Under the tranquil night sky, three silhouettes could be seen, surrounded by corpses and ruins. The crimson moon illuminated two of them, and the last one was hidden in the shadow of the tallest of three. 

"You are the bane of this world!" the bloodied woman screamed with the feeling of deepest sorrow and despair. "The vilest being ever created! Why do you refuse to die? Just accept your end already, you monster!" 

"Your blabbering makes no sense, Moon Queen," her opponent replied emotionlessly. He didn't need to open his mouth to do this, for he wasn't a living being. His two-meter-tall body, which was nothing but a milk-white skeleton, floated in the air. His eye sockets radiated chilly blue light and didn't betray any feelings. 

The skeleton adjusted the majestic golden crown on his head and continued, "After everything that I did for you, for your people, and for the world, you dared to rebel against me. You gathered all other betrayers and attacked me at my most vulnerable moment. And you won."

The light in the monster's eye sockets flickered for a moment before he resumed his speech monotonously, "But taking over my Empire was not enough for you. You used all power at your disposal to hunt down each of my phylacteries. You destroyed six of them, one by one. You killed me eleven times. And yet, it wasn't the end. Now, you even found me here. To take down my last phylactery - to destroy the most precious treasure in my unlife. And yet, it is you who is angry? It is you who calls me evil? I do not understand your logic, she-wolf. Why you, living beings, are such irrational creatures?" 

The furred silver wolf-ears at the top of the woman's head pulled back as her beautiful face showed the grimace of extreme hate.

"The Lich Emperor of the Three Great Continents, First Conqueror, his Unholiness Invictus Celsus!" she roared, her voice enhanced by a bit of Aura reverberated through a couple of kilometers and slightly shook the broken landscape and the thousands of corpses. "I hated you through my whole life, I planned my vengeance for the long two hundred years, and yet, you can't even understand why?!"

Then, the woman started to laugh maniacally, "Hahaha, you call us betrayers? This is the funniest joke I ever heard! In order to betray someone, there first should be loyalty. And in this world, no one in their right mind would be loyal to an inhuman monster like you! You, who kills innocents for absurd reasons! You, who forces cruel laws to your subjects! You, who only knows how to rule with fear and terror!"

"Pure absurdity," the lich replied as he shook his head. "All my decisions are made with perfect logic and the grand picture in mind. Everything I ever did was for the greater good. It was you who brought chaos to my perfect order and whose actions lead to unnecessary deaths."

He spread his bony arms decorated with precious jewelry and exclaimed, "Look around, she-wolf. All this destruction is the result of your irrational hatred for me. It was a beautiful and peaceful village until you and your people invaded."

His words were the truth. He and the woman stood at the center of what once was a small lovely village. Now, each of the twenty houses was crushed to dust, the farms were annihilated, and of the seventy-three villagers, all but one were dead. The last survivor, a girl who didn't seem older than fourteen, hid behind the lich, protected by his magically enhanced black mantle. The little poor thing silently observed the exchange between two non-humans, her petite body was trembling from the horrors she witnessed in the last few hours. 

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The Moon Queen didn't say a word more. Her stunning 185 cm tall body was covered in deep rotting wounds. Her white crystalline full plate armor was dirtied by dry blood and could barely hold itself together, most of its pieces missing. After fighting in her giant Wolf Mother Form for hours, she barely had any Aura or Mana left. She talked until now just because it was the only thing she still could do. And now, she temporarily was left speechless. 

The lich wasn't in a much better state, either. Even though his milk-white bones seemed completely unharmed, it didn't really matter to an undead being like him. His Astral Body and False Soul were almost exhausted. With barely any Aura or Mana left, he could only stall for more time. The lich was sure that he would be the first to recover enough power to finish off his opponent. Then, he'll plan his further actions. 

"Were not you surprised that your rebellion succeeded with such ease?" Invictus asked and then continued without waiting for the answer. "Let me be honest with you, she-wolf. Ruling this world was never my desire. No, let me explain something to you. As a lich, I do not have such a thing as desires. I am only guided by logic and by responsibilities. The responsibilities that I decided to shoulder even before my transformation, that is." 

The lich landed on the ground, no longer floating. "Overthrowing the corrupt governments and changing the world for the better was one of those responsibilities. I ruled my lands with fairness and rationality."

Hearing this, the woman snorted.

The lich didn't stop talking, "Instead of executing cruel criminals, I sacrificed them to advance science and medicine."

"You used living humans for brutal experiments!" the Moon Queen refuted. 

Invictus continued undisturbed, "To save the weak-willed from self-destruction, I took all dangerous substances, be it nicotine, alcohol, or other drugs, under strict government control."

"You took the only solace from the poor!"

"To save the minds of ignorant masses from lies, I destroyed all the religions that forced people to believe in the long since dead gods."

"You blasphemed their faith! You took away their only hope!" 

"To not waste precious resources, I ordered not to bury or cremate the dead but to revive them in undeath for the sake of a cheap and effective work-force." 

"You desecrated the corpses of their loved ones!" 

"To control the overpopulation and the decrease in overall health, I took away the right to procreate from those who are uneducated, sick, or socially dangerous." 

"You stole their sacred right to have children!" 

"Objectively, the world became a better place under my rule. In the last century alone, the crime rates fell by four-fifths, the average income doubled, the life expectancy increased by twenty percent." 

"Subjectively, your people hated you! All sentient races celebrated when your rule fell!" 

"People do not know what is good for them, she-wolf." 

"How can someone who has no feelings know what is good for anyone?!" 

The Moon Queen closed her golden eyes. She and the Lich Emperor both knew that their last contest would start soon. The woman didn't have any confidence to win this battle. As the last one of the three thousand finest combatants who bet their lives to kill First Conqueror - the title given to the being who took over the whole world - she knew who she is dealing with. With only one hundred undead creatures and his own might, he killed each of her allies, and only the mightiest survived through their rebellion up until now. Only the numbers helped the queen to reduce the gap between her and her nemesis. And now, she can only rely on herself. 

Invictus Celsus was deathly calm. His False Soul contained the memories of his past, and it also allowed him to think faster than a living person. Be it complex math or advanced magic - they were nothing to him. But what about feeling emotions? This function didn't exist in his undead body. It didn't mean that he could just give up, though. To fulfill the last, the most important responsibility the lich had, he needed to survive. No matter what. 

Using her last chance before the final battle, the Moon Queen declared with poisonous hatred in her voice, "You killed my entire family, fed them to ghouls, and then revived them as your undead slaves!" 

The Lich Emperor replied in his usual monotonous unfeeling voice, "You took away my responsibility as the wise world ruler, and now you attempt to destroy the only thing that truly matters to me." 

And thus, their last struggle began.