Its form was tall, impossibly lean, bones bound tight by black silk that drank the light around it. Its robe shimred with the color of absence — no hue, only the suggestion of darkness too deep to be nad. Gold thread wove patterns of ancient heresy across its chest like veins.
A crown of bone and fractured gemstones sat atop its skull, each gem pulsing faintly in ti with the rhythm of our breath. Its staff — gnarled, warped wood fused with ore from another realm — flickered with veins of molten mana, pulsing like magma beneath cracked earth.
And then...Its eyes opened. Twin remnants of a hatred that had not faded — even across tilines.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Noel stumbled back half a step. "W-What is that thing...?"
"Don’t move," I said. Quiet. asured. My eyes never left the Lich.
Its gaze swept over us like a verdict. No emotions. No words.
Just a presence.
One that told you: you do not belong here.
Its bony hand slowly lifted the staff. The ground pulsed. Shattered glass lifted from the floor in a slow orbit, circling the altar like lost planets. The cathedral groaned. Reality itself seed to bend around that staff, as though it were a conductor of gravity, mory, and death.
And still, the Lich said nothing.
It didn’t have to.
Because this was its sermon.
And we had walked into its church.
-
The shadows curled tighter around the cathedral floor as the Lich’s staff crackled with silent malice.
Noel kept his blade steady, but his eyes were locked on the skeletal monster ahead — the weight of the mont settling on his shoulders like a stone slab.
I stepped beside him, voice low and even.
"Listen carefully," I said. "This thing doesn’t play fair. And it doesn’t need to."
Noel nodded, jaw tight. "Tell ."
"Three phases," I began. "First, it summons. You’ll feel it — a vibration in the floor. That’s your only warning before a dozen bonewalkers claw their way up from beneath the pews."
"Skeletons?"
"Yes. Many of them."
He frowned. "Got it. What’s next?"
I stared ahead. The Lich hadn’t moved yet, but I knew the sequence.
"Phase two," I said. "Dark bolts. He raises that staff and unleashes a storm — tracking projectiles, sharp as spears. They co fast. In waves. Not random. They’re patterned — one aid at where you are, one at where you will be."
Noel’s brows pulled tight. "So he reads movent?"
"Worse," I muttered. "He forces it. Boxed in by the first phase, and the bolts cover your only exits."
I watched the altar, watched the faint pulse of mana threading the staff.
"And then... phase three."
Noel shifted.
"He chants," I said. "The skeletons from phase one? They rise again — stronger, reinforced by ambient death mana. And while they keep you busy, he starts the incantation."
"For the final blow?"
I nodded. "It’s not flashy. It’s not loud. It’s a single-point annihilation spell. You won’t even see it hit you. One chant, one mark — and you disappear."
Noel swallowed hard.
"And it sounds easy," I said, gaze sharpening. "It sounds manageable."
"...But it’s not."
"No," I said flatly. "It’s not."
’Not unless you have the sa skill I’m using. Not unless you’ve fought this bastard before. And won.’
I flicked my wrist. The faint shimr of the Blank Protocol skill activated beneath my coat, cloaking the edges of my presence in passive stillness. The sa power that had let solo this monster once.
The sa power that would let us survive again.
"We move on my mark," I said, voice steady now.
Noel’s eyes t mine.
"And we finish this before it chants."
"Understood."
’You’re not dying this ti, Noel. I won’t let you.’
The cathedral groaned again. And the floor beneath us began to pulse.
Phase One... had just begun.
-
The cathedral trembled.
A low, guttural groan echoed beneath the shattered marble tiles, vibrating up through our boots. Dust lifted in lazy spirals. Faint cracks slithered through the floor like veins waking from slumber.
Then ca the scratching.
Dozens of clawed fingers broke through the surface—bony hands punching through the ground between pews, under cracked archways, around the rusted altar. The undead were rising.
[Phase One: Summon Legion – Initiated]
The system’s alert blinked red at the corner of my vision.
"They’re coming," I muttered. "Don’t panic. Stay mobile."
Noel didn’t answer. He stepped forward, sword drawn, a narrow gleam in his eyes. The weight of fear didn’t press him down—it sharpened him. I saw it in his stance.
"Rember," I called out, already moving to the cathedral’s side aisle. "I’m your backup. You lead."
He gave a short nod. "Understood."
"Don’t wait for to clean up your ss," I said, a ghost of a smirk tugging at my lips. "Unless you want to carry you out again."
Noel barked a short laugh. "Not happening."
The first skeleton lunged from the ground—its jaw unhinged, blade-like claws glinting in the dim light. Noel t it head-on, steel flashing.
CLANG!
Bone splintered. The skeleton shattered across a broken pew.
Another ca. Then three more.
They surged from the dark corners like vermin—too fast, too many for the untrained.
But Noel wasn’t untrained anymore.
He flowed from one strike to the next, each slash precise, calculated. A narrow graze here. A deep lunge there. He wasn’t just fighting—he was controlling space. Like he knew the battlefield was already his.
’There’s a reason they used to call him a prodigy. This guy’s the real deal.’
Still, I kept to the edges—silent, waiting. Watching the backlines. Reading the movent patterns of the summoning cycles. It wasn’t ti to intervene yet.
"Watch your left," I called.
Noel spun. His sword whipped out like a flash of silver lightning and cleaved a skeletal throat in half before it could pounce.
He glanced my way and nodded once. "Thanks."
’Good. Keep your focus. Don’t give them a gap.’
I activated Silent Mark, tagging a hidden skeleton crawling behind a shattered column. A delayed mana spike exploded from the tag, scattering bones across the altar stairs before it could flank him.
’You’re not fighting alone anymore, Noel. This ti... I’m here.’
But even as we handled Phase One, I could feel the pressure shift.
The Lich was watching.
Still unmoving on the altar.
But his eyes—those burning twin coals—were locked onto us now.
[Mana Signature Detected — Phase Two Imminent]
I narrowed my eyes.
"Don’t get cocky," I muttered under my breath, fingers tightening around my hidden blade. "The next part hurts."
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