Record of a Thousand Lives-Chapter 144

The small ember-likespiritgradually started to takephysicalform, andKang Yoon-Soo turned into a dark green skull.

[First Evolution!]

[You have evolved into a Skull Blessed by the Underworld.]

[Your stats have increasedgreatly.]

[A Soul Undead has greater potential to grow stronger compared to a normalundead being.]

[The variety of things you canevolve into has increased.]

[You have obtained a new special skill—Soul Bite.]

[Memories from your previous life have slowly started to returndueto your evolution.]

‘There’sno body, as expected,’Kang Yoon-Soo thought.

He was currently only a skull, but he was capable of floating like a vengeful spirit, unlikea skull from the normal Undead path. He would havehad to roll patheticallyacrossthe ground if he chose to be a Cracked Skull, which was the first evolution of the Undead path.

‘I’ll grow asquicklyas possible and move on to the next evolution,’he thought.It was imperative for him tofree himselffrom his weak shell and evolve into a proper undeadbeing.

Kang Yoon-Soo clacked his bony jaws and flew up into the air. Then, he spotted a skeleton roaming around the cemetery all alone. He quickly flew toward the skeleton and violently bit the back of its skull.

Crack!

“Euuuuoh…!”The skeleton groaned in agony as it flailed its bony arms around, but Kang Yoon-Soo stubbornly refused to let it go as he bitdown with all his might.

[Soul Bite has activated.]

[The enemy will receive increased damage.]

[You will absorb spiritual energy every second.]

Kwachik!

The skeleton’s skullbrokeinto pieces.Kang Yoon-Sooexamined the skeleton’s bones lying on the ground,thenconsumed the large chunks of sturdy bone while leaving out the brittle or cracked bone pieces.

[You have stolen the clavicle and fourth rib of the Dark Cemetery Skeleton.]

[The stolen bones are now a part of your body, and have increased your stats.]

[Your strength and vitalityhaveincreased by three.]

The clavicle and fourth ribbecametainted with Kang Yoon-Soo’s dark green energy.He thenroamed around the cemetery in search of other skeletons,huntingthem downceaselessly. In the end, he hunted down more than three hundred skeletons and took all the bones he needed to complete his skeletal structure from them.

[The Skull Blessed by the Underworld has completed its body.]

[Your bone compositionisas follows: 79knight bones, 57 mercenary bones, 29archer bones, 23summoner bones, 14 necromancer bones, and 4vagrantbones.]

[You have started to evolve.]

Kang Yoon-Soo’s body started to go through another change.The dark green aura started to glow even darker as his body successfully evolved.

[Second Evolution!]

[You have evolved into a Skeleton Swordsman Blessed by the Underworld.]

[A Skeleton Swordsman Blessed by the Underworld is quite stubborn andhasspectacular abilities.]

[It is a species adeptathandling all sorts of weapons, and it is especially skilled in swordsmanship.]

[You have obtained a new special skill—Strike of the Underworld.]

[Strike of the Underworld gathers the cold, sinister energy of the underworld and strikes the enemy with it.]

[Memories from your previous life have started to returndueto your evolution.]

Kang Yoon-Soo observed his newfound body made entirely of bones. His bones were much denser and his frame was much largercompared toan ordinary skeleton. He roamed around the graves in the cemetery and picked up arusty oldbroken sword.

The racial trait of the undead was quite an odd one.Theynever went hungryand hadlost their sense of taste. They were also a race thathad virtuallyno emotions, rarely feelinganything in their dry, bony bodies.

Kang Yoon-Soo realized that he was no different from them, thinking,‘It’s just like how I usually am.’

There were timeswhenhehadfeltas if he werean undeadbeing. He was alive, and yet dead inside because of the countless regressions hehad gonethrough, causing his emotions to dry up. However, he had to change from now on.

‘I’ve started to change in my final life. I have to change to stop this endless cycle of regression and kill the Demon Lord,’he thought as he steeled his resolve one more time.

A funny thought suddenly crossed his mind.

What if?

What if, really?

What if he managed to successfully kill the Demon Lord and this regression finally stopped? What was the first thing he had to do then? Of course, that would be none other than…

“Kyaaaaak!”A pale white undead creature screamed, suddenly attackingfrom out of nowhere.

Kang Yoon-Soo instinctively pulled his rustysword out and parried thecreature’s attack. He then moved back and created some distance fromit. The pale corpse stood there glaring at him withred eyes.He examined the creature, thinking,‘It’s an Enraged Gravekeeper.’

