POV: Merry Paper
I felt a powerful pull into my soul, which made my pen stop.
"He's finally back."
The old man beside me with a long beard and white robe looked at me from his book.
"Who, your teacher?"
"No, the Zombie Lord."
He quickly closed his book and his expression got serious.
"Then we have to prepare the Holy army."
"Try not to take too long, otherwise he will make another army by the time we get there."
The man nodded his head and left the room.
That old man was the Pope himself, and it was a funny how we met.
The first time I went to the Sandstone Palace the political battle just ended with the princess being victorious.
Seems that she intends to reform the Nobles, and for that she needed Pope's help.
Unfortunately for her, when the Pope saw me for the first time, he was on the ground crying out of happiness that the System hadn't abandoned them.
Since I was prophesied to be the hero of this world they made ample preparations for me to get ready for that journey.
Unfortunately, the incident happened, and instead of me appearing in the desert I appeared in a forest.
Once the church heard that I was with the Stone Kingdom instead of the church, they thought the System had abandoned them since they failed their mission.
But now that I was here, they can redeem themselves by preparing me for the final fight.
I was confused about how he knew that the Zombie Lord wasn't dead, but he clarified that he knew that because the prophecy hadn't been fully fulfilled.
It's not widely known but the prophecy also said that the enemy would ravage through the tree lands and then the hero would bring him down.
The Zombie Lord only managed to attack the Stone Kingdom concluding that the fight was not over yet.
I stayed at the church headquarters for a few months studying enchantments as best as I could.
With the method, Trader taught me I managed to make a lot of progress with this skill.
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SKILLS
_Crafting lvl 3
3.350 /10.000
_Enchanting lvl 7
1.320/100.000.000
_Brewing lvl 2
0/1.000
_Trading lvl 3
1.130/10.000
________________________________________
I managed to get to the Grandmaster level in Enchanting!
Not only that, when I arrived at this level I found out that it wasn't the pinnacle of the Skill like everyone around me.
Was it because I was a hero?
Did Trader know about this as well?
I like to think that he didn't, and I finally had something over him.
By the end of the day, a small army was made.
50 soldiers with enchanted iron armor and 5 generals with enchanted diamond armor.
Each one of us got a horse so we could get there as fast as possible.
We traveled for 2 weeks where we passed dunes of sand, rivers, lakes and finally a forest, but in the end we arrived.
The ground was filled with animal skeletons that hadn't been disloved by the System like its power couldn't reach here. The land and the trees were more gray than green and an army of Zombies was already waiting for us at the entrance.
"Take out your swords and prepare for battle!"
Everyone took out their weapons and yelled a war cry as they attacked.
While they did that I drank a speed, jump boost, night vision, and invisibility potion.
I could now jump over zombies at high speed while being half invisible.
But that wasn't enough for me, instead, I took out 4 long pages similar to scrolls, from my inventory and placed them on my visible armor.
Soon a reaction was noticed, the armor that I had on, turned invisible with me.
This was the result of my research for the past few months, Temporary Enchantments!
I had a few costume made pages, that were longer than normal, and on them, I wrote two enchantments.
Transparency 1 and Biding.
Those two were created by the Sansdone Kingdom trying to recreate the invisible potions.
They didn't manage to do that, unfortunately, instead, they created an enchantment that is close to it, Transparency.
It's similar to the original goal with the exception that if you look from certain angles you can see the reflection of the light blinding you.
But if it's combined with an invisible potion and move at high speeds, you're practically invisible.
Now the second enchantment is more important than the first.
Biding is an enchanted inspired by Soul Biding, it has the effect of putting any enchantments on the item, without using an anvil.
This means, that any enchanted book or page that has this, can be used just by touching an item.
But since those enchantments are too heavy for my armor to use constantly, I decided to use them temporarily, and it was good.
I jumped from one Zombie head to another, killing them as jumped again.
At great speeds, I passed the wave of Zombies and entered the cave, which was also filled with the undead flesh, but more packed.
I went deeper and deeper trying not to get any attention on me, when all of a sudden I felt a heavy presence approaching me.
The Zombie Lord was coming.
I stayed still trying not to get any attention on me as I saw a huge monster appear with darkness behind him.
I killed him once, and not by fighting fair unfortunately, I wasn't strong enough at that time or had enough experience.
But this time it would be different, I had the intention of fighting him head on, winning, and killing him once and for all.
The Monster Lord passed by me speaking in his low voice.
"...find me? No smart Zombie knew about this place nor can the System find my spawner..."
He passed me without noticing which was a good thing, and I was pleased to hear that he didn't know that the System marked him, which helped me find him when he's most vulnerable.
I looked at his back as he was getting further and further away.
With a strength potion and the sword given to me by the System, I could jump to him and decapitate him in one swing.
