Rogue Villain-Chapter 358: Undead
The humanoid figure’s presence and pressure were so fierce it gave off the impression of being alive. But when Ackster looked closer, he could tell it was as dead as the stone around it.
’A corpse?’
At first, Ackster thought that the gatekeeper had died. He was looking at who had been the gatekeeper but who couldn’t endure the passage of time and died but maintained his presence even in death.
But no.
The figure flicked its head up and looked straight at Ackster, even without any eyes.
’A zombie.’
It was the freakiest and most powerful zombie Ackster had seen. It was also the only one. But that was all. It was a gatekeeper, and Ackster didn’t like to be gatekept.
When the zombie moved, so did Ackster. They charged at each other, drawing a tie when they collided.
Ackster’s eyebrows rose a hair in surprise. The zombie was significantly stronger than the chimera. It was also faster and more durable.
Ackster started to wonder where the Alchemist had gotten all of these gatekeepers from. His idle thoughts were proof enough that while the zombie was powerful, that was all it was. It wasn’t dangerous.
The zombie was strong enough to tear off Ackster’s arm. But Ackster could do the same to the zombie, even if he was surprised at how hard it was. However, unlike Ackster, the zombie didn’t regenerate. It was ridiculously powerful for a mere zombie. But after a while, Ackster squashed its head and ate it, stealing its bodily toughness for himself.
He moved on to the next gatekeeper without further ado.
Ackster almost suspected it. But another undead waited for him. This time, it was a skeleton with glistening, dark, metallic bones.
Ackster didn’t waste any time. He laced his Demon Sword with Ichor and cut through the intangible energy linking the bones. He tilted his head. It was tougher than he thought to touch the strange energy. It made him narrow his eyes and Limit Break his Overhuman Senses.
’Soul power?’
Ackster furrowed his brow as he looked at the skeleton. He hadn’t bothered doing so with the zombie since he hadn’t needed to. But the skeleton’s skeleton was so tough it would be a pain to break it all to kill it.
That was why he had tried to pick it apart and eat it piece by piece.
However, cutting through the sticky soul power was slightly more of an obstacle than Ackster expected. But that wasn’t what confused him. It was the existence of a soul that did.
If the skeleton had a soul, it should have had some kind of personality or will. But if it did, it wouldn’t have withstood the passage of time. No person, sane or insane, could endure the boredom and loneliness that was part of being a gatekeeper this deep in the Alchemaze.
But the skeleton and its soul remained.
Ackster narrowed his eyes and pierced the skeleton with his gaze, trying to understand what the Alchemist had done.
It took a little while, but he eventually figured it out. The skeleton hadn’t endured or lost its sanity and turned into a mindless pile of bones, which should have forced the soul out of the body.
The soul power was just that, soul power. It wasn’t a complete soul. It was just a source of power that maintained the skeleton’s form and controlled it to fight against any intruders.
’Okay...Let’s see if there’s a method on how to do that at the end of this.’
Ackster couldn’t learn more about soul power or how the Alchemist had done what they had done from the skeleton. So, he went through with the original plan while his expectations of what he might find at the end of this trial rose.
Ackster munched on the final piece of bone as he arrived in front of the next gate. Since the last rooms seemed to have set a new trend of the gatekeepers being undead, Ackster expected the next one to be undead as well. He just wasn’t sure what would trump the zombie and the skeleton.
Usually, those two types of undead were the weakest, so maybe a higher-ranking undead like a lich or something would be the next gatekeeper?
However, when Ackster peered into the room from the tunnel’s exit, he saw a raised stone slab with a coffin resting on it.
’Ah. Vampire.’
Vampires were also beings that didn’t age or succumb to time. But unlike zombies and skeletons, they weren’t mindless. They usually maintained rationality and the ability to think. Moreover, they needed blood. Without blood, they would dry up, go crazy, and eventually die.
Ackster couldn’t think there was much blood around here for the vampire to drink. Even if the Alchemist had stocked up enough blood for the vampire, there would be no way for the necessary amount to last the vampire through all this time to fit in the Alchemaze.
Ackster narrowed his eyes and entered the room. His skin itched for a moment.
"Hap!"
The coffin’s lid banged open, and a white-haired, pale man sat up in a cloud of dust.
"Oh, that scared me!"
Ackster looked at the vampire.
"Scared you? What about me?"
The vampire turned its head slowly, his expression full of fear.
"A ghost!?"
Ackster glared at the vampire.
"Fuck off and get up. Since you could talk, I was expecting something, but get out of the way or do your job. I don’t care. Either way, I’m going through those doors."
The vampire tilted his head.
"A challenger?"
"I guess."
The vampire looked down at its skinny body.
"Oh, shit."
He looked up at Ackster. The vampire’s eyes narrowed before opening wide with an excited, almost ecstatic shine.
"Well, the deal was to do my best to stop anyone trying to get past me. But I think a little more time passed than that maniac thought would pass before anyone got here. It seems I’m all out of blood. You don’t happen to have any to spare?"
The vampire clasped its hands together and pleaded with Ackster.
