Chapter 172: Chapter 172 - The Ancient Skeleton King
The projection steadied, revealing Livia’s face. Her veil was pulled down, revealing strands of damp silver hair sticking against her cheeks.
Behind her, the image filled with sunlight and distant palm trees, though the sound of rushing waves was louder than anything else.
She looked tired, but her eyes looked sharper than he’d ever seen.
"...Logan?" she said softly, tilting her head as if confirming it was truly him.
Logan answered, smiling slightly. "Yeah. It’s me."
He paused for a moment. "Are you alright?"
Livia gave a small smile as she gave a nod. "I am, yes," she said. "I only got back an hour ago from fighting a wave of water creatures."
Logan’s eyes widened slightly. "Water creatures?"
Livia chuckled.
"I’m on a mission from the university with Grant and the others right now," she explained, a sweet smile on her face. "We are in South America, the coastline of Chile to be precise."
"Ah," Logan said, nodding in understanding. "And everything’s been going well?"
"Yep," Livia said, grinning. "Once you’re back at the university, we’ll take you with us a few times too."
"Sounds good," Logan smiled, memories of last time still flashing through his mind.
Livia didn’t know he had long participated in sea creature sieges, even having participated in one of almost the highest level.
And neither did he want her to know.
Logan let the smile linger for a moment before his expression shifted, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Actually... there’s something I wanted to ask you."
Livia blinked, the waves still roaring faintly behind her. "What is it?"
"The Alvarez family," he said evenly. "They’ve gone silent. Their company’s falling apart, but instead of scrambling, they’re waiting. Almost like they’re gambling everything on one last move."
Her smile faded, replaced by a calm look. "You think they’re preparing something against you."
"I don’t just think," Logan muttered, leaning back in his chair. "It’s the only explanation that makes sense."
For a moment, the projection only carried the sound of the ocean. Then Livia shook her head slowly. "I don’t know anything about them... but I’ll ask my father if he’s heard something from the spies inside the Holy Cross Guild."
"That would help," Logan said quietly. "I’d rather be cautious than blind."
Livia chuckled softly. "I can understand that. Don’t worry, I’ll ask him today and send you a message once I get a response."
Logan gave a small nod. "Thank you, Livia."
"No need to thank me," she responded, shaking her head. "Just... don’t push yourself too hard. You are hopping from one thing to the next. But even you need rest."
Before Logan could answer, the call disconnected with a soft chime, leaving him alone in his room.
He fell silent for a moment before shaking his head softly. "Rest, huh."
She said it so easily, but what did that even mean for him?
He had barely stopped moving since stepping into this war. From the moment he killed Derek on university grounds, he had yet to be able to take a break with how much was happening.
For a short moment, Logan fell silent.
"But what I accomplished because of that is awesome," he thought, smiling slightly.
He had gone from an absolute nobody, all the way to one of the most famous and known people in the entire world.
Logan exhaled slowly and stood up from the couch. "There’s no time to rest now either," he thought. "There are two weeks until the freshman competition left... and I have to win that competition."
Time was of the essence now.
"The university is allowing me back in a week... but I don’t think I’ll head over there immediately," he thought, narrowing his eyes. "I need to figure out what the deal is with my first Dark Knight after all."
His head hurt already thinking about his busy agenda.
Logan’s expression went serious. "I should stop complaining now," he said, heading for his training room. "There are plenty of other techniques I have yet to master."
And so he did.
Days flew by as he spent his time training and managing both of his companies. Each day was filled to the brim, often leaving him utterly exhausted.
But Logan pushed on, using the pressure of multiple deadlines and improvements to his strength as sources of motivation.
Finally, after six entire days, Logan sat peacefully on the floor of his training room. In his left hand, a thick manual covered in intricate designs made of bones. In his right hand, his trusted glaive.
He had a thick frown on his face while his heart pounded heavily in his chest.
"Today is the day," he muttered, staring around the empty room.
The cold pulse from the undead chamber had stayed the same over the days, occasionally sending shivers down Logan’s spine.
Yet today, it felt heavier. Every breath seemed to freeze his lungs. Every heartbeat echoed louder in his ears, making it feel as if the chamber itself was reminding him that time was running out.
He closed his eyes for a moment, the silence pressing down on him. Countless unanswered questions ran endlessly in his mind, each one more concerning than the last.
"At least the Alvarez family hasn’t done anything yet," Logan mumbled, massaging his temples. "I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress if something went wrong with the company too."
Livia had gotten back to him an hour after he called her. The news wasn’t exactly something Logan was looking forward to though.
The Imperial Church’s spies had reported back that the Alvarez family and the Holy Cross Guild were indeed waiting for something big.
But what exactly, none of them knew, as their ranks within the organizations weren’t nearly high enough to access that information.
"It honestly makes the Freshman Competition the last of my worries," he thought, shaking his head. "But even that deadline only has a week left."
Logan fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes to relax himself.
He exhaled slowly, putting his glaive down on the floor beside him.
"Alright," he said, eyes snapping open. "Let’s stop wasting time... and let’s start on the problem for today."
His fingers rapidly flipped through the pages of the manual, eyes scanning each page until he found what he was searching for.
Logan read through the same page about summoning the creature one more time, just making sure he hadn’t accidentally misread it last time.
After making sure that everything was alright, he let out a deep breath.
"Everything is correct," he thought, clenching his fist. "I just need to pour some mana into the engravings on the undead chamber’s walls and direct its mana to where I want it to appear."
With no further questions, Logan put the manual back into his space ring and stood up.
He raised his hand out in front of him, heart pounding heavily.
"This is it," he muttered, voice low. "No turning back."
Logan closed his eyes, concentrating internally.
Without hesitation, he began guiding undead mana from his core through his body, straight towards the undead chamber inside his heart.
Immense coldness spread through his body as the undead mana flowed through it, but Logan ignored it all as the engravings on the undead chamber began to glow.
"Step one done," he thought.
Suddenly, he felt a foreign yet familiar mana start leaving the undead chamber.
His attention snapped back immediately as he started guiding it towards the palm of his hand.
Logan’s eyes snapped open just in time to see a massive cloud of sickly green mana pouring out of his palm, materializing a giant figure in front of him.
Bone by bone, the creature put itself together in front of him.
As he felt the last bits of foreign mana leave his body, a strange unsettling feeling spread through Logan’s body.
It no longer felt as cold as before, instead it felt kind of... empty.
However, he had no time to think about that.
Within three seconds, a green flame flickered in the giant Skeleton King’s eyes as it fully materialized in front of him.
It stared down at him from above, completely emotionless.
Logan sucked in a deep breath as he took in the massive creature one more time, it being over five times his height this time.
The final piece, the giant Skeleton King’s massive greatsword, materialized in its hand. It slammed into the floor loudly, sending a chill down Logan’s spine.
Logan watched carefully as the skeletal giant slowly slid the weapon across its shoulder, calmly fastening it onto its back while its eyes remained locked onto him.
Then complete silence fell in the room.
The flames in its eyes flickered strangely, dimming and flaring as though it were studying him.
The air between them grew heavy, neither Logan nor the Skeleton King speaking up.
After a few seconds, Logan couldn’t take it anymore and was about to open his mouth.
But the Skeleton King spoke first.
"...Hu...man."