Bosque Adelio the second, the prince of the agricultural Bosque Kingdom. An arrogant brat by all accounts.
"Big brother, how is it?" His younger brother, the third prince, asked after seeing his eldest brother exit from the royal training room with a smug smile.
"What do you think? I've reached the peak of course" His smug smile turned sinister for a second but Alvin, the young third prince, didn't take notice of this as his eyes sparkled with admiration.
"You are amazing brother! I'm barely in the C-class" He could only muster such simple words of praise when faced with the powerful figure that was his brother.
These words however made Adelio's eyes turn sharp as he closely inspected his younger brother. He, who was barely ten years old, had somehow already breached past the beginner level that was the D-class.
Alvin's face now held a smug smile of his own as he awaited some praise.
"...Very good" But his brother could only let out some half-hearted words as he pressed his hand on the latter's head.
"Ow!" Alvin screamed from both surprise and discomfort as his neck was forcibly forced down. At that point, Adelio had already continued on his way with a much less happy smile. Out of nowhere then appeared a third party.
"Judas I will make it to the A-class soon enough, I think we can push forward the plan" Adelio was previously unable to make the push for the throne due to being weaker than his father but after drinking that potion he now stood at the peak of the B-class alongside him, he was qualified to at least place some serious pressure on him.
"Don't worry, I have already made the arrangements" Judas said briefly recalling his meeting with Azrael.
"Good" The prince said, his smug smile finally returning. He could taste victory.
But the reality was full of twists and turns, with so many scheming individuals, plans were bound to go astray.
Not much later, inside of the king's bedroom was an old man. He seemed haggard and not even his long refined white beard could hide this. His robe had traces of a red substance… blood?
"Brennan, we should set off now Cough cough" Said Eon, the sickly old man, to Brennan the current king of the Bosque Kingdom who had been bedridden out of stress.
"I- I couldn't change anything…" But Brennan was not in any position to listen. He was still disillusioned by the results of his resolve.
In the end, the Galeburst dynasty had declared war on them as opposed to aiding. He had been foolish to believe that he could get them on his side due to their common enemy. The grains of sand he declared he could grasp had passed through his hands, they weaved beautifully past with the force provided by the elegant winds of time as if to mock him. He had reached the future he had thought possible but never thought to accept.
"Brenn- Cough Cough, Brennan!" Eon, who was nearly dying somehow managed to yell out the name of the king in between his painful coughs.
The king only looked at the sickly figure with a sorrowful gaze, he was lamenting the state of his only lifeline. He was full of despair at this point.
"If I haven't given up, what right do you have to?!" Eon continued with a seething expression. Though he still looked haggard, the peak A-class strength he held was not a joke. The king was immediately scared out of his stupor. But that only made him become angry.
"This is different! This is entirely different! Look at yourself, you are a walking corpse that has lived over one hundred years but what am I? I'm still at the peak of my middle age!" He was a healthy king with a fair amount of wealth and power. He wasn't dumb by any accounts and his only deficiency was combat. How could he bear to die?
The room fell silent in an instant as Eon's eyes narrowed. Brennan was suddenly scared stiff, the words he screamed were repeated again and again in his head. Why did he have to go out and say his true thoughts!?
"Who are you?" But contrary to his expectations, the narrowed eyes of Eon were pointed towards a corner of his bedroom.
With a swoosh, a black oily tentacle-like figure darted towards, not Eon, but the king. The individual behind the attack was aiming to take advantage of the short confusion.
"Aaah!" And as the king was scared into shock, the pointed tentacle sped towards him like a spear aiming for his heart. A perfect assassination?
But the tentacle only managed to impale empty space as it was sliced in half by seemingly nothing along its path.
"You've committed a great mistake by coming h- cough cough" Eon's threatening words were interrupted by his own coughing as even the casting of that singular spell had cost him some of his health.
After a short period of tense silence...
"Hahaha, and I thought you'd be trouble" The assassin, whose entire body was covered in black, laughed while appearing out of thin air surrounded by the squirming black tentacles formed by the element of death.
