Dortha leapt from over the downed Rune Golem and dashed toward Dave. His speed was comparable to a panther on steroids running at top speed. He made it to Dave in the time it took him to blink.

Dortha swung down with his claws at Dave. His claws were sharp enough that Dave had the feeling that they ripped through the fabric of space with a mere swing.

Dave held his shield up in time, connecting the shield and claw together.

The strength behind Dortha's claw was enough to send Dave flying hundreds of feet away and tumbling on the ground.

A notification appeared in front of Dave.

***

Warning, one of your items is unusable!

Your Doom Knight Tower Shield has cracked!

You must repair your shield to use its abilities!

***

Dave scrambled to his feet. He was about to let out a curse as his shield was destroyed, but the sudden appearance of Dortha right in front of him made him swallow his words, and use [Immortal Apparition], teleporting away from the enraged creature.

Dortha ignored Dave and turned to the closest thing in the vicinity. It was Spark.

The Death Knight waved his hand and summoned a vortex of fire. It shot at the Lycan threatening to turn him to cinders. The flames coiled around itself and surged with unstoppable momentum, crashing against the incoming beast.

But Dortha was unfazed by the incinerating heat. The scorching flames were unable even to singe his fur. Dortha burst out from the fire, claw held high and swung down.

***

Your Named Death Knight (Spark) Has died!

***

"Fuck!" Dave cursed," Boyz! Fall back, don't get in Dortha's way!"

Yet again, Dave's words were suppressed by the bellowing howl of Dortha's maddened wrath. The creature's voice rippled out from within him. It was loud enough to crack the earth and tumble the risen pillars of stone.

Singund bravely smashed into Dortha in a shoulder bash, then shouted," Lord! I'll hold him back, you all esca-"

But his words were cut short, the beast had already regained his balance and clawed at Singund. Two claws and two arms torn. Singund was left staring dumbly at the beast in front of him. His cleaver was laying next to him, and he had no arms or hands to grab it.

Dortha then sunk his fangs into Singund's neck and ripped out, decapitating the creature.

Singund had a passive that made him evade Death for 180 seconds, so even if he had lost his head, he didn't die. But that only made his suffering worse. Dortha found it unappealing that what he had just 'slew' refused to die. So he made sure to finish the job. Dortha clawed at Singund's body shredding it to bits and pieces, leaving nothing but mangled sinew and bones.

Dave noticed that whenever Dortha assaulted anything, he would grow larger, stronger and faster. It seemed that he was being empowered whenever he attacked anything.

A swirl of black smoke materialized behind Dortha. It was Bud. He smashed both of his clawed arms against the Abyssal Knight's flanks. But the creature worked on instinct, the moment it felt Bud behind him, he spread both of his arms to the side and caught Bud's own hands.

The scene looked comical but wasn't funny at all for Dave. The 'small' werewolf overpowered the giant ghoul and smashed him into the ground. It then began ripping at the ghoul.

Dave cursed again and used [Demonic Ascension], hopefully with the life-draining passive it would give him an edge and increase his chances of survival. He needed to get out of here and save his allies.

Dave grew wings, claws and horns. He turned demonic in seconds. Red lightning crackled around him as he flew toward the mad Abyssal knight.

Dave grabbed at Dortha's shoulder and hurled him away from Bud and toward the Rune Golem that was staring at the fight numbly. He managed to save his ghoul in the nick of time but seeing how badly wounded Bud was, Dave cringed. The ghoul's entire body was covered in deep scars.

"Bud, Dog, Tengu, split up! we can't stay here!" Dave called.

The trio didn't disagree, and they all split. However, Dortha didn't seem to like this choice. He ran behind Dave, ignoring the rune golem. Dave turned tail and flew away.

When the tengu noticed Dortha chasing Dave, he changed his direction and flew behind the mad beast.

He slashed at Dortha's back with his katana, a miserable attempt to actually do harm. But at least it successfully completed an objective. Dortha angrily growled at the tengu that dared attack it and momentarily changed target. He jumped up and sliced at the tengu. However, the long-nosed Death Knight was faster in-flight and dodged the blow.

Dortha fell back to the ground, looking up, Dortha released yet another beastly howl and swung its arm at the air. Three large wind claws blasted out form his claws and moved through space. They were so fast that the tengu had no time to dodge. The claw attack hit the tengu, one of his arms was torn, and his back had a deep gushing wound on it.

Dave cursed to the high heavens as the Tengu went after him.

"Lord! I'll hold him back. You have to escape lest you fail your task!" The tengu said.

"No!" Dave shouted he didn't want to lose any more allies. If they die, he will have to go back all the way to the Dead Realm to bring them back, and there was no telling if Dortha would still be here when he comes back.

Suddenly a notification about the death of the Rune Golem appeared in front of Dave. It seemed that in just a few seconds, the Golem had decided that it was a good idea to attack the beast that trespassed into its territory. As it turned out, that was the dumbest and last idea it would ever have.

