Wild Era 2, Ch 4: Deathfrost Lich

Kelin grimaced as he studied the Deathfrost Lich.

He understood what the Path was up to. The effective level rating was based on what he did, rather than an assessment of his ability levels.

It was trying to give him a challenge that matched his strength, so when he killed everything quickly, it gave him something stronger.

It was what you would expect from the Path’s desire to cultivate talent, constantly providing a more dangerous enemy, but the problem was that Wildfire was breaking the system.

Legendary abilities couldn’t be calculated the same way as regular abilities. By their nature, they were difficult to assess. When he used it to kill things quickly, his level rating rose just as quickly.

The few monsters he’d killed on the way to this challenge had been normal for the dungeon at around Level 82, even after the prodigy mark, so these changes should only apply to the challenges themselves and perhaps the dungeon boss.

That left him with a choice.

He could either keep using Wildfire in the challenges or save it for the regular monsters in the dungeon at large. 

If he kept using it in challenges, his level rating would increase and eventually he would bottleneck. The difficulty would rise to Level 150 or to whatever he could manage to kill with Wildfire, perhaps even higher, and he would be stuck using that and nothing else to deal with them.

His other abilities wouldn’t be able to keep up.

That was a problem, since he wanted to explore other paths to power in this life. If he let his soulfire abilities fall too far behind, they wouldn’t get the challenge they needed to improve.

The Path might stop raising his effective level at some point, or it might not. While it was trying to cultivate talents, that didn’t mean it would coddle them.

The danger of this Level 110 Deathfrost Lich was very real.

The thoughts flickered through his mind in an instant as he made his choice. He let the flames of Wildfire die down, leaving only a cloak of flames around him as a backup option.

He was already starting to fall behind with his regular abilities compared to this level rating, so he would have to use them.

He wasn’t too upset about it.

In the future, he could keep using Wildfire to clear out the easy things in dungeons, but he would handle the challenges with soulfire abilities, working to push them to Epic and Heroic.

Wildfire would be there if he needed it.

He was a little disappointed that he couldn’t kill the lich with Wildfire and condense its soul energy, but it was only one monster. There would be others.

As the undead creature rose out of the waves, it hovered above the whirlpool on a current of necrotic energy. Wisps of the same energy wove around its bones and radiated through the air, creating a dark haze. 

Its eyes were shards of frozen blue flames that locked onto where Kelin was standing in front of the temple. Crackling ice formed below the lich’s feet, creating a path to the shore.

Kelin quickly assessed his options.

His mana was at 40% and his soul energy was at 37%. He would need 20% of each to activate Blaze. 

That would leave him with enough for a single enhanced Soulfire spell, but not enough for an enhanced soul arrow, although it was close. 

He could overdraw his soul and it might be enough to take out the Lich, or he could use regular soul arrows and anything else that worked. 

As a First Evolution Elite, its resistances would be higher than the other skeletons, so it would probably take quite a few, but that option had more flexibility, so he decided to go with it.

Even if his soulfire abilities were subpar against this lich, he still had Gaius to help. Frost and necrotic energy had little effect on the elemental.

Golden runes glowed across Kelin’s skin as a layer of stone formed and he stood up from his meditation. 

Then two intensified soul arrows formed in his hand and he hurled them at the lich as its feet touched the shore. They shone with a prismatic light as they passed through the veil of frost around the lich.

The lich raised one hand as the arrows approached and a dark mana shield appeared in front of it. It was strong enough to slow the arrows down, but it didn’t stop them from passing through and sinking into the lich’s chest.

The lich hissed in displeasure and its eyes glowed more intensely as it glanced down at its chest, where a dark sapphire core served in place of its heart. 

It was a phylactery and its soul was contained inside, but it felt as cold as a thousand-year-old glacier.

He’d heard that strong liches could hide their phylacteries in distant places and reform their bodies around them if they were destroyed, but this one carried it. 

Kelin threw two more soul arrows at it, which also passed through the barrier and landed in its soul, and then he shifted tactics.

It would take a while for the arrows to work, but they were a form of insurance.

Soulfire Bolts formed in his hand, each of them intensified as much as he could manage, and he sent them at the lich. They flared through the air like beams of golden light.

An explosion of golden light and dark frost erupted on the surface of the lich’s barrier, but it flicked its bony hand and sent the energy flying to the side. 

Then it attacked.

A bone hand rose and a bolt of sizzling black lightning cracked through the air, instantly slamming against Kelin’s ward, making the entire ward shake.

