Breakthrough

Will reappeared behind the Elder Lich with a whoosh, striking at the creature's head.

To the Elder Lich's surprise, it quickly spun around to find Will slicing the sword at its head.

The Dark Priest dodged but not before Will sliced its empty eye socket.

"Argh, you're a Dual Elemental Mage" the Elder Lich shouted in pain.

"Wait, why cannot heal my wound? Are you god blessed? You must a champion! Oh God Thanatos, I'll kill this champion and present his body to you as a sacrifice," Elder Lich said in madness.

Soon the Elder Lich and Will fought all through the throne room. Will using space magic to dodge and attack.

Hellfire and Earth collided. Spells rushed and whooshed.

Will encased himself in [Iron Armor] and used every spell he had multiply times to fight against the necromancer. The longer they fought, the more crazed the Dark Priest became.

Will used his mana to envelop and heal his team. Nisha borrowed a torrential amount of power. However, soon he and Rocky were both good as new.

Once everyone was healed Will asked them, "Everyone ready?"

"Attack," Will shouted.

The Elder Liche's conjured a black staff with a strange blood-red core with a runic symbol. The staff was engulfed in hellfire flames.

While the priest fought off the three of them it began to chant. A large summoning circle appeared similar to the one Will used to conjure Nisha.

"Will he's contacting the Spirit World. We have to interrupt the spell," Nisha warned.

Will saw the portal start to shimmer.

"Will it's opening," Nisha shouted.

The Elder Lich fought them off while his hands made precise, well-rehearsed gestures: wrists flicking, fingers dancing, limbs swaying rhythmically to some unheard melody.

Powerful magic—obsidian and angry—swirled around them in a thick cloud, while tendrils of greasy energy wafted out, feeding the portal with noxious life.

Will knew if the Elder Lich succeed some type of Lovecraftian horror would arise from the deepest bowels of Tartarus.

"Will once the ritual is complete, there's nothing we can do stop the portal from opening," Nisha warned.

"There's nothing you can do! First, I'll summon a colossal hellhound to kill you. The. I'll use your familiar soul to free the Dark priest from the Spirit World.

For thousands of years, I've waited for this opportunity. To capture the spirit of a familiar. I've worked in the shadows for too long. Soon Thanatos might extend to this plane and all shall serve under his reign," the Elder Lich said.

Will disappeared and reappeared attacking the Elder Lich, eventually breaking the blood-red core. With the core destroyed the rune's power evaporated, just as the hellhound's head in the summoning circle. When the portal closed it decapitated the spirit animal.

"No, I'll kill you for decapitating one of God Thanatos's beasts!" the necromancer yelled.

"Oh? Because we keep killing everything throw at us," Will said a small smile broke across Will's lips.

"Soon you'll kneel, and beg my master for mercy. Covert now, spare yourselves death. Thanatos can grant you more power than you can imagine!" The Elder Lich demanded.

"And what exactly would you require us to do?" Will asked with a sneer.

"A simple act of obedience, kill your spirit animal!" the Elder Lich said.

"Do this and my god shall embrace you with open arms. You shall become his champion.

He shall grant you better offensive spells. There is no stronger power than the power of dark magic.

Now renounce your goddess and align with the great god Thanatos! Together you and I shall cleanse the world," the Elder Lich said.

"Never!" Will said attacking the Elder Lich.

"Fool! I offer you eternal life and you reject it. I'll send you to Tartarus myself," the Dark Priest began casting spell after spell.

"Nisha go for the phylactery. Rocky help me handle the Black Pr—" a Dark Cyclone cut Will's words short as he felt once again want the inside of a washing machine feels like.

However, this time Will teleported Rocky, Nisha, and himself to safety.

Rocky and Will scrambled to parry blows of the Liche's now-defunct staff.

A clang resounded in the cave, accompanied by a flash of brilliant purple and brown sparks.

Will teleported and lunged at the Elder Lich creating another burning scar.

"Argh, it burns!" lashed out the Elder Lich.

With the Lich bothered, Will felt caught the priest in the ribs and knee.

The necromancer grunted and began to snarl. Then he cast several [Black Flames] sending streams of hellfire exploding at Will.

Will was able to dodge, but Rocky was destroyed. Fighting a Master Mage was difficult. The over-exertion of mana was taking a toll on his body. All the mana he used to overflow into his muscles, skin, and bones made Will fill like a balloon ready to burst.

To sustain that amount of overflow for this long was dangerous. Will knew the consequences. He knew this was not a sustainable way of fighting. But it was his only option.

The fighting continued. Each time Nisha tried to stealthy sneak to the Elder Liches phylactery she was met with a litany of dangerous spells.

Eventually, Will had to store her in his secret Mountain vault.

Nisha was surprised to see Will stashed away a collection of gold bars, that Will had even kept secret from her.

The gold bars were enough to cover half the floor. It was obvious that Will's gold was to stack the gold bars to the ceiling.

"That miser," Nisha clicked her tongue. It was no secret that the familiar enjoyed sleeping on a bed of gold. Ask Archimedes who uses to sleep on Will's gold all the time.

Back in the cave, Will felt the pent-up mana in his body about to explode. His fingertips felt like they were stuck with a million needles. His body heated up all over and began to itch.

Will arched his back and exhaled, only to feel the pressure inside him to pop and deflate slowly.

To his enjoyment, he saw a blink in vision. He checked his stats.

