War is coming. To avert catastrophe, Skulduggery and Valkyrie are sent on a secret mission that takes them away from everything they know, to a forsaken land of magic and grim, unrelenting terror, with the last Dead Men, Tanith Low, and Dimensional Shunter "Luke Skywalker". It is here that Valkyrie will have to fight the hardest – not only against the enemies who want her dead but also against her own self-destructive impulses. And it is only by crawling through the darkness that she will be able to once again stand within the light... [25] [26] [27] Dead or Alive [ edit ] The Deadpan Snarker boxing champ Ghastly Bespoke is actually a tailor. Think about that for a second. The Maleficent Seven depicts Tanith Low wielding a katana, when she sword she uses is always described as a long sword. Death Bringer: A Big Bad Ensemble between Lord Vile and the new Death Bringer, Melancholia St Clair. Melancholia is Valkyrie's Necromancer Sitcom Arch Enemy who is experimented on to become the Death Bringer, before getting Drunk on the Dark Side. Lord Vile, the last of the Three Generals and Skulduggery's Superpowered Evil Side, wants to kill Melancholia for usurping his title. Melancholia is ultimately the bigger threat as she tries to kill every living thing, but Vile serves as the Final Boss after depowering her, chasing down Valkyrie as she tries to save Melancholia's life.

Arc Words: "Until the end." First appears in Dark Days, but it's not really hammered home until Last Stand of Dead Men onwards. Friend Versus Lover: Both Caelan and Fletcher show signs of this with Skulduggery, the best friend. Valkyrie dumps Caelan and Fletcher. First-Name Basis: Skulduggery and Serpine. They utterly loathe each other. It's more familiarity that anything else. Toward the end of Last Stand of Dead Men Darquesse curses Ravel with excruciating pain for twenty-three hours out of every day. His body can't even adjust to it, as the pain will just increase. The Sanctuary staff can't do anything to help either. A lot of them don't really want to.After obtaining the Scepter, Serpine created an immortal fighter called the White Cleaver. During a fight with the White Cleaver, Ghastly used magic to petrify himself to avoid being killed. Serpine then invaded the Sanctuary and killed two Elders with the help of the other traitorous Elder. He tried to use the Book of Names to control the World but all three Elders' consent was needed to read from it. Darquesse is so powerful and terrifying that for a year and a half before she even surfaces every psychic on the planet starts to have horrifying visions of her ending the world. It goes downhill from there, really... The novels are broken up into two phases with multiple prequels and short tales. Since the release of the first novel in 2007, Skulduggery Pleasant, the series has been praised by both readers and critics. The last chapter of Book Seven has Valkyrie's reflection gaining sentience and killing Carol to charge the Sceptre, which she plans to use on Valkyrie and Skulduggery.

Landy has also mentioned that previous open plot points will be answered, such as the secret Dusk discovered about Valkyrie's blood and Rue's power [needs reference].Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Darquesse of all people. The epic Evil Versus Evil showdown between her and Lord Vile in Death Bringer almost gets put on pause because she gets distracted by a helicopter, and decides to beat it up instead, forgetting about Lord Vile as she flies off. Short Story Collection". Derek Landy Blogs Under Duress. 16 November 2013 . Retrieved 10 October 2014.