A Bored Lich

The Resistance ripped through the knights like a storm. Thunderous gunshots were deadlier than any lighting strike. Giant hunks of flesh and sharp fangs rained down. The hammer-wielder squashed three knights and cracked the floor. The rogue's daggers continuously moved from one vital point to the next almost as if in a practiced dance. The archer fired off arrow after arrow. No matter how much the knights and apprentices pushed, they didn't seem to be getting any closer to the mages at the back. The knights' formations were collapsing. Several squadrons began to retreat, forgetting that they could not run from the battle.

Doevm cut himself from an entangling mess of black hair and lept away moments before a creature's jaws clamped down. Several knights covered in blue life essence slashed at it, but they only delayed its advance. With each of the creature's vicious strikes, a knight was eviscerated. The creature's red eyes locked onto a worn out Doevm. It had been only fifteen minutes since the fight had begun yet the floor was already slick with blood and guts. New Creatures kept running out of the illusion spell to replace the fallen.

An explosive arrow landed right next to Doevm, the burning rope only inches away from reaching the sack. The creature had finished off the knights. It opened its mouth as it neared Doevm once again. Doevm clicked his tongue before kicking the arrow into the creature's mouth. Its head popped like a zit, showering the surroundings in its back oily blood.

The creature, although it had lost its head, blindly flailed around. 'Jump,' the voice said. Doevm's body followed the order, but it was too late. He managed to surround his chest with life essence as he caught a swipe to his side. Pain pierced through him.

Five long streaks tore open at the right side of his shirt, and a large portion of his life essence vanished. He cursed as he staggered back. The creature finally hit the floor, the life leaving its rapidly shrinking limbs.

Another arrow flew at Doevm's feet, a taunting reminder of that cowardly archer's existence. Instead of hitting it away this time, Doevm simply tossed it inside of his spatial ring. 'Since nothing burns in that space, it won't blow up.' He smiled as he flipped off the archer.

More creatures ran towards Doevm like a pack of frenzied wolves. He glanced around, finding that the rogue, hammer-wielder, and archer had halved the knights to a quarter of their original numbers. Now they were down to a hundred or so men while the creatures numbed twenty. That wasn't to mention the Resistance's men behind them. Three of the ten apprentices were missing, just another discarded piece in the piles of mangled corpses around the dragon.

Alexander and the Resistance leader were gone. While the mithril wall had been broken, Doevm knew it wasn't over by the occasional flashes in the darkness past it. 'This is getting a little close. Alexander might be the best knight in the country, but that only means he is the best fighter, not the absolute best. The Resistance leader will probably just go around him.'

Doevm cursed. 'Looks like I need to abandon this…' Seven of the apprentices stopped their retreat and turned back to their opponents. They held their hands forward and reached into their spatial ring. From it, they drew various types of artifacts. 'At least there is some semblance of normalcy. Knights may not be able to use real magic, but artifacts like Frey's shield will allow them to do so.'

Doevm didn't even have to squint to know what types of artifacts they were, the single use ones. If activated, the single spell stored in it will activate, and the artifact will crumble. While they were nothing to Doevm, to fighters, they were equivalent to a miracle, at least back in his time. The first spell was a fireball, which flew across the room. The archer was forced to dive off the vertebrae before the flames engulfed the entire wall.

Then came the second spell, a collection of lightning bolts that streamed into the creatures. Their elongated, flailing hair acted as lightning rods, pulling the spells to their flesh. Of those struck, most fell to the ground. Smoke floated up from their twitching limbs. Even regeneration could not save them. Their hair, now electrified, tangled up with other creatures' hair. They flailed about, even going so far as to attack themselves to get free. The spell itself, however, was small. It only hit five or six of them.

The hammer-wielder and rogue were targeted by two other spells. They had to fling themselves away and hide behind Creatures as cover. With the artifacts' spells used up, they turned to dust.

Half the spells had hit, but three more were still approaching. The faster spells had struck against the bulk of the Resistance's forces, but the others were slower, deadlier.

