They stepped onto the next floor and were taken aback to find themselves in a vast, single chamber. The room’s round shape made it look as though it had been created from a hollowed-out mountain, divided into two distinct rings. Far above, the ceiling rose hundreds of feet. The outer walls had the rugged, natural texture of untouched stone, but the center of the chamber had been meticulously crafted.

In the middle of the room lay the inner ring, marked by four towering pillars of solid rock. Beneath these pillars, the floor was a smooth, polished surface that sharply contrasted with the rough stone around it. The marble was dark, with swirling patterns of black and silver that caught the light from the braziers mounted atop each pillar, giving the floor a subtle shine. This polished area spread across the center of the room, forming a large, inviting circular platform, almost as if it were a stage prepared for the final challenge.

At the far end of the marbled platform, a massive figure floated just above the ground, cloaked in dark, tattered robes. As if it were hanging, its head was bowed, revealing only the faintest glint of bone under the deep hood. The figure was skeletal, with a grim presence that radiated a quiet, menacing power. Its bony hands clutched a gnarled staff that seemed to pulse with a faint, dark energy.

The outer ring, in contrast, was rough and uneven rock, surrounding the marbled flooring in an imperfect circle. Along the outer walls, additional braziers illuminated the cavern greatly. It seemed obvious that stepping onto the marble platform would initiate the boss fight. The air in the chamber felt thick with a quiet, unsettling tension.

“Looks like it’s just a boss, no hunting involved,” Tybalt said, his voice low but steady.

Kaiden swallowed, his eyes fixed on the cloaked skeleton floating before them. The silence in the chamber was heavy, almost suffocating. He gripped his sword, feeling a cold determination settling in.

“Goddamn Lich,” Davick mumbled.

Kaiden glanced at him. “You sure it’s a Lich? We didn’t cover these in training.”

Coren nodded, his face tense. “No doubt about it.”

Kaiden’s knowledge of Liches was limited to what he learned on Earth which wasn’t much, not too mention he had no idea how much of that would even apply here. “Uh, so…what do you guys know about them?” he asked. “I’ve only heard of them.”

Davick sucked his teeth, looking thoughtful, but Coren spoke up first. “What I know is they’re powerful undead and can summon allies.”

“Great,” Kaiden muttered. “So we’ve got possible adds to deal with.”

“Adds?” Davick looked at him, confused.

“Forget it—just something I read once.” In gaming, Kaiden knew, “adds” were extra units that spawned to make a fight harder, sometimes endlessly until the boss was dead. He really hoped that wasn’t the case here.

“So, like the skeleton mage,” Tybalt said, scowling as he studied the cloaked figure in the distance. “It’ll probably try summoning more undead.”

“Maybe,” Coren replied. “But this is a dungeon boss; there’s no telling what it’ll actually do.”

Davick shook his head. “I’ve never heard of a Lich showing up in a Wood-grade dungeon, either. These things are supposed to be Gold-grade and up.”

One thing was for certain, the last boss was indeed magical—that cursed creature was holding a staff for crying out loud. But Kaiden couldn’t tell if that was because of some deliberate design, a need for balance, the trial nature of the dungeon, or simply the result of the dungeon’s unpredictability. There was no way to know.

“Let’s go,” Tybalt ordered, nodding for Davick to take point. Davick nodded back, stepping forward silently as the others fell into formation. The moment his foot crossed into the inner ring, the Lich sprang to life. Its eyes flared a sickly yellow, and it straightened, hovering upright as if weightless.

Davick’s shield pulsed blue as he activated his taunt ability, but the Lich remained unaffected, barely acknowledging him. Tybalt cursed under his breath, firing off a volley of Ice Shards—each one colliding with a shimmering barrier that sprung to life around the Lich. No one was surprised to see this.

With a sharp slam of its staff into the ground, the Lich summoned three portals, each glowing with eerie light. Bats, wolves, and skeletons poured out, each type emerging from its own portal. They were identical to the enemies encountered on the previous floors.

“Fuck,” Davick muttered, eyeing the approaching enemies. Luckily, the numbers were manageable: three skeleton warriors, two wolves, and a smaller swarm of a dozen bats.

“I’ve got the bats,” Tybalt called, immediately blasting at the winged creatures. The bats occasionally swooped down, taking small swipes at the team, but their attacks were weak and easily shrugged off, leaving Tybalt to eliminate them one by one.

Davick’s shield pulsed blue once again, drawing the skeleton warriors toward him. Their weapons clanged off his shield as they attacked, contained for the moment. Meanwhile, Kaiden and Coren turned to face the two wolves, their movements swift as they cut them down. Within minutes, they had cleared the field, and the team closed in on the Lich, ready to attack.

