Hello Everyone, Sorry for the week long break but this week was exam week for college. I think I did pretty well but I'll have to wait until next week to find out.

Here is chapter 02. Enjoy!

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Chapter 02: The First Battle

It was strange to look at my hand and only see bones, it was almost like I was in a different body or that this body was not my own. Well I didn't think that I would immediately be able to fully use my new Elder Lich body, that would just be ridiculous.

I used a simple reflection spell to create a psuedo mirror and then inspected my body through that and I have to say it was rather intimidating. I was a full 13 feet tall with a skeleton that looked human-ish but had some significant differences from a human skeleton.

One of the most obvious differences was the large red soul gem that was implanted on the front of my ribcage. It was about the size of a human head and contained quite a large amount of mana, giving me access to extra mana in case I used up my entire mana pool.

Another of the obvious differences was how a dark mist was generated inside of my bones and seeped out and gathered mainly in my ribcage and inside my skull. Two glowing red orbs were located behind where my eyes would be and acted as visual and audio sensors, allowing me to be able to see and hear.

There were a few other differences in bone structure and shape such as the fact that my fingers all ended in razor sharp points but other than those differences I looked like a giant human skeleton.

With this my physical body had increased in strength tenfold and my magical strength had increased to the peak of the Magister level. The levels of magical proficiency were rather simple and progressed in this manner. Apprentice Mage, Mage, Advanced Mage, Great Mage, Arc-Mage, Magister, Grand Magister, Magus, Grand Magus, Arc-Magus, Paragon, High Paragon, Sovereign.

I was close to breaking through to the level of a Grand Magister and once I did I would be able summon a 10th level demon. On the other hand with my current strength I could probably summon and bind a couple of 8th level demons or a high level elemental before my mana ran out.

Fusing my Soul with Navaris' had definitely given me a huge power boost but there were certain aspects of the fusion that worried me. My biggest worry was the Navaris would somehow find a way to overturn the Soul Fusion and make herself the dominant personality as she seemed to have far more control over our combined soul than I did.

It was a little strange that one soul controlled both of our bodies but she seemed to be able to easily read my thoughts, emotions, and memories at will while I could not read hers. Her intelligence was far above mine and when it was combined with her knowledge and power she had an enormous advantage over me.

I am pretty sure that the only thing that stopped her from being the dominant personality was the fact that The Soul Fusion and Binding Ritual was so complex that she could barely understand it. Abyss, even after three years of constant study I could barely glimpse at the ritual's true purpose and the only reason I succeeded in performing it was because I only had to know what to do, not why I had to do it.

The way she acted humble and subservient, easily volunteering information was also disturbing as demons never did that without being forced to. The only explanation was that she was waiting for me to let my guard down so that she could repress my personality or imprison me within my own mind.

From the few short minutes I had spent with her I had recognized that she was far smarter than any demon I had ever encountered before and her skill with our soul bond was disturbing because it meant I would never be able to catch her off guard.

As a matter of fact she was probably listening to every single thing I was thinking about and knew that I suspected her even though it wouldn't make a difference. She could simply mold herself into whatever being was most calming and helpful to me so that I would eventually let my guard down.

Demons excelled at deception and from what I could tell Navaris was one of the best at it. Well whatever, its not like I can do anything about it for now so I will just wait until I can do something about it.

Anyway, after I spent some time admiring and experimenting with my new body I got ready to go to the Rai Empire's capital, Tharsius because it was the only place I knew of that accepted all beings regardless of race.

Before we left I spent a couple of hours comprehending a spell from the Book of Shadows and Thorns that allowed me to use magic to make a hooded cloak to hide my body so that I could move around easier.

The Book of Shadows and Thorns gave me several spells for creating clothing from pure mana but the one that I ended up choosing was called the Cloak of Terror. The reason I chose it out of all the others was because it's benefits were the best suited to my current condition and goals.

