The First Lich Lord - Chapter 131

“As a special fight for you today,” Maxwell’s voice rung out over the arena. “We have a mighty undead construct verses a team of intrepid adventurers!”

I carefully moved into the arena. I had created this construct from material from many different creatures. Then I used my second tier death energy to give me the ability to possess it. The process was actually fairly simple. The death energy contained a wisp of my own soul energy, so the connection to it was intrinsic, more so than normal. This is not the first of my creations I’d possessed, but it was the biggest, and the coolest—I thought, at any rate.

Its base had four legs that were . The torso also had four arms—two mounted at the shoulders and two with several extra joints that came out of my back. The head had a single large eye which I was seeing through. The head could rotate 360 degrees, enabling me to track anything that tried to circle around behind.

It was a little awkward controlling this construct. It was three times taller than I was and moved differently than I was used to. But I knew all that had gone into its construction, and I felt powerful. Thick bones supported and protected the vulnerable internals. Slabs of condensed black muscle drove all the arms and legs. On top of that was thick hide and bone plates that would further protect different areas.

The two arms attached at my shoulder ended in three-fingered hands. One held a massive hammer and the other a massive black sword. The arms coming out of my back ended in emitters, one for death magic and one for eldritch. I could cast a variety of spells from them, but they were mostly designed for magical blasts. The internal mana reserves of this construct allowed for quite the large barrage of attacks.

The possession was interesting. In a way it reminded me of what the game had once felt like. There was a disconnect between the body of my creation and my body. I had real time control over it, but there was a sense that it was not my own.

The team that walked out of the opposing gate was not one I recognized. That wasn’t a surprise since I didn’t know most of the players. Yet, part of me had still been expecting Aaron’s or Ezra’s teams, but there were now loads more players here than I knew.

The team wore color-coordinated armor of green and blue with gold filigree. I didn’t recognize the motif emblazoned on the tanks shield. The color coordination didn’t necessarily indicate they were coordinated as a team. After all, the best teams often consisted of those who had an eclectic collection of gear, whatever optimized their build the most.

However, to my dismay, the team was well coordinated. It was your standard adventuring team. Aside from the tower shield the tank boasted, he also carried a one-handed ax. They also had a fighter who wielded a massive war axe. I caught sight of an archer vanishing behind a spell, and there was some kind of sniper as well as two casters. One wore clerical robes, though they did not look to be those of Olattee, and the other was a wizard, if I had to guess by the pointy hat.

The fight went terrible. They tore me apart. Whenever I would try to pressure one, I’d either be pushed back suffering massive damage or bashed around. It got worse when they started making fun of my construct. Yes, it was silly for me to be angry, but I thought my admittedly giant undead robot was awesome.

Then the fight kind of turned into a spectacle. They could’ve finished it, but instead they took their time showing off fancy skills and laughing. One thing my construct had going for it was being incredibly durable. Out of frustration I used the internal mana reserves, which I’d hardly touched, to self-destruct the creation. To do this I compromised the storage of the death and eldritch magic and allowed them to mix. They are not normally explosive when mixed. But there was enough power that the release caused eldritch and death magic to go flying off in all directions.

Fortunately, I hadn’t felt most of the damage. It was more like a sense of damage instead of actual pain. It could have to do with the disconnect, or it could have to do with the fact that the creature didn’t feel pain anyways.

Getting up from where I’d been sitting cross-legged in the construct’s storage room, I went to the closed gate. Looking out into the arena I saw the team celebrating and heard the crowd cheering.

“That was embarrassing,” Raven said coming up behind me.

“What happened?” I asked. “My construct should have been more than powerful enough to at least prove a challenge.”

“It’s simple,” Raven said. “You didn’t know how to control it. It was clear by how you moved out there. Your movements were staggered and janky and you only used at most two of your arms at once, and even then you used them poorly.”

“Maybe I should stick to possessing things that are humanoid?”

“That or practice with things that are not until you are better at using them,” Raven agreed. “That fight would’ve been more difficult for them if you had just put a simple controller inside of it. Though admittedly, they were kind of jerks towards the end.”

“Ya,” I shrugged. “In a fight that easy though I can understand why.”

“Now if you would please clear the arena to make room for the next event, it would be greatly appreciated,” the announcer said.

“We were promised a fight,” the wizard shouted back. “We did not get a fight, and where is our reward?”

The announcer did not respond, it was bad form to get in an argument over a loudspeaker. Instead, he hopped down from his booth onto the floor of the arena and approached the group.

A conversation began, which was quickly becoming an argument. I glanced at Raven and looked out into the arena. “Let’s go see if we can get things sorted out,” I said. “After all, there are other things we need to get to today.”

