The Undead Skyfall Canyons stretched vast and merciless, but within their depths, few dared to enter, and what lay here was an ancient mystery.
Within the Undead Skyfall Canyons, a ghostly forest with tall trees, leafless husks, their bark the color of ashen bone, their branches reaching like skeletal claws toward the veiled gray skies.
A ghostly mist clung low, winding itself like serpents around the roots. Every gust of wind carried whispers, faint, indistinguishable words, yet filled with dread, as if the souls of the dead themselves wept from within the timber.
The very earth pulsed faintly, black veins running beneath its cracked surface. When stepped upon, the ground seemed to sigh, exhaling cold wisps that clawed into one’s bones.
No birds, no insects, no signs of natural life could be found. Instead, phantom silhouettes occasionally flitted between the trees, dissolving as quickly as they appeared.
At that moment, suddenly, the oppressive silence was shattered by a distant thunderclap that rolled across the canyon, causing the ground to tremble. Thereupon, a commotion erupted. The eerie forest quivered, and through the fog surged a procession of dread.
Five undead horses, their hides a patchwork of bone and rotting flesh, their eyes glowing with hollow blue fire, galloped relentlessly. Upon them rode five horsemen clad in corroded armor, their helms concealing empty sockets where eyes should have been. Tattered black banners trailed from their lances, each inscribed with runes that oozed malevolent energy. Their pursuit shook the very air.
Ahead of them, a cloaked figure darted through the spectral woods, its movements swift and unnaturally precise. Despite the ferocity of the pursuit, its speed did not falter!
Every stride seemed to blur against the mist, rivaling the power of a Tier-9 Legendary Noble, its speed brushing dangerously close to the threshold of a Legendary Lord.
The forest could not withstand the horsemen’s rampage. Wherever the undead steeds trampled, trees were smashed apart with bone-crunching force. Yet, instead of splintering into dust, the wood erupted into fountains of blood, soaking the gray soil in crimson as if the trees themselves bled like butchered flesh.
The nauseating sight twisted the already spectral forest into a grotesque nightmare.
At that moment, the cloaked figure, whose movements had been like flowing shadows, suddenly stopped. Its heels dug into the bleeding earth, sending ripples of spectral power outward.
The horsemen howled in silence, their lances lowering as their mounts shrieked with spectral neighs, the flames in their eye sockets burning brighter.
But all of a sudden, from the cloaked figure surged a baleful yet regal aura, swelling outward in waves like a tidal storm.
The very mist recoiled, trees bent away, and even the bleeding earth seemed to quiver. The aura was suffocating — filled with wrath, majesty, and the authority of death itself. What had seemed like prey just moments ago now stood as something far more sinister.
Behind the cloaked figure, reality itself twisted like a black canvas being torn apart. From the rift, a throne emerged—colossal, carved of shadow and bone, crowned with jagged spires that dripped with liquid night.
The moment it fully manifested, the world dimmed; even the faint gray sky seemed to cower, its pallor paling further under its presence.
The figure did not step onto the throne—the throne descended for them. Chains of darkness coiled upward like serpents, lifting the cloaked figure with reverence.
In the blink of an eye, they were seated high upon the towering seat, their posture regal and untouchable. The folds of the cloak fell like a funeral shroud, masking their form, but from beneath the hood glimmered two abyssal eyes—sharp, unyielding, brimming with the authority of death itself.
The undead horsemen, who moments before had been the hunters, froze mid-charge. Their skeletal mounts reared in terror, blue flames flickering wildly in their hollow sockets.
The oppressive aura of the Throne of Death pressed down upon them like the weight of an entire abyss. Even their runes, glowing with malice, sputtered and dimmed, as if scorched by something far superior.
’Tap...’
The figure’s slender, jade-like finger touched the throne’s handle. A sound like ink dripping into water spread outward, and in its wake, black tendrils unfurled in every direction.
The earth cracked, veins of pitch-black liquid gushing out as if the world itself bled tar. The mist recoiled, the blood-soaked trees wailed, and a tide of abyssal ink spread across the ground like an expanding ocean.
The regal, melodious voice echoed across the bleeding forest, calm yet absolute, "Death Domain: Absorption!"
The words were like a decree. The ground beneath the horsemen liquefied into shadow. Their skeletal steeds screamed in silent agony as their bodies sank, legs thrashing uselessly like prey caught in quicksand.
The horsemen stabbed their lances downward, runes flaring desperately, but the ink swallowed the light whole, devouring it without resistance.
They struggled, they clawed, and they howled with silent fury. But the more they fought, the deeper they sank. Their banners dissolved into strands of black mist, their armor corroded as if centuries of decay struck in mere seconds. The hollow fire in their eyes flickered — then died.
Within moments, nothing remained. Not a single clatter of bones, not a single trace of their existence. They were drowned, consumed utterly by the endless abyss of the Death Domain.
Yet, instead of dissipating, the cloaked figure’s aura suddenly spiked violently. Waves of baleful energy surged outward like crashing tsunamis, rattling the forest until even the blood-soaked trees groaned as if in fear.
The next moment, behind the throne of death, a phantom unfurled across the mist-shrouded sky. It was a soul totem of half a blazing, pitch-black sun, as if it were condemning the light itself. The other half was a moon, but not pale and serene; it was crimson, bleeding with sinister brilliance—the two halves opposing and complementing, like an eclipse of ruin and sovereignty.
The soul totem pulsed with mystic rhythm, its form woven from starry brilliance that flickered like galaxies collapsing, while neon-hued mist revolved endlessly around it, churning like a cosmic tide.
With every passing heartbeat, the phantom grew sharper, more vivid, more terrifying — until it was no longer an illusion but a manifest law, majestic and menacing, blotting out all else.
The very air fractured under its presence. The cloaked figure sat unmoved upon the throne, but the atmosphere was majestic.
At that moment, a turbulent, storm-like breath of power escaped the figure’s form—the clear sign of a breakthrough carved in death and dominance.
Thereafter, as if to mark the completion of this unholy coronation, the figure raised its slender jade-like finger once more. With a single tap upon the armrest of the throne, the monument of death trembled — and then vanished, dissolving into the shadows.
When the haze cleared, the figure once again stood in the bleeding forest.
A revenant yet respectful voice rang in the cloaked figure’s head, "Congratulations on reaching the Tier-1 Legendary Lord Rank, mistress. You are now a Death Lord!"
The mysterious eyes shimmered with a hint of ecstasy. Still, it was instantly replaced with dense killing intent, "Now, I can safely penetrate the inner region of the Undead Skyfall Canyons and increase my strength even more quickly by absorbing the Undead Lich King’s army!"
Undying resolve shone in her eyes before a hint of longing flashed past her eyes as she muttered softly, "I’ll return to you soon...teacher!"