Deathmark

*Join your foes in an Inexorable dance of Death.*

## Summary

Deathmark is a peak-quality skill Zac created using one of his two Fetters of Desolation Upgrade Skill Quests by fusing his class skill Deathwish with the non-class skill Winds of Decay. It is a domain skill that creates a zone of destructive and obscuring black corrosion from which axe wraiths manifest to attack enemies. Their attacks leave behind runes when they hit through which corrosion is drawn into the enemies body. It is a continuous running skill that drains more miasma every time a wraith is summoned. The corrosion grows more potent as the skill improves and the wraiths more effective and intelligent fighters who can cooperate with each other.

The skill synergizes with both his Death and Conflict Daos, and the skills Arbiter of the Abyss, Blighted Cut, and Pillar of Desolation.

Zac upgraded this skill to D-Grade when he visited Kavista, the Kavriel Province's C-Grade World. The main goal of this upgrade was to make the wraiths stronger and increase the pressure until something gave way.

## Fusion

* This was extra important for his Fetters of Desolation class, where he had several skills that he rarely used or simply didn’t fit too well with his envisioned combat style. He wanted to turn the class more offensive while still maintaining some defensive capabilities, and he hoped he had found a way to do that. **Book 7, Page 630**
* Right now, the class combined Defense and Death, and Zac needed to turn that into War and Death. **Book 7, Page 630**
* A fusion reward from an Epic Class would result in a Peak-quality E-grade skill without fail, which was especially important in Zac’s case. **Book 7, Page 633**
* The next day was spent performing one fusion after another, and Zac gained a lot of inspiration and comprehension every time. **Book 7, Page 637**
* His idea was for **[Deathwish]** to represent the Fragment of the Axe, which was why the spectral projections had been replaced by axe wraiths, and for **[Winds of Decay]** to represent death. The result was **[Deathmark]**, a domain skill that both spread powerful corrosion while adding the summoning ability. **Book 8, Page 135**

## Skill Location

**Left Bicep**

* A whole hour passed as Zac meticulously redrew the pathways, starting from his **[Inexorable Core]** and moving toward the **[Deathmark]**'s skill fractal behind his left bicep. **Chapter 1,071**

## Skill Window

[E] Deathmark - Proficiency: Late. Join your forces in dance to death. Upgradeable. **Chapter 898**

[D] Deathmark - Proficiency: Early. Join your foes in an Inexorable dance of Death. Upgradeable. **Chapter 1,078**

## E-Grade

### Early Proficiency

* His body started to release a black cloud that spread through the water with rapid speed, taking just a few seconds to fill the whole cave. ... replaced by pervasive darkness and the chill of death. ... he knew the sound was all the moss and even the cave wall being rapidly dissolved. The darkness was filled with decay, which was why Zac summoned it. ... Zac could see just fine in the shroud of darkness. **Book 8, Page 133**
* The darkness congealed as Zac felt a drain on his Miasma. Out of it, a wraith wielding a nasty war axe appeared. Its features were obscured by a tattered robe, and its arms were in a state of advanced decay. The axe seemed to be wrought from black metal, and its head was covered in runes that shone in a sinister green radiance that spoke of putrefaction. **Book 8, Page 133**
* A small green fractal edge appeared in front of the axe-head and cut straight through the water armor. ... A series of small green runes covered the previously transparent tentacle. ... Those runes had already started absorbing the corrosion of the surroundings, and the water armor couldn’t protect against that. **Book 8, Page 133**
* Unfortunately for the octopus, there was no escape from Zac’s cage, and another wraith appeared out of nowhere, launching an attack on one of the legs. Another set of green runes appeared, and the wail from within the skull grew louder. **Book 8, Page 134**
* Zac could manually control the skill, but he was happy just to observe as they slowly became smarter during the fight. **Book 8, Page 134**
* Three wraiths eventually turned to five, at which point the beast was already on the brink of collapse. **Book 8, Page 135**
* One impressive difference between the old skills and the new was that the new wraiths didn’t actually disappear after one strike. They would keep pelting away for half a minute unless they were destroyed by the enemy, each strike leaving a mark that rendered the target more susceptible to the corrosive domain. **Book 8, Page 135**
* Even better, Zac didn’t actually need to be attacked for the wraiths to appear. As long as the target was within his corrosive domain, more and more would keep popping up. However, the rate at which they naturally formed was just half compared to how quickly they could form as a result of Zac getting hit. **Book 8, Page 136**
* Even if they managed to withstand the powerful corrosion in **[Deathmark]**, they would be assaulted by a blinding pain that impeded most people’s ability to bring out their full power. You could even say the soul-wrenching pain was another type of restriction, one that might work even better than a suppression array in battle. **Book 8, Page 136**

### Late Proficiency

* An odd sensation made Zac look inward, and he was both surprised and delighted to see lines being added to more than one of his skills. In fact, most of his skills were evolving, proving just how powerful the altar was. **Chapter 897**
* With its latest upgrade, the specter had become even more congealed, and its weapon no longer looked like it had been picked up from an ancient battlefield. Its speed and intelligence had both improved, but Zac inwardly sighed when it was all for naught. **Chapter 904**
* The corrosive atmosphere of **[Deathmark]** wasn't able to leave any real damage on the fleshy armor even in its upgraded state, at least not without a specter having left a mark on the Hegemon's body. **Chapter 904**
* A few silent specters appeared by the cultists, hooded executioners wielding pitch-black axes. **[Deathmark]** had seen an upgrade inside the temple as well, where their axes looked even more deadly. Not only that, but their auras had grown indistinct, like they had fused with the darkness of the skill's domain. It was like they suddenly possessed an item like his energy-hiding bracelet, making them far harder to spot without a honed Danger Sense. **Chapter 924**

