For a third time, we appeared in the entrance room of the tower. Once again the room appeared different. Gone was the green flames of our first visit and the multiple colours of the second. They had been replaced by a soft gold the seemed almost holy. While I was studying the room, the princess turned to me, “Care to tell me why we are delving a dungeon and not training our army?”
Looking at the confused and annoyed princess I replied, “How well did you get to know that level 99 Archlich?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Asked an even more confused princess.
I laughed, “If I'm not mistaken, that lich was the embodiment of the dungeon and I have a deal to make. It would be better to make a deal with a friend, wouldn't it, Mr dungeon?”
A somewhat familiar raspy voice sounded from down the corridor. “Welcome back lady Emily. Are you here for another round of chess, to challenge my army or does your sleepy friend speak the truth?”
As the words echoed slightly, pale green gas seeped from the floor and condensed to form the tall ethereal skeleton. Looking at the floating monster, I could not help but gloat, “I fucking knew it! Dungeon rulers, my ass. The elves never did destroy your mind. You failed your ascension and got sealed by the system. You're in the exact same situation as the wild lands king.”
Staring at me with empty eye sockets the lich replied without moving his jaw, “You are indeed a smart one. So knowing the truth, what do you offer? And what do you want?”
With a shrug, I responded, “I want to borrow your army in exchange for information on the second ascension method.”
“DO NOT TOY WITH ME MORTAL!” his voice came not from the skeletal form but from the very dungeon itself. To coincide with the threatening display of authority, the monster leveraged his monumental mana pool to apply physical pressure.
Knowing this fight was half won, I calmly replied in undead's native language, “System error code 43, violation code 16b, recourse sealed realm.”
The lich froze, and somehow his skeletal face looked surprised. “How?” Was the only word he could manage.
Moving closer, I whispered to the undead, “We all have our secrets.” Standing between a dungeon avatar and an equally confused princess I was could only smile and hope all this would not end badly.
Recovering from the momentary lapse, the lich began stroking hid jaw while thinking. This was obviously a holdover from his time among the living and showed that he still had lingering humanity. Undead that have truly embraced death would never show such displays of emotion. While I waited, the lich pondered and the princess tried to understand what was happening, ten minutes passed. Placing his hands back behind his back the lich once more studied us before asking that we follow him. With a click of his fingers, a new portal opened leading directly to the thirtieth floor.
Walking through this gate place us on the podium directly opposite the entrance where I once slept. Spread before us, was the respawned graduation army, but none of them turned around to face us. Following after us, the lich once more snapped after entering the room. A spiralling staircase formed from black marble and adorned with gold descended from the roof. While nowhere near as large and grand as the permanent stairs, this one screamed style. Climbing these stairs allowed a person to view the dungeons true army from the safety of a shielded tube and the princess was stunned.
Once more the rumours were wrong. The grand army of the tower numbered only a half dozen squads but what they lacked in numbers they made up in power. Each one of these squads consisted of a level 70 lesser Archlich, twelve level 60 death lords, twenty-four level 55 Silent mages and twelve level 50 shadow hand. Ascending further, we discovered that the dungeon only had thirty-two floors and the last floor was a grand temple. This lich knew how to impress. The entire thing was crafted out of a combination of bone, gold and surprisingly plants. With an overarching yin-yang theme balancing life and death, the palace radiated power. This was only further reinforced when we approached and noticed that every single piece had been inscribed and enchanted.
Entering the main room the lich sat upon a golden throne, adorned with thrones and magic scrolls, before retrieving a half helmet from the armrest. Placing this strange piece of equipment over the left part of his face, the red orb covering his eye began to glow. This chair was obviously the control system for the tower and it emanated a palpable mana wave as it came to life. Enthralled by the device the princess asked, "What does that do?" Only to be met with a smirk. Almost as an act of petty revenge a chair of bone formed under the princess eliciting a scream.
The lich waved his hand summoning a tuxedo dressed skeleton and a table before looking at the princess. "You can request any food or beverage you desire and this servent will prepare it if possible. I offer this as an act of good faith for our negotiation." This lich was definitely crafty, by picking on the princess and acquiescing before the negotiations began he had gained the upper hand.
After a two-hour-long discussion, we had finally forged an agreement. In return for his assistance, I would tell the dungeon core how to break the system lock and ascend again. The tower's end of the bargain would be to complete two tasks for us. Firstly, at an opportune time, it would march the graduation army and one unit of the true army through two gates and straight into the dracon forces. Despite the fact they would be weakened without the supportive mana from the dungeon and damaged by the daylight, they would still be a massive force to be reckoned with, more than capable of destroying our opponents. The other request was for a phylactery crystal.
Now's probably a brilliant time to clear up the stupidity behind the undead's sunlight weakness. It is a well-known fact that undead are weak to light and especially vulnerable to sunlight. Why is this? Well, we will start with the undead. surprising no one, they are animated by necromancy magic, but what most don't know is that this element is a combination of shadow, poison, mind and soul magic. Next, we will talk about normal light magic. it's not that light gets some special bonus against necromancy or shadow magic, it's that the other elements are shit against it. Both light magic and shadow magic are resilient against the other elements but work at full strength against each other. Ok, what about sunlight? It's only normal light produced by a star. That is correct, except during its travels through space it picks up minute traces of space and nullification mana. The very same space magic that lets magic bypass barriers and the same nullification magic that negates spell effects. Kind of like the spell effects keeping the undead alive. In short, natural light is naturally occurring minor three-element attack that just so happens to be the bane of the undead.
