Wizard: Starting from the Skill Tree

He only needed to stay at the forefront and not be eliminated, and that was enough.

Third place, six thousand eight hundred points.

Audric first, seven thousand five hundred points.

Vera second, seven thousand one hundred points.

Leon dropped to eighth, just over five thousand points.

The gap wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either.

That afternoon, Duke was traversing a sparse woodland.

The trees here were low, with withered yellow leaves, completely different from the dense jungles he had seen before.

The air was dry, carrying a scorched smell, as if something had been burning for a long time.

He stopped, furrowing his brows.

Something wasn’t right.

The ground was slightly trembling.

It wasn’t an earthquake, but a more rhythmic tremor, like countless feet stomping the earth simultaneously.

The vibrations grew stronger, small stones jumped off the ground, withered leaves rustling down from the branches.

On the distant horizon, clouds of dust rose.

Without hesitation, Duke’s figure suddenly disintegrated, transforming into a sand flow and sinking into the ground.

He lingered in the shallow layer, carefully extending his Spiritual Power to probe above ground.

And then he saw it.

A beast tide.

Countless demons were rushing from afar, filling the entire land.

There were sand scorpions from the desert, tree pythons from the dense forests, giant lizards from the swamps, bats from the depths of caves.

Those creatures, natural enemies in normal circumstances, were now running side by side, without attacking each other.

In their eyes was only fear, that deep-seated, primal fear from the lowest rung of the food chain.

They were fleeing.

Duke’s Spiritual Power extended further, skimming past those sprinting demons, skimming past dried riverbeds, skimming past fallen trees, and then he saw that desolation.

The ground had turned a pale gray.

Unlike the gray-yellow of a desert, it was more akin to a deathly white.

As if something had drained all the Life Force, leaving behind only dry husks.

The once lush gigantic trees now stood like skeletal frames, branches gray-white, leaves withered, crumbling into dust at the slightest breeze.

The ground was strewn with countless corpses of demons, dried up, shriveled, like sun-dried fruits, mere skin on bone.

The aura of the Undead.

Duke’s sand flow solidified underground.

The deceased demons were rising up.

The corpse of a sand scorpion stood up from the ground, its shell a pale gray, oozing black pus at the joints.

The dried bones of a tree python hung from the treetop, ghostly green flames flickering between the joints.

More and more bodies were getting up, those things that were once life now transforming into a different existence.

A vast number of Undead emerged, seemingly awakened by something.

Duke’s Spiritual Power probed deeper, passing through the rising Undead, through the gray-white land, and then he saw that thing.

It stood in the center of the wasteland, seven to eight hundred meters tall, taller than any giant trees he had seen in the Ancient Fairy Plane.

It was a skeleton, a massive skeleton pieced together from countless bones.

Its structure was neither human nor any known creature but was a mélange of bones from countless species.

Dragon ribs, giant leg bones, the skulls of unknown Magical Beasts, forced together by some power, forming this colossal entity seven to eight hundred meters high.

In its eye sockets burned black flames, pure black, as if drawn from the deepest abyss, capable of engulfing light itself.

The black flames spilled from its eye sockets, flowing down the cracks of the skull, enveloping the entire skeleton.

Those flames danced upon the bones, and with each leap, new bodies arose nearby.

Its body blazed with fierce black flames, exuding an aura so terrifying it suffocated.

Duke had only felt such an aura once, when the Cyan Lotus drew his sword in the Ancient Fairy Plane.

Duke’s sand flow solidified underground, not daring to advance a fraction more.

His Spiritual Power cautiously withdrew, leaving just a thread on the surface, observing that giant skeleton.

Then he saw the Wizards.

A dozen people hovered around the skeleton.

Their magic robes were of various colors: the dark red of the blood rose, the deep blue of the Star Tower, the dark gray of the Seville Empire, and a few wizard organizations with emblems he couldn’t recognize.

They were attacking, attacking with all their might.

Fireballs, ice blades, lightning, beams, energy cannons—every attack poured onto that skeleton, with explosions ringing continuously, and flames and smoke shrouding half the sky.

But it was useless.

Those attacks, when hitting the skeleton, were devoured completely by black flames.

Fireballs exploded, their flames absorbed; ice blades slashed down, but the ice crystals turned to vapor before touching the bones.

Lightning struck its head, leaving not the slightest mark.

The attacks of those wizards were like throwing paper balls at a mountain.

The skeleton moved.

It raised its right hand, a giant palm formed from countless claw bones, the fingertips burning with black flames.

It swung toward a wizard, not swiftly, but as the all-encompassing shadow descended, the wizard’s face went pale instantly.

He struggled with all his might to hold up a golden shield.

The shield shattered like an eggshell under the skeleton’s palm in less than a breath.

His body was swept by the gust from the palm, flung like a kite with a broken string, crashing against a gray-white dead tree, which shattered.

The wizard fell to the ground, covered in blood, unable to move.

Golden light shone from his body, a protection mechanism of the arena, and he was teleported away.

The skeleton did not look at him and turned to walk toward another wizard.

Its steps were heavy, each one causing the earth to tremble, each one bringing new undead rising from the ground.

The undead surged toward the remaining wizards like a tide, encircling them.

A wizard caught by the undead, in a moment of distraction, faced the sweep of the skeleton’s tailbone.

He barely dodged, but the black flames from the tailbone brushed across his shoulder, rendering his entire left arm numb.

He looked down; the skin on his arm had already turned gray-white, like those withered trees.

His eyes widened, lips trembling as if to say something, but the golden light had already enveloped him.

Another one.

Duke lay on the ground, watching the massive skeleton, as those wizards were eliminated one by one.

His gaze fell on the skeleton, on those burning black flames, on the hollow eye sockets.

He recognized this skeleton.

More accurately, he recognized the person inside the skeleton.

The aura on the skeleton was exactly the same as Morris’s, despite looking nothing like a human, that aura was unmistakable.

Duke stared at the skeleton, trying to find a trace of humanity within the burning black flames.

But there was nothing there, only bones, only flames, only death itself.

Morris was gone.

Or rather, Morris was this skeleton.

The skeleton continued its slaughter.

The wizards were eliminated one by one, some sent flying by the palm’s gust, some swept by the tailbone, some eroded by black flames, some engulfed by the undead.

Not one person could withstand it for more than ten breaths.

A dozen wizards, in the span of a single cup of tea, only three remained.

Those three had given up attacking and were fleeing with all their might.

The skeleton did not pursue. It stood still, looking down at the fleeing ones, the black flames in its eye sockets burning calmly.

Then it extended the giant palm formed from countless claw bones, fingers spread wide, aiming in the direction of the fleeing wizards.

Its jaw opened, without a tongue or vocal cords, yet a voice came from that hollow mouth.

It was a language so ancient it seemed to be born with the world itself.

Each syllable slammed between heaven and earth like a heavy hammer, making the air tremble, the earth crack, even scattering the clouds above.

Duke did not understand a single syllable, but each word that entered his ear caused his spirit sea to ripple violently, as if something was trying to tear apart his consciousness.

After the skeleton uttered the final syllable, a moment of silence enveloped heaven and earth.

Then, a gigantic black flame hand descended from the sky.

The hand was larger than the skeleton’s body, covering the entire wasteland as it spread its five fingers.

The black flames burned in its palm, not ordinary flames, but something more ancient, more fundamental.

As if death itself had solidified, as if the source of destruction from the deepest abyss had surged forth.

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