The Undead King of the Palace of Darkness

Chapter 0: Prologue: The Resurrection Ritual.

And thus, I was revived.

I opened my eyes and my foggy, blurry vision was greeted with a room made from stone.

Lining the walls were rows of bookshelves with a bright red magic array drawn on them.

Everything felt so new, like I hadn’t seen or felt anything before now. My slate had been wiped clean, like I hadn’t had a will or consciousness or even any intelligence until now. All these changes felt like how one would feel when they are awakened from a dream, except it was more vivid than a dream.

As if I had been brought back from the depths of the netherworld.

Or, as if I had been pulled out of eternal slumber.

Sense of sight, hearing and smell. My mind is overwhelmed by the astounding amount of information I receive through all of my five senses.

As the chaos reached a peak inside my head, I hear a hoarse voice directed at me.

“Have you regained consciousness? How do you find yourself….Flesh Man?”

The voice felt like it was drilling right into my head. I looked to my side and I came to the realization that I lay stretched out on an elevated platform of some kind.

The voice issued forth from an old man who had on a robe that looks like it was made from darkness itself. His face, ashen with countless wrinkles, strangely enough could not be easily written off as a result of a very long life. He had blazing dark eyes, and by no means looked frail.

His feather-light body held a very twisted, deformed and awfully repulsive staff in its hand.

I couldn’t grasp the reality I was faced with. I couldn’t make any sense of it. All I could do was cast a glance full of suspicion at the old man.

He continued as if it was a matter of course for me to not make a satisfactory response.

“My name is Horus Carmon. One who defies mystery, a Mage and your Lord. Flesh Man! Bow before your Lord!”

The moment those words were uttered, the moment it pierced my eardrums, I felt a strange sensation run through my whole body.

My body began to move against my will. It raised itself off the platform with movements that were sluggish as that of a newborn baby. It twisted back and forth, and my knee bent the other way contrary to my will. Before I realized it, I had my head hanging down, with my eyes to the floor, kneeling in front of the Lord.

The smell of mold. Gray stone floor. Suddenly, it dawned upon me.

Everything was so vividly reflected in my eyes as if it was the middle of the day, despite there being almost no light seeping into the room.

Something felt off. And with my sense of discomfort as the starting point, my mind started to slowly sort out all the information. My brain that was maxed out at processing all the new information it received from the environment, also starting putting all my memories in order.

All of a sudden, my head was struck with a resounding clang. I could feel the impact but there was no pain accompanied.

No, it wasn’t just that. I couldn’t feel the “usual” throbbing of my heart. Or the usual ache in my head that felt like my brain was being stirred by several tiny daggers. The very pain that was impervious to any kind of analgesic was also gone. Nor did I feel what made it seem like my insides were rotting, melting and being weighed down. The mind that had become clouded under the torture of the never-ending agony, felt lucid and sharp like a polished new knife.

As strange as it may sound, at that moment, for the first time ever, I felt normal.

Also, at that very moment, I understood what it felt like to be human.

As I was completely lost in a daze at the thoroughly unforeseen events unfolding before me, Lord Horus’ voice pulled me out of my reverie.

“Flesh Man! My slave! The one who returned from depths of perdition! I shall now bestow a name upon you, you nameless bastard!”

….nameless bastard.

That’s not right. I did have a name. The name my parents gave me when I was born. Although it has been a while since anyone has called me by it.

But, I stop short of uttering it.

It was a gut feeling. I had a feeling that I shouldn’t do that just right now.

Perhaps it was a bad habit that stemmed from the useless, pessimistic life that I lived before. I held my silence and the Lord bestowed a name upon me.

“You will be called “End”. End as in the one whose life has ended. I used necromancy to breathe transient life into you.”

Transient life.

Necromancy.

Even someone like me, who had had no sort of normalcy in life, who had never even been properly schooled, knew that the man in front of me, was a repulsive Dark Mage. A Dark Mage capable of manipulating the dead.

I replayed everything that just happened.

And, I understood it. I understood everything. Combining my memories along with the words directed at me, I’m sure anyone would be able to make sense of the situation.

That, I am dead. And, the man now before me, used the power of dark magic to revive me from the dead.