Chapter 265: After the Lich

Hearing the explosion and seeing the purple flames that came after, I immediately knew it was the work of the lich. It destroyed an entire city block. I could only guess how many ghouls and valkyries were on that block.

This lich would be a problem, but I remembered what Mariah told me about him. He was basically immortal. But still, I needed to handle him. He was careless. He didn’t care about killing the people of this city, and at the rate at which he was going, he could single-handedly wipe out all the ghouls.

With that in mind, I left the street I was currently on and headed towards the block where the lich was. The entire area was engulfed in purple flames so hot the ground itself was melting. The heat had little effect on me just like it always did, but the lich’s fire was different since it was made from his magic.

A point-blank blast could cause serious damage. I had made the mistake of overlooking him before. I’ll make sure I don’t make that mistake again. From what I heard from Mariah, there was more to this lich than meets the eye.

Most of the buildings surrounding me were lopsided. They looked like melted butter. There were bodies lining what used to be the street. The corpses were burnt until they were pitch black. Most of the corpses belonged to ghouls, but there were a few valkyries and bloodmoths.

As I walked along the street, I couldn’t help but cover my nose from the rancid smell. The smell of burning flesh was unpleasant, but still, I kept my senses sharp even though I couldn’t hear anything over the crackling of flames.

“Where is he?” I mumbled to myself.

My sense of smell and hearing was too overwhelmed for me to find where the lich was. There was no point in me using my thermal vision skill since the lich was a skeleton creature. I doubted he produced body heat.

Instead, what I did was observe the destruction the explosion created. Just from observing the scorch marks on the building and ground, I could figure out where the blast originated from. With that, I would know where he last stood when he fired his last attack. He couldn’t have gone far from there.

In no time, I managed to find where the lich stood when he fired his attack. This was the only area not burnt to a crisp, and because of that, I was finally able to pick up on his scent. He was in another block over.

The ghouls were spreading out from Odeika and flooding into the city. The lich was near where a large group of ghouls had gathered.

He was planning to wipe them out with another attack.

Immediately as that realization dawned, and I figured out where he was planning to do, I rushed after him. If this kept up, then my plans could be ruined.

[Congratulations, you have ascended to level 54]

I was leveling up fast.

Too fast.

There was no way the ghouls had turned and killed that many civilians already. That left only one explanation.

My EXP was going up because the ghouls were dying at a fast rate.

This had to be the work of Damian. No one else had the strength to murder that many ghouls in such a short amount of time. Even in the batch of ghouls that the lich had killed, I would guess that there were roughly a hundred ghouls killed in the attack.

That was just a drop in the bucket when you consider the thousands of ghouls I had unleashed on the city.

When I arrived at where the lich was, it was the same chaotic scene as where I first came from. It was a bloodbath. My valkyries, ghouls, and Khalissi’s bloodmoths were holding their own against a mob that consisted of minotaurs, lizard men, fanged humans, and even wendigoes.

I paid no mind to them and instead sniffed out where the lich was. I finally spotted him atop a small building overlooking the chaos. His hands were raised to the sky with the staff occupying his right hand. I could also hear him muttering incomprehensible phrases.

I immediately rushed towards the lich using the poles and the street lamps to leap onto the building he was on. When he saw me running towards him from across the rooftop, he immediately stopped what he was doing and pointed his staff at me.

A small purple flame formed on the tip of his staff, no bigger than the flames on a candle. The small flame began to spiral into a circle as if he was feeding it with mana.

The flame spiraled until it was the size of a basketball, and then…

POW!

It wasn’t as loud as the first explosion, but it was still enough to cause the building we were on to shake. The air itself seemed to melt from the flames as the attack sped towards me. It was a strange phenomenon that spoke to the power of the attack.

I nimbly evaded the attack by leaping to the side, but when I glanced up, another attack was aiming at me.

POW!

Just like the first attack, I nimbly evaded the second just in time. The attack flew past my shoulder, missing me by only a few inches, but being that close to the flame caused my skin to burn, and a purple scorch mark appeared on my arm.

Seeing that his attack missed, the lich tried another spell just as I was a few meters away from him. This time, when the small flame appeared on the staff, he rotated his arm at a fast speed, creating an attack that looked like a spiral of flames.

Immediately, Hati appeared at my side. He sucked in as much air as he could, then when his lungs were finally full, the hound blew towards the flames. Frost blew from his mouth, countering the spiraling flames that were once headed for me.

Seeing that his attack had once again failed, the lich hastily tried to prepare another, but he was too slow as I was already in front of him with an attack of my own.

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