Chapter 73: The Void-Lich of the First Era (2)

The entity began to cast. It did not use incantations. It simply pointed its skeletal fingers. Massive, localized gravity wells began to open across the Gravesite Plain, attempting to crush Leon into the earth with the weight of a collapsing star. Simultaneously, dozens of jagged spears formed of pure, condensed entropy rained down upon Leon’s position from the green sky.

"Move!" Leon commanded telepathically.

Leon didn’t try to block the bombardment. Leon activated Abyssal Stride, utilizing the absolute zero-cooldown granted by his domain. He teleported in rapid succession to evade the crushing gravity wells, his body flickering across the battlefield like a phantom. Every time he blinked through the air, he left localized void-implosions in his wake that violently detonated, destabilizing the incoming entropy spears before they could find their mark.

As he rapidly shifted positions, his SSS-Rank Origin Eyes intensely scanned the Lich’s body, piercing through the swirling necrotic magic and the tattered void-woven robes.

"A Lich cannot be killed by severing its limbs or crushing its skull," Leon calculated, analyzing the boss’s innate talents. "Phylactery Swap. You anchor your soul to a core, and you can move it. Standard strikes will only drain your superficial mana shield."

He needed to confirm the mechanic. Leon came to a halt on top of a shattered tombstone and instantly cast a localized beam of Arcane Requiem, aiming directly at the Lich’s skeletal head.

The concentrated beam of decay and lightning struck the boss squarely in the skull. The impact shattered the bone and blew the crown of purple fire away, fragments of ancient bone scattering across the surrounding graves in a wide, smoking arc.

But the Void-Lich simply laughed, a grating, terrible sound that seemed to crawl directly under Leon’s skin. The skeletal head instantly reformed, pulling bone dust from the surrounding air to reconstruct its skull in less than a second.

Leon’s golden eye tracked the dense, pulsing mana signature within the Lich’s robes. At the exact moment the beam had struck the head, the concentrated core of energy had rapidly traveled down the spine and lodged itself in the Lich’s right femur.

"Phylactery Swap," Leon confirmed aloud, easily dodging another gravity well that cratered the ground where he had just been standing, sending loose gravestones tumbling end over end into the pit it left behind. "You move your soul-anchor to whichever part of your physical vessel is not currently being targeted. You dynamically evade execution. It is an incredible defense mechanism."

The Lich raised both hands, summoning a massive, swirling vortex of necrotic energy that began to pull the surrounding gravesite debris into a localized tornado of death, preparing to unleash a sector-wide area-of-effect attack that would overwhelm the Sovereign’s Eclipse.

"I cannot fight a war of attrition against a being that regenerates infinitely," Leon noted, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the shrinking window he had left. "I have to lock the phylactery into a single position and sever it before you can initiate the swap."

"Auris!" Leon commanded through their mental link. "Saturate the lower half of its barrier! Force it to protect its core!"

The Glacial Sovereign roared from above, diving through the necrotic green sky, the sheer force of his descent scattering the swirling debris tornado apart mid-formation. Auris unleashed a sustained, massive torrent of Absolute Zero Breath, sweeping the apocalyptic frost directly across the lower half of the Lich’s floating obsidian throne and its skeletal legs.

The sheer intensity of the S-Rank draconic frost immediately began to crystallize the void-shields protecting the Lich’s lower extremities, thick sheets of ice creeping rapidly up toward the throne’s base.

The Void-Lich shrieked, instantly forced to react. To prevent its phylactery from being permanently frozen in its leg, the dense, diamond-shaped crystal shot upward through the skeletal structure, fleeing the encroaching absolute zero temperatures.

Leon’s golden eye pierced the tattered robes and the dense void-shielding, tracking the movement of the concentrated mana with flawless precision.

"There," Leon whispered.

Buried deep within the left side of the Lich’s ribcage, hovering just behind the sternum, was a pulsing, diamond-shaped crystal radiating immense, ancient magic. The phylactery.

Leon didn’t aim for the head. He didn’t aim for the throne. He didn’t waste time channeling a massive spell that the Lich could track and react to.

He Abyssal Strided directly above the Lich.

He bypassed the chaotic maelstrom of necrotic magic swirling around the boss, materializing perfectly within the eye of the storm, mere feet above the seated skeletal figure, the roiling green energy parting harmlessly around him for the split second his blade needed.

"Verlimon’s Judgment!"

He swung the Blade of the Dragon God in a devastating, two-handed vertical arc. The Platinum-tier wind crescent was infused with the unblockable true-damage of the Severance Effect and the ethereal golden flames of his Mythic weapon.

The Lich looked up, its empty eye sockets widening in sudden, panicked realization as it attempted to trigger the Phylactery Swap one final time to move the crystal down into its pelvis.

But Leon was faster.

The flaming greatsword cleaved straight down through the Lich’s reinforced void-shields as if they were made of parchment. The blade sheared cleanly through the dense, enchanted bone of the ribcage, finding the exact coordinates Leon had mapped with his Origin Eyes.

The Blade of the Dragon God perfectly bisected the diamond-shaped phylactery.

The Void-Lich froze mid-cast. A horrific, piercing scream tore from its skeletal jaws, a sound that carried the weight of true, final death, echoing across the graveyard until even the wind itself seemed to still in its wake. The necrotic green domain instantly shattered, the magic failing as its central anchor was erased from existence.

Its physical form instantly dissolved into a massive cloud of harmless green ash, the tattered robes falling empty to the throne, before the throne itself began crumbling into fine dust beneath it, drifting away across the silent, moonlit graves.

Ding!

[You have killed "The Void-Lich of the First Era (Level 93, Boss)"]

[Experience Multiplier: 35X Applied. 8,200,000 EXP gained.]

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 86!]

....

[Congratulations, you have leveled up to Level 91!]

A/N: I made some mistake in the EXP calculation, so Leon level is now 91, I have corrected the previous Chapters