Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The coercion by a powerful force.

Skullius had first experienced such a thing in Aigas by the hands of Azila, the Great Mane Mountain Ape.

Now, he was being subjected to a ferocious might that demanded the truth and nothing but the truth.

Damilla looked at Skullius with a more relaxed expression now, but she couldn’t help still get lost in thought from what she had witnessed during her dive.

Because this hadn’t been a situation where she had been Divining on a hostile subject, she had limited herself to not peeking at much else other than what was needed.

Privacy was to be respected after all.

During her session, she had only seen blotches as scenes as most of them that actually concerned Skullius were blurred out, as if a tangle of black and gold resisted, while another foreign energy refused to let her see his full human figure.

It was bizarre.

She had managed to see that Skullius was behind the library incident after witnessing, with great difficulty, flames roaring from his blocked out body!

There were many things involved that kept cutting away, like a large and terrifying piece of armour that housed another figure that she couldn’t properly see but those were insignificant, at least as she saw it.

What she did manage to see glimpses of, was the tall figure with crackling lightning over its figure as it sat in what looked like an inn with various books that looked to belong to the College by virtue of the insignia plastered on their covers._.

With this much, even though in mere glimpses, she had managed to identify Skullius as the menace as she had been saying all along!

Damilla sighed as she cast a glance at Terian’s figure covered in a burst of raging white mana.

‘I guess I can count on you sometimes,’ she thought with a light smile flickering over her expression for a brief moment.

She was grateful that Terian had managed to pick up on the fact that she was having difficulties Divining more details about Skullius, which is why the old man had suddenly started intimidating the Discount Human and asking him to spill who he was instead of asking Damilla to continue Divining.

Erkus and Silrat while illuminated by the glowing flames gazed at Skullius, waiting for his response to the question.

As they knew nothing about him, they didn’t know what he would do, but answering the question instead of getting his core destroyed seemed like the most reasonable that he would take.

Skullius merely gazed ahead.

It was over.

If his core was destroyed, he would be done for.

Maybe if he could freely summon his Penetrator form, there would be a chance, but no.

It didn’t seem like things would devolve in that direction.

‘I… I’m screwed. There’s no way I can escape this…’ Skullius thought as he gulped.

‘I don’t know how much that woman saw but…’

Skullius stuttered even in his internal monologue.

He couldn’t even look at all these people as he felt himself continuously lose confidence.

He thought he was getting smarter, outwitting this world’s structure fairly well against different odds that were stacked against him.

He had started getting deluded into thinking that the only true obstacles that he faced were the Doom Factors and perhaps UNCoddled but now, he was proved wrong.

Strong.

He was far from that word.

All words seized forming sentences in Skullius’ mind as the raging mana barreled against his skim viciously from Terian!

His resolve and will was challenged and shattered by the gap in strength.

At this moment, Skullius wouldn’t want to get his core destroyed. At least if he could live through this moment, perhaps he would be spared.

If he told the whole story, maybe…

“I am…” Skullius began, intending to tell the whole truth as if it could all be Divined anyway, then what was use in lying?

“I am… or… I was an undea-“

OOOM!

A sliver of energy coiled around his finger right when he was about to blurt everything!

Skullius paused as it took a moment for him to realise what was happening!

‘Uh…’

It was…

Null Life Essence!

The silent and presenceless energy swooned as it vibrated against his spatial storage ring that wrapped the upper part of his middle finger which was hidden under the flames of the shark’s body!

‘Red Rage?’ Skullius thought.

For a moment, Skullius’ broken resolve was rejuvenated and he tossed his gaze to Terian who seemed to be waiting for him to continue.

‘Did he notice?’

As Skullius gazed at the old man, he discovered that Terian couldn’t sense the Null Life Essence brimming around his finger!

‘He didn’t!’ Skullius was shocked.

Even this terrifying old man was oblivious to the Null Life Essence!

As Skullius was still coming to terms with this detail, realising that surely, in all his use of [Null Extraction], no one so far had been able to perceive it through sense or sight as blue lights hailed from dead bodies and into his hand, another shocking thing occurred!

His spatial storage ring became encased in a thick layer of Null Life Essence while at the same time, another ring actually popped from this spatial storage ring and settled on Skullius’ left finger!

‘Red bro!’ Skullius screamed in his mind, getting what the Pelvis Boar-Man was up to while trapped in the ring!

The Apostle was masking the ring he was stored in with Null Life Essence!

This ring had many of Skullius’ secrets and it was very important for it to remain hidden!

‘That’s right! That little bastard said he could manipulate Null Life Essence!’

Skullius assumed that what his Apostle hoped to achieve by covering the spatial storage ring with Null Life Essence was Red Rage’s way of preventing it from being detected, though he wasn’t sure how that would work

The other ring which had appeared on his other finger was actually the ring he had given to Red Rage, which, he also assumed, was meant to be a decoy!

But hold up!

Skullius was so confused.

Since he couldn’t communicate with his Apostle at this moment he couldn’t ask but there were so many questions!

Indeed, the Apostle had said that he could now use Null Life Essence but…

How in the world could he expel objects from the ring?!

And how could he do all this stuff with Null Life Essence?!

“Well?” the thunderous voice of Terian spoke, shattering Skullius’ safe thought haven.

The Discount Human was immediately brought back into the real world where he was minutes away from a possible tragic end.

Fear gripped him again, but the Discount Human collected himself, feeling a bit of bravery stemming from Red Rage’s display.

‘Come on, Skullius! Don’t lose hope yet! That prodigy bastard that sees you as a god is still fighting! You can’t fall here! Come on!’ Skullius psyched himself up while thanking his Apostle.

He looked up at the authorities before him, his mouth opening as he spoke in a firm but trembling voice.

“I really am at fault and I apologise. But… there’s more to my story. The truth is…” he said, his face showing a distinct despair.

“I am cursed.”