Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 151: Frozen Crypt

The stairs down from the bedroom led straight into this freezing, total silence. It was like the entire manor had stopped breathing.

The spiraling stone staircase seemed to stretch on forever, the air growing noticeably denser and colder with every step Percival, Lewis, and Mercius took.

Lewis almost started to miss the more difficult but warmer pink-hued compulsion back in the Final Tear.

He glanced at Percival, seeing that he was barely feeling the cold. It had to be that special Aspect in his armor he had been talking about.

Lewis could see the frost tracing the edges of the heavy Swordcase strapped to Percival’s back. "Why is it so cold?" he muttered.

"Demons are punished in hell for a reason," Percival said. "They love the cold."

Lewis paused for a while, then gulped. "You just had to say it like that."

At the bottom of the long descent, the narrow stairwell opened up into a wide, monolithic antechamber. Dominating the far wall stood a pair of colossal iron doors, sealed shut by a massive, rusted lock mechanism.

Flanking the doors were no braziers or guards, but a single, grotesque statue carved from pale, weeping stone.

"That looks cool," Lewis said, approaching the statue.

It depicted an ordinary citizen—a peasant kneeling in mock reverence, its stone face twisted into a cruel, jeering sneer. In the center of the statue’s chest, a faint, pulsing crimson light glowed beneath the rock.

"It’s a gatekeeper," Percival murmured, his breath pluming in the freezing air. "We have to destroy it."

Lewis backed up, confused.

Percival gestured sharply with his hand. Mercius stepped forward, his armor clanking as he raised the Paragon Shield and drove it forward with shattering force.

The stone citizen exploded into dust and shrapnel. From the rubble, a single, heavy key that seemed to have been made from crystal, frozen blood clattered on to the floor.

Percival picked it up. It was so cold that it burned his skin through his gauntlet. He slotted the frozen blood-key into the rusted iron mechanism of the double doors and turned it.

With a deep, groaning shudder that vibrated through the floorboards, the heavy doors slowly swung inward.

Air splashed against their faces. Air that was as cold as winter, yet no snow.

Lewis glanced at Percival who didn’t glance back as he stepped into the final Zone.

⸢The Hall of Living Veins⸥

It was a subterranean crypt of staggering proportions, and the moment they crossed the threshold, the physical laws of reality abruptly stopped functioning.

The floor of the cavernous chamber was a vast, shallow lake of blackish-red blood. But as Percival stepped into it, the liquid did not splash. It did not ripple. It perfectly molded around the leather of his boots, temporally locked in absolute, stagnant perfection.

"Percival..." Lewis whispered, his voice trembling. The Arcanist’s blue eyes were wide, completely overwhelmed by the raw sensory input of the room. "The mana here... It’s weird."

This crypt served as a memorial to a great deal of devastation that had taken place within it.

Large pieces from the ceiling’s arched masonry, as well as broken pieces of stained-glass windows, were frozen mid-fall in a perfect stillness because the ambient magic present within the structure were distributed throughout undetectable pockets of negative energy.

In the very center of the blood lake stood a tall, cracked hourglass, its black sand completely halted. And resting beneath the shadow of that hourglass was a pristine, empty glass coffin.

It was a shrine to a body that wasn’t there, but unmistakenly, it was the suicidal woman on the floor above.

Percival looked away from it as he noticed the shadows at the far end of the crypt shift.

In the shadows, a giant bone-throne loomed above, made of petrified wood with many swords scattered at its roots. The lethargic throne rose from the throng of the swords and created a massive throne that encompassed all of the blades.

As that giant structure began to rise, Percival received the notification.

⸢Boss Encounter: Vampire Lord (Lvl 110)⸥

⸢Identified Traits: [Temporal Bleed], [Echoes of the Loop], [Rewind Step], [Stagnation Domain], [Telekinesis]⸥

Percival ignored the screen and watched the Vampire Lord as he stepped down from his throne.

Lewis mumbled something to him. "A vampire king. You were right."

The Boss was an awful combination of feral strength and overwhelming grief. All of him consisted entirely of hardened corrupted mana-flesh, formed into a petrified, blackened substance.

Les and dark fissues of his body acted as conduits for deteriorating emerald light. The Boss was dressed in the remains of regality: he wore a heavy, black, fur-lined velvet hooded cloak, its hem disintegrating into green smoke, and a crown of rust that encircled his brow.

In his right hand, he held a fractured rapier forged entirely of crystallized blood. He didn’t walk so much as he drifted, his presence exerting a crushing gravitational pressure on the room.

The suspended chunks of debris in the air began to vibrate with his rising fury, held aloft by the sheer, overwhelming force of his innate telekinesis.

"What do we do?" Lewis murmured in fear.

"Wait for the speech," Percival said, eyes narrowed. "They always have a speech."

And right on cue, the Vampire Lord’s voice boomed.

"I GAVE EVERYTHING FOR THEM!"

A blast of wind followed, pouring all over them, causing Lewis’s robes and Percival’s air to follow its motion.

"I BLED ON A HUNDRED BATTLEFIELDS TO KEEP THEIR BORDERS SAFE! I RULED SO THEY COULD LIVE IN PEACE! I STARVED MY OWN SOUL SO THEY COULD FEAST!"

The emerald light burning within the fissures of his obsidian face flared blindingly bright. He pointed the tip of his blood-rapier at them, his fury warping the very air.

"AND WHILE I FORGED THEIR PEACE, THEY POISONED HER MIND! I NEGLECTED HER TO PROTECT THEM, AND THEY MOCKED HER SORROW! THEY WHISPERED POISON INTO HER EARS AND DROVE HER TO THE BLADE!"

Lewis took a step back, his hands instinctively coming up as the psychic weight of the Vampire Lord’s grief and hatred slammed into them.

"MY ANGUISH WAS MY TORMENT! I HAD TO SAVE HER! SO I REWOUND THE CLOCK A THOUSAND TIMES! A THOUSAND LIFETIMES OF REGRET, AND THEY STILL TOOK HER FROM ME!"

The Vampire Lord roared, taking a step forward. The stagnant blood lake beneath his feet finally rippled, breaking the temporal lock as his power surged. "EVERYONE SHALL SUFFER FOR THIS! THE COWARDS I PROTECTED! THE PARASITES I RULED! EVERY SINGLE ONE!"

He locked his burning gaze on Percival and Lewis, the sheer, his aura suffocating the chamber.

"YOU TOO! PREPARE TO PERISH!"