Coren lunged, bringing his blade down toward the Lich, but his sword struck the barrier with a resounding clang, bouncing off harmlessly. The barrier, it seemed, protected against both magical and physical attacks.

“Take down the barrier!” Tybalt shouted, and the group began hammering away at it, each strike testing its resilience. The Lich watched them impassively, making no moves to retaliate.

Kaiden gritted his teeth. “Why isn’t it attacking?”

“Probably a test,” Coren grunted between strikes. “If we don’t break it soon, you can bet we’ll be dealing with more monsters.”

As if on cue, the Lich slammed its staff down once more, opening three fresh portals as new enemies began to spill out. Just then, Davick’s axes came crashing down on the barrier, leaving a small, hairline crack, which no one failed to notice.

“Fuck yeah!” Davick screamed in delight.

“Fall back!” Tybalt yelled. They all scrambled back, retreating past the portals to the open space where they’d fought before. Kaiden silently agreed with Tybalt’s call—it was too risky to fight this new wave with the Lich at their backs.

As the new wave of monsters emerged, Kaiden felt a pang of dread. He understood immediately what was happening, and he was sure the others did too. This time, they faced three wolves, four skeleton warriors, and an even larger swarm of bats. The message was: if they didn’t break the barrier—or perhaps defeat the Lich itself—the boss would keep summoning reinforcements, each wave stronger than the last.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Kaiden glanced around the room, realizing how vulnerable they were. Unlike the previous floors, there was nowhere to retreat here—no corridors to use for cover, no forest to fall back into. On the earlier floors, monsters had stayed within their zones, allowing the team to regroup or retreat if needed. But here, there was no such safety. If they couldn’t stop these “adds” from spawning, they could easily be overwhelmed.

“Damn it,” Kaiden cursed under his breath. The situation felt insane, but he forced himself to stay focused.

“Kill them quickly!” Tybalt shouted. “We have to bring that barrier down soon!”

Everyone understood the urgency. Davick, not content to stay on pure defense this time, went on the offense against the skeletons, even as Kaiden and Coren worked on the wolves, which were proving faster and harder to manage than before. Davick slammed his shield into the skeletons, trying to create an opening, and swung his axe whenever he could. But four skeletons at once were relentless, pushing him back and forcing him into a purely defensive stance once again.

He hadn’t used his Gust ability, knowing it would do little damage, and he decided to save his mana for his shield taunt and Arcane Empower, which would help him endure the heavy blows he was taking. Each strike he blocked was draining him, but he held his ground, determined to buy the team as much time as possible.

Kaiden and Coren finally downed the wolves, then immediately turned to assist Davick with the skeletons. Tybalt, meanwhile, unleashed another round of shards at the bats, picking them off before they could swarm the group. But the pressure was mounting, and with every passing moment, Kaiden could feel the weight of time against them.

They needed to take down that barrier, and they needed to do it fast.

Tybalt was still finishing off the last of the bats when Kaiden, Coren, and Davick turned their attention to the Lich’s barrier. Kaiden nearly sighed in relief when he saw that the crack Davick had made earlier hadn’t healed. We can do this, he thought.

Coren brought his blade down in a powerful Crushing Blow, striking the crack directly. Kaiden nearly exclaimed as the fracture widened, splintering further across the barrier. They took turns hammering away, their weapons chipping and damaging more of the barrier, and soon Tybalt joined in, firing Ice Shards that sent webs of cracks across its surface.

Any second now, Kaiden thought as he swung his sword down with all his might, and watched as the barrier finally shattered into countless pieces.

But before they could even exhale in triumph, the Lich suddenly came to life, its hollow eyes flaring with renewed power. It raised its staff and slammed it into the ground once more. This time, instead of three portals, a single, massive portal appeared above them, swirling ominously.

“Fall back!” Tybalt shouted, and they all jumped back to brace themselves.

Must be stage two, Kaiden thought, his pulse quickening.

From the portal, a flood of viper-bats poured out—the largest swarm they’d encountered yet. A chorus of curses filled the air as they readied themselves for the onslaught.

Davick raised his shield and cast Gust, creating a temporary barrier on their flanks to funnel the bats toward the front, giving the group a chance to better manage the incoming swarm. Everyone went wild, slashing and stabbing at the bats that dived toward them. Thankfully, these bats weren’t any stronger than the ones they’d faced earlier, but there were so many that it hardly mattered.

“Mana!” Tybalt shouted, his voice tight with urgency.

Kaiden quickly reached into his satchel, pulling out a potion and placing it in Tybalt’s outstretched hand. Tybalt drank quickly, crushing the empty bottle in his grip as he powered up another volley of attacks. They were making progress, thinning the swarm, but then Kaiden’s eyes caught movement from the Lich itself.

