The darkness is taking over. I fall and I see nothing, the bottom is obscured, even though I'm able to see in the dark, I'm blind. The present moment slows down. The Slimes fall around me, with me, towards an invisible ground. I try to grab the Maccaterro's body and throw it under me. My plan is to listen to the sound the corpse will make when it hits the ground and use Shadow Step to move on the ground without crashing. I fall, I fall, it must have been nearly five minutes or maybe more, the fall is so long that I've lost track of time.
I still strain my ears, but the wind whistles in them, making it more difficult. I begin to hear new sounds, like a downpour of large drops hitting the ground. The sound is faint, but I finally catch the sound of Slimes' bodies exploding upon hitting the ground. So I prepare to use Shadow Step at any moment. One second too late and I end up like the Slimes. "Splat" a duller, wetter, and duller sound is heard, and without waiting, I use my skill. I become a small cloud of shadows and move towards the ground.
Upon touching the ground, I explode into a myriad of small shadows, but I reform afterward. The sensation is very peculiar, I feel like my body is stretching everywhere, but it's not very pleasant. The Slimes continue to fall to the ground and cover it with a thick, slimy, and slippery layer. I try to look around me, but it's so dark that I can only see about ten meters away from me.
I have fallen deeply into the bowels of the earth, into this abyss. Even though the situation seems less than optimistic, I'm lucky to still be alive, and most importantly, I have the advantage of accessing my shop no matter where I am! The only drawback, in my opinion, is that I don't know how I'm going to get out of here and back to the surface. I'll eventually find a way to do it, though, I motivate myself.
Mordakus the Lich
After the man explained to me how the shop works, I entered the alchemy workshop. The room presents the same landscape as the main shop.
Several alchemy tables made of black stone surround a large screen. The owner has already explained to me how everything works. Without wasting time, I head to the screen and look at the catalog it displays. The ingredients, resources, tools, everything is there, from the most common to the rarest. I am horrified to see the presence of some resources that I considered to be legends. I buy the ingredients I need and return to one of the tables to start repairing my phylactery.
With caution, I remove my skull from my shoulders and take off my phylactery attached to it. I gaze at it for a moment, examining all the cracks it contains, and consider myself lucky to have discovered the Void Mall.
I begin to take out the ingredients it has gathered: the skull of an ancient Demon-King, three Nyx flowers, two onyx, and a vial containing the blood of a fallen angel.
I grab the vial and pour it into a marble bowl. Then, I grind the three Nyx leaves in a mortar while murmuring incantations under my breath. I mix everything together until I obtain a thick and sticky paste. With surgical precision, I apply the mixture to my phylactery. The paste sinks into the cracks, creating a stronger connection between the object and my soul. Once all the fissures have disappeared, I take the skull and add the two onyx stones into the empty eye sockets. I place my phylactery in the cavity of the skull and finish my incantations. The whole process takes me several hours, but the result is impeccable.
My phylactery is now more resistant and harder to destroy. The most amazing thing is that, thanks to the high-quality ingredients used, my phylactery offers me almost three times more mana than before. Having finished what I had to do, I leave the alchemy workshop, smiling, knowing that my immortality is now more assured than ever and that I have the advantage over the Emperor of Death.