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Back to the story. Re-ascension would not be without cost for the dungeon. I supplied a list of materials required for the process so the items could gather before we acted. Explaining that, unlike the first ascension, where it would have been elevated as a dungeon core, the second chance would forge it into something new. Given its current Archlich form, it would likely become similar to the 'true undead' created by the Astrals. No matter the outcome, it would lose much in order to gain the chance to continue to grow. Accepting the risks involved the lich made a soul vow, but not one to truly trust a dungeon, I had the princess seal a letter containing the process with a curse before handing it over. The curse magic was designed to automatically release upon completion of the lich's task but combust if either we both died or the letter was tampered with, providing one more layer of security.
With the plan set, the princess and I returned to the castle, where I began preparing the single-use gate stones. During this period, I was constantly fending off the princesses questions like, “How did you know?” and “What was the language you spoke?” with the continued utterance of “It's a secret”. Eventually, she gave up and I could work in peace. Despite this short description, the interrogation actually lasted an hour, I just can't remember most of it.
Even with lich's help, it would not be easy. We would still need to deal with the powerhouses and draw the armies into the ambush. There was no easy way out of this situation and no matter our choices, this would lead to many deaths amongst the princesses forces, so I did what I could. I created numerous teleportation artefacts to help the princess avoid the mage slaying arrows and a single-use life-saving treasure for each of us while mass-producing disposable space shields and offensive weapons for her troops.
Three days later, we finally received word that the armies were marching into our territory. It was somewhat funny that in a world of magic and miracles, our enemies armies still needed to march like ants. We assembled our soldiers out the front of the capital and after another horribly generic speech from the princess, we marched through the two open space gates. I had constructed these by overriding the palaces teleportation system and linked them directly to courtyards in the closest dukedoms. Using them this way was a massive waste of crystals but generated a well-rested, high moral army as a result. The final implementation of the palace space gate system was the creation of a space folding talisman. This talisman allowed us to either swap location or summon the other party if we encountered the wrong opponent. The downside was its use would destroy the space gates, leaving us unable to react to any sneak attacks.
The armies of the two kingdoms encountered each other on an open field that was still filled with felled corn stems. The difference in military might was clear as we stood before the dracon forces. Outnumbered almost three to one, it was only the presence of life-saving trinkets and potions that stopped my forces from fleeing. Standing above their forces was the pope. He was hovering with solid light construct wings and a comical halo floating above his head, but no one was game to laugh. There were no words spoken or witty banter exchanged, their forces simply began to charge upon seeing ours.
Leaving it to the army leaders to conduct a fighting withdrawal into the forest line where we could spring our trap. I summoned my own wings and charged at the pope in an attempt to curve his speed advantage. Launching multiple wind space blades, I tried using his own soldiers against him, but he just dodged out of the way while drawing his chakram, allowing my attack to reap the lives of dozens of his soldiers. Without caring for his men, he summoned his illusions. Seemingly boosted by the light of the halo, they multiplied, filling the skies with copies of his smug face. It became apparent to me that the halo was not just some humorous cosmetic but a high-level artefact of the light element.
Even without being distracted by the illusions thanks to Energy Sense, it was still hard to track the quick old bastard. Let alone dodge the almost invisible, laser edged chakram that had been hidden within the distorting light. I tried using a new spell. Abusing my stats, I sent thousands of space magic enchanted strings out to form a net. While this attack did force the pope to use a defensive teleportation artefact to escape, it also allowed him to land a strike on me while I remained still. The attack only damaged my health bar thanks to the quick use of a blink spell but it was still a bad trade. It clearly showed that his ability to exploit weaknesses and patterns had somehow increased and I would have bet anything that it had to do with the time mana radiating from the wings.
Deciding that each trick could only be used once, I pulled out a handful of mana crystals before I began seeding micro black holes around the battlefield. The pope quickly dismissed these spheres, sighing and calling them “gimmicks”. He seemed relaxed and that had me worried but I might as well use that bravado against him while it lasts. The weak micro black holes only provided a small pull in their local area. In his mind, I must have used them as obstacles which would normally be useless, but I had a plan. After fighting for a while, neither of us accomplished much. I would occasionally force him to lose defences to space magic while I would also occasionally be hit by his blade. Fighting was never really some epic struggle and if it was, you are doing it wrong. A normal battle would consist of 'dancing' with your opponent, waiting for just one moment when you could unleash everything and kill them. The true life or death struggle actually happens in a matter of seconds and the more force or mana you expend before this moment, the more likely you are to lose.
The battle felt odd, almost as if something was limiting my enemy. With his speed advantage, knowledge of my space magic and time to prepare a counter, I honestly expected this battle to be much harder. He had displayed no new tricks, just upgraded versions of the old ones and lacked anything to stop my spells besides defensive charms. Over time the pope began to fall into the habit of moving in the middle of the gravitational effects, subconsciously moving where the spells gravitational distortion cancels each other out. This was a natural reaction of anyone who was used to regular gravity, I mean who really wants to fall sideways.
Eventually, I succeeded in luring the pope into an area surrounded by these gimmicks. Activating an internal rune, I inverted their effects and consumed all their remaining power in an instant. Pushed by a sudden force from all directions the pope was locked in place. I capitalised on this moment and attempted to run him through with the same space blade coated hand that killed the king. The blade shattered his second barrier and as I looked into his eyes, expecting to find fear, I only found mockery.
Everything then seemed to start moving in slow motion. The pope vanished and I felt something pierce my chest. Looking down, I could see the head of a mage killing arrow emerge from where my heart should have been.