Against A Lich (2)

"Will you act or will you simply watch?" I asked the lich. I could easily float up into the air and challenge him from there. In fact, I was thinking about it. 

The lich, in all its dark essence, grumbled.

"You dare mock me?" He said.

"I do not mock. I simply ask," I said as I began to rise up into the sky. The undead army stared as I ascended to reach the height of their floating master, "You have an army of ten thousand. And a hundred or so black drakes hidden within the black sky above. I could also sense the ghoulish riders hidden within the withering woodlands. You have everything to send against me, and yet till now you choose not to."

The lich remained silent, floating in the sky like a flying robe, tattered and jagged. Its shadowy figure fluttered against the wind like cloth, fizzling in and out. 

"You are but a mortal, chained by your flesh and blood," He announced, "I am not bound by your weakness. I am a disciple of a rising god. You do not know whom you speak against." 

Was the lich… stalling? What was the point of all this bragging and nagging? I looked around with my enhanced senses, tasting the air and scouring the land. Magic was high in the environment, given that spells were casts and mana mustered, but there was nothing amiss.

Still, I had to be careful. Maybe I could not sense it now, but I would be in for a rude surprise if meteors suddenly came raining down from the heavens above. I checked to be sure, pushing my enhanced senses beyond the clouds and towards the edge of the sky.

There was nothing. Not an omen from a moving star. 

"You're not here to defeat me," I said, trying to make sense of his actions. Or should I say, his lack of action, "You're here to test me. To poke at my strength to see what I am truly capable of."

The lich was silent, again. 

Time dragged on and I grew impatient. Zeal slept just a few meters away from me, guarded by my sentinels underneath the shade of the still-standing oak tree. The blight had not affected the tree, thanks to the wards I had placed. 

"You and your 'masters' share something in common that I find amusing and pitiful."

His eyes grew brighter in anticipation.

"You're all idiots."

Hearing this, the lich began his next move, mustering his magic once more to cast another spell. This time, however, I struck first.

I closed the distance between us in a blink, swinging my sword against his neck. The lich was surprised and tried to evade, casting a few minor spells in quick succession to push me back. 

But though I swung my sword, I did not intend to end him so quickly. Instead, he found my hand around his neck before I threw him back down into the ground. 

With a loud crash, the flying lich flew no more, slamming into the ground in a cloud of dust. As I landed nearby, loud guttural shrieks sounded from the sky as the black drakes began to dive down from their hiding place in the clouds.

The army of undead charged, bone and metal creaking and clanging as they ran across the dead grass and towards my position. 

As ten thousand undead creatures descended upon me like a landslide, I closed my eyes and felt the air against my skin. I saw nothing, but heard the world. The rumble of a thousand steps. The swirl of a violent wind. The wheeze of magic, purple and corrupt, unleashed.

When I opened my eyes, I saw myself engulfed in blue light, smoldering with mist. My sword felt right in my hands, and with a mighty swing, I met my foes.

A hundred skeletons crumbled to dust as my sword sliced through them with ease. I thundered through their ranks, slicing through skeletons left and right with speed unmatched and power unequaled. 

There was seldom anything a mere skeleton or two could to stop me. They surrounded me, hurled their arrows, thrust their spears, and swung their swords. Though I could have easily tanked their attacks, I decided to practice.

I dodged and weaved, hurling my body away from every strike. The skeletons found themselves attacking the air as I blurred with speed and struck back. 

Fireballs streaked through the air and exploded around me as undead mages cast their spells. Suddenly, a deafening roar echoed towards me as a black drake swooped in from the sky above, jagged claws bare. 

It plowed through the skeletons that were in its way as it reached me, unleashing a black fire from its mouth as it tried to catch me with its claws. 

Standing my ground, I held my sword high and split the belly of the black drake. It tumbled behind me in a pool of black blood, shrieking no more. 

Returning my attention to the skeletons, I swung and spun and struck, splitting bone and soil with each strike of my sword. 

Ghoulish riders rode out from the woodlands and tried to catch me from behind. But before they could even reach me, they were interrupted by a pillar of molten rock. Magma from deep within the ground erupted in a fiery fountain, drowning the ghoulish riders underneath the fire and brimstone. 

But that wasn't the only spell I was willing to muster. Several more black drakes swooped in, hurling black fire. As they did, however, pillars of light came down from the sky above, splitting the clouds and slamming against the black drakes.

The black drakes screamed and smoldered, falling from the air in a rain of charred death. 

"You dare!?" The lich bellowed as he regained his bearings and hovered behind his army. He cast the same vortex spell, enveloping me with its power and destroying part of his army in the process.

As I did before, I stood there, unscathed.

Lightning cackled from my fingers before a bolt thundered forth, striking the lich and flinging him away.

Out of sight, the lich may have thought himself safe from my attention, but I was not about to let him stand up just yet. I cast another spell, summoning another pillar from the sky and striking the lich down.

He would not be standing up, not until his army was no more. 

As arrows rained down on my person, the skeletons began to withdraw, allowing the wraiths to surround me with their shadowy bodies.

Wraiths were shadows given form and being. They were impervious to most physical attacks, oftentimes reforming with ease and haste even if their forms were disrupted a thousand times. But an army of wraiths, even as small as a hundred, were a drain to their summoner. 

If a necromancer was not careful with how they handled them, they would quickly find themselves depleted of mana and their wraiths easy pickings.

Dark magic powered their existence, but magic was also their greatest weakness. 

As the wraiths swung at me with their hazy swords made from their being, they found their attacks having no effect. I was immune to the torments of the cursed abyss. The cursed abyss was like a poison, inflicted by the attacks of dark creatures such as wraiths and others like them.

It was a poison that corrupted flesh with darkness, seizing the physical form of their victim and turning it into a shadowy apparition, before finally fading away into nothing. Victims of the cursed abyss often found themselves reduced to black smoke before disappearing completely. Not a single trace would be left behind. 

The cursed abyss could be cured, but only through the use of healing magic that sometimes failed to completely expel the poison from the body. Victims would still lose a limb or two, maybe even their life if they were unlucky enough.

Most of were unlucky enough.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the hundreds of wraiths surrounding me, the cursed abyss had no effect on my person. Not anymore. I was immune from every poison and venom. Not a single curse had the power or audacity to lay me low, not even the most potent and divine.

So unless this world had come up with a curse more powerful than the ones designed by the gods themselves, then the darkness would never consume me. 

I was already cursed, after all.

My immortality was considered a blessing by many, and only I regarded it as a curse. In practice, it was, and will forever be.

That will never change.

As I swung my sword against the wraiths, they found themselves blown away by the wind as their shadowy bodies lost their form.

Surprised, they maintained a lengthy distance, thinking themselves out of reach, and continued their futile attacks. The skeletons soon returned to join them, swarming around me like a colony of hungry ants, eager to tear apart their prey.

Fireballs flew. Lightning struck. The undead mages could only cast basic spells, enhanced with power due to their higher level. But basic spells were just that, basic. No matter how big a fireball was, if their opponent had no trouble enduring it, then there was no point.

The undead army looked as if they were trying to kill each other faster than I could kill them.

Seeing them bunched up around me, I decided to end them in one swift blow. 

With sword firm in hand, I swirled and swung, unleashing an arch of magic that cut through vast swathes of the undead army, leaving behind broken bones and black smoke. 

But even as thousands of undead returned to their graves, the battle was not yet done. Black drakes still flew the skies, swooping down before dying against my sword. A few undead mages lingered, alongside a few thousand more undead.

The lich, on the other hand, was rising once more in the distance. Darkness swirled around his being.

He somehow looked bigger than before.