One of the most important aspects of our contract was that Kel'Caldor had to avoid at all costs going back in his phylactery. He still felt the tug to go there so I created a thumb-sized cloth doll and put him in there. Bound to a physical body, the lich was no longer in danger of escaping. Then I shoved him in the timeless item box.
I brought Autumn's body to my hands and revived her. Her eyes snapped open. "Grandmother? What happened?"
I hugged her. "What was the last moon confluence you remember seeing, Autumn?"
"The third cojoining of Sylvis and Vester, with a gibbous Ayla," she answered after thinking for a while.
I clicked my tongue in irritation after I did the astrological calculations. Kel'Caldor was possessing her for the last three to three and a half years.
"You were possessed by an enemy of ours, granddaughter. It's been three and a half years since that confluence."
The damn lich witnessed our city from the ground up. That's why Autumn was so sedated while Winter was still as bitchy as ever.
Still confused, Autumn checked her notifications, "My log says I died, grandmother. You killed me."
"Sorry about that. I had to act fast to capture the perpetrator. Nenandil?"
The fairy came out of my soul. "Yes?"
"Find Winter and Marlowe, bring them here along with everyone else."
She smiled and saluted, "As you wish, my [Queen]." And zipped out of the room.
Still blocking Autumn's view, I glanced at the cold body of a harpy chick that was never born and never truly alive and sent it to the item box.
I loathed what I had to do, but that's what I had to do. To gently remove Kel'Caldor from her body was the same as wrestling a greased pig with silk gloves. He would escape if I didn't pounce on him with overwhelming force. I bet he made it so she would die if he didn't leave the body of his own free will. it was just speculation and probably something I came up with to justify my acts.
But I was tired of seeing those soft approaches leading to disaster. I did what I had to, given the circumstances. Were there other approaches that could work? Probably. Did I go down the optimal path? Absolutely not.
That's reality to you. He threatened my nation, including Winter and everyone else. To a Queen, wounding a subject to capture a villain as dangerous as he was a good outcome. Even destroying the whole city would be preferable to letting him come and go as he pleased. Now that I didn't have a cooldown on {Last Chance}, I could bring everyone back over and over again. They'd lose 4 levels each time, though.
Against my enemies, I would pull no punches whatsoever.
Kel'Caldor was outmatched in a direct confrontation and he knew it. He'd spent three years watching us inside Autumn's body. If he believed he could kill me, he would've done it. His undoing was trusting I wouldn't be able to hold him before he escaped back to his phylactery.
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Everyone was appalled that Autumn was possessed for three years. Also that I had to kill her but the fact she promptly came back to life was enough to push this issue down the priority scale. What I needed to do was obvious. I had to go to that volcanic island and get Kel'Caldor's phylactery.
"I can't believe you caught him," Marlowe grumbled. "Kel'Caldor was supposed to be a master planner, with layers upon layers of devious strategies."
"She's powerful enough to defy the gods themselves!" Talysius boasted. "I doubt any creature under the firmament can evade her grasp."
I grinned, victorious. "I got him. The levels, class, and everything else checks. Have some faith."
The cloth [Archmage] relented, "Maybe you did. I'll believe you."
"Well, I need to go there and get his phylactery. While that artifact exists, Kel'Caldor can escape and come back."
I was about to adjourn the meeting when Winter stood up and stared at me, defiant.
"Take us back home!" She vehemently demanded. "It is obvious we aren't safe here. Your city is built, there's nothing for us here."
I sighed inside. You can take a horse to the river and drown him. But making him drink the water is impossible, it seems.
"We will leave the druids and rangers to help. Others might come to rotate them out," She bargained. "I... I don't want to get dragged into this fight of yours."
"I got the lich in the bag," I replied. Literally in the dimensional bag. "But I'll take you back. Pack your things, Autumn, Winter. I'll drop you home on my way."
Days later, I used the fairy gates with a stop in Fulgen to drop the Queens and their close aides. From there, I teleported to the northwestern-most fairy circle in Pekothas. I should visit Brenna's grove and Neep but I had to go kill a lich. On the wings of the needletail swift, I flew. Nothing I knew beat that migratory bird in long-range speed and endurance.
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To the northwest of Pekothas lied a chain of islands, the biggest of them as big as the plains. Pekothas was huge, that was the truth. It had more landmass than Earth. Through that perspective, I concluded that Yznarian was bigger than Earth. Auvanini was the smallest of the three continents, roughly the size of the civilized half of the Scorched one.