But I held myself back.
It wasn't certain that I could succeed in that attack, and he wasn't a priority for now.
I looked deeper into the cave where there were rows of Zombies coming out and continued my infiltration.
15 minutes later I arrived at a larger room filled with zombies that seemed to guard something floating in the air.
It was a block similar to a metal cage that gave out a powerful pressure.
That must be the spawner of the Zombie Lord.
I jumped from head to head until I was on top of the cage block.
Every Zombie turned around confused, but they couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Then I took out my enchanted diamond pickaxe and hit the cursed block with all my force.
Only a dent appeared, but the zombies didn't react.
Was I wrong about this?
I continued to hit the block until there was no more.
At my final hit, I heard a loud iron cage being ripped apart followed by screams of agony which scared me a little.
Then a part of my soul started to grow and I felt that half of the mission was finally completed.
I was right!
The cave started to tremble like a giant was running down the tunnels, and I would be right about that assumption once the Zombie Lord appeared furiously without his blindfold.
"Who was it? Who broke my spawner?!"
He looked around the room with his eyes of the void, until he stopped at me.
"You... filthy hero of the System, how dare you break something so sacred! I'm going to kill you for this!"
Looks like my invisibility doesn't work when he's in his second phase, but at least I angered him enough.
He jumped towards me, ignoring all the damage he was doing to his army, and all I did was raise my shield and brace for impact.
*BOOM!
His fist hit my shield and two things happened at impact.
I huge shockwave was formed knocking all the zombies back, and his fist taking damage.
"How is that possible?"
"That's what happens when you punch a shield with thorns!"
Unfortunately, this enchantment damages the shield as well, and with the strength the Zombie Lord has, I could only block him 10 more times before it breaks.
This was a surprise for me, not because his punch was so strong, but because his punch was so weak.
I felt his full strength last time we fought, and it was double what he was using now.
Did this happen because I broke the spawner, or is he planning something?
It didn't matter, I was going to kill him before he would pull anything off.
He punched my shield once more resulting in his other fist getting damaged, but this time I let myself get knocked back to gain some distance.
Before he could jump at me, I threw a strength potion on the ground and took my sword out.
Suddenly he stopped and rationality came back to him as he looked at my sword.
"That weapon... I feel it's touched by the System, I can't take you lightly anymore."
It was easier to fight him when he was a beast, now he would use tactics which are no fun.
The next attack didn't come from the Zombie Lord but from its minions trying to drown me in numbers.
Unfortunately for them, my sword was made specifically for fighting monsters like them.
And when I swing my sword, I don't kill 1 Zombie, instead 3 drop dead.
Another wave of Zombies started to attack me from behind, which made me take out a normal shield to defend, only to feel my back beeing hit with a powerful force sending me into the walls of the cave.
That was dirty!
And his next attack was pilling more Zombies on me as I was trying to get up.
The only reason I wasn't overwhelmed was because of my sword, but even then the Zombie Lord managed to sneak up on me and punch me into the wall, then keep punching my head repeatedly.
I wasn't taking a lot of damage because of the armor, but little by little he was taking control of the battle and that wasn't good for me.
Time to pull out my trup card.
I took out a firework and let it explode between us.
He got some damage, while I was thrown away, letting me have some room to breath.
I quickly got up and took another scroll from my inventory but this time I didn't put it on my armor or sword, instead I placed it on my arm.
But something unexpected happened, the scroll disappeared like it enchanted something.
This was the result of my true research I did at the Sandstone Kingdom.
Enchanted tattoos.
It was never thought possible before, and I manged to find the solution for it.
Kind off.
What I had on, was temporary tattoos not permanent ones.
I had to use redstone ink for this to stick to my skin, and with the help of the Biding enchanment, but it would only lasts for 3 minutes before disappearing.
As for what kind of enchanment I had?
Strength 3.
And the best part about this, Temporary Enchanted Tattoos are stackable with potions.
So now I had strength 5 on me, and with one single swing I killed a wave of Zombies clearing a path to the Zombie Lord who was taken by surprise by the sudden power up.
I swing my sword, and I slashed his undead flesh.
But there was a difference this time, the wond wasn't regenerating anymore.
The monsters eyes were wide with surprise before yelling out loud and punching the ceiling.
The ceiling cracked and fell, but behind was blocks and blocks of gravel that fell on me taking me by surprise.
Once I manged brake the gravel off me I saw that I was only surrounded by Zombies with no Lord in sight.
With my soul compass I also felt that he was getting further and further away.
"That monster ran off!"
So much happend in one volume and this time the ending wasn't that bad of a cliffhanger!
Don't worry I don't intend on taking a brake day for the next one, so see you tomorrow!
If you want to read some more, check out my Patreon/EnderStar