Ultimate Bastion (4)
The moment my foot stepped into the darkness, a translucent system window visible only to me popped up before my eyes.
You have entered the Temple of the Forgotten Undead.
The surroundings were filled with pitch-black darkness.
A bottomless abyss where not a single ray of light could penetrate, so extreme that an ordinary person couldn't see an inch ahead.
Yet the Jin Gang knights ahead of me advanced in perfect order without hesitation, as if strolling across a sunlit plain even in this inky blackness.
Only the sound of their footsteps echoed lowly through the darkness.
They're wrapping mana around their eyes to secure their vision, huh.
It was a simple trick anyone who wielded power in this world could manage.
Concentrating mana on a body part to reinforce it—especially gathering it in the eyes to maintain sight—was as natural as breathing for knights.
But even that basic technique was beyond me right now.
It required ample mana reserves and precise control.
I couldn't pierce the darkness like they did.
But that wasn't a problem.
"Kraaang!!"
A sharp howl rang out, and Fenrir bounded to my side.
His presence alone—moving freely through the dark like any canine beast—sufficed.
Leaning on Fenrir, I pressed forward when Cervantes's voice came from beside me.
"Lord Astra. A massive door... has appeared ahead."
Ugh... seriously...!
A scream nearly rose to my throat.
Thankfully, it didn't leak out, but my heart pounded wildly.
A voice suddenly cutting through the pitch-black darkness!
I forcibly calmed my racing heart and asked in as composed and dignified a tone as possible.
"A massive door... the entrance to the seal, then."
"Yes. I sense a powerful sealing aura—at least thousands of years old."
As expected... the intel captain of Jin Gang.
I marveled inwardly.
I already knew from game lore, but Cervantes was encountering this aura for the first time, yet he pierced its history with mere seconds of observation.
His information-gathering prowess was truly astonishing.
"Hmm... hidden here for at least thousands of years, then. A lich."
Cervantes's voice dropped a tone.
"That makes it extremely powerful."
Undead grew exponentially more dangerous with time.
A centuries-old undead and a millennia-old one were as different as a stray cat and a tiger.
And this was a lich, no less.
Among magic-wielding undead, it ranked at the pinnacle.
I turned my head toward Cervantes's presence in the blackness.
"But even a millennia-old lich should be manageable for you executives and the knights of Jin Gang. Don't you think?"
"Naturally. We are but cogs in the great machine of Jin Gang, after all."
"Good. Prove your worth."
With that, Cervantes stepped forward, and soon the heavy groan of a door opening echoed.
Kiiieek—
As all the knights and I entered, the darkness lifted, gradually revealing our surroundings.
Torches lining the stone walls emitted a cold glow, illuminating a vast hall beneath.
At the hall's end sat a throne-like massive chair,
and atop it...
As if awaiting us, a lich lounged.
It resembled the king of death itself.
...Huh? But why's it like that?
Unlike the dignified, imposing figure from the game, the lich sat with its mouth agape, unable to close.
Looking down, I saw what seemed to be its jawbone had fallen off.
Did becoming reality change something?
Lost in thought, Scarlet's booming voice rang from afar.
"Crimson Knights! Follow me!"
Scarlet, raising her flame-wreathed spear high, charged fiercely at the undead legion.
"Keeeaak!!!!"
With the jawless lich's comical roar, hundreds, thousands of undead erupted from the floor and stone walls at its feet.
Chaang! Chaang! Chaaak!
At the battlefield's center, Scarlet's spear danced.
Flames slicing the air, spear tip piercing undead, foes crumbling to ash.
Every motion brimmed with lethal beauty.
Her red armor flared like fire, the spear's blaze incinerating all it touched.
The Crimson Knights followed her perfectly.
A wave of red armor surged through the breach she carved.
Clanging metal, roaring flames, scattering ash.
A necromancer's terror lay in overwhelming undead hordes, but Jin Gang's knights never fell to numerical inferiority.
As Scarlet's Crimson Knights charged fiercely at the vanguard toward the lich, Rynel's Stone Knights advanced heavily behind.
Kwang! Kwaang!!!