“We’ve got movement from the Lich!” he yelled over the noise, his heart sinking as he watched the creature advance. The Lich was gliding toward them, its eyes beginning to glow brighter and brighter with each passing second.

The others spared a quick glance between slashes, eyes widening as they saw what Kaiden was seeing. Suddenly, beams of intense light shot from the Lich’s eyes, tracking slowly but steadily toward the group. They all managed to dodge, but only just.

The beams, however, didn’t seem to differentiate friend from foe. Several bats caught in the light froze instantly, their bodies turning to solid stone before crashing to the ground and shattering into fragments.

“Holy—!” Davick gasped, eyes wide with horror. Everyone else was stunned in silence.

Is that an instant-kill shot? Kaiden didn’t know, and he had no intention of finding out.

Luckily, the Lich’s deadly beams seemed to help clear out the bats, but the group still had to stay on guard, dodging and striking with every opening they could find. Kaiden wondered if this phase was triggered by how long it took them to kill the bats or if it was on a set timer or some other condition. Either way, once these bats were gone, he suspected skeletons would be next, and then wolves.

As they took down the last of the bats, the Lich floated back to its original position, the beams of light fading from its eyes. “Attack!” Tybalt shouted, and Kaiden steeled himself, hoping not to catch those beams directly to the face. But from what he’d observed, the Lich seemed to need a wind-up before it fired, which gave them a precious few seconds to dodge.

They closed in, unleashing a barrage of attacks. Surprisingly, the Lich floated motionless, absorbing the hits without fighting back. But then, just as they thought they were gaining ground, the Lich slammed its staff into the floor again, and a large portal materialized next to it. As Kaiden had guessed, this time skeleton warriors poured out, a dozen of them lined up and ready for battle.

The team took a quick moment to regroup. Kaiden passed out their last mana potions, along with health and stamina potions as needed. They were officially out of mana potions, and he hoped desperately that they wouldn’t need more. As the last skeleton emerged from the portal, the fight resumed.

The battle with the skeletons was brutal but manageable. Thankfully, there was no boss skeleton mage among them. They hacked their way through, down to six remaining skeletons, when suddenly the Lich’s eyes began to glow once more.

“Watch out!” Kaiden shouted, bracing himself as the beams fired, sweeping across the battlefield. The farthest skeleton warrior was instantly petrified, its body turning to stone. The team managed to dodge, and the beams swept across, taking out the rest of the remaining skeletons—slower and less agile than the bats had been. The skeletons didn’t shatter instantly but froze in place, held in their last positions. The group had to land a final blow on each one to break them apart completely.

After the last skeleton broke, the Lich floated backward once more, and the team leapt into action, unleashing a fresh wave of attacks on the boss. This time, the effects of their efforts were visible: cracks splintered across the Lich’s bones, and its staff began to fracture under the pressure.

“We almost got it!” Davick yelled, his voice filled with grim determination.

They pressed on, sensing that victory was close, their focus absolute as they poured everything they had into what they hoped would be their last stand.

The Lich raised its staff and slammed it down once more, signaling the opening of another portal. But this time, to everyone’s surprise and satisfaction, the staff shattered upon impact, splintering into pieces. The victory was short-lived, though; despite the staff’s destruction, a new portal still opened. The Lich let out a chilling, guttural scream, its skeletal mouth stretched wide in rage over the loss of its weapon. The shriek was deafening, forcing the team to cover their ears in pain as they scrambled back, retreating just as wolves began jumping out of the portal.

The wolves had always been the toughest enemies they’d faced, so even without an alpha, the appearance of eight wolves from the portal signaled a brutal fight ahead. Adding to the chaos, the Lich, who had remained stationary for most of the fight, now floated erratically around the outer ring, wailing with a haunting, relentless fury. While its initial scream had been nearly incapacitating, the intensity of its cries had weakened, allowing the team to focus on fighting the wolves.

They moved into formation, preparing to go all out. Potions or not, they couldn’t afford to hold back, not with the Lich hovering unpredictably, its cries reverberating around the cavern. The wolves lunged, and the team met them with fierce blows, but dodging was even harder now. The Lich’s beams suddenly shot from above, more erratic with its movement. Kaiden narrowly dodged a beam, watching as one of the wolves caught in its path turned instantly to stone. It was a small advantage and they used it to take down wolves as quickly as possible.

But just as they were down to four remaining wolves, the creatures halted and let out a collective, piercing howl, as if howling to the moon. Almost in response, the Lich emitted a shriek in a new, bone-chilling pitch, a sound that struck with a force unlike anything they’d felt before—like a wave of dark energy washing over them.

Kaiden’s heart pounded painfully, his skin prickling with dread. A cold sweat broke out across his forehead as he stared wide-eyed at the Lich. In his peripheral vision, a notification blinked to life:

You’ve been Feared.