The First Lich Lord - Chapter 134

“You two have gotten a lot stronger,” Ezra growled as I sent Tucker tumbling back from a powerful blow to his shield.

“And you’re not even facing Chompy this time,” I retorted as I deflected her spear and drove in with Mercy.

My precognition warned me of an incoming arrow, and I twisted my body just enough that it passed by. Holy light burst from Ezra’s spear which was held at bay by the powerful barrier of my Thanatrith armor. I turned just enough that the tip of the spear missed me as Mercy stabbed into the joint at her hip. The sharp tip plunged through the thinner armor and found soft flesh underneath. I funneled death energy into the wound, amplifying the festering effect.

As I pulled back, deflecting another blow from her spear, Tyler rushed at me again, his ax bearing down. Once again, my precognition kept me ahead, and I deflected the blade just enough to expend as little energy as possible as I spun past him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a building spell from the wizard, Tiffany, but before she completed, Raven seemed to crawl out of her shadows and stabbed two black daggers into either side of her torso.

Before Raven could fully disappear, a fireball exploded, tossing her out of the shadow. The fire mage, Scott, had struck. Though Raven smoldered, she fell into a roll, and a moment later disappeared in a flash of black energy.

In one fluid movement I placed the shaft of Mercy on my shoulder and reshaped it into the eldritch cannon form, funneling power into it. I felt the incoming arrow but did not dodge, taking it straight in the chest and trusting in the power of my armor. It punched through the barrier and my armor itself, stabbing into my chest. I hissed in pain but it had been worth it.

Even though Susan, the sniper, was already fading and becoming harder to see, I had a lead on her. The eldritch blast ripped out of Mercy. With Mercy rested on my shoulder, my aim was perfect. My counterattack caught her by surprise and though she managed to avoid my blast being lethal, it wasn’t enough to prevent one of her legs from blowing off as she tried to dive away.

With my weapon configured into the cannon form, it would take a moment to shift back and I was still in melee with both Tyler and Ezra. As Mercy reshaped, I dropped it—it would continue even though I no longer had my hands on it, a nice change from when I started and had to hold it the whole time. I whirled, pointing a clenched fist in Tyler’s direction and released two concussive force spells. My spell storage rings were at their capacity with this spell. It was not a direct damage spell, but meant to discombobulate an opponent.

Tyler staggered, his eyes crossing as he fought to stay conscious, blinking rapidly. Ezra bore down on me with her spear, still glowing with holy light. I turned into the attack, driving it down with my other hand and taking the blow on my left thigh.

The powerful holy weapon tore through the barrier and slammed into my armor. I hissed as the magic ate into me. I was already channeling death energy into that section of my body and armor to try and hold off the damage. I hammered a fist into the joint I had attacked before. Releasing a short-ranged eldritch blast from the gauntlet. It was one of the many abilities granted to me by my armor, and while it lacked the range of my regular eldritch attack, it was significantly more powerful and did not draw from my own mana reserves.

The blast sent Ezra tumbling, her spear pulling out of my leg as she went. I followed, not giving an inch. I used another ability of my armor, accelerating the rate at which I moved. I then began to batter her, blow after blow of eldritch power.

As I landed a devastating right hook to the side of her helmeted head, I yanked Mercy to me. I leapt back, catching the shaft, and brought the weapon down in a devastating arc. The blade reshaped into a wickedly sharp scythe. The weight of the blade and the razor-sharp tip drove Mercy through the weak point in Ezra’s armor right at the base of her neck.

It was nearly instantly lethal, and I was glad, not wanting her to suffer. I ripped Mercy free, the white sand kicking out from under my feet as I rushed Tyler. He was only just recovering from the discombobulating attack. I split Mercy in half and formed it into two sickles.

Tyler saw me coming, but there was little he could do. With one sickle I yanked his shield down. His axe hammered into my side, but it was worth taking the blow as I ripped his throat out with the other sickle. The chain mail around his neck proved little resistance to the wickedly sharp blade.

As he gurgled and died, I turned my attention to the others. Raven was just now finishing off Susan, and the sniper was already laying dead in a spreading pool of their own blood.

“And we have a winner,” Maxwell’s voice rang out over the arena. “But was there really ever any doubt? All should tremble before the power of the lich!” The crowd roared, they didn’t mind that I had just disassembled one of their best teams, they always loved a good fight. “He didn’t even need me with them this time, imagine if I had been there.” I rolled my eyes and high-fived Raven.

“I didn’t think we had grown that much stronger.” Raven looked around at the broken team. “You don’t even have those benefits of being the dungeon boss anymore.”

“It’s not just that we’ve gotten stronger,” I told her, the gates rumbling open. “We’ve also gotten more skilled, that has been the point of all the monsters Vito’s been sending us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Raven sniffed. “I’ve always been this awesome.”

The two of us headed back for our own gate as the porters came out. They would take the bodies and stripped them of their gear, which would go back to the players, at least in this fight it did. There were fights where it would not, if the players wagered all of their gear against them winning, they could win better rewards. More than anything, Ezra just wanted to test her team against me as a measuring stick. They had beaten us before.

I was more than a little surprised about how well the fight had gone. The constant fighting against monsters Vito sent up for us was paying off. The reason why people came to watch those fights wasn’t to watch us beat down on some simple meathead monster. Often, they were interesting creatures that moved and fought in exotic strange ways. I was beginning to suspect Vito had a hand in creating some of them.

