The First Lich Lord
Chapter 88

I followed Rhea’s troops across the bridge. The fighting was already growing intense on the other side. A few soldiers had been tossed into the chasm, but most had made it across. Halfway across, I caught the sound of something. It was barely audible over the din of conflict.

Stepping to the side I looked into the chasm, where a glimmer of daylight shone, and the sound of rushing water reached me. Something occurred to me and a smile split my face. I might make it out of this yet.

Once on the other side I fell into the role of the caster. There were enough front line troops that I wasn’t needed, though I got glares from the priests and clerics as I took up a position near them. I of course could not help in the casting of their spells nor add my own magic to theirs, and they could not assist me with mine.

With this in mind, I made sure to position myself outside of the regular formation of casters. When you had groups of casters, they typically work together to cast more powerful spells. If I had been in the heart of their formation, or even at the edges of it, my magic might’ve interfered with their own.

I began to build a spell, most of my zombies had been torn apart by this point. Attacks from the paladins and other holy warriors had destroyed some of my zombies as well, the living troops had no heed or care to avoid damaging my undead creatures. I didn’t mind though, that was part of the point of the undead, especially these low-level ones.

Death magic poured out of me just as holy magic saturated the air, exchanging volleys with the three priests at the altar. I completed my spell, and a pulse of magic flew out from Mercy. It was targeted at the fallen, and before long both dead humans and dead monsters stirred into undeath. Like before, the addition of troops changed the flow of battle.

For the living, the sudden rising of zombies startled them, and there were ripples in the ranks as a few of the zombies were bashed back to the ground. Rhea was quick to shout orders that her troops leave them alone. The zombies fell upon the creatures, and as zombies rose in the flanks of the black-and-white monsters, their battle lines turned into chaos.

Maxwell changed his song, becoming more focused on enhancing strength and vitality. The effects on the undead and the living were immediate. The paladins stood taller and hit harder, and the zombies shrugged off blows more easily.

“You really should consider working with people like me more often,” I joked when I saw Rhea glance in my direction. “Necromancers are really just misunderstood. We’re all about letting nothing go to waste.”

She snorted. “Never in a million years, Zeke.”

“You say that now,” I forced a laugh. “But maybe one day you’ll understand.”

The magic I had available was limited, I was keeping my illusion in place because it unnerved the living too much to have something so clearly undead within their ranks. Still, I worked with what I had.

Working in tandem with the fighters of Olattee went far better than I assumed it would. Yes, occasionally the priests and clerics would release spells that damaged my undead, but it was nothing I couldn’t overcome with my own healing spells.

The creatures that were either solid white or solid black were problematic. They wielded more powerful attacks that often caused the line of fighters to buckle and almost break. I worried what would happen if I ever actually engaged one of the white ones in melee combat.

Fortunately, it appeared that their attacks were limited to a short range that were practically within melee range. After raising another round of zombies, one of the white creatures charged up an attack. Since I was low on mana, I reshaped Mercy into a javelin and poured as much mana and death energy as I could spare into it. I hurled Mercy across the distance between us, no more than twenty meters.

My massive strength as a Lich catapulted Mercy, and the speed was too much for the white creature to dodge. The blade pierced through its chest, and even pinned one of its hands to its chest as well. My black magic poured out of Mercy and contrasted against the pure white of the creature’s body. It spider webbed out from where Mercy had impacted.

I stretched my hand out toward Mercy, but then paused. I waited as more magic was pumped into the creature. Its attack forgotten, the power built up and backlashed into the creature. Even though it was his own magic, and was no doubt all but immune to whatever it was, backlash was never good. Even if it didn’t physically affect the caster, it would cause blinding mental pain if uncontrolled.

The creature collapsed, and I summoned Mercy back to my hand, yanking it free. Then I used a new ability and summoned every death core to me. As they came, I broke every one of them down, and soon a maelstrom of death energy surrounded me. It was more than I could absorb into my own body, but that was okay. I attached the death energy to Mercy and twisted what little mana I’d recovered into the blade, giving it my intent.

This was far from a complete spell, the whisper of mana wasn’t near enough, but I hoped it would prove effective. Once again, I hurled Mercy across the distance, targeting the white creature even as it stood back up. I could already see the effects of my initial attack being healed, but when Mercy hit it again, that attack was much more profound.

The death energy funneled into the creature, and the spider web of black lines exploded across its body. I lost sight of the mana I had attached, but that attack proved its effectiveness.

The spider webbing lines formed a black spot at the impact point of Mercy, which spread and rotted the flesh away. When Mercy clattered to the ground, I summoned it back to my hand, spinning the blade as I did to slash at another one of the black-and-white creatures that made it up to my position.