Race: Human

Rank: 1 (Baron)/ Lord of Games/ Gaia's Champion

Class: Merchant

Sub Class: Spellsword

Attributes:

Constitution—55+12

Strength—54+10

Dexterity—48+7

Intellect—66++5

Charisma—15+2

Ranks Skills: Management (60), Diplomacy (40), Accounting (52)

Class Skills: Appraisal (15, 100), [Radar]

Abilities: Master Swordsmanship (3, 75), Master Terramancer (5, 75), Gaia's Blessing (multiplies your spell strength x2), Journey Blacksmith (2, 50).

He did it! He ranked up to Master Terramancers and Swordsman.

"What happened?" Did you break through to Master Spellsword?" the Elder Lich questioned.

For the first time, Will saw fear in Elder Lich's eyes.

Will and the Lich began to fight as equals.

The necromancer's hellfire and Will's earth magic began to destroy the cave.

As they fought, everything stopped, even time itself. Calm and silence invaded Will's mind. He utilized the moment of stillness to calculate and come up with a game plan.

Will ran through his arsenal of spells. He used them all but nothing was good enough to kill or imprison this high-level creature.

Will had cast [Earth Dome] only for the necromancer to destroy the dome several times.

Will racked his brain. He thought and thought until he remembered the Diary Elder Thaddeus gave him his first semester in the Knight Academy.

The diary belonged to Sage Yang and talked about his triumphs and failures. He was also a Spellsword and detailed the frustration of not having an adequate mana pool.

The Sage experimented on himself until he created the first mana whirlpool. The Sage went on to create other spells like [Radar], [Domain], and [Entomb].

The spell, [Domain] was a combination of two spells. Only after mastering the two spells could [Domain] be cast.

First, casters had to learn the spells [Radar] and [Aura]. The spell [Radar] lets terramancers cast sense people, plants, and animals in their vicinity. At advanced levels, the radius of detection increased and casters could picture their surroundings, learn information about plants, animals, and people.

The spell [Aura] enables magical energy to surround the caster that may intimidate or suppress lower-ranked magic users. Grandmaster could even kill another simply using the spell.

[Domain] was an impressive spell that combined [Radar] and [Aura], that created a square kilometer cube that amplified a caster's magic and suppressed an opponent's magic. Inside the domain, the caster was almost demigod in that space.

Sage Yang created [Entomb] to kill mythical monsters and high-level undead. Sage Yang described [Entomb] as a forbidden spell. The spell was his ultimate killing spell.

Sage Yang detailed his uncertainly even passing on the spell. He urged the caster to use great caution and urged the reader to cast the spell as infrequent as possible. The spell, [Entomb] created a coffin made of fey silver. Fey silver was a magical metal that was harmful to the undead and demons.

Once trapped in the coffin the undead would be trapped in a pocket dimension, for all eternity. There was no way to send a monster back to Terra from the pocket dimension.

There was no death in the pocket dimension. The monster or person would simply be incarcerated to the end of time.

Will had never cast [Domain] but he'd master [Radar] and [Aura], albeit he used aura much less.

Will wondered if the throne room was too large enough to accommodate the spell, but he was running out of time. Will had to take advantage of the surge in power after his rank increased.

Coming out of his trance, Will teleported away from the necromancer and cast [Domain].

An array covered the entire cave.

"What did you do?" "Why are my powers being suppressed?" the Elder Lich looked astonished.

The Dark Priest's black lightning zipped through the space but was easily blocked by Will.

Will gawked at the degree to which the Elder's power was limited. Will teleported Nisha back to the cave and easily dodge Elder Lich's spell and was able to shatter the phylactery.

"No!" shouted the one prideful monster watching the magic runes that held his souls disappear.

Now, the Dark Priest lost his regeneration powers. If he died here, he died for eternity.

"You bastards, I'll kill you and your families," the Dark Priest kept shouting threats until Will cast [Entomb].

The cave's walls began to rumble, a violent force began to shake the cave.

"So, since you can beat you what to kill is all with a cave in. As long as you die, I'll gladly visit Tartarus and sit at my master's feet.

Soon a block of iron 2-meters tall broke loose from the wall. Slowly the block transfigured into an Iron Maiden. An Iron Maiden was a fiendish torture device that existed back on Earth.

It was so deviance so unbelievable, that historians thought it a myth a bedtime story to scare a child. That was until they found one in a castle in Germany.

Will did not expect [Entomb] to create an Iron Maiden. Will and the Elder Lich watched the iron block transfigure to an upright sarcophagus with spikes on the inside.

When the double doors opened revealing the protruding spikes, the Black Priest began to beg for mercy.

"Why can't I move? I beg you to stop that device from approaching. Please I beg you, I don't want to die. Please save me, I'll be your slave," the Elder Lich begged until double doors were closed.

Then a blood-curdling, ear-piercing scream sounded. Will and Nisha covered their ears, as they watched the Iron Maiden enter a spatial door and disappear.

Finally, the throne room was quiet. Will had cleared the Forest Wolves pack, Goblin fortress, and underground dungeon.

"You did it, Will," Nisha said.

"We did it," Will replied.

Will quickly fixed the earthquake crevices and repaired the throne room. Hoping the Elves that once resided here, might repay him in the future.

"Let's go tell master," Will said opening a spatial door to the Elder Thaddeus cottage.