Several of the other selections gave benefits such as invisibility against all types of detection magic, increased luck, increased charm and the ability to mildly hypnotize, or the ability to temporarily slow time but the Cloak of Terror offered several benefits that worked perfectly for me.

The most important effect that the cloak offered was that as long as the hood was raised over my head, no one would be able to see what lay underneath the cloak. My hands, feet, and face would all be shrouded in an impenetrable dark mist with only two red, glowing orbs hovering where my eyes would be.

Of course there were also side benefits like being able to infuse mana into the cloak to create a feeling of incredible terror all around you and the ability to use the cloak to wrap yourself in shadows making you almost completely invisible to the naked eye.

I could have made the cloak look ragged and torn so that I appeared to be a person of no consequence but instead I made it appear to be very ornate and valuable with the cloak being made of black silk and lined with silver threads.

If I was going to be an undead Dark Lord, I might as well be a well-dressed one. To the Abyss with poorly dressed Dark Lords and Kings, if you're going to conquer the world then you damn better do it with style.

It took me a couple of hours and a good tenth of my mana pool to create the Cloak of Terror with Navaris helping me but in my eyes it was worth the time and effort. I wasn't ashamed of my new appearance but it might be better for me to avoid other humans for a while until I can grow a new body.

Navaris told me that she had already started the process of growing a new body within my soul and that when it was finished I could freely switch between bodies. I just took what she said for granted because I have no idea how to grow a physical body within my soul and even if I did know how I probably didn't have sufficient control over my new large mana pool to actually do it correctly.

I mean really, what kind of inhuman freak can grow a body inside of his soul? I suppose the answer is an Elder Lich with demonic attributes but the whole thing sounds rather far fetched. I wouldn't be surprised if she was actually taking parts of my soul away but even if she was I wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

I had never been to the Rai Empire before and only knew that it was about 200 miles to the west of my current position, so I had Navaris start drawing a teleportation pentagram since she was the expert on magic. Technically, she said that her main strengths lay in magical theory and complicated rituals and spells but a simple teleportation pentagram should be no problem at all.

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Besides, this would allow me to perform a small test to see exactly how much control and expertise she has in magic and how much she exaggerated or made up. The quality of the teleportation pentagram would most likely reflect her actual knowledge of magic and if she was telling the truth then it should be readily apparent.

While I was waiting for her to finish the teleportation pentagram I prepared a couple of spells just in case we were transported somewhere dangerous. In all honesty the amount of spells that I knew was pitifully low as I had devoted almost all my time to the Soul Fusion and Binding Ritual, but I do have to admit that the few spells that I did know were really nasty.

The spell that I had the most proficiency in was simply called Burst and it was a one word, dual layered spell. I simply had to say burst in dual layers and the spell would be activated. The more mana I could pour into it the more severe the resulting explosion would be.

The effect of the spell was rather simple too, I simply designated one item as a target and the spell burst outwards from that object destroying everything around it. It was originally designed for being used on anchors, items that were the base for wards and other protective spells, as the anchor would be targeted and the resulting explosion would destroy the magic that emanated from it, disabling the ward.

I, however, had found an entirely new and nasty way to use it. I would target a person's skeleton and then when it activated it would literally rip off any and all living tissue that surrounded the skeleton. The target's skin and muscle would literally be shredded off of their bones while their inner organs and eyes would be liquified almost instantly.

Of course this spell only worked if the target was not magically protected but with it's fast activation time and its suitibility for close combat, it was one of my favorite spells. Sure it was more than a little gory and horrifying but as an Elder Lich I highly doubted that gore would bother me now. I couldn't throw up even if I wanted to.

Not that I would throw up in the first place. I was a powerful practitioner of the Dark Arts so why should I throw up at the sight of a little gore.

I mean really, they don't call it the Light and Fluffy Arts or the Unicorns and Rainbows Arts. No. They call them the Dark Arts because they're shrakking Dark! I've done things that would give most humans nighmares for the rest of their lives and I always, always go for overkill.