As I drank a mana potion, I focused on the white creature I just felled. At first nothing happened, but I smiled when it stood. Well, it wasn’t quite the same creature anymore, the flesh had all completely rotted away and what stood was a pure black skeleton that reminded me of what I must’ve looked like when I was first resurrected as a Lich.

Since its body was skeletal, I could tell it lacked a death core, which meant it would only last for a limited time. It also meant all the death energy I poured into creating it was now loose power inside of that skeleton waiting to be used.

It also appeared to have some kind of will of its own and I didn’t have complete control over it. There was a hunger emanating from it, a hunger for a death core. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to realize I had one, tearing into the nearest black-and-white creature with abandon. Its goal became clear, if a zombie killed enough, it would eventually develop a death core on its own.

I had used as much energy as I could for a bit, so I just watched as my mana refilled. My new monster soon locked on to one of the pure black creatures and launched itself at it. The fight that erupted between them was quite destructive to everything nearby. Explosions of death and dark magic ripped at both the black-and-white creatures, and the humans and zombies around them.

The combat between the two creatures was violent enough to draw the attention of the priests. A Nimbus of power built around the three of them as they work together to cast a spell. A bolt of gray light that matched the disconcerting light of the portal flew from the air above them and hammered into the black skeleton. Whatever the attack was it was impressive. I knew just how much death energy was in that skeleton, and the gray light blew it apart.

Despite the short-lived life of the skeleton its effect was great. That had given a section of the human front line time to catch a breather and now they surged into the devastation. As one flank of the black-and-white creatures crumbled, the outcome of the fight became evident.

The altar priests looked at Rhea in anger, readying another of those devastating gray bolts. Defensive barriers were already going up to counter the incoming attack, but by the power on display, they wouldn’t stop it. Rhea would die without a doubt.

In a moment of sheer insanity or some deep-seated hero complex, I dove toward Rhea right as the priest cast the spell and threw myself in between her and the oncoming attack. The gray light shattered every barrier like it was nothing and slammed into me. The timing of me interposing myself between Rhea and that attack left nothing to spare, and for one lingering second, her shocked, wide eyes filled my vision before the pain blinded my every sense.

The gray light was neither light nor dark magic, neither holy nor unholy. It was something else, something I realized a little too late the Order of Equinox did not provide me any defense against. Not that it would’ve changed my actions.

My illusion shattered and I screamed as the light hammered into me. The strands of flesh that composed my body melted away as my armor crumbled. I had very little death energy left, and tried to use it as a defensive measure, repairing what damage I could. But the light burned into my chest like a cutting torch.

My death core and phylactery were taking huge amounts of damage. But before it completely consumed me, there was a flash of white light as she cast a spell on me. There was a moment of panic as I thought she’d used the opportunity to finish me, but then I felt magic similar to what Friar Brown had used on me. It wasn’t holy magic, it was a restoration spell.

Restoration magic, at least the type of restoration magic that the priest’s of Olattee had access to, did not destroy the undead. It sought to restore whatever its target was to its true nature. As my body’s true nature was that of a Lich, the magic fought to restore that.

Rhea’s spell wasn’t a match for the attack, but it was enough. When the spell finally ended, I collapsed. I had taken a huge amount of damage, but I was still alive. When I glanced toward the priests, they were all sagging in exhaustion. Rhea looked down at me with a questioning look.

“I couldn’t just let you die…” I grumbled as I rolled onto my back. I hurt all over, and as quick as my death energy restored itself, I used it throughout my entire body to repair damage as fast as I could. Mana trickled out of me as I cast death magic healing spells on myself to further speed up the process.

By the time I recovered, the fight was over. We’d won. Only a few of my undead still wandered around. I made my way up to the altar where the portal was still open, the wrongness of it thick in the air.

“Rhea, what do we do with this?” I asked her.

She glanced at me and shuddered. My illusion wasn’t in place, and I didn’t bother to put it up.

“I have no idea,” she said after a moment. “I don’t know who this order was, but whatever they are doing is wrong. I thank you for helping… and for saving me.”

“This is when you let me go?” I asked her hopefully.

Her attention returned to the portal before muttering something to herself. I thought I heard her say something about needing to investigate. But her lack of response to my question had been the answer I was looking for. It meant I needed to act, and act quickly.

Not missing the opportunity, I examined one of the priests, there was a ring that caught my attention. Looking at it, a brief description popped up.

Illusion Ring of the Day Walker

Relic

This is a relic from an age past. It was created for a vampire who wished to walk in the sunlight. The power of this illusion ring is great enough to even mask some of the side effects of whatever the wearer is trying to hide.