We were, as far as I knew, higher level than the team we just fought. But not high enough for us to wipe the floor with them like we did. That same team had beaten me quite soundly only a handful of months ago, and that had been when I was backed up by one of my most powerful minions.

***

“Hey, lich,” Larry called out when he saw me heading for my box seat. I moved around the coliseum in my regular form. It was common knowledge that I was here, and no one dared to attack me. Kellnock was always looking for a reason to kill people in the arena, there had been a few incidents. “We want to fight you.”

I didn’t respond. This group had continued to be a pain. The worst part was they were an effective team and had won several of the team-based weekly tournaments. “Hey, you dumb ass NPC. Listen to us when we talk to you,” the cleric snarled as he stepped out to block my path.

“Why are you guys such stereotypical assholes?” I asked. “I swear it’s like you’re asking to be made an example of. You know very well what it takes to fight me, so if you want that get your ass in gear, then do it.”

“Na,” Larry scoffed. “This place won’t be around long enough for us to jump through all those hoops.”

“You’re still on about that?” I asked, a little flabbergasted. “You seem to like the weapons you’re getting well enough, why would you want to destroy this place.”

“It doesn’t matter to you, you stupid NPC,” said the female sniper.

I just shook my head. “Can I at least get your name, so I can quit referring to you as Larry and the four assholes.”

“What the heck is your problem?” Larry demanded.

“My problem?” I held my hand to my chest in mock shock. “It’s almost like a group of douchebags showed up and started making problems for everyone, but it couldn’t possibly be that now could it? You know what, I don’t want your names, from here on forward you shall be known as Captain Larry and his Douche Canoe.”

A nearby audience member snorted, and the team’s anger turned towards them. I shook my head and shoved my way past.

To my immense amusement and pleasure later that day, I heard Maxwell talking across the arena announcing the next fight. It was clear he was trying not to laugh. “Up next we have the team of Captain Larry and his Douche Canoe facing off against Windsong.”

Windsong was Aaron’s team, the other top team other than Ezra’s team in Livia’s guild.

“You think you’re funny?” Larry yelled at Maxwell.

“I’m just reading what’s on the sheet, I don’t know why you would put that down as a team name, but you do you,” Maxwell responded, still trying not to laugh.

Unfortunately for Aaron, despite their opponents having a rather ridiculous name it didn’t affect their combat prowess. While Aaron’s team was elite and powerful, they were an adventuring and dungeon crawling team, not a PVP team. On the other hand, Larry’s team was clearly more PVP focused.

It was still a good fight. Though they were dicks, Larry’s team knew their business. I understood why they won most of the team matches they were involved with. They started with Marcus, Aaron’s cleric.

Aaron and his team did their best to protect their healer, but coordinated strike after strike slowly peeled off the defensive layers, and before long Marcus lay dead with an arrow in his head. If Aaron and his team had been used to PVP matches they would’ve realized they needed to be doing the same. In some ways they were better equipped for that task. Nick and his sister, Jessica, were a pair of rangers with powerful bows. In fact, Nick’s was one I had made.

Casters often had the advantage in sheer total amount of damage, but archer and sniper types had the ability to deal pinpoint damage in high amounts. It was likely they could’ve taken out Larry’s cleric.

It was generally thought that Aaron’s team was a little stronger than Ezra’s at this point, but that was not displayed in this match. When Marcus fell, the fight changed momentum and Larry’s team took apart Aaron’s.

“We yield,” Aaron said when Decker was blown apart by a bolt of explosive fire from Larry’s wizard.

“That’s nice,” Larry called back as he charged. “Unfortunately for you, we don’t accept.”

One of the rules of Kellnock’s arena, was that there was no forced end to combat if one side surrendered, when players were involved. It was to the death or mutual agreement that the match was over. And Larry’s team was out for blood.

I was glad the dungeon wouldn’t let Larry’s team steal the loot from Aaron’s team after the fight. Though it was clear they wanted to, they were wary of the guardian hidden below the floor of the arena.

“Livia,” I turned towards the door to my box seat, having heard her enter. “Thank you for coming.”

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

I rose and nodded my head down towards the arena. “How big of problem are they? They keep making noise about trying to destroy the dungeon, why would they even do that?”

Weariness entered Livia’s expression. “They want to destroy the dungeon because they failed in their bid to get control of it from me.” I gestured for her to take a seat and joined her watching the victorious team leave the arena. “I don’t know what they’re up to, but they seem to be confident that they can pull it off.”

“Part of the deal was—”

Livia cut me off. “I know we have to try and protect your dungeon. Problem is, we don’t know exactly how many members of their guild are here. They aren’t being vocal about it and after the initial power-play they mostly disappeared except for Larry’s group.”

“Is there a real threat?” I was a little worried they might have some hidden powerhouse.

“No, though I’m not a hundred percent certain.” Livia gave me an apologetic look. “I know you won’t tell me how strong Kellnock is, but I have a sneaking suspicion they don’t have anyone here who could take him. If they did, they would’ve used them to take control.”

“Okay, that’s what I needed to know,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about stopping them. If they are stupid enough to actually attack the dungeon, it will be dealt with appropriately. What I need you more for is actual threats to the dungeon.”

Livia nodded in understanding, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. “I guess we’ll just sit back and watch the show, I will keep my feelers out just in case there is something I missed, but I think what you see is what you get with them, they aren’t really the subtle lot.”