I learned that from my master. Once some pig-faced noble kidnapped someone that my former master cared about. My master went far far above that as he kidnapped and tortured everyone who knew him, was related to him, or had even talked to him on the street once. My masters acquaintance was returned rather quickly and then the noble was tortured and killed along with everyone else my master had kidnapped.

Men, women, children, it didn't matter we killed all of them and laughed as their blood gushed over our hands but I am straying from my original topic. Who cares about the murder of a bunch of useless human scum? Not me.

The two things that I took away from my time with my former master was that you should always, always go for overkill and loving or caring about someone is a weakness that your enemies can exploit. Those were two of the rules that I lived by and I was determined to not break either of them.

Anyway, I prepared a couple more spells while Navaris finished the teleportation pentagram and then grinned, or tried to as she told me that it was done.

“The pentagram is finished Azran. If my calculations are correct it should send us to within 20 miles of Tharsius, and further measures can be taken from there. If I am mistaken then we will most likely be dropped into an active volcano, the middle of an ocean, or possibly up into space. But my calculations are never wrong so you don't have to worry about it.”

I paused for a second trying to figure out if she was threatening to drop me into an active volcano but decided that I would simply go a long with it and trust in the Soul Fusion and Binding Ritual to keep her from killing me when my back is turned.

So I nodded at Navaris and stepped into the pentagram with her. After I examined the pentagram for a moment I quickly decided that at the very least she was being completely honest about her magical knowledge. I had never even thought about a pentagram that could have so many interconnecting symbols, runes, and circles. In all honesty it was quite frightening.

Reality warped around us as the pentagram activated and moved us through space and towards our target.

I stumbled for a moment as we materialized but was almost immediately hit by a very large object that flung me backwards until I hit something hard. I felt several of my rib bones crack as I flew backwards and crashed into a very large tree.

Navaris had been wrong about one thing. Her calculations had been perfect but that didn't mean that they weren't in danger. She had teleported them right into the middle of a large scale battle.

The assh*le who had hit him was a 20ft tall troll whose giant club was nearly as big as he was. I pushed myself to my feet and prepared to release a spell but before I could Navaris reached him. Her first spell completely destroyed his legs, shattering his bones and peeling the flesh from their remains. Her second spell released a highly concentrated flame that burned a hole through the troll's chest.

She then yelled a word in the Abyssal language and grabbed a fluttery white blob of ectoplasm out of the air and ate it. It took me a few moments to recognize what she had done and when I finally realized that she had just eaten the troll's soul I was fascinated.

I had never seen a soul before let alone a demon eating a soul but the sight was interesting and the burst of pleasure that I felt through our soul-bond revealed that it tasted quite good. I had never even thought of how a soul would taste but now I really wanted to taste one.

Did it matter what race the creature was? Did the taste change depending if the soul was male or female? Did age matter? Did all souls taste the same? Or did each soul have its own unique taste and the factors of its material body did not matter?

Whatever. Despite how much I would like to taste a soul, I am currently unable to. It is possible that I may obtain that ability later on in the future but for now I should concentrate on finding my way out of or through this battle.

Some random human warrior tried to attack me with a sword from behind but I stabbed my fingers towards his face and was somewhat surprised when my hand went clearly through his head. Turns out that humans are much more fragile than I thought.

A soul rending shriek ripped through the air and I glanced up just in time to see Navaris morph into her original demon form. I had always known that her beautiful human form was an illusion but I was definitely unprepared for her true form.

Her skin had shrunk until her form was almost skeletal in appearance and her arms had lengthened until they reached nearly down to her ankles. 6 inch long claws had sprouted from her fingertips and she gave off an aura of terror and pain that could make even the bravest human wet himself in fear.

I watched as she began to tear into the soldiers, eating souls by the dozen. A vicious smile spread over my face as I began to unleash my spells. I had no idea which soldiers belonged to which side but if I just killed everyone then everything should turn out just fine. The battle was just beginning.

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Next chapter will include a Navaris POV. Look forward to it.