Gravestones.

Endless Gravestones.

That was what he found, walking around the cemetery located in the misty forest of dead trees for around ten minutes already.

It stretched for as far as he could see, and mysteriously, he had not encountered a single accursed spawn.

But the eerie serenity did not last.

Sounds of a stick broom being dragged through the ashen ground echoed from in front of him, and by now, Daru had learned that the best response was to hide first and see what the approaching spawn was.

He could then decide whether he would challenge it depending on its level.

If manageable, then he would fight. Daru would let it pass otherwise.

Sprinting towards the nearest tree to his and the strangely maintained ashen path's right, he hid, peering from behind the dead trunk with a hint of anticipation.

He had only encountered three kinds of spawns so far: La Filosa, Rocante, and the Lost Damnedlings.

This one didn't sound like any of the ones Daru had met.

His heart raced slightly faster as excitement coursed through him.

A few more moments later, a desolate figure of average height emerged from the shroud of the thick mist, granting him momentary vision of its unsettling visage.

It looked like a pallid wraith dressed in a blood-stained white tunic, dragging a stick broom that ended in a stone Jian on the other side of the wooden handle.

Its head twitched and spasmed similarly to La Filosa.

However, unlike her, the level 50 Ashen Cleaner's body was serene from the shoulder down.

It walked like a stiff corpse, walking along the ashen path towards the direction Daru came from.

'Hoh, I can fight this thing…' he mused for a few moments before deciding to take action.

Daru began performing short and strange zigzagging steps, making sifting sounds that caught the pallid wraith's attention before erupting into a dash with his intent mirage.

The Ashen Cleaner, who only had a nose and mouth, seemed unfazed.

Its broom's handle suddenly separated into two.

The bottom half fell to the ground, while the upper half stayed in its hands, transforming into a sword with a decaying wooden handle.

The pallid wraith then turned to face one of its attackers, slashing its sword calmly.

Unfortunately, it chose wrong, cleaving nothing but a mirage.

Daru decisively severed its unexpectedly fleshy left leg as he passed the creature.

The Ashen Cleaner lost balance, barely stabilizing its footing by stabbing its sword into the ground.

To Daru's surprise, it didn't even let out so much as a faint whimper, despite bleeding putrid black blood heavily from its dismembered limb.

The pallid wraith merely grabbed the lower half of the broom on the floor and created distance.

Then, before Daru's eyes, it stabbed the broom in place of its lost leg.

Gray flesh crawled into the wooden handle, soon transforming into a replacement leg.

"Well, that…is a convenient ability," Daru remarked at the Ashen Cleaner, who only gurgled raspily in response.

'But a bit disgusting.'

The brief pause then ended as the two charged at each other.

The Ashen Cleaner, sliding its finger off the flat part of its stone jian, began slashing at the air in sweeping motions, sending gray crescents shooting Daru's way with every wave of its sword.

But Daru was able to respond, jumping and turning into a red tornado mid-air.

*CLANG!*

A piercing clang sounded as metal made contact with metal.

The pallid wraith was surprisingly able to defend itself from the unconventional attack, perhaps partly due to Daru being forced to jump earlier than he should, so that he could dodge the incoming sword projectiles.

Nonetheless, the exchange ended in a draw.

Landing gracefully on his feet, Daru didn't pause, immediately rushing at the Ashen Cleaner once more, kicking up ashen dust that thickened the mist slightly.

Like so began a heated, high-intensity series of clashes.

Daru challenged the unexpectedly graceful abomination with his fluid and flowing style, fierce and destructive as fire one moment, elusive as the winds in the next — ever changing.

He wasn't even thinking of his next moves, acting purely on reflex, intuition, and experience.

As long as his perception attribute was enough, there was no attack he could not react to, and for this battle, he had more than enough.

Nonetheless, the pallid wraith proved an unexpected challenge.

While its fighting style was stiff and persistent with a tough, seemingly uncaring front, it was able to defend from most of Daru's attacks.

Most.

Some strikes went through its persistent yet reckless defense, cutting moderately deep into the Ashen Cleaner's flesh.

The pallid wraith bled heavily from multiple wounds, but while inconvenienced — probably — not a single lethal blow had landed.

Yet…

Daru had never been easy to defeat in a duel, especially one wherein he wasn't gapped in physical attributes.

In fact, he had never lost in such a way, and it didn't seem like the Ashen Cleaner would be the one to do it.

The graceful abomination was now being pushed back, forced to defend without being given a chance for even a single counterattack.

How could such an ugly, pallid wraith be the protagonist of a story?

No strange thing or divine intervention happened, and it only continued losing to Daru for the next two minutes.

The Ashen Cleaner bled more and more.

However, it refused to die, and to Daru's delight, the pallid wraith also didn't seem to be thinking of escape.

He had to hurry, though.

Footsteps and violent, unholy snarls that screamed of a fierce struggle sounded in the distance, growing closer and closer to the area of their battle.

In this strange place, it was unwise to fight two abominations at once.

Daru had to end the Ashen Cleaner.

As much as he hated relying on his strongest sword skill to end a battle, especially against what he believed was a mere common Swordspawn, he had to, jumping to dodge a sweeping strike from the pallid wraith.

Then, as a manifestation of a massive azure sword, he descended, utterly destroying the Ashen Cleaner into mangled bits of flesh and bones as a heavy thud echoed.

A crater formed in the condensed ash ground surface, the powdery layer at the very top bursting in a cloud of gray smoke that covered his escape.

Daru didn't even look at the body of his fallen foe, immediately bolting behind a dead tree — one that was a bit farther away from the site of his recent battle.

...Then it arrived, another pallid wraith almost identical to the Ashen Cleaner, but this one was a bit more muscular and wore a chilling raven armor that radiated a faint black aura.

In its hands, struggling fiercely but to no avail was a Lost Damnedling.

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