### Peak Proficiency

* The corrosion of his domain skill had reached another level upon elevating the skill to Peak Mastery. The bloody ground frothed and bubbled, and plumes of smoke rose from the ghouls as the skill broke them apart. **Chapter 991**
* The corrosive domain dealt with the resentment wraiths as they came, but their demise was hastened as one axe wraith after another joined the fray. They looked like death incarnate by this point, valiant executioners conjured from the underworld. **Chapter 991**

## D-Grade

### Upgrading

* The problem was the wraiths, the half representing the Dao of Conflict. Their ability to constantly reform after being destroyed was in the right direction, but Zac had long felt they missed something. **Chapter 1,078**
* The problem was the reset. Every time a wraith was destroyed, the skill was pushed back to square one. **Chapter 1,078**
* He had to increase the Dao of Conflict to balance the skill, but he didn't want to just make the wraiths stronger. Rather, he wanted to emulate the winds of war, where the pressure mounted until something gave way. Doing so would impose a time limit on the ability, but Zac was fine with that. **Chapter 1,078**
* *[Zac used an array infused with Daos similar to his provided by the Kavriel Clan on their homeworld.] **Chapter 1,078***

### Early Proficiency

* The simplest change was to leverage his Cosmic Core to increase the skill's reach by almost ten times. **Chapter 1,078**
* Since he'd chosen to make it a time-limited skill, he wanted it to consume a huge region before he activated it again in another section of the enemy lines. **Chapter 1,078**
* However, bolstering Conflict and making adjustments had undoubtedly reduced the strength of the corrosive domain somewhat. **Chapter 1,078**
* ... scale was the main goal when Zac upgraded his corrosive Domain Skill. The ominous clouds covered a mile in every direction with terrifying speed, ... **Chapter 1,099**
* The Specters looked very similar to before; part-skeleton, part-ghost, wielding brutal axes wrought from the dense shrouds from which they came. The only noticeable difference was that they each contained more than ten times the energy, making them stronger and sturdier than their E-grade counterparts. Their auras were also far more attuned to the mist, making them even harder to notice. **Chapter 1,099**
* When possible, they [*the specters*] retreated into the corrosive mist to deliver surprise strikes. Only when faced with groups of warriors did they fiercely fight back, completely uncaring about their safety. If anything, they welcomed outcomes of mutual destruction. **Chapter 1,099**

### Middle Proficiency

* The corrosive element of **[Deathmark]** alone was enough to deal with them after evolving the skill to Middle D-grade. **Chapter 1,188**
* ... an even more dangerous task, considering he faced three seventh-generation specters that had gained power with each rebirth. **Chapter 1,188**
* A single combatant and small parties could counter **[Deathmark]** by restraining instead of destroying specters. There was a limit to how many specters could form per target, so the danger would only cross a certain threshold if the enemy messed up. However, even if some observant opponents figured out this strategy, it was almost impossible to follow on a chaotic battlefield. **Chapter 1,188**

## Synergy

* The skill still synergized very well with **[Vanguard of Undeath]** and its taunting ability. **Book 8, Page 136**
* One spectral wraith after another appeared as Zac activated **[Deathmark]**, and he smiled with satisfaction as the wraiths looked more corporeal than usual. It was no doubt thanks to the orb of budding Oblivion [*from Pillar of Desolation*] shining down. While it suppressed the interlopers in this domain, it also helped Zac’s summons. ... They didn’t seem much stronger, though they would last longer and be able to withstand more punishment before dissipating. **Book 8, Page 543**
* Of course, if hit by that dismantling skill [*referring to Blighted Cut*] while inside **[Deathmark]**, you’d be flooded with corrosive damage, making your remaining life short and painful. **Chapter 802**

## Commentary

* A furious war had already erupted inside the cage, with new wraiths and wood puppets appearing every second. **[Deathmark]** was burning a large amount of energy, though the same had to be true for the treeman’s skill. Zac was happy to keep wasting energy, and he let the skill run. **Book 8, Page 173**
* Zac activated **[Deathmark]**, shrouding the area in a corrosive haze to take care of the frenzied beasts. He was shocked to find the little things scuttling through the black water, barely affected. **Book 8, Page 261**
* Unfortunately for her, the whole area was suffused in the corrosion of **[Deathmark]**, and over half of the ice shards were reduced to nothing before they could even hit anything. **Book 8, Page 296**
* After testing things out over the past days, he confirmed the lethality of **[Deathmark]** had taken a huge step forward from the Dao upgrade. The passive shroud alone was dangerous to the average Peak E-grade cultivators, and it was almost game over if they were branded by a mark. **Book 8, Page 311**
* The blood attacks were continuously being eroded by the pervasive atmosphere, and by the time they reached Zac they'd lost half of their strength. **Chapter 770**
* Meanwhile, one of the smaller warthogs rammed straight into the final axe wraith, but Zac’s brows rose in surprise when it actually blocked the rush with its axe. **Chapter 8007**