At the top of the Pyramid

A couple hours later

Karo de Vult nervously taps his foot as he sits on his throne, looking around the pyramid at the sands beyond it. Not taking a single second to rest as he vigorously searches his surroundings for The Reaper.

Because he knows for sure that she’ll come for him now that he’s back. She’s already shown that she’s willing to interfere with his affairs, and now that he’s out of the dungeon and at the level cap, he knows she will come for him.

It’s only a matter of time.

But the longer he waits, the more frightened he is by the idea of The Reaper arriving.

Is this enough preparation to handle her?

He has to clench his fists to stop them from shaking as he constantly looks around.

And after days of waiting ever since leaving the dungeon, he finally senses something. A single flaring of something powerful. He can’t even tell what it is other than it’s likely energy, since it doesn’t have any mana.

Then a woman appears in front of him. One with long, purple-tinted hair and glowing purple eyes that appear to glitch out like a computer screen every couple seconds. Eyes that make Karo feel uncomfortable just looking at.

She’s wearing a set of purple and black armor with no weapons visible to him as she crosses her arms and stands a couple meters in front of the throne, making Karo tense up.

“Hello, lich king,” she says, making Karo narrow his eyes as he searches her for animosity. Because the absolute last thing he would want to do is bring trouble onto himself by attacking her if she wasn’t actually planning on attacking him in the first place.

“Reaper,” he says in response, his voice dry and throaty due to his lack of saliva and the plain dryness of his undead throat. “What brings you here?”

As he speaks, he makes sure to move his fingers around while activating various skills. Just to make sure he is safe.

But then The Reaper narrows her eyes, directly them straight at his hands that are hidden under his cloak.

She looks back up at his pitch-black eyes that are hidden underneath his cowl and asks, “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you using skills right in front of me?”

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As soon as her eyes flare, he understands that the battle has already started. And immediately feels something cutting straight through his neck, making his head go flying.

But he simply transfers his consciousness to one of his many bodies scattered amongst the armies of undead.

Then he shouts, his voice ringing out all over the pyramid, “Annihilate the Reaper at all costs!”

And the armies of undead immediately begin to charge up the pyramid.

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Alexia

Well that was a nice chat.

After cutting the head off of what must be one of many of the lich king’s bodies, I turn around as all of the undead begin roaring and moving up the stairs. And what a sight that is to behold once I walk over to the edge of the pyramid’s peak. Tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand undead of hundreds of different species all rushing up a massive pyramid at once. Mostly non-sapient ones though, with only a few species of sapient undead mixed in.

I tap my foot a few times before grinning and pulling out my elemental bow, drawing the string back to form an arrow of quantum energy. Then I send it flying down at the undead on the level directly beneath me, making it explode to blow up several undead in a single shot. All without using any of my soul.

Yeah, this bow really does come in handy sometimes.

I repeatedly send arrow after arrow down at the undead, feeling rather thankful that the top floor of the pyramid is only reachable by a single staircase. Probably an aesthetics choice to make those climbing the stairs end up directly opposite of the throne.

Anyways, I continue slaughtering the undead while searching through them all with my senses for the most powerful energy source. And it doesn’t take me long to find the lich king.

The biggest problem in this battle is that a lich king is, well, a lich. They are basically just a soul that empowers whatever body they’re in. It’s their main racial skill.

So the Class S species can switch from one body to another as long as they are stronger than the owner of the body, and that body will then be enhanced to hold them.

Meaning I’m going to have to slaughter every single undead here to kill him.

Although his exact strength is affected by the strength of his vessel. And generally each vessel changes form to appear more like the lich king over time. Even if not immediately.

I glance at my bow before sighing.

It’s a good thing using regular attacks like this doesn’t drain any of my soul.

My head jerks to the side right when a bolt made out of death energy passes by it, making me turn to find a skeleton with a robe on and a staff raised. One with the lich king’s energy source inside of it.

So I quickly send a bolt of quantum energy at it, blowing up the skeleton with ease before I continue slaughtering the rest of the undead.

The lich king isn’t running away at least. Although I’d be able to sense if he tried to do so. He’s not really able to hide his unique energy source from me after all.

Probably the reason he didn’t just flee the Block in the first place.

Well, that and greed. Considering everything he’s done to this Block.

Anyways, that guy can do what he wants until I finish here. I’ve already placed a mark on him with that lovely hunter’s mark item that I got in the last dungeon.

Now I can’t lose him even if he runs.

I would still rather he not run though, because it would be a pain to track him down.

Good thing he has a very limited range in how far he can body jump.

Doesn’t change that this battle will take a while.

I sigh at that thought and continue slaughtering undead with my bow.