It was one of the monsters that he had to kill todrawout the boss monster of the Dark Cemetery. It was only an intermediate-ranked undead creature, but it was almost as scary as the Demon Lord for the current Kang Yoon-Soo. However, he pulled out his rustysword without any hesitation and muttered to himself, “I’ll never be able to kill the Demon Lord if I can’t even kill something like you.”

“Kyaaaahk!”The Enraged Gravekeeper shrieked.

Kang Yoon-Soo ran towardthe creature and swung hissword as hard as he could.

***

“Go and bring me some booze.”

“You go and bring it yourself, dumbass.”

Reanna glared at her brotheras she lay down, asking, “Aren’t you going to address me as‘noona’?”

“What’s there to be proud of about being old?”

“Did this bastard eat something wrong today? Why are you so rebellious?” Reannaremarked, furrowingher brow.

“It’s because of the nasty soup you made this morning,” Reanna’s younger brother, Rekil, nonchalantly replied.

“Look at this punk. It’s been quite a while since I last beat you up,hasn’t it?” Reannasaid, standing up.

A fight ensued between the siblings. As always,it was a decisive victory for Reanna.

Rekil rubbed his bruised forehead and grumbled, “That’s strange… I’m the man here, but why do I always lose to noona?”

“There’s no law that says every woman in this world has to be weaker than a man,” Reanna replied while leisurely lying down once again.

“Oh my god!You were a woman?” Rekilexclaimed with a shocked expression.

“Shut up,” Reannareplied, before standingup once again. Shewalked over andtook outsomeointment from her bag, applying it toher younger brother’s forehead while grumbling, “What are you going to do, being so weak and frail?”

“Let’s set the record straight. I’m not weak;noona is just absurdly strong,” Rekil replied.

“Yeah, I took all of the good stuff from our parents,” Reanna said.

“I would have been bigger than you if only the churchhadn’tcollapsed when our mother was pregnant with me,” Rekilcomplained.

Reanna took a sip of alcohol from the bottle beforesaying, “Our mission this time is in the Dark Cemetery.”

“I’ll be stained with the stench of the dead again, then. I don’t have any clothes to change into anymore,” Rekil grumbled.

“Stop grumbling. Hunting the undeadis alwayslike that,” Reanna said. She downedhalf of the bottle in one go, thentook out ahandfulof medicinal herbs from her pocket.

Rekil furrowed his brow and said, “Noona has to quit drinking and smoking.”

“Stop being so rude toward my lovers, will you?” Reanna replied.

“Ugh…Are you telling me that herb is my brother-in-law? I can’t accept that,” Rekil grumbled.

“I haven’t met any guys more decent than these,” Reanna said, puffingouta cloud of smoke.The white smoke flew up toward the black moon.

Rekilremarked, “I think we siblings are quite strange. Noona is too tough.”

“My little brother is too cute and pretty,” Reanna added.

“Please don’t speak like an old man…” Rekilprotested.

***

The siblings arrived at the cemeteryfilled with tombstones.

Reanna’s face crumpled andshemuttered, “Something’s strange.”

“What is?” Rekil asked.

“It’s too quiet,”Reannareplied.

Rekil crossed his arms and said, “I don’t see manyundead around here.”

“Did we come to the wrong place? Are you certain that there’s a powerful undead beinghere?” Reanna asked.

“My divine power is always accurate,” Rekil repliedseriously.Reanna nodded in agreement. Her younger brother was never wrong when it came to searching for undead.

It was then thatscreams filled the airfrom the other side of the cemetery.

“Aaah…! Aaaah…!”

The siblings tilted their heads in confusion.

“What’s that?” Rekil asked.

“Beats me.Itdoesn’t seemlike a human screaming… unless there’s a drunken vagrantsomewhere around here?” Reanna replied.

The siblings eventually found out the cause of the sound.

“Aaah…! Ah…! Aaaaah…!”

The undeadrantoward them while screaming, as if they were running away from something.

“What the hell is that…?” Rekilexclaimed with a laugh.

There were not just one or two of them;it seemedas ifall of the undead living in the cemetery were running away from something.

Reanna flicked her cigaretteand said, “The undead usuallydon’t runaround like that.”

“I agree,” Rekil said.

“But what do you think those guys are running away from?” Reanna asked, flickingher cigarette once again.

“Hmm… I have no idea,” Rekil replied.

“It must be something much scarier than death itself,” Reanna said.

“Does such a thing even exist?” Rekil asked.

Reanna pointed with her chin toward the shadow that was chasing after the horde of undead—it was a skeleton wielding a rusty old sword.