A water spell produced a roaring torrent of water, a waterspout. It slowly tore through the room while gaining momentum and picking up anything in its path. Even allies had to jump out of the way. Storm clouds moved in overhead. Lastly was a tornado, ripping across the land like the waterspout.

Only a dozen or so Creatures remained. The gunmen were retreating along with the three majors. The apprentices and the knights laughed. Doevm shook his head.

The shimmers at the back of the room faded, and the two which had hidden under the illusion spell's cover appeared. One had been feeding mana into a teleportation artifact, forcing into a state of mass usage, and another mage had his hands up, dispersing the spell. The shorter of the two, who was manipulating the teleportation artifact, turned to the taller one and waved his hands around as if he was arguing, probably asking why the spell had just been taken down.

The taller one shook his head and strands of mana slowed around his limbs. A magic circle as big as an entire squadron formed just below the ceiling at the center of the room. 'Air spell,' Doevm thought. 'I can't help but be impressed by his ingenuity.' He gathered as many corpses as he could while the magic circle took shape. "Get down!" Doevm yelled with a bit of life essence. "He's going to-"

His voice was drowned out by the roaring gale which the magic circle had summoned. It blew every one of the spells back, directing them back towards their casters. The taller mage kept feeding the spell large amounts of his mana. The spells that the apprentices had unleashed were pushed to the ground. Even the tornado couldn't match up. All three spells were snuffed out of existence like a candle flame.

That wasn't the end of the spell. The magic circle turned to the knights, directing its fury forward. All the cracked stone, weapons, and other items were picked up by it, and flung them at the knights. Doevm hugged onto his corpse pile, hoping it would be enough to keep him on the ground. Many eyes widened as knights ran for cover. The apprentices, however, were unfazed by this.

They opened their mouths, life essence condensing around their expanding chests. 'A soundwave won't help here,' Doevm thought. 'So what are they doing?' The apprentices took off their chest plates. Their bones creaked as their chest tuned into an elastic substance, which expanded by nearly five times. The apprentices would have floated away if they hadn't dug their weapons into the ground to anchor themselves.

As the gale and the many weapons it carried with it drew closer, they exhaled, pushing the masses of air from their lungs at a force so extreme, that it pushed the gale back. The corpses, weapons, and broken stone fell back to the ground, motionless. The taller mage clicked his tongue as he dispersed the magic circle and began to reform the illusion spell.

Before they faded back into shimmers, the teleportation artifact lit up. A little girl appeared next to the shorter mage. Her skin was pale, like she had never seen the sun in her life. She rubbed her eyes, trying to adjust to the light. Her clothes, brown torn rags, held many red stains. Her eyes went wide. She backed away from the shorter mage, who grabbed her by the throat. Her eyes went wide as her face turned blue. She looked to the knights, as if pleading for help while trying to kick the shorter mage away.

Doevm felt a soul flare as the shorter mage let go. A sharp familiar crack rang out, and pieces of a clear glass-like material fell from her bruised neck, which soon turned to Ploly. Her body expanded much to the knights' disgust. The Resistance's men turned away from the sight. Her skin darkened. Her tiny teeth grew into sharp fangs.

She reached a handout, somehow staring at everyone at the same time with those wide green eyes which were rapidly losing their light. The small dainty hand which reached out to them for help morphed into claws. "I don't," her high-pitched voice deepened as the transformation reached her throat. "I don't want to be like the others," She faded into faint shimmer as the illusion spell formed. Then a creature jumped out, ready to fight.

"You," Doevm heard one of the knights say. He looked back, finding that many of the retreating knights had turned around, and were once again gathering together. Tears were streaming from the knight's wide green eyes. "You bastards. We've been looking for her for months. She was just a girl." The other knights gathered around him. Their life essence flared.

'So that's it,' Doevm thought. 'The Resistance made it through the previous floors because they weren't the ones fighting. All of those missing people had been kidnapped by them.' He pushed the bodies off of him and joined the rest of the remnants. 'All the cards have been shown. Now it's time to end this.'

The two groups charged at each other once again. This time, the rogue and Doevm went straight for each other, their weapons calling each other's throats.