Kelin’s mana dropped fifteen points in an instant and he had to shift part of his attention to reweaving the ward’s structure.

The lightning bolt was followed by a massive claw of dark ice that formed in the air. It was twenty feet wide with sharp bony talons and it swiftly flew toward Kelin. When it reached him, it slashed down with its claws, and four of them struck his ward at once.

Dark blue lines dug into the surface, making the soulfire grow thin. The claw also grew thinner as it lost some of its energy, but it quickly stabilized and then slashed down again.

Kelin’s mana dropped to 28%, which was a few percent better than his soul pool. 

He analyzed the lich’s magic. Then he did what for most mages would have been completely insane.

He dropped his ward and sprinted forward.

If he stayed in place, the lich would wear down his defenses in short order. It was a powerful mage and he didn’t have the mana reserves to duke it out with the thing blow for blow.

He’d have to rely on older tactics, from when he was first reborn in this life.

The stoneskin across his body grew denser until he was covered in layers of stone like full-body armor. Then it grew even thicker, completely surrounding him until he looked like a stone golem that was eight feet tall, the same height as the lich.

Gaius’s will merged with the stone, supporting the weight as Kelin closed the distance.

The lich was walking toward him and when it saw his approach, it reached out, sending the icy claw down to grab at him. Black frost hissed along the edges of the fingers, which were as sharp as blades.

The claw closed around his body, slicing into the stone that covered him, and even through Gaius’s protection, Kelin could feel the chilling touch. It sent pinpricks of danger along his skin and sharp spikes like frozen icicles into his bones.

The reactive sigils in his aura erupted in response, sending flares of soulfire at the claw, but they were only regular Soulfire Bolts. They exploded against the fingers in bursts of golden light, but failed to shatter it.

He crossed the hundred feet to the lich in under two seconds and raised his hands. His shoulder slammed into the lich’s mana shield with thousands of pounds of force behind it. 

The shield absorbed most of the blow, but it buckled under the impact and some of the force transferred through, interrupting the creature’s casting and making it stagger backward.

Kelin took advantage of the disruption to shove his stone hands through the crack in the shield, and then he started to force his body through as well.

The lich hissed as it rose back to its feet, floating on a cloud of dark energy that looped around its bones. Its jaw clacked in anger as it made a sharp gesture.

Dark ghostly hands rose up from the ground at Kelin’s feet, swiftly grabbing onto his legs and rising higher as they pulled on him. 

At the same time, a freezing cloud of bone white mist spread out from the lich. As soon as it touched the few plants remaining on the beach, they shriveled to black wisps and shattered. 

Traces of vital energy from the plants flickered through the air and fused into the lich’s aura.

A layer of frost formed on Kelin’s hands and arm that he’d forced through the mana shield. It was a mix of deadly poison and necrotic energy. 

Soulfire flared from his hands as he drove the poison away, and golden flames fused into the stone that covered him. 

He drew on an ability that he had just gained, Soulfire Reinforcement, and wove the soulfire more deeply through the stoneskin around him, merging it with Gaius’s energy.

Then he activated Blaze and ignited his mana and soul pools. Almost everything he had left disappeared in an instant, condensing into more powerful mana, and the intensity of it roared through his meridians.

In that instant, the mana flowing him was intense enough to match the lich, or perhaps even more.

He only had about five percent of his mana left, but he didn’t need to cast a spell with it. He just needed it to infuse his body as he pulled his hands apart.

Soulfire and stone warred with the lich’s necrotic energy, driving through the mana shield like a sharp axe. 

Then he was through and his fist slammed into the lich’s head. The lich’s bones were as hard as steel, but its head rocked backward and its casting was interrupted. 

Kelin didn’t let up. He held onto the traces of mana he had left as he slammed his fists down again, this time in a double hammerfist. 

The blow knocked the lich off its feet and Kelin followed it to the ground, crashing down onto it with the full weight of the stone around him. 

Then he smashed his fists into its head again, and again.

Gaius was still carrying the weight of the stone, but that didn’t mean it was easy for him to move quickly. He could feel his muscles burning as he raised his fists and slammed them down again.

But he wasn’t fighting alone. 

As he interrupted the lich’s spells, Gaius sent bands of stone looping up from the earth, sealing the creature in layer after layer. 

The bone white mist around the creature tried to chill the stone and covered the surface with frost, but it wasn’t capable of stopping it. 