Rynel's massive shield pulverizing undead shook the hall.
"Stone Knights! Leave no undead in our wake!"
Rynel's thunderous command reverberated across the field.
The Stone Knights obeyed, forming an ironclad defensive line to prevent undead from slipping behind as they pushed forward.
They were this battlefield's ramparts.
A sturdy barrier blocking rear threats while the Crimson Knights assaulted the lich.
But the lich wasn't just summoning undead.
A millennia-old grand sorcerer.
Jawless and speechless, its bony fingers unleashed relentless black magic.
Shiiik! Kwaaang!
Pitch-black mana orbs condensed from dark energy arced sinisterly across the hall.
Not mere physical force—these were death-mana condensates. Brushing a knight's skin brought bone-chilling cold; hitting armor triggered eerie corrosion.
Scarlet and the Crimson Knights dodged or deflected with agile moves and flames, but not all attacks could be blocked.
Chwaaak!
Suddenly, black mist rapidly blanketed the entire hall.
No mere fog—this black magic corroded souls. Wherever it touched, floors blackened, and knights—not undead—screamed in agony.
Rynel and the Stone Knights tried shielding the mist, but magic pierced through.
Knight bodies slowed, strength ebbing visibly.
Rynel slammed his blunt weapon into the ground for a shockwave to disperse it, but the lich's mana was formidable.
Hwiing!
Black chain-like curses rained from above.
Sinister chains targeting only the living, binding knights to seal movement and drain vitality.
Then, from the darkness beyond undead sight, Laizenfels moved.
He seized the instant the lich concentrated on mighty black magic.
Shadow-like, he eliminated the lich's powerful undead guards circling it or launched covert strikes disrupting its mind.
And I, at the rear, watched their battle while desperately hunting the lich's immortality's core: the phylactery's location.
Not the throne...
I scanned around.
Not inside the skull emblem's eyes... not the ceiling crystals. Not behind the wall sconce candelabras...
I mentally crossed off typical game phylactery hiding spots.
Nothing visible.
Finally, I turned to the throne's rear where the lich sat.
The darkness behind the massive chair.
...There it is, after all.
A hidden passage entrance led to another chamber behind the lich's throne.
The phylactery was surely inside.
"No helping it."
I muttered softly.
Then I called the Black Knights' captain, Krutz.
He and his Black Knights shadowed me loyally.
"Krutz."
He responded instantly to my voice.
"Yes, Lord Astra."
"The Black Knights join the fray now."
"Understood!"
Krutz bellowed at his knights without delay.
"Black Knights! Lord Astra commands! Annihilate the undead!"
The Black Knights guarding me surged forward in unison.
Fewer in number than other units, but each individual's skill was beyond imagination.
They tore and cleaved through undead, sowing further chaos on the field.
Confirming the Black Knights drawing the lich's gaze, I mounted Fenrir.
Riding him, I circled wide to the lich's rear.
The lich seemed overwhelmed by the executives' fierce resistance.
From Fenrir's back, I briefly surveyed the field.
Ensuring the lich's eyes fixed forward, I slipped quietly behind the throne.
The massive chair's shadow hid us perfectly.
A passage faintly outlined in the dark gaped like a giant beast's maw.
Fenrir stepped silently inside.
Quietly... as quietly as possible...
As we descended the narrow passage, the surrounding darkness thickened.
"Fenrir... stay sharp."
I whispered softly.
His eyes alone were the sole beacon in the pitch black.
Red light?
Faint crimson glow revealed the chamber at the passage's end.
Entering, I unconsciously covered my mouth.
"Urk... this stench..."
Mold, rot, and lingering unknown mana pierced my nose.
Symbols carved the walls; bizarre experimental tools cluttered the desk.
"The phylactery... somewhere in here..."
Pinching my nose, I scanned and spotted a worn box in the corner.
A plain wooden box at a glance, but black aura leaking from its seams betrayed its contents.
"That's it."
Trembling hands lifted the lid, unleashing a vortex of dense dark energy.
"Finally... found it."
Inside lay a black sphere.
The lich's heart, the source of its immortality: the phylactery.