The archipelago tapered to a line of islands following the tectonic plate. Some of them had volcanoes and I knew I was close to my goal. The open ocean swallowed the land and all was blue for a while. A few hundred kilometers away, I finally saw my goal. A volcanic island, grown from the solidified magma. An inhospitable and barren land where almost no life thrived.
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Scratch that "almost". No life thrived there, for it was crawling with undead monstrosities. The blight was overwhelming. I had no desire to clean it up. Maybe after I raided Kel'Caldor's home and crushed his phylactery.
But the undead had other plans. From the caldera, a winged terror rose. A massive reptilian body, six-limbed and sporting a long neck and tail. Rotten flesh covered by pockmarks exposed the shriveled organs and ash-darkened bones underneath. Dead milky eyes stared at me with sheer hatred. With the lips gone, the undead dragon sported holes in its sickly gums where teeth fell off. Its torn wings couldn't support flight and yet it soared in the sky to intercept me.
> Level 172 Necrocarnage Dragon [Crypt Guardian]
>
> HP ~ 900M (x16 size)
>
> Strength: ~240
>
> Endurance ~170
Behind him, a swarm of winged monsters of several kinds came to intercept me. All of them were undead. I assumed my normal form and prepared. Spear in hand, I triggered all my auras and entered the fray.
> Champion's Challenge
The [Crypt Guardian] opened its jaw and a blazing inferno of purplish-green flames filled the sky, colliding with my {Light Elemental} light and punching through, spreading shadows. I folded my wings and dove underneath. My fur stood and I had goosebumps when the dragon's breath came closer. I fired some {Force Javelin} at it. Some barriers sprung to intercept but the projectiles broke through them and hit the monster's rotten flesh.
Diving past the dragon, I met the swarm of monsters coming in its wake. They entered my aura and plummeted to their watery grave as their Attributes were sapped almost entirely. They were flies trying to grasp the burning heart of a furnace. Only the dragon represented any threat. Turning around, it dove at me with its yellowed claws and blackened teeth ready to shred me to ribbons.
I created a platform of Force underneath me and readied my spear. Using {Ground Repulsion}, I launched myself from the platform straight at the dragon. It entered the searing light and its reactions slowed down. It wasn't completely paralyzed but I easily dodged its claws by instantly closing with {Flash Step} and delivered my spear's business end into the base of its neck, doubling my Strength with {A Capella} at the last moment.
> You stabbed Necrocarnage Dragon for 2,231,232 HP of damage (Base 139 x7.96 Strength x4.52 Skill x2 Blood Sacrifice x3 Flash Step x3 Mana Strike x3 Arcane Smite x2 size x1,35 giant-fighting x2 Favored Enemy x3 Champion x4 Unicorn x3 critical x0.75 Undead Flesh (halved) x0.75 Dragon Scales (halved) x0.75 Hardened Scales x0.5 Home Ground x0.5 Piercing Resistance x0.4 Crypt Defense)
>
> Triple Stab
>
> You stabbed Necrocarnage Dragon for 770,496 HP of damage (Base 144 x62,949.2 multipliers x0.17 Reductions x0.5 Piercing Resistance )
>
> Combination Strike
>
> You slashed Necrocarnage Dragon for 662,994 HP of damage (Base 177 x62,949.2 multipliers x0.17 Reductions x0.35 combination Strike )
>
> You slashed Necrocarnage Dragon for 603,024 HP of damage (Base 161 x62,949.2 multipliers x0.17 Reductions x0.35 combination Strike )
>
> Your [Spear] proficiency increased by 1.
I was glad Arcane Smite worked for all four simultaneous attacks. But the 30-second cooldown felt like an eternity. I was forced to use my short-range Ethereal movement several times during the next exchanges, dealing around 800k damage with each combo. The dragon's claws passed through my Light Elemental body harmlessly. It must not be sentient because it only started to imbue its attacks with something that could damage incorporeal creatures after a while.
The dragon's magical energy pulsed and he was wrapped by an envelope of shadows. The effects of my auras on it dimmed and the light no longer reached its form. It also became pitch black and caused damage to me. A Light Elemental was vulnerable to shadow attacks, fancy that! Regaining its speed, it danced with me in a furious ballet of claws, teeth, and spear stabs. I tried raking it with my claws but he was resistant to vorpal blows, so no automatic dismemberment.