When it saw that, the lich switched tactics and a wave of freezing mental energy slammed against Kelin’s mind. It was as sharp as a blade, intended to sever his thoughts and kill his spirit.

The mental attack was partially blunted by the banshee-ward amulet around Kelin’s neck, but the level of that artifact was too low to fully stop it. About half of the strength passed through, taking the shape of misty white daggers that flew toward his soul. 

But as they came closer, their size seemed to dwindle in comparison to the massive wards of prismatic light in front of them. Each of those wards was woven of Wildfire and formed complex runes that were far beyond the First Evolution.

As the daggers approached, it looked like they were daggers trying to attack a divine mountain that soared into the skies. They shattered before they even reached the edge of the first ward, and the loose energy swiftly dissipated.

Kelin brought his fists down onto the lich’s head again. It was like hitting an anvil, but the creature’s head shuddered, thudding off the ground.

White mist was everywhere around him, sizzling against his stoneskin and the soulfire he’d infused, but the lich was unable to climb back to its feet.

Moment by moment, more of Gaius’s stone swept over it, sealing it in place on the ground. The lich’s mana was denser than what the earlier skeletons had used, so it was difficult for the elemental to isolate all of it, but he was trying.

Kelin sat on the lich’s chest, ignoring the poison mist and the creature’s spells, as he continued to interrupt its spells.

He looked back over his shoulder toward where his soulfire sigil was hanging in the air in front of the temple, and a minor Wind spell sent it flying toward him.

He stopped it above his shoulder and let its light fall on him and the lich, which got him an angry hiss of pain from the creature as the light of the soulfire pierced its eyes.

A moment later, Gaius’s stone covered the lich’s head and hands, which reduced some of its casting ability.

Things were contained for the moment, but he didn’t have the mana back to kill the lich outright, so he released Blaze and stood up.

With the lich’s mist everywhere, Gaius’s stone was his best defense, so he didn’t drink a mana potion. Instead, he sat down to the side and did his best to meditate.

His mana was at almost nothing, but after a few minutes, he had enough back to summon a Soulfire Inferno, so he did. A blaze of golden flames appeared directly on top of the lich, covering its entire body.

He diverted most of his passive mana regeneration into the spell to maintain it, and then he sat there, contemplating the Ignite and Blaze runes that he’d infused into the flames and doing his best to enhance them.

When he had a little bit more mana back, he drew a ward circle around himself and drove the lich’s mist out of the interior. He let Gaius’s stoneskin fade back to golden runes that glowed on his skin as he pulled out a mana potion. 

It was the third potion he’d drunk in a row, so it gave him back less than the others, but it was enough that he was able to intensify the inferno and double its mana.

After that, it was only a matter of time, and a war between his mana regeneration and the lich’s, but its energy was heavily disrupted by Gaius’s stone around it, as well as the influence of the Soulfire Sigil.

The sigil added a 45% bonus to healing and recovery, as well as to the duration and protection of Fire and Soul spells, but healing energy was a form of damage against an undead, so it worked the opposite on the lich, giving it a 45% reduction in its ability to recover mana and to restore itself. 

It was enough to slant things in Kelin’s favor.

In between intensifying the inferno, Kelin added other spells, using everything from Soulfire Bolts to Soul Paralysis on it. 

He also experimented more with Soulfire Reinforcement on Gaius’s stone, testing out the new ability, and eventually, he switched to using Touch of Soulfire on the creature.

The healing spell clashed with the lich’s necrotic energy and sped things along. Given the difference in mana density compared to the lich, it was less efficient than the inferno, but still good practice.

It took about thirty minutes for the inferno to exhaust the lich’s mana and to begin melting its bones. At that point, the phylactery at the lich’s heart lashed out with a dense wave of necrotic mana that partially restored its body, but it only added a bit more time.

It took another twenty minutes to finish melting the bones and a bit longer to reduce the creature to ash.

When the last of it crumbled away, the phylactery was still there, glowing with dull mana. It looked empty, but Kelin could sense the faint remnant of the lich’s soul woven into its structure. He had Gaius shatter it to dust with a stone hammer.

Liches were stubborn and it was unwise to leave bits of them around, especially their phylactery.

The only things that were left behind were the lich’s two bracers and a monster core, which had been in its skull. The aura of subtle enchantments glowed on the bracers, suggesting they were the main reward for the battle.

As he looked around the island, checking for anything else, notifications began to ring in his mind.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have gained a Level. 

