A Path Of Bone And Poison - Chapter 72 Dark origins 2

And encounter them he did. Those who were unfortunate ended up in one of two ways. The more fortunate of the unfortunate ones ended up as vampire underlings. They remained sentient, but unable to act against him. The truly unfortunate ended up as mindless undead. They would follow his orders to the letter, while the souls of his victims were forced to watch over the actions they performed. Usually in absolute horror.

Those unfortunate souls were destined to go mad, forever deranged as their bodies lived on forever. Unless they were fortunate enough to be slain.

Like this he eventually gathered power. His minions gathering experience and dead bodies for him as he studied deeper into the forbidden necromatic arts.

He eventually stumbled onto a desolate island in the furthest reaches of the seas. Their he decided to set up a temporary base.

He toiled for years untold trying to figure out a cure for his wretched state. His trials become more inhumane as time progressed, and eventually the area around him had earned a dark reputation. The popular of Kaos named the area forbidden sea, and forbade travel there.

This did not stop him from his experiments however. He had countless minions to scour the earth for his test subjects. They were extremely varied. Intelligent or beast did not matter. Race, sex, or region did not matter. If it had a pulse he would perform his experiments.

Those without a pulse often fell under his scalpel as well. Vampires, skeletons, ghouls and liches. All of them became test subjects for the boy.

Hundreds of years passed, and the collection of failed test experiments continued to grow. Eventually he gave up, creating a lich of his own to do the experiments for him.

THe loch had only this single function. Continue the experiments. It would continue until it wasted away into nothingness.

With a sigh The boy left the Castle he had created. Perhaps the lich would get the results he could not. But that was not something he would find out now. Now it was time to once again emerge in the world of Kaos.

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I slowly opened my eyes. I felt every year, every second of the boys experience active in my mind. I could feel…Nothing. The horrible nothing he had experienced for those hundreds of years.

He had not grown upset even though he failed, simply because he was unable to. He did not even look at people like they were people, they were only food he could attempt to satisfy his insatiable hunger and ambitions.

The inside of me felt cold, like a part of my had been lost. I seemed detached to what was going on around me, unable to truly connect.

Even as I looked at Hylia, my beloved wife I felt like I was looking at an actor in a movie. I knew how wonderful she was. And longed to be with her, but I felt like it was all an act. That it wasn’t real and not happening to me.

It was a temporary effect from witnessing all the passing years of that boy. No, I need to call him by his title. Of all those years of watching the Necromancer King.

All of the bodies, all of those Ice Wraiths were the failed experiments I had witnessed. Before us would be the Lich. That useless automation that would only experiment endlessly. I do know know what will happen when he dies, all I know is that he needs to. I cannot take out my rage on the Necromancer King, his era ended thousands of years ago. All that was left was the Lich he had left behind. The lich who had been experimenting for thousands of years.

My thoughts were interrupted by a notification from the system. A notification that should not have appeared.

u003cYou have inherited a porgion of the Necromancer kings memories, absorbing some of his power.u003e

u003cYou have gained [Legacy Power: Vampric Magic]u003e

[Legacy power: Vampric Magic]

While not a vampire, you have has inherited a small portion of the Necromancer King’s vampric abilities. Your spells restore 1% of your maximum hp each time they damage an enemy.

A grim smile appeared on my face as I looked at the notification. Yes, this power would do nicely. But first, first I would need to destroy that lich.

I no longer worried as I walked forward. It had been thousands of years since the lich had been created. By now he would have deteriorated into almost nothing. Once it was dead, the horrors would cease being created. Only then would I truly be able to complete my work here.

The girls followed behind me, apprehensive as we walked directly into the area we were supposed to avoid.

When we arrived the area was much as I remembered, it looked like the scene from a horror movie. Surgical tables and equipment. A magical lab. Cobwebs covered the entire place, while the dust was extremely thick.

An undead body that had withered away to almost nothing sat at a desk, his pen moving extremely slowly. If you were not carefully watching you would not even notice it had moved.

The lich looked up as we approached. A tired look appearing on his decayed face. A dark voice, one that sounded like nails on a chalkboard filled the lab. “At last the heir approaches. At last I can be free from this torment.”

The lich slowly stood up, the sound of bones snapping could be heard, and it was forced to learn on the desk in front of it as we saw a leg begin to roll through the dust.

“He told me you would come, and he told me what you would do. I plotted for years on how to stop you, so I could continue with my research.”

The lich sighed as he looked over his lab. I could tell he wanted to gesture, but his body could no longer hold on.

“Who knew that it would take you so long to get here. I waited for thousands of years, and have already lost hope. Their is no secret to immortality here. There is no secret to retaining your morality or humanity. The secret does not lie in the body. But I think he already knew that.”

The lich picked up a thick stack of papers. It seemed to bound in a type of leather I had never seen before.

“This is the result of my years of research. Please take it, and with it my life. As you can see I can no longer move. I can no longer research. All that is left of my thousands of years of life is in this book. And I believe with your particular profession you will find its contents most useful. ”

The lich used the remainder of his energy to sit down again. I nodded to him. I knew what that research contained. And I knew how valuable it was. If I could get it to the guild it would be of immense value.

But, I would not blindly trust the lich. I knew he was weakened. But, he belonged to the dark. Those of the dark were crafty, and it had likely planned a trap for me.

I quickly entered stealth as I shadow stepped. But I did not shadow step behind him. That would have done nothing. I was witnessed his birth, and I knew his weakness.

I shadow stepped behind a small statue in the corner, The lich stood up abruptly as he saw my actions. His feigned weakness disappeared as an aura of unholy power was emitted from him. His hand extended, and a language of dark power came from its mouth.

But it was too late. Before its spell could be completed by blade had already landed. It completely missed the statue, rather it impaled a small ruby embedded into the stand below it. The ruby was hidden amongst many others. But I had just witnessed its creation, and I knew the item intimately.

The gem shattered under my strike, causing a dark vortex to form over the statue. The unholy energy emitted from the lich began to dissipate, rather it was absorbed by the Vortex.

The lich was absorbed piece by piece, its soul being sucked into the vortex. The process lasted for several minutes, before ending with a sudden pop.

We were left in the dark lab, There was no sound, no movement. it was absolutely still. My light footsteps echoed loudly through the lab as I approached the book. When I extended my hand to grab it, my library once again reacted, sucking the entirely of the book into my head.

I sighed, but I had been expecting such an event. This knowledge was meant for me alone. The Necromancer king would never share such information with the light.