An underground laboratory, devoid of life and electricity. In this cold and dark domain, slow moving corpses roam around.
The dirty lab coat they are wearing are the only evidence of what they are before.
Skins, muscles and organs are all dried up like a bark of tree, they already lost all resemblance of their past self, their living one.
In this silent place lays a coffin made of solid rock.
Black rock that blended to the darkness of the whole place but this rock is so hard that it can't be cut by anything produced in the current technology.
Inside the black coffin, a skeleton lays. The skeleton looks normal without sign of decay that it seems like its just been there for a few years.
Six months of no movement when finally a pair of green flames awoken inside the skeleton empty eyes.
The skeleton with green flames at its eyes just lay there unmoving as minutes pass by.
Just like a computer have a POST when turned ON, its recalling its memories too.
William Von Dhublon III, was his name when he was born.
He changed it to William when he left his noble family.
But those don't matter because when he awakened as a lich, he changed his name again.
Nazarrik.
The reason being William is a lame name, it sound like a silly noble's name.
Imagine introducing himself to others as the lich William, how embarrassing would that be.
So he thought for a cool name and became Nazarrik.
The lich Nazarrik,
The infamous Great Lich Nazarrik,
The personification of evil, the most powerful evil creature to exist, the name that all knights, mages and kings feared.
Lich King Nazarrik!
The lich Nazarrik spread death from small villages to towns then he evolved to Great Lich then invades cities and destroys kingdoms as the undead army grows.
Countries and kingdoms made an alliance but failed to stop the Great Lich and his army of death.
They only made his army bigger and stronger. When half of the Great Continent population has fallen, when all the greatest military forces has lost, when all hope are gone and the remaining people are just waiting for death.
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The Great Lich Nazarrik evolved again and became the first Lich King which only heard on legends and myths.
A Great Lich can revive a powerful creature as a skeleton but its power will be the same as when it was alive.
A Lich King can summon a powerful creature from the Undead World and make it its follower.
No need to find a powerful creature's remain or kill a living one, just use his power to summon one or two.
Of course everything has its limits, but during that time Nazarrik has no problem summoning and controlling 12 undead dragons.
An army headed by knights and wizards are needed to defeat a single undead dragon.
What concept is a dozen when all the remaining armies are weak with injured knights left.
They won't even have strength to defeat one undead dragon.
But there is always light after a dark night. Like a sunshine after a long rain.
When the Great Lich evolved into a Lich King it recalled all its undead armies and stay the Death Swamp.
The Death Swap is a large swamp with more than a hundred kilometers radius. Covered by a poisonous mist, it became the kingdom of the Lich King.
In the middle of the swamp is a castle named The Tomb of Nazarrik.
A cool name no matter who you ask.
Under the castle is an underground room with a small blackhole like thing.
Its a hole that Nazarrik put too much effort in. A hole that connects to the undead world.
Although no creature can pass for its too small, its enough for the undead energy to pass and flow around the castle.
This make the undead energy in the Death Swamp too strong which strengthen the undead army and helps Nazarrik to evolve faster.
For dozens of years Nazarrik stays in his castle and continue to absord the undead energy to strengthen his energy core.
It took almost a hundred years to make his core reach its peak.
A dark red gem full of power and beauty. Some lich keep it on their chest but others like Nazarrik like it inside their skull.
While its beautiful to look Nazarrik know if he let this core explode, it will raze the whole continent into nothingness.
Such power made him confident he can evolve into a Lich God.
A Lich God can freely travel between the living world and the undead world.
Ancient texts told stories about Lich King but only theories about Lich God for no one reach that level even during ancient times.
Even with all of Nazarrik's confidence he still fails.
What a tragedy, he let the undead energy overflow and should be able to control it and make the core stronger and purer.
Only this first step and he already failed, the overflown energy went out of control and blackslash.
He barely saved his energy core but the red gem is full of cracks.
Big and small cracks surrounded the red core like a spider web.
Nazarrik's consciousness is dizzy, something he never felt after becoming a lich.
The power of the core is barely one percent of what it was before.
He can only be a great lich and a weaker one at that.
He can't even use that remaining power cause it will destroy his core.
Where did things gone wrong?
The preparation was good, very good if he rate it. The chance of success should have been more than 80%.
Then it can only be that!
He never killed someone when he became a Lich King!
All he did was stay in his Tomb and absorb energy.
He never spread deaths to villages and cities.
The Supreme Evil God must be disappointed of him.
Of course Nazarrik have no idea if such being exist at all.
If such being exist he should be ready for Nazarrik's revenge!
But that's the only reason he can think for his failure.
Good thing is he survived. Yes even if he is weakened to the point that he needed to refine the undead energy to use it for repairing the core, its OK.
He has that artifact after all, the Black Thorn!
Yes the Black Thorn is a coffin made from rocks polluted with high undead energy. This made this rocks too hard and durable.
The Black Thorn is made of such rocks and full of inscription that absord undead energy on surroundings and refine them.
If he sleep inside the Black Thorn his core can be repaired in 10 000 years.
It may sound long but liches have very long lifespan almost infinite, and since he is asleep it will looks like a minute or two when he wakes up.
Others may have issue of security but Nazarrik is in his castle surrounded by his generals outside and a poisonous mist.
Security is not an issue so the wounded Lich King falls asleep in a supposed to be 10,000 years of hibernation.