You are now Level 87.

Your Soul-Bonded Elemental has also gained a Level.

You gain 1 Wisdom, 3 Intelligence, and have five free attribute points to assign.

Kelin let out a chuckle, since one level for all of that seemed unfair, but he understood the reason. 

He tossed the five free points into Aura, since his soul energy had been lacking in that fight, and then he moved on.

These high-level encounters gave him plenty of time to level his abilities. The results of that followed in the next notifications.

Your Spell: Soulfire Inferno has gained a tier and reached Expert.

At the Expert tier, the damage and the radius of this spell improve by 50%, from 24ft to 36ft.

Your Class Ability: Soul Recovery has gained a tier and reached Expert.

At the Expert tier, this ability provides a passive +15% regeneration rate to your soul, which stacks with healing and recovery from other sources. 

This tier allows you to more swiftly heal damaged souls, both your own and others, and to purge curses and soul afflictions.

Your Class Ability: Soulfire Reinforcement has gained a tier and reached Advanced.

At the Advanced tier, you are able to channel 10 mana and soul energy into the object per second. As an additional effect, the mana you infuse now flows 10% faster and has 10% greater density.

Most of the other abilities he’d used were already Elite, so they were much harder to improve. He could feel some advancement in them, but it would take a lot longer before he found the opportunity to break through to Epic.

Slowly evolving them in difficult challenges was the best way.

He moved on to the next notification, which was the result of the Wildfire he used on the horde of skeletons.

You have refined soul energy from the battlefield and gained 11 Aura. 

With the free points he’d just added, that took his Aura up to 296.

A shimmer of mana swept through Kelin’s body and the area around him, and then the voice of the Path rang in his mind.

You have completed this challenge at an Effective Level of 110. 

Your efforts in this challenge have been assessed.

Rewards will now be assigned.

You have earned a Treasure Reward for slaying the Deathfrost Lich. 

Its standard-issued equipment is now yours.

The bracers left behind by the lich glowed with mana from the Path as their nature changed and they resized themselves to fit Kelin.

As a reward for facing a powerful enemy, this pair of artifacts has been personalized to you. Their nature has been modeled on your existing gear and their grade improved from Uncommon to Rare. 

As Kelin picked the bracers up, information on them leapt into his mind.

Bracer of Spell Warding (Rare: Elegant). 

Soulbound Artifact.

Effects: Spell Ward, Resizable, Ethereal, Self-Repairing, Upgradeable.

This bracer is designed to create a defensive shield for the wearer and to block incoming spells and elemental attacks. 

It is made of Rare-grade Ethereal Soul Silver, a material highly prized by the undead for its soul affinity and ability to exist both on the physical level and in the realm of the soul, which allows it to be used for powerful soul enchantments. By its nature, this material has an ethereal presence. When inactive, it turns invisible and weightless. 

This artifact is designed to be upgraded when the conditions are met, and its enchantment can absorb rare materials and affinities to grow. As it is linked to your soul, you will feel the weight of the enchantments it carries, but those enchantments will also function to guard your soul.

Bracer of Deflection (Rare: Elegant).

Soulbound Artifact.

Effects: Missile Deflection, Resizable, Ethereal, Self-Repairing, Upgradeable.

This bracer is designed to create a defensive shield for the wearer and to block incoming missile attacks, such as arrows and spears. 

The rest of the description of the second bracer was a repeat of the first, with the same ethereal and upgradeable qualities.

Kelin chuckled as he looked down at them, and then he swiftly removed the remains of his old bracers and put these on instead.

It seemed like the Path was looking out for him after all. It had replaced part of his broken gear with an even better set.

For now, this set wasn’t much stronger than his old ones, it just had a bit more mana, but the upgradeable effect was excellent.

He would see if he could merge some of the Runic Silverflame bars he’d found with them later to make them even stronger, but that would take a while, perhaps a day or longer, so it could wait. 

Then the final notification appeared.

The Temple of Mist on this island is now open to you.

You may enter and choose one facet of Water or Fire magic to comprehend.

Seize this opportunity well, Prodigy, because it is the foundation of greater things.

With that, the massive door to the temple behind Kelin swung open, revealing a glowing hall on the inside that was filled with intense elemental energy.

One side of the hall was filled with rippling crystalline waves, while the other blazed with flames.

Kelin dusted himself off as he stood up, and then he walked toward the temple.

It was time to see what the Path thought was a great opportunity.