The lich's echoing laughter made the hall shake, and the aura surrounding him became denser and stronger, causing an erruption. The shock wave that was created pushed Arthur back, who managed to land safely on his feet, holding his sword with its point showing to the ground. The lich's arm flew back at him and got attached to him, which Art was shocked at his fast regeneration. It turned out to Art. "Heed my call, my servants," he uttered.
The air around him became shiny purple, after which bone and corpse hands broke through the ground and undeads came out. Skeletons and zombies. It is disgusting, but the lich is an undying being too. "It seems you are finally taking this seriously too," he said confidently, while wondering if he could absorb their energy. As he thought about it, arrows were shot at him, and once again his body reacted on its own, dodging their attacks. He dashed backwards, hiding behind a boulder from the undead enemies' fast and powerful attacks. There were weak and strong underlings, and the archers were firing arrows very fast, giving him no time to escape, let alone attack, yet he was patiently waiting for an opening. Then the arrows ran out and he dashed forward from behind the boulder and started attacking. *beep... beep...*
The system window poped up *You have two minutes left of power boost*. As his attention was diverted from the fight to the system, a sword was swung at his head. Swords clashing together, Art barely managed to react and block the enemies' strike. Art clenched his teeth, pushed its sword away, and with his left hand he grabbed it by the neck, after which he drained its energy. "Pretty lacking, I guess. It seems that they are controlled by the necromancers' energy. " He concluded that the energy drained was pretty lacking, to the point that he stabbed the undead countless times out of anger. Once again, he dashed forward and killed countless undead, some of whom he used as shields to take cover from the arrows. He slowly made his way to the lich, but the closer he got to the lich, the closer he got to the stronger guardians.
Confidently, he jumped over the undead corpses and was about to swing his sword at the guardians, but something grabbed his leg and pulled him back. Unable to land safely, he fell to the ground. He got up and stood up. He looked forward and saw the corpses he had killed standing up again, which stunned him and they attacked him. Arthur drew his sword towards him to block the first sword of the enemy that came towards him as he still could not believe what was happening in front of his eyes. "What is happening? ..."
When he awoke, he focused on fighting the undead in order to find their weak points and eventually kill them. However, no matter how and how many he killed, he could neither do anything against them nor find out anything about them, which slowly but surely made him despair. Slowly but surely, his opponents approached him and surrounded him, only now that Arthur realized what a burning situation he was in. He had no time to deal with every single undead individual, which made him retreat as well as think of a new strategy. His priority is to survive until he finds their weak point so he can finish them off for good. Surrounded on all sides, he is forced to break this formation and flee, but as long as he turns around, he sees no way to do so. Hopeless is the only word to describe the situation he was in at the time.
He deliberately swung his sword around him to ward off the weapons and spears, but this made him very tired and exhausted, and thus unable to ward off everything. which would have been difficult even for a grand master swordsman. He breathed in and out haggardly. His clothes were covered with stitches and cuts just like his body. This tired and weakened him far more than he had thought. Blood flowed from his wounds, some even in one eye, which severely limited his vision. He had sweat all over his body, and when it flowed into the wounds, he felt it burn. The pain spread through his body. What didn't make the situation any better was that his sword was getting dull and starting to show notches.
The time for the power boost was running out and he had no chance to extend it again, which was starting to scare him: "They are made immortal and are controlled through energy. What do I have to do to keep them from rising or reforming after I chop them up or burn them down completely?" As he pondered this, a spear shot him narrowly through the chest, leaving him with a painful wound that burned and pulsed. His vision began to blur and his balance was slowly lost, causing him to stumble, "Was I an idiot!". He asked himself as he heard the undead approaching and saw through his washed out vision. It was like a huge and impenetrable wall that he could not break through. He looked at them, and the light in his eyes slowly faded away.
