The First Lich Lord
Chapter 16

I pushed the heavy doors open into a room of sweltering heat, their groaning hinges stilling the clanking. In the center sat an anvil, and on tall spikes to either side of it were the impaled bodies of two children. They hung limply, the spikes jutting out of the top of their heads. The smith was nowhere in sight, the weapon he’d been working on left abandoned. It was a wicked ax blade with a handle made of bone.

The horrific scene made me pause. I’d seen and done terrible things, but nothing came close to this twisted kind of evil, to sacrifice one’s own kids was a different level altogether.

Drawing my attention away from the anvil, I examined the rest of the room. The ceiling had rows of meat hooks hanging from it. At the far end was a massive furnace whose mouth looked like that of a gaping skull, full of crimson flames. All around the walls were tools that could have belonged in a torturer’s basement.

Embedded into the floor in small rivulets were troughs full of steaming blood. They spread out from the anvil forming some runic design. There was a clanking sound, drawing my attention to an armored figure coming out from behind the furnace.

“You monster,” I snarled.

His armor was bloodred, and he wielded a black hammer carved with runes and a massive ruby mounted in the middle.

“Friar Brown,” the smith said.

I wasn’t about to listen to a melodramatic speech from this monster. I rushed him.

Reshaping Mercy into a needle-sharp blade, I attacked with reckless abandon. It was almost my doom. He reached the anvil before I did, and brushing aside the unfinished ax, he slammed his war hammer onto the black anvil. A kinetic wave exploded outward and threw me back across the room. I crashed into the far wall with immense force, my bones cracking.

“As I was saying,” the smith continued. “I shall enjoy killing you, Friar Brown, and your little undead pet.”

His words stunned me. I lay against the wall baffled both by the impact and by what he said. I looked to Friar Brown.

“He may be undead,” Friar Brown said, “but he is not evil. David, he is an evil creature choosing to be good, while you are a good creature choosing to be evil. Which is worse?”

I got to my feet, no longer able to keep my expression neutral. “How long have you known?”

“Since we very first met.” Friar Brown chuckled. “Later, we shall discuss this at length. For now, we have work to do.”

I gave him a weak smile that turned hungry as something occurred to me, my gaze falling on David. “I guess I don’t need this then.” I let the illusion fall away as I discarded my robe, it would only slow me down, transforming from an average-looking human into a black skeleton.

“Who would have ever thought a priest of purity would work with such a monster,” David sneered.

“I may be a monster,” I sneered right back, “and I may have done terrible things, but I’ve never done something so heinous as this.” I gestured to the unfortunate fate of his children. “If there is a hell, you don’t deserve to go there. You deserve someplace far worse.”

Friar Brown cast his enhancement spell and my body sped up, strengthening. David drew back his hammer in a wide arc aimed at the anvil. Before he could strike, I released a bolt of death magic straight into his chest, which exploded, knocking him back. Though his armor negated most of the damage, when he looked at me, I saw anger.

“You aren’t just a skeleton.”

“Not even close,” I chuckled.

I hurled Mercy at him, but the needle-sharp blade failed to replace purchase and bounced off to the side. Reaching out, I summoned my weapon back to me as I dodged around a mighty swing of the war hammer. That hammer had a decent chance of killing me if he managed to land a solid blow. Still, I needed to buy Friar Brown time. There was no way I could beat this man, but keeping him occupied was absolutely doable.

“Careful with that weapon,” David taunted. “One of my special abilities with this hammer is destruction of weapons. That seems like a real nice one. Would be such a shame if something happened to it. All it would take is one good blow.”

He was clearly trying to make me hesitate in order to protect Mercy. But what he didn’t know is just how much faith I had in the weapon. I doubted his hammer could actually harm it. Mercy was easily in the mythical weapons category, likely where the fourth grade, true blood weapons were ranked.

Friar Brown began to audibly build his spell as I circled David. When his attention shifted toward the friar, I struck like a coiled viper. Extending myself, I drove Mercy into the shoulder joint of his bloodred plate armor.

David’s attention snapped back to me as he hissed in pain, leaping back from the blow. Mercy’s tip came out covered in bright red blood, except the wound did not bleed. I was certain his armor held a similar property of healing as those cultist’s robes.

He reeled back and, slamming his hammer into the ground, unleashed a shockwave. The red wave of kinetic energy picked me up and tossed me back. Thankfully it wasn’t nearly as powerful as when he’d hit the anvil.

Managing to tumble and roll up onto my feet, I had just enough time to catch David charging me. I dodged aside as his powerful swing created a crater in the ground where I’d been standing. At that moment, I realized he was likely over level 100, and there was little I could actually do to him. I wasn’t even to level 20 yet! That thought also made me wonder just how powerful Friar Brown actually was. With the ease he’d displayed in taking out these overpowered foes, it was clear he was more than I thought at first.

He’d clearly been deceiving me, for what reason I did not know. If he was so powerful and knew I was undead, why did he not smite me? The errant thoughts caused me to stumble and David capitalized on the blunder. I barely managed to deflect the blow, and instead of crushing my leg, he smashed my foot, shattering most of the bones into black shards.

“Mother fucker!” I yelled and I leapt back.

Fortunately, I was still able to walk on the foot, even though over half of it was gone. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but the pain was less than what I expected. Or maybe I was in shock… Hard to say, really.

I inspected Mercy as I skated away from David. His comments about his hammer being designed to destroy the weapons of his foes did worry me a little. But there wasn’t a scrape on my blade-staff.

“Worried about your precious weapon?” David teased.

“Na. I was just seeing if your boasts were full of shit. Looks like they were.”

David snarled. “We’ll see about that.” He continued to press me. If it wasn’t for Friar Brown’s enhancement spell, I would have been long dead.

