- Fire Manipulation E

- Bone Manipulation F+

- Wind Manipulation F

- Bloody Cleave F

- Self Destruct F

- Demon King's Weapon Aspect (Nascent)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

- Butchering E

- Negotiation F+

- Teaching F+

- Carving F+

- Gathering F

- Mining F

- Sneak F

- Magical Array Creation F

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

- Well-Fed

- Holy Mark (-)

- Regeneration (F)

- Ghoulish Power (++)

- Holy Vulnerability (-)

- Shadow Guardian

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

- Death Bringer ?

- Chaos Bringer ?

- Devilish Soul ?

- Burning Man E

- Walking Calamity E

- Summoning Affinity F

- Blessing of the Hunt F

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[A/N] Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the status or if anything seems to be missing/ confusing ;)

PS* Some skills are voluntarily omitted: Necrocluckmancy + Necromancy E —> Necromancy E+ (With hidden bonuses for chickens)