A Bored Lich

Bullets tore holes through the crowd of knights but they pressed forward. The Creatures lept off the dragon, but Alexander's apprentices intercepted them, copper life essence covering their limbs. The Knights let out a war cry as they ran forth. The line of gunmen kept reloading, but they were too slow for the advancing men. It was a hundred against hundreds.

When the hundreds approached the hundred, however, the hundred holstered their guns and drew their weapons, weapons which all had symbols of hammers on them. Their life essence poured out of them in a mixture of blue and red. Most of the Knights had red and the occasional blue life essence from a squad leader and or captain. The apprentices were holding off the creatures, for they were the only ones who could do so.

In addition, the now five majors at the back rushed forward. A smile crept across Doevm's face. 'I haven't lost a fight involving mana in centuries. To think my long streak would be broken by some brats who fight under a wannabe king, humans at that. As a Lich, that is not acceptable. I know I can't beat the leader now, and that I can only trust Alexander to do that. So, I might as well get some revenge, and do what I can to cripple the Resistance.'

Doevm sidestepped a sword and stabbed a Resistance member in the throat. As he withdrew the bloody spear, he looked away.

Time didn't freeze, it was as if he could just remember each moment in clear, crisp detail. In the corner of his eye, the man's throat regenerated, and he raised his sword. Doevm was still turning to face his next opponent, but a voice inside of him said, with a certain kind of determination: 'Backspin.' Doevm's body twisted around and a sword sailed right past his waist. Before he knew what was happening, his spear was back in the man's throat. He ripped the man's head off his shoulders and took a step back.

Before he had time to think about what exactly just happened, he ducked under another weapon. After a couple of counters and jabs, the second opponent hit the floor. 'That's odd,' Doevm thought as he looked at the two opponents. 'That voice…it sounded like my own but, not myself at the same time. Where have I experienced that before?' He shook his head and went further into the melee.

Knights and Resistance members dropped to the ground, blood pouring out of their severed limbs. Some of the Resistance members had time to turn into creatures, which tore through the masses. Blood and guts rained over everything. Doevm waded through the mess, heading towards the right side of the fight. His three targets were clear as day to him: the dagger-weilder, the hammer-weilder, and the archer.

Of everyone, those three did the most damage, however each time Doevm tried to get close to them, a creature appear before him. He would let the other knights deal with the creatures while he went around. Only, after finally diverting the creature away, another would appear. Hair wrapped itself around his legs. He cut himself out just in time for a creature's set of claws to spark past his shoulder guard. He retreated back into the mass of Knights. He glanced over to Alexander's apprentices, who were still engaged with the creatures who had slain the dragon. 'How come there are so many?'

'Something isn't right,' Doevm thought as most of the knights rushed in only to get riddled with a hail of bullets. A few dozen had died, but the majority were still fighting strong. They had learned to wrap their fronts in life essence to deflect the bullets. 'The Resistance shouldn't have had as many people as when they fought me. They should have lost men in the floors above. Even more strange is that the Resistance members all looked to be in moderately good shape, like they hadn't been the ones fighting.'

He looked at the creatures around the dragon. Their hair was going from deep black to a ghostly white. Their thick skin was shriveling up until they fell to the ground and vanished in puff of smoke like the creature that Jameson had fought. They hadn't been killed by the apprentices. Doevm narrowed his eyes. 'The creatures have a time limit after transforming. That burst of soulmana I feel after each transformation is their soul burning up. That means that the Resistance can't take creatures from floor to floor. They don't last. So how could they have gotten through five floors?'

More creatures popped up around Doevm, their hair a deep black and their sharp claws still dry. Alexander and the leader circled each other. Alexander's golden life essence wasn't as wild as any other life essence Doevm had ever seen. It was thinner than any cloth and covered his entire body. If Doevm didn't know any better, he would have sworn that Alexander turned into gold. While he couldn't see the leader's life essence, he imagined that the man wasn't that far behind in terms of strength.

Doevm squinted. 'This isn't right,' he repeated. He looked at the creatures tearing through the terrified Knights, then to the line of gunmen who had retreated to the backwall. He couldn't put his finger on it until he looked at the Majors. 'There's only four,' he thought. 'There is a mage missing.'

He charged in with his spear at the ready. Limbs and blood spattered against his armor. He stepped over men screaming for their lives. Creatures tore and crushed anything in their path, allowing the gunmen to safely reload then fire into the crowd. Sometimes they hit creatures, but that didn't matter after a second of regeneration. The four majors were picking people off from the sides. 

'At this rate,' Doevm thought as he looked at the chaos, 'We are going to lose before we even get close.' A loud bang reverberated throughout the room, louder than any gunshot.

Everyone was knocked off their feet from the shockwave, even the creatures. Doevm ignored the ringing and looked over at the source: Alexander had blocked a blow from the leader, who raised his sword again. Alexander parried it away, and a second shockwave assaulted the occupants. The two blurred as they continued their battle. Light crystals fell from shaking ceiling and shattered.

Doevm could tell whenever Alexander's sword moved because of its whirl of black and gold and the bang that accompanied it. The leader's limbs moved in strange ways. His fingernails extended and retracted, aiming for Alexander's eyes. He flew around the floor, twisting in impossible directions. Pieces of the floor melted around him.

Alexander took a step back, parrying blow after blow without so much as flinching. His sword moved with a whistle through the air, forcing the Resistance's leader back with each movement.

Doevm jumped over a creature's claw and managed to scratch its hand. He cursed as he brought out his life essence. 'I can't even cut this thing with this old spear but if I pulled my usual spear out, everyone would know who I am. Then I would be kicked out of the academy for pretending that I was a normal commoner.'

He hit against both foe and ally in the cramped space. His feet slipped on the blood, but he kept himself steady with his spear. The burning smell had been replaced with metal. 'I've missed this,' Doevm thought as he was knocked to the ground. He got up and managed to sever a creature's arm. A little bit of blood dripped from his smile. 'I am finally fighting again. Even though my weapons and armor are bad, my enemies are stronger than me, and so much is at risk, at worse, I'll just die.'

The dirt was knocked off a few more of his internal books, lessening the fog in his mind a little more. His smile faded. 'Wait, I can't get lost.' He looked around, finding that the creatures numbered more than double than before, while the knights' numbers had been halved. 'This isn't right. There is a mage gone, and creatures keep popping up out of nowhere even though the apprentices keep cutting them down.'

Doevm circled around the battlefield until he got to a small open space. He picked up a few fallen light crystals. 'Here goes nothing,' he thought as he threw them around the battlefield's edges. Most bounced off the metal or bone walls and floor with a clank. 'It should be around here.' He kept throwing the light crystals until he had hit almost every corner of the room. 'The missing mage, the ever-increasing number of creatures, there has to be a correlation, and the only thing I can think of is the teleportation artifact.' Doevm threw another light crystal and, instead of hearing a clank, he heard a thud, like it had connected with something soft. 'I found it.'

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