"If I can't kill you with a sword and normal flames, then I will burn you with a fire hotter than ever!" he said, stuttering with a grin on his face. The lich called his undead back because if they all died it would take a long time for them to regenerate, but before they could he let his flames loose, which raged through the whole hall, destroying everything in their way with their immense power. Arthur screamed loudly as he released his flames, and the whole place was now a sea of flames and undead screaming. The lich used all of his guardians to make a wall in order to protect himself. The flames not only hurt his enemies but also himself, as he had not yet accustomed his body to these powerful and hot flames.
Many of his opponents fell, and those who did not, he grabbed by the neck to rob them of their energy and thus heal his wounds. Which took a long time as the undead alone didn't have much in them, but Arthur managed to heal himself completely, take cover, and extend the time of the power boost. Although he is no longer four times as strong but only twice as strong, this was enough for him to survive. "Activate Aura Sword!" with these words, he wanted to shoot and attack again so that he could kill the lich as quickly as possible and finally end all this.
"What if I put more aura into the sword and strengthen it?"a thought interrupted him, but he quietly said, "What if I fuse the flames with my aura sword and make it a kind of burning aura sword?" These thoughts mentioned aloud gave him hope, even if it is small, it is there. For a victory in this fight, however, he must create this ability, try it out, and also somewhat master it if he still wants to use it in this fight, for it will probably be of no use to him in the grave, as far as he knows.
The undead no longer regenerated because when the mist of dust and smoke cleared, Arthur could see that the lich was not unharmed either, which made me wonder how other undead managed to survive. However, he had no time for such thoughts and closed his eyes to concentrate better. "Activate Battle Focus!" he said aloud and was now able to concentrate much better, which was only possible to a limited extent before. After activating the Aura Sword, he also added fire energy from inside and flames from outside, having to be very careful, because by making a mistake, the consequences could be too great and he could lose his life.
He did not want to risk this and did his best to focus. In the meantime, the Lich summoned a few half-bodied undead, since they were the weakest, and sent them after Arthur. Some even had weapons in their hands and crabbed at Arthur to weaken him, but they were quite slow. Art, however, continued to focus on the fusion between the fire element and the aura in his sword. Time flew by and the undead bit Arthur in the leg and stabbed him with their weapons. This pain burned through his body like a purgatory. Pulses caused by the pain distracted him. Blood flowed from his mouth as he bit his tongue to endure the enormous pain that coursed through his body and hit his nerves, causing him to tremble. Surprisingly enough, he neither lost his focus nor his concentration. On the contrary, he became more and more engrossed in his focus.
Disconnected from the environment, immersed in his inner world, he can visualize how his two energies try to merge together to create something new. As he now floats around in this kind of inner world where he is timeless and spaceless, Arthur realizes how he can merge the two forces. However, he needs time, which he doesn't really have because he can't physically last much longer. In short, time is running out on him. The deeper he sinks into his concentration, the closer he gets to his goal. Suddenly, he creates a shockwave of energy that shoots all the half-undead away and sets them on fire. But nothing ever goes the way you want it to, and an arrow hits him in the chest, knocking him out of focus, and he falls to the ground, leaning on his sword.
"It seems hopeless to fight them..., let alone win against them." His hand felt quite hot, leading him to conclude that he was injured. A glance at his right hand left him dumbfounded. His blade was burning hot and glowing, not very strong but capable of improvement. What left him dumbfounded was that he didn't quite fail, but didn't really get the result he was hoping for. However, he was quite satisfied. Flushed with pain that felt like a hundred burning knife wounds, it was hard for him to get up and stand. But he did. A window opened and inside it said *New skill learned. The Blazing Swordblade*, also known as the Blazing Blade or Blazing Sword, is a type of sword blade.With renewed hope, he prepared for battle. With his sword raised, he slowly goes forward and kills each undead, at the beginning still quite slowly as well as limited by the large energy consumption in the creation of this skill and his wounds.