I grabbed the ring. Relics were not something you saw very often. I didn’t question why a priest of Olattee would’ve had something like this. However, I didn’t need to, for as soon as the ring slipped off the man’s finger, something changed. The man’s eyes, wide open in his death, changed. One became pure white, and one obsidian black.

I was thankful for my undead nature. I didn’t breathe, so I couldn’t gasp in surprise. Unfortunately, when I examined the other rings, I could tell they were something I should not take. All of them had holy magic tied around them, I had no idea why a creature like this wielded magic from Olattee without a problem, but that wasn’t my primary goal. Right now, my primary goal was to survive.

I tried not to rush over to the other fallen priests, each one of them had one of the rings. When I grabbed the third one, I must’ve been too obvious in my unease.

“What are you doing?” A priest in white robes glared at me. His words grabbed Rhea’s attention.

I put the ring on and bound it to me, so I looked human once again. Rhea eyed me, she knew just how low on mana I’d been. “Look at their eyes,” I demanded. “Something is very wrong.”

The priest looked down at the fallen priests in black robes and gasped. This drew Rhea’s attention away from me and as soon as it was gone, I made a hasty retreat.

Maxwell was standing near the bridge, but it was guarded by Tyler and several other paladins who glared at us. There was no way we were getting across.

I turned my back to Tyler as I whispered, “Max, where is your last respawn?”

“In Maltis,” Maxwell whispered back.

“I’m not sure if this is survivable for you, so you don’t have to follow, but if you do and die, I hope you can get out of Maltis.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Maxwell assured me. “Remember my connections with the underworld, it’s not a commonly known Altar of Creation. I’ll be fine.”

“Follow me then.” I strolled toward the side of the cavern, making it look like I’d given up.

Tyler must’ve caught on, because right as we were about to reach the edge, he started to shout. I jumped.

I plummeted downward, Maxwell whooping and hollering beside me. The glimmer of light below grew, and the sound of rushing water with it.

We splashed down and were caught in the current. I didn’t panic as I was pulled into the water, but I worried about Maxwell. The light I’d seen was reflecting up from the stream of water, I doubted I would have noticed it without my ability to see so well in the dark. We flashed through a tunnel before we shot out the side of the cliff into broad daylight.

We fell another ten meters before splashing into a pool of water. We hit hard, the momentum sinking us deep beneath the waters. As I oriented myself, I spotted Maxwell floating listlessly in the water. I dropped Mercy and grabbed him, but I couldn’t swim well, and the surface of the water looked a hell of a distance away. There’s only so much weight my illusion can give me. But I tried anyway, and the illusion generated by the ring allowed me to swim. I reached my will out toward Mercy every now and again to pull it back to me, preventing it from sinking too far out of my reach, though it did make the upward swim more difficult.

The pool of water we’d fallen into was deep, and I pushed for the surface as fast as I could. We broached the waterline, and I looked behind me. Towering cliffs filled my view, complete with a waterfall pouring off the top of it. The cliff was probably around fifty meters tall. High above the waterfall was nothing more than a stream that joined the larger fountain of water coming out the side. The stone was dark gray and glistened all around as the mists generated by the water splashed against it.

When I finally dragged myself out and tossed Maxwell down on the pebbly beach, I saw his chest was still rising and falling and breathed a sigh of relief. Despite what he said, I was worried about his chances of actually making it out of Maltis. I fished a health potion out of my bag and fed it to him.

There was a sound of cracking branches, and I summoned Mercy to my hand and turned. Raven pushed her way through the bushes that grew along the side of the pond. A moment later, Tuffy and the horses followed.

“How did you get them down?” I asked in surprise. Raven was one thing but the horses and the morsura scaling that steep cliff is another.

“Well, when I realized we were running toward a cliff, I just hoped that there was a pool of water large enough under this waterfall and blinded the horses with magic.” Raven shrugged. “It worked pretty well. I was able to slow the fall with a little magic. I did it right before we hit the water to lighten the impact.”

“I’m glad they made it.” I smiled at her, but it faded when I saw the glare on her face. Followed by the building magic behind her.

“You had no right,” she hissed. “I should’ve stayed and fought with you!”

I matched her glare. “No you should not have. I couldn’t risk you like that.” I didn’t see her like a daughter, but I did care a lot about her. “Maxwell would’ve come back, if I’d gone with you, they would’ve chased.”

“What? Why aren’t they chasing you now?” Raven demanded, though there was a shift in the magic she’d been gathering and it dissipated.

“I don’t know.” I glanced back to the top of the cliff. “There’s a chance Rhea just found something more important than chasing me.”