"You are dying before I've even made a move" The assassin said with conceit while twitching oddly.
An assassin's best element was the element of surprise but as his ambush had been foiled the arrogant man didn't mind stepping out, he was no ordinary assassin after all. He was an angel of death.
"Youngsters these days are quite impertinent" Eon shot back wiping some blood on his sleeve not showing a hint of fear.
"Oh no! I know to show respect, step aside and I'll kill you last!" The assassin said and lunged out not willing to spend another second idling. Their eyes were bloodshot staring at the juicy target that was the king and the strong adversary that stopped him from accomplishing the otherwise simple mission.
The squirming tentacles behind him also shot out like an avalanche of death that threatened to come crashing down on the bodies of everything in the room.
"DIE!" A crazed scream, though more akin to a roar, loud enough to pierce the eardrums of some came out of the hideous humanoid silhouette.
Yet, it was deathly silent outside the room. Some knights stood numbly by the king's door unaware of what was transpiring on the inside.
***
Inside of the system space, Ed was well… loitering pretty much. He had to wait for his arm to regenerate until being able to perform any other activity. Aside from the usual stuff of course.
'You shall be death knight numero dos' Ed thought as he watched a completely new skeleton fusing with the golden age armor set. He had made this choice after deep contemplation.
It was worth noting that Ed's insights when scanning the armor had been little simply due to the fact that he didn't possess the necessary skill. But it was possible to just move the armor into the orc plains and study it there. The main reason why he didn't do it though…
'This will be my first mage and warrior mix up' He had already declared the addition of a core to a death knight as an inhibitor for future upgrades and a simply inefficient path that held little benefit. Yet, he still chose to experiment in that direction…?
'This armor might be able to make something happen' Simply put, the complex enchantments that made it possible to boost the many different types of mana also meant that it would still be friendly towards mages.
Say that a skeleton was to try a fireball spell but much of it was impeded by the armor causing it to lose 50% of its power. If the armor also provided a boost in power that accounted for at least 25% of that loss then there wouldn't have been much loss.
Ed would have loved to use a different armor set but unfortunately, the batches of adventurers were still pretty much broke. The ones with a full set of magic armor that boosted the elements could be counted on one hand. With one finger. The answer was one.
As the process came to a finish, Ed started to think of a potential name for the flashy golden skeleton.
'You will be gold' Sufficient to say, Ed wasn't very creative. Nonetheless, he took pride in the knowledge that it could always be worse! It could have been named gold skull or something else that didn't make sense. The armor was the one that was golden not the skeleton's skull!
'Sigh… I need to get more friends' Ed was starting to converse with himself again!
He, therefore, exited the system space that obviously had to be the one responsible for making him delusional. And the first thing Ed did as his drowsy vision started to regain its clarity was to look at his shoulder. He was surprised to find bone fragments growing together into a new arm.
'Yes!' There was hope for the creation of drop items although the process might, in the end, prove to be rather slow. Nevertheless, Ed's celebration was cut short as he then realized that the golden death knight had fallen onto the ground dirtying the armor and even potentially leaving scratches which obviously wouldn't do!
He stood up and grabbed what should have been weighty armor. Thankfully he wasn't that weak and the bracelet of strength wasn't entirely useless either.
Ed then proceeded to insert a consciousness compromised of four orc consciousness into the death knight who had a core of wind. Ed thought that it might be more helpful when it came to having the mana easily traverse outside of the skeletal body and armor.
Gold's body then started to twitch as was standard procedure and eventually stand on its own. The golden knight looked around with what one could only assume was sharp eye sockets past the golden helmet that concealed its boney face.
'Welcome to the group' Ed thought as he offered it a handshake.
'Wait, not that hand' That arm hadn't grown yet, however. He switched it and though confused, the hand was grasped by the golden gloved being.
Satisfied, Ed was then struck by a realization.
'Do- Do I need to teach this one as well....?' Ed looked at the new golden pal with more disdain now as he quickly took back his hand. Why was he always making more work for himself!? Why was he unable to focus on one task!?