The crowd was growing restless as Raven and I walked out onto the sand. The sun was pounding down, the heat intense. The porters had already hauled away the broken body of my construct, and the last remnants of it were disappearing into one tunnel.

“Clearly,” I heard the tank sneer loud enough for it to be heard by the crowd, “you do not know how to run an arena. The point is to entertain people, not to give up stupid fights. I bet the dungeon’s just the same as well.”

“Please, sir,” the announcer said, voice strained. The announcer was one of the micilium that Kellnock had given the job of running the arena. “We need to prepare for the next event. You are not promised a second fight, and you will not be receiving a reward. This was not a standard match.”

“Yes, that was when we assumed we’d get to keep the body, yet those monsters hauled it off,” the wizard snapped.

“I am sorry for the confusion, but that is just standard practice,” the micilium tried to explain. “We reuse the fallen for other things.”

“That’s not fair,” the sniper chimed in. Her voice was nasally, and I found it annoying. “We didn’t know that.”

I sighed internally. They were players trying to get anything they could. They all likely knew they had no leg to stand on but figured they could bully the announcer into conceding something to them. “Y’all knew what you were signing up for. Take your experience and leave, we have other things we need to get to,” I grumbled.

With that, they turned and took note of Raven and me.

The announcer bowed. “I am sorry, m’lord.”

“Don’t fret over it.” I studied him. “But I do not know your name.”

“Of course, my name is Daka.”

“You may go, I will deal with this.” I dismissed him.

The group of players had been trying to get my attention, but I ignored them while talking with Daka. As the micilium left, I turned my attention back to them. “Look, I get you want something special, and you think you can bully your way into it. But not today.”

“Why don’t you fight us?” the cleric demanded. “I’m sure you would drop something nice. I’ve seen what that staff of yours is.”

“Maybe some other time, but for now I’m busy, and you are in the way,” I said.

“Sounds like you’re afraid,” the sniper said.

“Afraid of you?” Raven scoffed. “Why would hunters be afraid of mice?”

The way she phrased it made me smile, being so dismissive and not meant to be insulting, just a legitimate question. But it also pissed them off. “You little—!” The tank stepped towards her.

I was really getting annoyed at this point. I put the death energy behind my voice, a new trick I had learned when I realized that I could enhance other parts of my body with death energy, so why not my voice. It was far more effective than enhancing my body alone. After all, our voices as lichs don’t exclusively come from vocal cords. “Know. Your. Place.” My words had a visible effect, Raven was standing next to me, so she wasn’t caught in it. But the players weathered the direct death energy, even if dispersed in a short range. That is not a minor thing. “You got your fight, now leave.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Livia striding across the arena.

Though the effect of using the death energy of my words had clearly affected them, it did not stop them. “No,” the tanks sneered. “If you want us to leave you have to force us out.”

“Please stop, Larry,” the command in Livia’s voice was evident.

“No, Livia,” the tank who I now knew was Larry sneered. “We’re not a part of your guild, you can’t tell us what to do. In fact, we have our own guild and if this is how this place sets up, I don’t know why you’re bothering. I think we’ll just raid the dungeon and kill it.”

There was a click. Before Livia had spoken, as soon as Larry stated his unwillingness to leave, I’d given Kellnock the go ahead. I could feel him watching from his forge, and the only reason he hadn’t acted was because I was there.

The sand in the exact middle of the arena, between myself and the team, split and opened like an iris. The team leapt back. Rising up through the three meter wide hole was a construct. It was made out of pure black bone. It was a crouching humanoid form. When it stood, at twice my height, it became clear it wasn’t a skeleton. Though it was made of bone, it was like the bone was its flesh.

Along its back was a spiked spinal column and the bone of its torso was flexible. Eldritch power burst into life behind its eyes. Flares of death magic and eldritch magic burst from the joints and spine as it cracked its neck. In one hand it held a staff with a wicked serrated blade on either end.

“You wanted to fight, here you go,” I snarled.

The black bone creature struck with blinding speed and power. I knew Kellnock was directly controlling this one. He didn’t have to be a lich to have that ability, I guessed it was one of the benefits of being an elder undead. This was one of the most powerful things he could create—a level 200 undead construct. The weaknesses of it being a construct were partially overcome by being controlled by a mind instead of a controlled nexus which was closer to a program.

It was only three levels lower than Kellnock, which was impressive. He couldn’t create regular minions that were that close to his own level, but the construct was a different story. The fight was hilariously one-sided. The first blow split the fighter in half and the second blow decapitated the sniper.

By the time the construct was done, there was not much left of the bodies except for pulped flesh.