'I almost died!'

I was kneeling on the ground on all fours with trembling hands, coughing mouthfuls of blood.

After surviving the attack, I immediately used [Perfect Stealth] for fear of the enemy attacking me in my injured state.

'Still… it wasn't supposed to be painful.'

If my counterstrike had been stronger, this kind of injury wouldn't have happened. Then again, I'm glad I gained enlightenment in the nick of time and used it to perfection.

'But… should I be happy that I managed to master the technique I had been struggling for so long? Or should I be concerned?'

The price was that I had to go through a near-death experience and get injured all over my body.

'Considering all the other six counter strikes were similar… does that mean I have to go through similar experience six more times to learn them all?'

I feel conflicted as I calm down my ragged breathing and think back to what happened.

'[Counter Strike, First Art - Void Slash].'

A technique that cuts open a black, empty space for a brief moment to suck in an attack of any strength and form. As its name suggests, if successful, the power of any attack will become void, effectively reducing the damage I received to zero.

However, the space only opens for a brief moment. In my case, it was open for only a split second just now. This is why timing becomes not only important but also essential for me to get right.

The problem is, the explosions just now didn't happen just once, right?

'How many corpses were there? One thousand? Ten thousand?'

Even if I only count the corpses that exploded near my feet back then, they should be in the hundreds at least.

That's why I had to repeatedly cut and cut space, all with near-perfect timing until the series of explosions was over.

'Fortunately, I had learned how to do fast consecutive slashes from the second quick strike… so I managed to combine them somehow.'

That's right. This was the enlightenment I was talking about and the reason I survived.

Instead of using the counter strike by itself, I combined its space-cutting effect with the second quick strike.

'[Quick Strike, Second Art - Blade Dance Stream, Infinite Consecutive Slash]'

The second quick strike is a combo attack that consists of doing fast consecutive slashes of any number in a short amount of time. The curious thing was that the longer the skill goes, the faster my attack speed becomes.

'And I don't think I had to land direct hits either.'

Although it's quite bothersome for the body, to the point that my joints creaked the longer I used it, it's enough if I just rely on Raon Eva's self-healing gift in the future.

'I am speed!'

Of course, for the current me, it feels like I was about to die just from swinging my sword hundreds of times.

'I should probably limit it to 15 slashes or so and finish it with the burst attack…'

There is a powerful [Burst] finishing move for all quick strikes, just like how there was a [Blast] finishing move for all power strikes. But that was meant to be used as a deadly attack for killing.

Since what I needed back then was not a deadly attack but an increasingly fast number of slashes, I didn't use the [Burst] option.

'So after combining the first counter strike and second quick strike… I managed to develop my own sword strike somehow.'

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It was a fortune among misfortune.

'However, the mental load is no joke… since I have to maintain peak concentration for so long.'

It's a different kind of mental exhaustion than the information overload from my vision skill.

I could probably get used to maintaining such concentration in the future with practice. Still, since this was my first time, it's understandable that I would get exhausted.

'Fortunately, I still have a lot of mana.'

Because [Void Slash] was a skill that can be used without mana if I want, just like the first and second quick strikes.

Anyway, I should give this combined sword art a name, right?

'What should it be? [Lots of Cut]? [Cut a Lot]?'

It was the moment when my great naming sense was about to see the light of the world.

"...!"

Suddenly, Skeleton arms came out from the ground.

Not one, not two, but dozens or so.

They pushed their bodies out of the ground, creating a slope big enough for an adult to walk through.

And then, those skeletons surrounded the slope and kneeled down at once.

'I think the big boss is coming.'

I am not in a condition to fight, so I should let my body regenerate to some extent and observe for a bit.

'If only I had learned Bianca's healing skill…'

Then again, I remembered how that would also drain my mana. So, considering my situation, I would probably still choose to rely on my self-regeneration either way.

It was when I had moved away to a safe place.

From the deepest depth of the earth, a skeletal figure clad in a black robe emerged, its footsteps echoing in the silent space.

As it stepped into the light, an awful bifurcated face was revealed. One half was a grinning skull, an empty eye socket glowing with a sinister blue flame. The other side still bore human features, though skin sloughed away to reveal cracked teeth and jawbone.

'No, not just the face…'

[White Dragon Vision]

His full appearance was hidden under his robe, but despite that, information about him kept pouring into my brain.

His left side was all bones, and the other side was that of a human male. A ribcage protruded from his chest on the left, and yellowed vertebrae stretched down his horrid spinal column. But the other torso maintained remnants of human skin and stringy muscles over sunken breasts and viscera.

In his human hand, he was holding a wizard staff made of a skull.

'A lich?'

It was an unusual appearance, even for a lich.

Liches generally use the dead corpses as their clone. But from the information I've seen, it was certain that this lich had killed the living before he used that body as his own.

'For what reason? To mimic the living?'

It was a useless act that had no benefit whatsoever in my opinion. Even if he did it to appear like the living and blend in human society, all parts of his body would soon turn into all bones. Effectively making the disguise useless.

And the fact that only half of his body had become bones, he must have killed the man pretty recently.

'Crazy bastard.'

Of course, all liches are crazy in the first place, so it's not impossible for them to do such a thing.

Liches were magicians who chose to become undead to achieve immortality.

They did this by giving up their souls to form a "soul gem." Since their lives were contained inside this soul gem, they were unkillable unless we destroyed their soul gem.

'The tricky part was to find the soul-gem they hid.'

If there's good news in all of this, it's that their soul gem would never be too far away from their clones.

'And looking at where he came from, he probably hid it underground somewhere.'

Even more so since he was willing to destroy everything above ground with the series of explosions just now.

He must have done it because he was confident his soul-gem would be alright even if he did that.

The lich looked around the area and nodded solemnly.

"We're done here. Let's go back to our lord."

And with that, he turned around and walked into the hole. The skeletons stood up all at once and followed him in an orderly fashion.

'Our lord…'

He must be talking about the black dragon.

'So he was a disciple of Nicht…'

A dragon who was known for his ability to wield all kinds of black magic, curses, and necromancy.

If such a being taught black magic to others just like Bianca had taught me, then it wouldn't be surprising for their ability to be exceptional.

'Fortunately, it doesn't seems like he himself is that powerful in close-combat.'

So what should I do now? Should I follow him? Or should I go to Bianca?

After thinking for a bit, I decided that it would be best to deal with him first.

One reason is to eliminate a variable from disrupting my plan in the future.

'But the real reason was probably because I simply want to kill him.'

An enemy of mankind.

Someone who had killed and destroyed the very thing that I had tried my hardest to protect.

'I will definitely kill him.'

So I stood up and followed him underground.

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