Dortha finished off the Golem in seconds, and Dave received several Level Up notifications. He was level 449 right now — one level under the minimum required to use Deadra shield and sword.

Soon after, Dave heard the wind howling behind him. A massive boulder that was the size of a house and had several runic writings on it was flying through the air. The boulder smashed into the tengu, killing it instantly. That boulder was clearly the remaining of the Runic Golem's body after Dortha finished off with it.

"Fuck man, how did shit turn out like this!" Dave cursed. He only wanted to level up a bit, and now it seems that one of the most powerful undead of the legion is after him.

Dave thought that if he levelled up to 450, he could probably use the shield and sword to awaken Dortha. Perhaps it might work, maybe it might not. But this was his only chance. Dortha himself had said that only Deadra could awake him from his berserk mode.

A loud roar made Dave aware of how close Dortha was. He was hot on his tail right now. The creature was really fast. He could jump from rock formation to the other and keep up, or probably even overtake Dave in seconds.

Dave turned to see the monster blasting down a rock pillar and shooting like a meteor toward him. Dortha's open maw was right in front of Dave's face when he used [Bastion] blocking the attack from the Abyssal Knight. Yet the creature was a pesky, persistent leech. He grabbed onto Dave, and the two dropped down to the ground.

Dave had only three seconds of immunity before Dortha would tear into him like a hot knife through butter, or worse, like a werewolf through a defenceless human. In these three seconds, Dave was falling and had to think upon how to extract himself from the creature.

Just as the two fell to the ground, Dave used [Vertical Slash] coupled with [Double Edged], the combo came off instinctively after so many times Dave had used it.

The Minghocao rose from under the ground and clamped its fangs on Dortha. But the Abyssal Knight showed the Emperor Worm the true meaning behind, never bite off more than you can swallow. Dortha trashed inside the gorge of the Worm Emperor and slice and diced at it from inside. Forcing out a howl of pain and a screech of indignation from the creature.

The Emperor Worm spat out the beast and splashed a torrent of yellow dissolving liquid at Dortha.

The beast, for the first time didn't try to tide through an attack and dodged away. A drop of the Emperor Worm's stomach liquid touched its fur, burning it and sizzling its flesh.

Dortha reared back then howled at the Worm. The Worm replied in kind. The two creatures recognized each other and started a staring contest.

Dave didn't know how strong the Worm Emperor was, but it seems that this skill had many secrets that Dave have to unfold.

Dortha ran toward the worm and the worm dove back under the ground. It seemed for Dave that the skill had ended, but the worm surfaced again, this time it ate through the ground in a mouth full of acid. It was trying to drown the Abyssal knight into its own gullet that was now filled with acid and sizzling rocks.

Dortha hopped up in the sky. His legs had enough strength in them to make the creature fly hundreds of feet up in the air.

At this point, Dortha would escape the Worm, and the worm will be at the mercy of the beast once it starts falling down. Dave wasn't going to let that happen. He rapidly swapped his sword to his [Stalwart Gauntlets] and used [Advancing Dragon].

He appeared right above Dortha, his leg extended up and then came down in [Dragon Kick].

An infernal Dragon materialized above Dortha and smashed into his back, sending the creature that was in the air falling down like a shooting star of fire, fur and fangs down into the open gullet of the Emperor Worm.

Dortha helplessly fell into the acid pool within the Emperor Worm's maws. Loud howls of pain echoed from within the worm king. For few seconds, Dave expectantly waited in the air. He knew that Dortha wouldn't die, and even if by some miracle he did die to the acid, he would just spawn back at the Dead Realm, hopefully mad-free.

Yet, the Worm Emperor couldn't contain the Abyssal Knight for a long time, and it was slashing at the inside of the worm's mouth.

The Worm Emperor reluctantly spat out the acid and blood-covered were-wolf. The blood was mostly the worm's as it had many of its fangs missing and a lot of new scars carved inside it.

But when the were-wolf fell to the ground, half of his fur had melted off, revealing burnt and melting flesh.

The Worm Emperor 'looked' at Dave, something acing to recognition then dove back into the ground, this time for good.

A notification appeared in front of Dave.

***

The skill [Double Edged] has been updated and modified.

Additional Lore has been added to the [Double Edge] skill.

***

"I'll take that, another upgrade why not," Dave said to himself.

He was glad that the skill had yet another update, but the current situation hadn't changed much. Dortha was still on the ground. He was half whimpering half growling. It looked at Dave who was flying up in the air, the undead was flying, and Dortha was currently wounded.

Dortha sniffed at the air, then turned to a random direction and blasted off toward it. Dave had a bad feeling about this. Dortha had probably found an 'easy' prey and was going toward it. Dave hoped that it would not be one of his allies and he hoped even more that he wouldn't heal back and come to find Dave with a vengeance.

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