A Bored Lich

Dozens of magic circles activated as all the remaining mages used their mana. All four main elements flew right at Doevm, but he did not move a muscle. The Guriant raised its arms of ash and soot, shield itself and its master from the barrage of spells. Doevm crouched lower on the Guriant's shoulder as fire spread around the arms, searing a bit of his hair and armor. Sections of the Guriant's arms exploded under the violent swirling force. Bits of ash fell to the floor, limp.

Despite the unrelenting flow of random spells, the Guriant remained on its feet, enduring, waiting. "Keep firing!" the leader said as he formed fire, air, and water magic circles and activated them all in one breath. His spells, by far, took off far more chunks of the Guriant's arms than any others. "The giant Undead can't last forever! We can do this!" The blaze reflected in his wide-open eyes, drunk with power.

The Guriant took a step forward, its arms still held out in front of it. Of all the spells, air hurt it the most, blowing the ash right off its body. It shrunk as bits of ash moved along its body to its arms in order to keep defending itself.

It let out a roar that shook the room more than its heavy steps or the thuds of the many spells crashing against it. Its steps slowed until it came to a stop, its undefended legs returning to a mere a pile of ash. Some of the mages stopped their assault and fell to their knees, drenched in sweat.

The leader cackled as he pulled a large scroll from his robe and unraveled it. Etched onto the leathery surface, from top to bottom was a copy of a magic circle. He and his fellow mages lit up a soft blue color. The drawings on the scroll faded. The kneeling mages got back to their feet and fired off more spells. "This is the Black Market's fifth floor. I will not allow anyone through me!" He cackled as he fired off more spells.

Over the storm of explosions, crashes, the appearing and disappearing magic circles, and ash flying into the air, none noticed that the green-robed mage behind them hadn't fired a single spell. He took off his hood.

His cracked lips bled as they stretched into a smile. His eyes had shrunken into two black dots. He shambled closer to the group, tripping over his robe a little on the way. His pale, skinny fingers stretched out of his sleeve, grabbed the throat of the nearest mage, and twisted it with an audible crack. The mage fell to the ground before he even knew what happened, his body turning as cold as the hands releasing him.

The green-robed mage looked to the next target. 'Master, I have possessed one of the mages as you have commanded me to. They didn't sense me when I hid inside a piece of the falling ceiling, nor did they notice you leave this floor.' He twisted the next neck and threw the body to the floor. 'They are too focused on the Guriant to even hear me walking behind them.'

'Good,' Doevm said through their mental link. 'This will work. Necroa squad, you won't hear from me for a while. I will seal my mana after this message so no mage will notice me.' He ascended the steps.'

While the fourth floor hadn't been made on top of the fifth, he had simply made the Guriant punch a tunnel over the fifth floor's entrance. He would have kept going, but Clerk told him that the library was sealed off from every side, even the ceiling. The only way in or out was the front door. The walls would take too long to get through.

Doevm pulled out his hooks, equipped them over his hands and feet, dug them into the stone floor, then lowered himself through the hole that the Guriant had made earlier. Ghost was still taking out mages, but it was slow, and the Guriant wouldn't last that much longer. While Doevm had found some defensive artifacts on the fourth floor and had thrown them into the Guriant, they only halved the damage, and were likely nearing the end of their lifespan. From his position, dangling from the ceiling of the fifth floor, he had a perfect view of the shrinking Guriant, and how little time he had left.

Doevm dug hook after hook into the ceiling using his life essence, wincing when they cracked against the stone. One bad move, and he would fall, then the mages would turn and blast him with everything they had. He could live, but his mana would be drained, and he wouldn't be able to escape.

He moved along the ceiling until he was hanging just over the mages' heads. Ghost had halved the mage's numbers again, leaving only twenty-five. Doevm took a breath, made sure that he was in a stable position, then unsealed his mana.

All twenty-five of the remaining mages turned their heads up. Their magic circles changed their target from the Guriant to Doevm. "He was planning on getting the drop on us," the leader said as he jabbed his wrinkled finger upwards. "aim for the intruder and the Undead giant will fall!"

Doevm would have smiled if it wasn't so sad. 'It's like I'm fighting worms, dirty, filthy, stupid worms.' He pulled up a huge portion of his mana and magic circles of various elements formed around him.

