His head throbbed, a sharp, relentless pain drilling through his skull, far worse than the dull ache of too much ale and too little sense he'd suffered on his wedding night years ago. This was different—razor-sharp, as if something were spearing straight into his gray matter through his clenched eyelids. For a moment, the agony consumed him entirely, leaving his mind blank, unable to recall even the events of the last five minutes.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain vanished, swept away in a wave of blessed relief. It was like cool water cascading over his burning skin, soothing every nerve. His eyes fluttered open, hesitant, but functional again. Above him, the sky burned a deep, bloody red, fractured with faint streaks of black ash drifting lazily like morbid snow. The acrid scent of sulfur clung to the air, its foul, rotten-egg stench coating the back of his throat and clinging stubbornly to his nostrils. His lips were cracked, his throat dry, and the oppressive heat wrapped around him like a suffocating shroud, a stark contrast to the mild, pleasant weather he’d grown accustomed to over the past few weeks.

Turning his head, he saw it—the monolithic crystal he’d been studying for the past month and a half. It loomed like a jagged mountain of glass, its size so immense that the entire Kingdom of Rae could fit comfortably within its spiked perimeter, with room to spare for its inevitable growth. The crystal’s sharp, uneven spires jutted into the sky in chaotic patterns, defying any sense of natural order. Within, an eerie, white-blue energy pulsed rhythmically, like the steady beat of a heart that could never be stilled. The glow illuminated its core, a restless fire that burned without consuming, while the air around it crackled with static. It was as though the crystal was imposing its will upon the world, daring reality itself to defy it.

[Initialization complete… Welcome, Brandlebock Aegis.]

He froze. For a moment, he was convinced he’d either died or lost his mind entirely. A transparent window hovered before him, its glowing text appearing with uncanny precision.

He groaned at the sight of his full name—Brandlebock. What kind of cruel joke was this? Everyone called him Bran or Aegis. His parents, in all their wisdom, had saddled him with a name better suited to a jester than the researcher of arcane phenomena he’d become.

[Quest: Prevent the Daemonic Forces from gaining control of the Aether Pinnacle (Soul).]

[Error: User lacks Archetype… Assigning Archetype based on simulations.]

—-----------

Name: Brandlebock Aegis

Race: Human (Lich)

Class: Enchanter

Archetype: Lich

Level: 1

—-----------

Skills

Raise Skeleton(Lv. 1)

Bone Spray(Lv. 1)

Create Phylactery(EX)

Runic Enchanting(Lv. 1)

* Rune of Cold(Element)

* Rune of Arrow(Shape)

* Rune of Activation

* Rune of Illusion

—-----------

It was a lot to take in. The sickly feeling that churned in his stomach soon turned into something far worse. It felt as though his very being was unraveling, eaten away from the inside out. Before he could stop it, he watched in horror as the flesh and muscle melted away from his hands, dripping in viscous streams to the ground below, leaving behind the gleaming ivory of exposed bone. He even saw the faint lines of healed fractures—silent reminders of his brutal years in the underground fighting rings.

“Oh, God…” he muttered, his voice hoarse with disbelief. He sat frozen in a grotesque pool of his own liquefied insides. “Aren’t liches supposed to be evil?”

There wasn’t much time to ponder the implications. A streak of fire arced through the air, striking the side of his skull. The flames burst in a brilliant splash but dissipated harmlessly against his skeletal form, leaving behind only a faint warmth. Reflexes kicked in before his thoughts could catch up. He was on his feet in an instant, bone-white hands raised in a fighter’s stance. Even without muscles, his body moved as if it still remembered every brutal lesson learned in the ring.

His empty eye sockets flared with bluish-white flames, casting an eerie glow over the battlefield. His gaze fixed on the imps charging through the grass. There were four of them, each clutching a weapon—a spear, a dagger, an axe, and, trailing behind, a gnarled staff. The mage imp was already gathering fire at the tip of its staff, preparing for another attack.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Aegis surged forward, his skeletal form unnaturally light. He closed the distance to the spear-wielding imp in moments, wrenching the weapon free with one hand while twisting the creature off its feet. In a single fluid motion, he swung the spear in a wide arc, slamming the imp into the axe-wielder with bone-crunching force. The spear’s shaft shattered under the impact, but he didn’t let go of the jagged tip still clutched in his hand.

Without missing a beat, he spun the spear tip in his palm and hurled it with lethal precision. It whistled through the air, embedding itself in the chest of the mage imp just as it released another ball of flame.