Its shadow cloak drained the dragon's MP faster than I could whittle its massive HP pool. I hardly missed any attack and other options didn't have the bonus the spear granted against the undead. Neither of us could hover around one another and at the moment we put some distance between us he would use his death flames breath. I raised a semi-spherical Force barrier to deflect it away from me and save Energy by not blocking it directly.
Once its MP reached 25%, it stopped dropping. Through my Ethereal senses, I could see a tendril of dark magic flowing into the dragon, feeding him and fueling his power usage. It clearly had a lot of home-ground advantages.
I pressed forward, attacking as fast as I could. Once the dragon's HP reached 50%, it jumped back up with some instant healing effect and went all the way back to 90%. Forty percent was a lot.
My spear proficiency reached its fast-growth cap. One more point and I would get a new ability. Maybe that could be the tipping point of this fight.
Becoming undead must've shriveled most of the dragon's brain. It was very predictable. I knew exactly when it would use its breath weapon and act accordingly. My wings ached from all this aerial ballet. The sun rose while we fought.
Sunlight forced the tendril of power coming from the volcano to send more energy to its shadow cloak. I wondered how much it still had in storage. It couldn't be an infinite power source. The dragon's MP was still in the 25% and not even {Ether Rend} would lower it.
I landed on the dragon's back and shapeshifted my lower body into a tiger's, putting my wings away. They needed some rest. Using {Absolute Clinging} and {Unwilling Ride}, I went to town on the dragon's back. Its health went down to 62.3% when I got what I was waiting for.
> Your [Spear] proficiency increased by 1. You have one free Ability.
>
> * Unravel buffs: Pay 2,000 MP per attack. You damage one beneficial effect affecting the target with each successful attack. The effect costs (Proficiency/5)% [currently 36%] more to maintain or has its remaining duration lowered by the same amount.
The effects added up with each blow. I hacked the dragon's back, easily avoiding its attacks with the bonus evasion from {Unwilling Ride}. The stream of magic coming from the island burned its resources that faster to keep the shadow coat over the monster. A few minutes and a hundred slashes later, the spell finally broke.
The lowered Attributes lowered the dragon's HP pool by more than half, on top of crippling its combat abilities. Without the support from whatever energies powered it, I finished the beast.
> For killing level 172 Necrocarnage Dragon [Crypt Guardian], you gained 783,3 B Exp. (Base 295,840 x3,125 fast learner x3,05 exp boost x3,05 challenge x7,59 favored enemy x8 size x2 Rank x0.75 Class rarity).
The Exp would give me 2 levels only. I didn't do that. Instead, I raised the other four paths to level 10, allowing me to fuse all five if I wanted. I held back on that since it would eat almost all my Class Attributes and spit them into {Surpasser}. But these levels weren't for nothing. {Ultimate Surpasser} gave me 44 Attribute Points. I put 20 in Willpower, 7 in Charisma, and the remaining 17 in Soul. It was exactly the right amount to push the base values to 100.
> * Pinnacle of Willpower (very rare): Your magical effects are 50% stronger and twice as hard to dispel or break. You are immune to memory manipulation and psychic damage.
> * Pinnacle of Charisma (very rare): Modify all reactions two steps in your favor. Increase all positive social bonuses by two. Decrease all negative social penalties by two. You cannot have your communication impaired.
> * Pinnacle of Soul (ultra-rare): You are immune to the negative effects of Blight. You are immune to possession. Multiply the limit of the negative HP before dying by 100.
Only Luck and Strength to complete a full set now. I needed another 52 points.
> Level 140
>
> Strength: 52+122 (174) / 86 - Dexterity*: 72+75 (147) / 86 - Endurance*: 81+98 (179) / 86
>
> Mind*: 71+47 (118) / 86 - Willpower*: 71+61 (132) / 86 - Charisma*: 88+19 (107)
>
> Magic*: 72+33 (105) / 86
>
> Ego*: 81+32 (113) / 86 - Luck: 51+22 (73) / 86 - Soul*: 78+29 (107) / 86
>
> HP 233.420.016 (2.482.604 HP/s)
>
> Energy 78.951.844 (94.060 E/min)
With the dragon gone, I reached the island. Time to raid the lich's treasures. I felt an urge to utter a villain's mad cackle.