If a fireball was aimed at him, he made a water spell in front of it. If a water spell was aimed at him, he made an ice spell. Out of all of the dozens of spells aimed at him, none of them even got close.

"Impossible!" Leader said as all their spells were neutralized, and the remnants fell down.

'Ghost,' Doevm thought. Black mana flew from him into Ghost. The green mage, who was drained of all his magic and life, fell to the ground as the spectral Undead left it. All of the hosts' power went into Ghost, which transformed. Its intangible hair lengthened until it reached its hips. Its face shrunk and turned feminine. Its clothes turned from a set of armor to a basic dress made from damaged rags, crudely stitched together. 'Scream!'

The newly formed Banshee's jaw all the way down to its stomach as it let out a shriek. Every single magic circle, even Doevm's, faded. Blood dripped down from their ringing ears.

The only being which wasn't affected by this scream was the one that was covered in ash, one that could endure the assault of dozens of mages for just under a minute and still be standing, one that had its massive fist raised, one that had developed a vengeful anger for the crowd of mages that had tried to harm its dear master.

The Guriant roared as its fists hurtled through the air. Just before it collided with the crowd, the leader stretched out his arms, and a large transparent barrier stretched out around them. "You're just an inferior Undead. You can't hope to-"

The fist struck, breaking right through the barrier. The leader coughed up blood as his bones and body were crushed along with his comrades into a red mist.

The bang that followed shook even the library's wall a little. Doevm's hooks slid right out of the solid stone, unable to keep hanging on after suffering from both the Banshee's scream and the current tremor. He fell.

He didn't make a spell for himself, rather stretching his limbs out, relaxed. Just before he hit the floor, he bounced on a soft ash-covered surface, the Guriant's heavily damaged hand. The Banshee closed its mouth and flew over.

"Thank you for your service," Doevm said as he put a hand on the Banshee's tiny shoulder and the Guriant's finger. The Banshee smiled before she bent down and possessed the green robed mage again. 'How cruel,' he thought as he got up from the Guriant's hand. 'I had forgotten as a human, how I felt about these Undead, my servants.'

He thought back to his summoned Undead which he had left to be torn apart by Ghouls in Maximus Draken's lair and grimaced. 'Only as a human could I have done something so cruel to those who serve me. Humans are, by far, the opposite of the Undead. They are so irrational because they are emotional, a trait Undead do not possess. Humans get sad, angry, love, hate, envious, fearful, but it is all pointless in the end. We Undead just shove everything down because we are too strong to feel emotions. I can't let myself get angry at my own cruelty like humans would, or else I'll make the same mistake as when Hopi died or when I nearly fought Frey. Shove it all down so I won't feel anything. I can't make any mistakes, not now.'

He looked to the door separating him from the library and sighed: 'I can only push forward.' He pulled another fear pill from his spatial ring and ate it.

"Oh the wind, the wind blows east." A familiar lullaby caressed Doevm's ears.

'Great,' Doevm thought as Rena walked from behind him. 'Now I'm hallucinating. This too, fear, is an emotion that will hold me back.' He shook his head and the image dispersed. The song, however, did not.

"To the edge of the earth, it runs from the beast."

He ignored it and stepped towards the door but stopped as he felt something at the edge of his consciousness. He whipped around. In the corner of the room, under piles of rubble, was the gleam of an artifact's metallic surface, a teleportation artifact.

'Maybe it was my imagination,' he thought as he crouched next to the leader's crushed corpse and patted down his pockets. He pulled out a key only for it to crumble into pieces and fall between his fingers. He sighed. 'Maybe I should have had the Guriant hold back on its punch. I can still get through but it will just take a little bit more time now.'

He threw the rest of the broken pieces of the key away and scanned along the rest of the corpses. Almost none of them were in a state to be resurrected. While the Banshee had killed some of them only by twisting their necks, the Guriant had accidentally squished them like with the rest. Doevm sighed again and sent the Ghoul back to the first floor, for there likely wouldn't be any more corpses from this point onwards. 'What a shame. If only I had more time to think, I could have come up with a better plan, one where I don't have to incur as much risk. Oh well, at least I can finally get my prize.'

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