A flash of movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. The dagger-wielding imp leapt through the air, aiming for his exposed ribcage. Instinctively, Aegis felt the mana coalesce within him, swirling and pooling in the hollow of his chest. He stepped forward, raising a skeletal fist. “Bone Spray!” he growled.

The bones in his hand exploded outward like a shotgun blast, each shard piercing the imp midair. The creature’s body crumpled lifelessly to the ground as Aegis’s hand began to regenerate, bone flowing like liquid to reform its original shape.

“Neat,” he muttered, flexing the newly formed fingers.

The battle was over in moments, but the implications loomed large. Imps were lesser demons, but their presence heralded far greater threats. He turned his attention toward the entrance of the valley,

The pinnacle itself was nestled in a serene valley, surrounded by towering mountains that shielded it from the outside world. There was only one way in or out—a long, winding tunnel that connected the valley to the vast plains beyond. Aegis sprinted toward the tunnel, his newly lightened frame moving with an almost unsettling grace.

As he reached the entrance, a single thought pierced through the haze of adrenaline.

“Where is my wife?”

She had been with him when they’d first discovered the pinnacle. She rarely ventured far, spending her days immersed in research of the strange flora growing nearby. His worry deepened as he carved a Rune of Illusion into the stone wall of the tunnel. The moment the rune flared to life, Aether from the air condensed into mana, sealing the entrance with the illusion of an impassable rock face.

The demons were blocked, at least for now. But his unease only grew. Demons hadn’t been seen on this plane for centuries. Their presence was always a harbinger of something terrible—a shift in the balance of the world itself.

“I have to find her,” Aegis murmured, gripping the dagger at his side. With grim determination, he turned back toward the pinnacle, ready to uncover whatever darkness had crept into their lives.

—--------------

He needed information, at the very least. Determined, Aegis moved back to the imp bodies. If he was going to make use of his newfound powers, this was as good a time as any to experiment. Extending a skeletal hand over one of the corpses, he focused.

“Raise Skeleton,” he said, his voice steady despite the tension in his chest.

Before his eyes, the imp’s flesh and muscle began to bubble and liquefy, pooling beneath the skeletal frame that emerged. A faint, foul-smelling steam rose as the transformation completed. The result was a diminutive two-foot-tall skeleton clutching the staff it had died holding. Its hollow eye sockets glimmered faintly with a sickly green light.

Aegis crouched to its level, tilting his head as he studied the creature. “Can you understand me? Can you speak?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, a faint buzzing sensation ignited at the base of his skull. He realized he could see through the skeleton’s hollow sockets if he wanted, hear what it heard, even sense its thoughts like a faint echo in his mind.

“Yes, Master,” the skeleton replied, its voice a harsh, gravelly rasp, as though it had spent its brief existence breathing smoke and ash. “How may this one serve his greatness?” It bowed low, the exaggerated gesture of deference making Aegis cringe.

“Ugh, enough with the kowtowing,” Aegis said, stepping back and gesturing dismissively. The title grated against him. He’d spent his entire life as a peasant, clawing his way out of the gutters and into the underground fighting rings just to scrape together enough coin for a proper education in magic. The last thing he wanted was to play the role of some self-important overlord.

“Just tell me where my wife is. Human woman, shorter than me, probably cussing up a storm,” he said, approximating her height with a bony hand. Despite his earlier fears about being a lich, he didn’t feel inherently evil. Maybe it was because this wasn’t his choice—it had been forced upon him. But right now, all that mattered was finding her.

The skeleton straightened, its glowing eyes flickering. “Oh, the human?” it croaked. “She was outside the valley when we found her. Our captain ordered us to explore within while he took her back to base camp.”

Aegis froze. His chest—or rather, the empty cavity where his chest once was—felt like it had caved in. The buzzing connection between him and the skeleton seemed to amplify the imp’s words, echoing them in his mind.

“She’s in the hands of demons,” he murmured to himself, his skeletal fingers curling into fists. His wife, captured by creatures who thrived on cruelty and torment. He couldn’t imagine what they might be doing to her, or what horrors she might already be facing.

He straightened, resolve hardening. He wasn’t sure how much power this lich form gave him or how far it could take him, but it didn’t matter. He would find her.

“I’m going to need more information,” Aegis said, his voice like steel. His gaze turned back to the skeleton imp, its glowing eyes staring up at him expectantly. “And you’re going to help me get it.”