As we fought, I mixed in magical attacks to keep his guard up, and enhanced my weapon’s blade with death magic. When I did manage to leave wounds, I was leaving behind traces of death magic that would continue to eat away at his flesh unless directly countered. While the effect wasn’t great, it would at least hurt, and that was my goal.

Whatever Friar Brown was casting was sure taking a while, but I was certain it would be worth it.

David was faster than me thanks to the ability he had to rush forward in a red blur, no doubt granted by his hammer. The first time he did it caught me unawares, and he almost obliterated my skull. Through sheer force of will, I managed to deflect the attack and he instead hit my shoulder. When the bones broke, I cried out in pain, one of my arms now utterly useless.

This marked a change in the fight. With only one arm I couldn’t effectively deflect anything he threw my way. It was time to change my strategy, and I attempted to keep my distance while casting magic. I had a wide array of death magic knowledge, but little mana to work with. Even with my illusion spell down, there was only a small repertoire of spells at my disposal.

David moved near the anvil and I got ready for another one of the powerful blows. Hardly thinking about it, I cast a spell. The bodies of his two children came to life and began to grapple for him, though one flailed uselessly, unable to reach him. This was a short-lived undead animation spell that traded longevity for power.

The corpse closest to David grabbed him, keeping him from the anvil. The sight was horrific and I regretted casting such a spell, but it bought me the time I needed. Casting the most powerful undead healing spell I could, death magic flooded my body. I focused it all into my shoulder. While my foot wound did hurt my mobility some, it wasn’t nearly as debilitating.

David roared with rage, and I looked to see him struggling against the undead that had once been his child. His eyes, filled with real hatred, fixed onto the dim purple orbs that were my eyes. With a surge of strength, he yanked himself free and slammed his hammer onto the anvil.

I couldn’t dodge the kinetic blow, but this one was weaker than his initial blow. The two zombies on the spikes, which were now hostile to him, were shredded by the proximity to the blow, turning into flaming chunks. I was knocked back and tumbled trying to catch myself.

Rolling and getting back to my feet, I used Mercy to brace myself as I continued to slide across the floor. I would’ve succeeded too, but my bad foot caught on a groove in the floor and gave way. I fell back and hit my head hard on the floor, stunning me for a moment.

Lifting my head, I barely saw David blurring across the room straight for me. I brought Mercy above me and caught his descending war hammer just above my chest. There was an explosion of force as the two weapons collided, but my faith in Mercy was justified. It held, the impact staggering David back.

Before I could get to my feet, he reeled and struck again, eliciting another explosion of force.

He stood above me, sneering down as he put all of his weight into his hammer. My arm was beginning to buckle under the strain, but Mercy didn’t even bend.

“Not possible,” David hissed. “In the past, this weapon has destroyed true blood weapons!”

“Maybe it isn’t a lack of ability of the weapon, but of you,” I sneered up at him. “Or maybe my weapon’s superior to yours.”

He growled in anger and I tried to push him off me, but couldn’t. At that moment, Friar Brown’s enhancement spell ended and my arms visibly shook under the strain. Before they could collapse, a torrent of gray and white light slammed into David. It picked him up and tossed him across the room. He caught himself on the anvil, bracing himself, and began to push back against the beam. I got to my feet and saw Friar Brown pointing his staff at David and channeling a tree trunk sized beam of magic across the room.

A red Nimbus of energy started to surround David the longer he resisted the friar’s magic. He tilted his hammer into the beam, and the energy began to extend itself toward Friar Brown. I thought I saw a smirk on the friar’s face. He looked at me and nodded, clearly wanting me to continue the fight.

I skirted the room. David was far too focused on his struggle against Friar Brown to notice me. The beam had reached the halfway point between Friar Brown and David, coming to a complete stop, suspended in dual annihilation between them. It was like Friar Brown let it get there before putting forth the effort needed to stop it.

Stepping in front of the mouth of the skull-shaped furnace, I could feel the blistering heat and even the foul magic contained within. Moving toward David, I cast a dark magic spell that quieted my movements, then poured as much death magic into my blade as I could.

I examined the back of his armor, searching for weakness as I slightly modified Mercy’s blade. Both his head and chest were too well protected by thick red metal for me to get at, but it wasn’t completely impervious. It would still take a strong thrust to penetrate, but I could do it, even without Friar Brown’s enhancement spell.

Stopping behind David at the optimal distance, I readied my attack. At the last moment, he seemed to realize he’d lost track of me, beginning to look behind him as I thrust. The needle-sharp tip of Mercy struck the flexible armor around his neck and cut through. His head was halfway around as my blade drove through his neck.

A gasp escaped David’s lips. Unfortunately for him, I’d missed his spine, so the blow wasn’t instantly lethal. He dropped his hammer and Friar Brown’s beam slammed into him, driving him against the large anvil. He grasped at Mercy and tried to pull it free as the beam ate into his body. But as he pulled, the slight modification I’d created on the blade-staff showed its worth. I’d added barbs along the blade’s length, so once it was in, it would be hard to pull out.

David began to scream in pain as his flesh tugged, and the barbs hooked the red metal of his armor, Mercy remaining firmly in place. The death magic inside the blade filled his neck, and as his hate-filled eyes looked at me, tendrils of inky-black magic worked their way up David’s face.

Before the magic could kill him, his armor began to fight back. Red vitality trickled down to counter the death magic and I was certain they would win. Although, my magic wasn’t the only magic at work here—Friar Brown’s spell finally ate through the armor.

David opened his mouth and let out a garbled scream as Friar Brown’s magic annihilated his body. I was honestly impressed he could scream around the blade impaled through his windpipe. It didn’t take long for our combined attacks to finish off the evil smith, his charred corpse laying against his anvil.