“What? It’s just a single skeleton?” Rekilexclaimedwith a hint of disappointmentonhis face.

Reanna took out another cigarette while observing the skeleton, thensaid, “It’s not just an ordinary skeleton. It has a larger build, and its bones lookprettydense too.”

“It’s still an undead being that’s at the bottom of the food chain, but why are the undead running awayin fearfrom something like that?” Rekilwondered.

The siblings eventually decided to wait it out and observe the situation.They saw the skeleton swordsman catchup to the horde of undead, agilely cuttingthem downone by one.

Sukeok! Sukeok!

“Euh…Guuoh…!”The moans of the undead reverberated across the cemetery as a single skeleton swordsman massacred thearea’s entire undead population.

Rekil watched the scene in front of him in disbelief, crossing his armsover his chest. He said, “It’sprettystrong for a mere skeleton.”

“It’s not an opponent you canleaveyour guard downaround,” Reannaadded as shedrew her longsword.

It was then that the skeleton swordsman looked toward them. It said, “Be careful.”

“…?”

The siblings looked at each other in disbelief when the skeleton swordsman spoke.Had that undead being really just toldthem to be careful?

Rekil asked in a voice filled with disbelief, “What do we have to be careful of?”

The skeleton swordsman pointed down beforetaking a stepback. Then,thecemetery ground slowly started to crackandsplit open.

[All of thegravekeepersand undead in the cemetery have been killed.]

[The boss monster of the Dark Cemetery, the Patchwork Monster Senekaru,has appeared.]

“Gwaaaaaaah!”

A monster with stitches all over its body made an appearance. It was a grotesque-lookingcreature,stitched togetherfromdifferent corpses.

Reanna readied her long sword and called out, “Rekil.”

“May the guardian of the light hear our cries and become our protector!” Rekil chanted a spell.

Reanna’s sword began glowing brightly.

Rekil extended his hands toward the Patchwork Monster and cast another spell. “Oh holy light, may you cleanse the filthy monster before me.”

Holy light surrounded the Patchwork Monster and inflicted heavy damage on it. The boss roared loudly in anger and charged toward the siblings. Reanna charged toward the boss as well, swinging her longsword with all her might.

Sukeok!

The long sword enveloped in light cut down the Patchwork Monster, but that was not all. The wound inflicted by Reanna spewed out divine power that engulfed the boss.

“Gruuuwoooh!”The Patchwork Monster roared in agony.

“It hurts, doesn’t it, you punk?!” Rekil taunted excitedly as he cast debuff after debuff at the boss monster.

Meanwhile, Reanna unleashed a barrage of attacks to cut down the boss. She was a seasoned swordswoman, and she knew it would be much more efficient for her to chip away at the boss monster with precise attacks rather than aim for one big, risky strike.

Sukeok!

Reanna’s long sword sliced through the Patchwork Monster’s neck, and blood spurted out from it.

“Gruuuwoooh!”The Patchwork Monster groaned in agony once again, and its body began to swell up.

Reanna took a step back, preparing to deal the final blow, when suddenly…

“Strike of the Underworld.”

The skeleton swordsman stabbed its rusty old sword into the back of the Patchwork Monster’s head. The boss flailed around wildly, but the skeleton swordsman continued to stab at its head.

At the moment when the Patchwork Monster died, a message popped up.

[You have killed the boss monster of the Dark Cemetery, the Patchwork Monster Senekaru.]

[You have obtained the spiritual energy that Senekaru has accumulated until now.]

[You have killed a boss monster.]

[Your stats have risen greatly.]

“What the? That skeleton took the last hit?” Rekilexclaimed,scoffingin disbelief.

Reanna pointed her sword at the skeleton and asked, “Do you wish to fight?”

“No,” the skeleton swordsman replied.

Reanna lowered her longsword in response, leavingRekil greatly surprised. He asked in shock,“Noona, what are you doing right now?”

“It says it doesn’t want to fight,” Reanna replied.

“So you won’t kill it?” Rekil asked in disbelief.

“There’s no reason to kill an undead being that has no wish to fight, right?”Reanna said as she took out a cigarette.

Rekil was stunned. He then turned around and looked at the skeleton beforesaying, “Today is your lucky day, skeleton.”

Just asthe siblings were about to turn around andleave,the skeleton swordsman saidclearly, “I have to go to the Cathedralof Repentance.”

The siblings looked at each other in surprise.

The Cathedralof Repentance?

Rekil raised a brow and asked, “Why do you want to go there?”

“I have some things to settle over there,” the skeleton swordsman replied. It said in a low voice, “That’s why I’ll be tagging along with you guys.”