Ding! Ding! Ding!
[You have obtained a Fragment of Memory: “Demon Empire Location”!]
[A-Level Advancement Task: Defeat 50,000 monsters with your undead.] (50,000 / 50,000)
[Your Undead Lord talent has evolved to A-Rank!]
It had taken just over an hour for Alex to seize full control of the demon city, and remarkably, he had done it with only a hundred undead under his command.
No reinforcements, no backup, just raw efficiency and ruthless precision.
The entire event was nothing short of a massacre, swift, one-sided, and horrifyingly clean.
The city’s death toll had likely crossed the ten-thousand mark, maybe even higher.
But the real surprise wasn’t just in the bodies that fell.
Most of the demons had fled long before the battle was over, abandoning their posts once it became clear they were hopelessly outmatched.
Alex didn’t chase them, and he didn’t even bother giving the order to his undead to kill the fleeing ones like before.
He already had what he came for.
The location of the [Demon Empire], the very heart of demon-kind, was now his.
That alone made this entire effort worth it, not to mention the completion of his [Undead Lord] advancement task.
But that wasn’t all.
[You have killed 10,872 demons and gained 1.6308 trillion experience points.]
The sheer number made him blink.
Thanks to the brutality of his summons, his system had begun showering him in level-up notifications before he could even properly inspect the earlier ones.
[You have reached level 1471, gaining 4 stat points to all attributes and 5 free points to assign.][You have reached level 1472…][You have reached level 1473…][You have…]
The numbers kept climbing, screen after screen popping up before him in a steady, never-ending flow.
He could feel his chest begin to tighten slightly with each one.
The anticipation wasn’t excitement, it was pressure.
Because at this rate, he was close to reaching Level 1,500.
It was the threshold of Tier-10. The final tier. The cap.
No one had ever made it this far in his previous life.
Level 2000 may have technically been the ceiling, but Tier-10 was the last true milestone.
A wall no one had scaled. A peak no one had reached.
And now he was getting dangerously close.
His fingers flexed slightly at his sides as the system kept throwing panels in front of him.
The tension in his body grew with each number.
1474… 1475… 1476…
His heart thudded, slow but heavy, like distant war drums before a storm.
1483… 1489… 1493…
Almost there.
1495… 1497…
And finally.
[You have reached level 1500, gaining 4 stat points to all attributes and 5 free points to assign.]
For a long moment, Alex said nothing.
He just stared, knowing that he had actually done it. He was Tier-10.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
[You have reached level 1,500 and thus became a Tier-10 player.][You have reached the maximum tier a player can reach in Universal Descent, congratulations.][You will now receive your Tier-10 Advancement Task.]
“…Well, damn,” he murmured to himself, his voice low, almost disbelieving.
He had expected to reach this milestone before the [Chosen Games] began, but to hit it this quickly?
Even for him, it was a little sooner than anticipated.
Still, he wasn’t about to complain.
“Guess I’ll look through everything else first,” he muttered, brushing his hand across the system panels, “The advancement task can wait. It’s probably going to be hell anyway.”
He pulled up the other screens he’d temporarily minimized.
The first one, the memory fragment.
[Fragment of Memory: Demon Empire Location]
The moment he tapped it, his [World Map] expanded on its own.
His location, marked by a small glowing dot labeled “You”, immediately began to shift.
The view zoomed out, panning upward through the digital landscape of Universal Descent.
It flew past nearby demon cities, surged beyond conquered zones, even glided past the remains of [Dragon City].
The map moved higher and deeper into uncharted regions.
And then, it stopped.
The camera zoomed in again on a specific point, an ominous red dot pulsing in the heart of the continent.
Beneath it, a label appeared.
[Demon Empire]
His eyes narrowed, locking onto it. This was the core.
The stronghold of the most dangerous demons in existence.
Where the elite dwelled. Where the [Demon King] ruled.
If he could bring that empire down, then everything else would collapse.
All the lesser demon cities would either fall or surrender.
And now, thanks to this conquest, he had the exact coordinates.
He exhaled slowly, then closed the map.
One prize down. Time to check the second.
[Your Undead Lord talent has evolved to A-Rank!]
His gaze lingered on the panel.
He’d already read it three times by now, but this time, he hovered his finger just above the prompt, ready to see the new perks unlocked with the A-Rank evolution.
But just before he could tap.
“Shouldn’t you use the [Talent Upgrade Scroll] first?”
The voice came from within his [Undead Space], deep and familiar.
Astolf, the Undead King, spoke calmly from where his essence rested inside Alex’s spiritual domain.
Alex tilted his head slightly.
“I was going to check the perks for A-Rank first.”
“Why bother?” Astolf replied, “If you use the scroll, you’ll see all the perks at once, including everything from A to S. Makes more sense, doesn’t it?”
Alex paused. It was a good point.
The [Undead Lord] perks wouldn’t vanish if he upgraded them again.
If anything, they’d become stronger, or be joined by new abilities entirely.
There wasn’t any risk.
It was smarter to evolve it straight to S-Rank, then view the full list of perks in one go.
“Yeah… You’re right,” Alex said with a small smile, nodding in agreement, “No point wasting time checking halfway.”
He reached into his system inventory, not his [Digital Inventory Watch], but the system’s core inventory, and summoned the item he’d stored long ago.
The [Talent Upgrade Scroll] materialized in his hand.
It was simple in appearance, yet clearly powerful.
The parchment shimmered with deep violet lines of shifting text, glowing softly like runes constantly rearranging themselves in patterns he couldn’t understand.
He examined it for a second, just to reread the description one last time.
[Talent Upgrade Scroll (Artifact)][Description: Used to upgrade a talent by one rank. It can be used on any talent and will always succeed, even if the talent is at SS-Level or has just completed its advancement task.]
Same as before. No changes. No limitations.
He held the scroll firmly in one hand, then channeled a mixture of aura and mana into it.
The parchment reacted instantly, vibrating faintly as threads of purple light spilled from its surface and curled into the air.
The scroll glowed brighter.
SHHH, KRAK!
It cracked with a pulse of energy as he crushed it in his palm.
A new panel appeared.
[Which talent do you want to upgrade?]
He didn’t hesitate.
“Undead Lord,” he said aloud.
[Very well.][Evolving “Undead Lord” talent from A-Rank to S-Rank…]
A deep smile touched the corners of his lips as the power began to stir.
The scroll dissolved in his hand, leaving behind only glowing embers that floated upward and vanished.
“Here we go,” Alex whispered, his voice quiet but firm.