Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Eschok felt the fire seeping into his body as it burned away his flesh and miasma. At the same time, he kept absorbing the dark power from the air to heal himself. However, there was nothing else he could do.

The fire was not weakening and the unfamiliar pain he felt for the first time in hundreds of years, made it hard for him to cast spells. He was stuck in a loop of burning and regenerating. Scraping together all his concentration, he managed to form a thin layer of miasma on his skin, that kept the fire at bay.

"Interesting, If I keep burning you, can I clear out all the miasma in the dungeon? The cocky human asked with a smirk. The lich stared at him, now with hatred in his eyes.

"What have you done to me!? What is this fire?" he swung his burning arm at the man. It was already a move of desperation. The man vanished, evading his hand with ease, using a kind of short-distance teleport.

"It's just a slightly special flame, other than that? I'm just making sure it keeps burning. Since I can't seem to find your phylactery, I have to try something else."

The bard taunted him, but his words stuck in his head. Didn't that mean that the little man had a way to find his soul? For a moment he thought that it was a good thing he had hidden it in his home world. Then he questioned this notion in despair when his focus wavered for a moment and the flame bit into his flesh again.

"Oh, look like the show is starting."

This was his chance. The man was looking at his companion, he had to attack while he was distracted and end this terrible fire. Eschok charged forward to attack the blacksmith from behind, but the flames suddenly increased in intensity to the point that his body was almost turned to ashes in the blink of an eye.

He had not traveled even half the distance to reach the man, when he broke down, writhing in pain. A tremendous force was pressing down on his burning body and the power of the flame intensified.

"You just stay over there a lay low. Don't think I can't make you regret your immortality," the man warned with a murderous tone. The lich didn't know why, but he believed every word the little man spoke. His voice had an overpowering persuasiveness. And maybe, the lich already regretted it.

…

Seth was buying time. It was also his best strategy. Seeing how the undead was able to control and heal, even shield himself with the surrounding miasma, if Seth destroyed its body, it would just reform from the miasma somewhere else.

He also couldn't find the boss' soul. The spirit blacksmith had no idea how Eschok did it, but he could not even see a soul connection or something similar to his phylactery. Seth bet it was because of some dungeon shenanigans.

Seeing how he couldn't cheat his way to victory, he had to drain its resources so it couldn't regenerate anymore. While the flame of Phlegethon was eating away at the Lich, the boss was forced to use up miasma to regenerate his corporeal form. The lich was like a wick and the miasma was his wax. Seth just had to make sure that the candle burned out.

While the bard acted relaxed on the outside and made the suppression look effortless, this strategy was actually costing him a lot of mental power and mana. Not even his legendary items would have enabled him to go through with it. It was all thanks to his reforged soul armaments that raised his stats and mana by an obscene amount.

It wasn't just the mana and the plain attribute increases but also stats improvements like regeneration and the additional stat multipliers from Titan Physique. With these, he could keep this up for hours, and adding Link's buff food and Alison's high-quality potions, he was able to keep it up almost indefinitely.

But Seth was only able to act so relaxed because this was infinitely easier than belching out a powerful tune. Singing, playing, and resisting the mental encroachment of an otherworldly eldritch deity was a much greater burden on his body and mind, than using these abilities.

Being able to simply use his abilities like this and not having to multitask all the time, while balancing on the edge of insanity had something therapeutic. The bard had deliberated to do something similar as he did with Angelique or Solar Solace.

However, he didn't like the Lich King. He was not in the mood to try and brainwash the boss nor could he use <Seeds of Hades> without his soul. As the soul was also out of his grasp, all that was left was killing it. And since the blacksmith had to wait, he simply sat down at the edge of the stone coffin and watched the others fight below.

Everyone seemed motivated to beat him and gave it their all, displaying their best skills and coming up with new strategies on the go. Mina for example had teamed up with Evee, Edwards, and Lyxiss.

...

Pulled in by the power of magic wards the undead knights approached the black dome, only for a storm of shadow blades and magic to shoot out from the darkness and blow them apart. In this environment, Mina could fully take advantage of her power as a shadow mage and the improvements her rings gave her.

The three mages had combined the protection of hiding in the darkness of Mina's <Erebus> with Evee's abilities to lay down magic wards to manipulate monsters. The Immortal witch's necromancy skills were currently restricted because of the power of the miasma that would intrude on them and wrestle away her control.

With the undead approaching and the casters hiding inside, Mina's dark dome became a meat grinder for the attacking death knights. Outside, Edward was flying around pulling aggro with attacks and taunts to create a train for the dome to take down.

Jess and James and a slightly wilder strategy, one that was quite pleasing to the blacksmith's eyes. They were flying around with the dragonfly golems and spreading fire on a big scale. With the protection of Lohe, Jess was now also able to bring down divine fire, which had had the same effects on the undead as cursed fire for everyone else. Maybe even better. It was similar to the fire of Phlegethon Seth was currently using on the boss.

Like Jess and James, Azul was also on the move, but she was riding Ceres, the storm elemental golem. Together they brought the thunder, frying whole batches of knights, swinging their massive swords at them.

The most unlikely group was probably the team of priests who proved to be an unexpected nightmare to the undead hordes. Led by Fin, burning in a bright golden shine, Bulko and Ferdinand brought devastation to the enemy, healing, and blessing swaths of destruction through their rows. They were the most dangerous to the undead, by a large margin, not even leaving a pile of bone meal in their path.

Apart from these calamities rampaging across the crypts without holding anything back, were the vanguard, looking for worthy opponents that survived the magical hazing. There were quite a few names elites, who could have been a boss in any other dungeon, that survived the bombardment of the mages.

Mike and Lydia, a big humanoid lion and wolf were stalking the battlefield sniping and burning whoever was still left without any problems.

Faenys was on her own, but it was obvious she had no problem, dealing with the elites. When facing the chosen of Phobos, her opponents always seemed to be caught in an illusion, evading dangers that were not there, jumping into attacks they did not perceive.

The mountain brigands easily played with their fears to make them move as she wanted, finishing them off with the marvelous, magnificent, mad Yatagan Mim burning with an invisible aura as if it was surrounded by a heat haze.

Watching all of this unfold, Seth felt proud about how much everyone had grown. Even when they liked to act that way, the blacksmith didn't feel like he was that far ahead of them. Without his items, there was no way he could beat any of them.

Yet, he did not just feel proud, he couldn't help but watch the battle with the eyes of an expert. While he was watching the battle unfold, he felt the urge to make them even stronger. To perfect their items and bring out the most for each of them.

But they would need some motivation to strive to become even stronger...

…

Eschoks non-existent heart throbbed, as he watched the little man observe the carnage happening with an eerie smile. It was the plotting smile of a villain, and suddenly he glanced at him.

"I see you can slightly withstand this intensity, hmm? Shall we quicken the pace then? I have to finish you off before they are done with your minions after all."

If anyone else said that, Eschok would have ridiculed them. He would have thought about his power and the armies he had at home, but currently, the lich was just glad that this man had no way to follow him to his home world. He was almost convinced that he would have died instantly if his phylactery was in this realm.

"Just to be sure, you will drop this crown, if I kill you, right?"

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