He robs the stronger undead of their energy, which is available in small quantities, but still lets him heal his wounds slowly, which lets him fight more. Clearly, the undead did not die, but the lich loses energy quickly. Forced by the situation, the lich sends two of his guards, a swordsman and one who fights with an axe, to finish Arthur off. However, it's not so easy since Arthur is no longer twice but three times as strong as he normally would be with the power boost. He was able to fight them head to head, and the undead had a hard time holding a candle to him because he was so smooth, but Arthur was not able to steal their energy, at least not all at once, because they were in pairs and he was alone. The clang of swords hitting each other filled the whole stony hall.
The undead swordsman swung his sword from behind. Arthur grinned, and the undead, although they could not think, were confused as to why he was laughing. On the other hand, the undead found out the next moment when they were split in two and fell apart. The axe fighter raced with rage and fury towards Arthur, who had already taken the energy of his opponent, and his head flew away before he knew what was happening. Arthur turned to the lich and shot at him at full speed, ready to kill him. The Lich unleashed all his power and was ready to cannonade Arthur when the Lich grabbed him by the shoulder and drained his energy to the limit, whereupon he fought against him. Arthur got the upper hand and pushed the Lich back, as well as hurting him. After an eternity, he could see it, an opening, a mistake the lich made, "Acceleration," and Arthur raced towards him ready to kill him.
He raised his sword, ready to swing it. But like lightning shooting through his body, he was unable to move, spitting blood from his mouth and his body suffering from internal injuries. His muscles were overexerted and strained, they burned and throbbed. Unable to move because of the pounding sensation and pain in his whole body, he was down on the ground coughing up blood, as well as a heavy nosebleed. Arthur did not understand why this was happening. The lich that fell over on the ground was dumbfounded by what just happened and started laughing, lightened from the pressure of being on death's door. "What happened?" he coughed up blood, and his bloodshot eyes widened. " I see... *Precondition your body can withstand this in the long term* so this is what it meant. My body couldn't handle the massive energy drain in such a short period of time, let alone my reclusive fighting style. It all makes sense now. "
The Lich slowly recovered from his shock. He stood up and walked towards Arthur with a grin on his face and his magic sword. As he walked towards him, he drew his sword from the ground behind him. Sparks went flying. The footsteps came to Arthur. The closer they sounded, the faster and stronger his heart pounded, it wanted to jump out of his chest and flee to safety. However, it could not, just like Arthur. Suddenly, it was silent.
Only his heartbeat was audible, so loud that one could think that it could be heard in the whole hall. The Lich squatted down next to Arthur's head and laughed at him for the first time, trying to hide his fear of death. "Well, you've overestimated yourself, haven't you?" "Haa.. You weren't far from getting killed, only I was overconfident and didn't really take into account the consequences of that skill. Now the roles have reversed, but do you have enough strength to lift that huge sword?!" Arthur asked the lich mockingly. The lich boiled with rage and lifted the sword with all his remaining strength and was about to swing down as a kind of giant spear, which struck the lich's heart and he shrieked loudly. very loud.
You can see how this energy swarmed out of him. At the end of his strength, Arthur raised his arm to absorb some of this energy in order to heal at least some of his wounds. After he somehow healed up enough in order to move his head, he saw a huge black and golden spider with runes over its long legs and something like a magic circle on its back that gleamed. He was seized by fear and horror, which nearly made his heart stop beating. He slowly breathed in, followed by holding his breath in. The arachnid slowly turned around and went on its way. Arthur, who considered himself to be safe, breathed out and wanted to move.
Suddenly, one of the spider's legs shot into the ground just by his head. With his eyes widened and breath held, he saw the spider staying still before completely vanishing from the scene. Now he stands up and, with his remaining power, walks and crawls after standing up, followed by falling down to the ground again. He found a small crack in the stone wall, leading to a small cave large enough to sleep three people.He put his backpack next to a wall and put his head on it, after which he passed out cold.
And time passed by. Joseph, Haylee, and Kaylee were worried, because Arthur was not back from his little walk. Maybe he was in danger or maybe he was safe. They did not know what to think about it. They couldn't help but worry about the young mercenary while gazing at the stars.