Chapter 1448: The Sovereign of Death - Part 1

Arthur experienced the familiar teleportation feeling after he stepped through the gate. However, he didn’t arrive at a place. Instead, he found himself inside an empty white room.

[Welcome to The Sovereign Path.]

A window appeared in front of him.

[Please choose the name you wish to use.]

Another appeared.

"Arthur Netherborne," he answered.

[...]

[Welcome, Arthur Netherborne.]

[You are worthy of challenging the Sovereign Path.]

Arthur saw a holographic door appear. It began materializing with every passing second. It was black, devoid of any engravings that would suggest a human carved it. Arthur approached it, and realized it was not a substance, but a lack of any.

"A space of emptiness and void," Arthur muttered. "This doesn’t look like the trial that I have once taken. Did Guffaw make a mistake? This place is more elaborate than anything I have seen there."

Arthur walked toward the door, but another window blocked his view before he passed through, forcing him to stop. As if answering his earlier questions, the Sovereign Path seemed to detect him.

[An insignia has been detected.]

[Retrieving soul imprint from the insignia...]

[Insignia: Breaker]

[The Breaker Insignia will give you special abilities inside the Path.]

[Completion of trials will allow the insignia to evolve.]

Arthur watched as a strange symbol appeared on his hand. He could somehow recognize it as his insignia. It was a circle with an oblique line running through it.

"It looks like a delete mark," Arthur muttered. "I hope it doesn’t give me any weird abilities. The bare minimum is good."

Arthur then walked through the void door, finding himself walking into a corridor of nothing. As he walked, the world formed around him — bricks, grass, and lanterns. It seemed like each step created the world around him, as if his mere existence here was the trigger behind its creation.

Arthur reached the exit, which led him toward an open space. He was overlooking a valley from atop a mountain. The valley had a giant castle, a small town, and a sun hanging from the horizon.

"Two sides, one of wilderness and the other of civilization," Arthur muttered as he stared at the two sides of the valley. "What do I do here?"

[You have reached the trial Valley of Beginning.]

[You have arrived at the unranked world Elzikan.]

[Objective: rescue this world.]

[Reward: advancement to the next trial, soul evolution, body morphism.]

[Failure: The Mark of Common Blood]

"Rescue this world from what? Could you be any more vague?" Arthur asked with a sigh as he turned back toward the town below. "But since this is where I arrived, it should be the place where a calamity will be born."

Arthur began making his way down the mountain. As he did, he realized that most of his abilities of creation were sealed in this world. His two legacies were also inaccessible, blocked by the following message.

[You are attempting to access a spiritual artifact that cannot exist in this world. Please try again at higher worlds.]

"If this world is simply lower than ours, then it would make sense that my legacy is not working here," Arthur muttered as he closed the window and made his way through the forest.

After a while of navigating the forest, he encountered the first inhabitant of this world — an undead creature. Its body was dissolving as it dragged itself toward Arthur. It resembled a very tall human with lanky arms and legs.

"Since I’m in a new world, I’m trying to keep an open mind. Hello there, my name is Arthur. Are you a local?" Arthur asked the giant creature. It stared at him, and an eye popped out.

Arthur had seen a lot of things in the past two years, but even he felt disgusted by the rapidly dissolving corpse in front of him. He truly wished that this was simply a monster, and not a normal resident of this world.

"I am..." the undead corpse said, its voice raspy. "Are you an outworlder?"

"I believe that I am," Arthur said. "Uh, does everyone from your world look like that?"

"I have seen many in my form," the undead creature said. "But our existence is mainly in the shadows. This world’s inhabitants are similar to yours — bipedal furless humanoids."

"I’ve never thought I’d hear my species get described as such, but it’s fitting," Arthur said with a smile. "Uh, I don’t mean to offend you, but you don’t exactly look well. In my world, your appearance would indicate you are an undead."

"I am an undead in this world as well," the creature said as he pushed his eyeball back into its socket. "But this world has been struck by a strange disease. I was a human once, like you, but I was inflicted with death."

"Death?"

"A disease that turns the living to the dead. You don’t have it in your world?" the creature asked, its raspy voice seemingly growing fatigued of the conversation.

"Death is the end of life for us," Arthur said with a frown. "Is it different here?"

"Ever since the Sovereign of Death appeared, it has been nothing but a transition from an independent creature to one of his soldiers."

"I understand the situation now," Arthur said with a smile. "I guess my job in this world is to find this Sovereign of Death and end him."

The moment Arthur finished those words, the creature in front of him suddenly lunged at him. Its long hand whipped at him. Arthur jumped back in time, and the arm struck a nearby tree.

Arthur looked at the creature in confusion, and noticed that its eyes had turned red. It was no longer chatty, but menacing. It looked at him with enough killing intent to bespeak its objective.

"I guess you are his soldier," Arthur muttered with a smile. He raised his hand to summon Nightmare, but nothing happened. He frowned, as the monster rushed forward again.

The tree that had been struck by the monster was losing all signs of life in under a few seconds. Arthur knew better than to test whether the same would happen to him or not. He kept retreating as he tried to figure out what he could use.

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