The First Lich Lord - Chapter 120

We took our time to recover. It would take them a while to find the way down, or so I hoped. Chompy waited for us near where the stairs let out. I wasn’t going to give anyone who came down here the option of forming up outside the stairs. Chompy was going to attack them before they even left the landing area.

I found the nearest pillar and sat down, leaning my head back. Raven sat next to me and transformed into her lynx form. A few moments later, I could tell she was asleep. It was amazing how fast cats could do that. Her warm body, a feeling I hadn’t noticed before, helped calm my mind as I prepared myself for the next fight. With Chompy and Raven by my side, we might stand a chance.

The previous floor had been about thinning the numbers of whoever made it this far. I focused on my sense of the dungeon. What I saw both gave me hope and worry. There were far more holy warriors on the floor above us than I would’ve liked, nearly two dozen. But the necromancer was on the move, and if I could last long enough, help would arrive.

When I thought the invaders on the previous floor were about to find their way down, I gently stirred Raven back to wakefulness. “Are you ready?” I asked as I gently stroked her back.

She stretched and yawned wide, shifting back into her human form. “That nap did wonders. They shall see what I’m capable of.”

Within the group coming down, there were the two players, and another two NPCs that were over level 100. The rest varied from mid-level eighties to high-level nineties based off of what my sense told me.

“That player priest,” I whispered to Raven as we watched the stairs. “He is likely the biggest threat. If he’s supported by other priests and clerics, the magic he can bring to bear might be too much.”

“I will do what I can.” Raven’s tail whisked back and forth in anticipation for the fight.

“Don’t do anything too reckless. Without you, I don’t think this is winnable,” I said.

Before Raven could respond, the first of the zealots that led the way down stepped onto the forge floor. Chompy surged as only this creature could. I almost felt bad for that pair of zealots. The last thing they saw was a gaping maw full of wicked teeth descending on them.

It didn’t take long for a coordinated push led by the player to drive Chompy back. The benefits of him being my own creation ranged from him gaining my resistances from the Order of Equinox to me being able to more effectively heal him. Since he was also a dungeon boss he gained several more resistances, meaning the holy magic hammering into him was less far less effective than it should have been. It was still enough that patches of the hulking monster’s flesh were laced with silver light that caused it to smoke and decay.

I let Chompy deal with the paladins and zealots for now. He wouldn’t win without my help, but the clerics and priests were by far the more dangerous part. If we could get to them before they had time to build up their power, things would go easier.

Raven was already cloaked in shadows and stalking forward. I was less subtle. The second the first of the casters started to enter the landing area, I hit them with a powerful bolt of black and purple lightning. It shattered barriers and drove into the leader before jumping to three others. The power ravaged through their bodies, amplified by my position as master of the dungeon and the death energy laced into the spell.

Before I finished my spell, a barrier snapped up, cutting off the stream. The black lightning splashed against the silver barrier which cracked under the barrage, but it did not break. I pointed Mercy at the barrier, configured into its cannon form. My eldritch bolt finished the barrier off, the excess energy splashing over the clerics.

I pointed, and two eldritch blasts hammered into two of the clerics. The combined attacks blew holes through their chests, and they dropped dead.

I was already building another spell, not letting up on my attack as the priests began to appear. Silver barriers formed around them protecting the casters. That was okay, my initial volley was only meant to last for a short while. I poured all of my mana and a large portion of my death energy into the spell.

My power condensed into a ball so black it looked like it had been torn out of the world, flew across the distance. It was my own version of the spell that the annoying priest had used on me—the difference being mine was quite a bit more powerful.

I targeted the ball toward the player priest. “I hope you like my version. It’s cooler!” I pulled out a mana potion, downed it in one gulp, then rushed in to support Chompy.

Right before my black ball hit the barrier, a storm of pure black projectiles erupted from a shadow as Raven broke the barrier first. She vanished once again, without stalking her prey.

Chompy was looking rough, but I poured a little bit of my regenerated mana into a simple heal undead spell. It wasn’t much, but it did help.

I targeted the zealots first and foremost. The lack of heavy plate armor made my slashing attacks all the more powerful.

The priest and clerics scrambled to stop my oncoming orb, throwing attacks at it. None of them seem to affect it, they either bounced off or simply splashed against it like water on a stone. The death energy in that spell served to protect it from lesser energies. It wasn’t impossible to overpower it, but it also wasn’t likely.

A second barrier came up, and after pushing against it, the barrier shattered. The ball was like a slowly encroaching inevitable force.

I very rarely finished off my targets, leaving them maimed and setting them up for Chompy to destroy.

My ball hit a third barrier and broke through, though it’d compromised the integrity. I doubted it was clear to them, but my sense of my own spell told me it was reaching the end of its power. I detonated the ball.

There was an implosion, not a strong one, but enough to stagger several of the nearby clerics as they resisted being pulled into the spell. Then an explosion expanded outward, a black sphere of power born into existence. That sphere caught several of the clerics, the bodies withering and dying at the barest touch of the sphere.

A beam of silver light erupted from the priests and hammered into the expanding sphere, three of the NPCs supporting the more powerful player priest. The sphere warped as the silver magic pushed it back in some places, but it continued to expand in others. The edge of the sphere reached the back line of the zealots and paladins, and their screams filled the floor.

When the spell finally ended, it had taken out all but three priests, three paladins, one of which was the more powerful player, and half the zealots.

I regretted that that wasn’t a spell I could easily use outside the dungeon. My power was greatly amplified over what a normal creature or player of my level would normally have. That spell was just ridiculously powerful.

The three priests who worked together to cast that powerful beam remained in formation, the magic still flowing through the player priest. The beam began to track toward me. My eldritch barrier would hold for a little while, but not long.

Before the beam reached me, it faltered. A black form stood on the shoulders of the player priest. He was outlined by the channeling silver magic and her little fists had a dagger planted in the side of his head and another driven into the base of his throat.

I closed my eyes, knowing what was about to happen and not having the will to watch it. The immense magic backlash in the detonation consumed all four figures. Bits and pieces of body went flying across the room.

In that moment of closing my eyes, the player paladin took advantage and struck. The blow hit my eldritch barrier and broke it, but that was a price I was willing to pay for not having that image stuck in my head. I grit my teeth. Raven had probably just saved my life, and while she would be back, it still hurt me to see her go.

The fight was now mostly melee. The one remaining cleric focused on healing the surviving fighters who drove me back.

I was engaged in a duel with the player paladin, my magic warring to its fullest effect. Each wound I left slowed and tore at their flesh. Still, it wasn’t enough. Even Chompy was on the losing end. At a glance, I knew he did not have much longer, but then I saw movement in the stairs.

I smiled at the paladin. “Good game, thanks for playing.” I laughed and leapt back as far as my massive strength would take me.

The paladin was just about to follow when she heard something that pulled her attention to the stairs. A horde of zombies poured down, swarming toward her and her remaining fighters. I used the space to build the most powerful healing spell I could and shot it toward Chompy. As he restored and the swarm overtook them, the fight ended with swift brutality.