City of Desire [Kingdom Building]

Killing the Lich II

‘These fucking vermin’s, I will kill them all,’ I cursed when that monkey bastard killed his precious death guard.
 
He had twelve of them, but now, two are dead. 
 
He had spent countless resources, many attempts, and most importantly, expensive bodies to create them, and now two are lying dead.
 
He wanted to curse his luck to get this island.
 
A Knight Commander is here, and on top of that, a High Mage, which intel had said is a scholar mage. 
 
Fuck the bastard who said Blackstone is Scholar Mage, he might not be a full fledge battle mage, but the bastard had enough experience to provide support and take a shot at him whenever he showed even the slightest weakness.
 
These two are targeting him insistently while that fucking Warrior and the Ranger are taking out his death guards.
 
He wanted to kill them all but couldn’t do it despite trying hard, as the bastards were working together efficiently and had high levels.
 
Now, there was only one option that had remained, calling back his special zombies and skeletons while leaving the clutter of humans to the general undead.
 
He really doesn’t want to do that; he has a limited number of specials, and seeing the power of these four, he will need to sacrifice nearly all of them, but there is no other choice.
 
If he did not do that, then they would kill his precious death guards, but he had no other choice, as the bastards were coming close to threatening his life.
 
‘So be it,’ it said and ordered the special undead toward him.
 
Now, he had to kill these bastards; only through this would he be able to recoup his losses and make some fortune.
 
A few seconds passed, and he realized he had made a great mistake; they were waiting for it, baiting him to do that.
 
“I will kill you!”
 
He shouted in rage and attacked the Knight with the withering lance as he came at him.
 
The wretched old Mage seemed to be waiting for him to pull his forces toward him; the moment his special move away from human and general zombies, the old bastard made his move.
 
Boom Boom Boom
 
He sent tens of huge fireballs crashing toward his special undead and sent an even bigger barrage toward the common undead, right in the center of the group as they moved to the humans.
 
….
 
The hell broke loose the moment undead poured into the grove; they are over thousands of them, and they only took a few seconds to break through our line formation.
 
I, along with Eva, a mage, and two others, separated from the rest of the group and am now fighting against the zombies, which are coming to us in all directions.
 
It is a nightmare.
 
The only good thing I could talk about it was that all-powerful zombies and skeletons had left, leaving us with the tide of common zombies, which had been attacked by the High-Mage Blackstone's powerful spell.
 
Despite him destroying half of their numbers, the huge tide came and enveloped us. Their numbers are high enough that we could not kill them all, even if we drink all potions we have.
 
Pachac Khac Pachac 
 
My rapier cut through the two zombies and the skeletons before moving back to cut another zombie and skeleton and move again without stopping to kill another undead while taking the step forward with the rest.
 
The Consecutive Strikes skill had finally shown its power. 
 
Before, I could only maintain it for six strikes at most, but now I had just finished the nineteenth and swung the twentieth.
 
At each strike, the power and speed would faintly increase; it is not much increase if I was only able to achieve four to five strikes, but going further, the power increases by a lot.
 
After twelve strikes, the speed had doubled from around a 2%-3% increase; it became 5% with every strike. 
 
It might not seem much, but it is huge, especially with the enemies I am fighting.
 
My rapier is constantly moving, without stopping, even when my hand is tired and hurts like hell with all the injuries. 
 
I have to continue, I am the weakest in my group, and if I do not do my part, I will die.
 
So, no matter the tiredness I am feeling or the injuries I am accumulating, I have to continue to fight and kill with every strike till we cut our way through this undead.
 
It is what we are trying to do; we are trying to cut through it because remaining in it is good as dying. We can not kill these numbers; escaping is the only choice, and I am sure the other people are doing the same.
 
We are ordered to do it by the High-Mage right after that powerful attack. 
 
It will stretch the undead as they try to chase us around, thinning their numbers. 
 
With it, lich won’t be able to use them to overwhelm, and it won’t pull them out of us, for risk of us joining the fight against it.
 
While we might not be as strong as the four, we could create a nuisance with enough support.
 
There have been many incidents of the weak killing the strong with numbers and teamwork.
 
Rip!
 
Another rusted sword of a skeleton slashed through my stomach, widening the gruesome wound that was already there.
 
There was no interference; the armor and healing aura I had long been disappeared, and the mage in our group did not have healing or armor spells.
 
It was quite a surprise that I was still standing and fighting through the sheer number of injuries I have in my body. If I had been on earth, half of them would have sent me to the emergency room.
 
My condition is precarious, and I am only fighting through the force of will alone.
 
Soon, the twenty-fourth strike was over, and my sword moved for the twenty-fifth; as it did, my eyes couldn’t help but widen up, feeling the 10% increase; it made my sword so fast that even I couldn’t see it properly.
 
Faster than it was when I had all those buffs earlier, that I felt the muscles of my hand strain to their limit, but I did not care.
 
Pachac Khac Pachac 
 
This speed and power are helping me kill more undead, giving them fewer chances to overwhelm me.
 
This will have consequences, but I will worry about them after I survive.

“Remus, drink the potions,” said Eva behind me, and I simply opened my mouth, and second later, two bottles appeared connected to silver strings and poured themselves into my mouth.
 
Gulp!
 
I gulped down the potion without stopping the attacks; stopping even for a second will be the death of me.
 
the healing potion and the stamina potion reached my stomach and transformed into the cool energy that began to spread inside me, but just as it began, a burning pain shot through my body.
 
The only reason I did not scream was because I didn’t want to seem like a weakling to the people around me.
 
‘The burn had begun,’ I said to myself, and I was not really surprised.
 
One could not infinitely drink the potion; there is a limit, and when one reaches the limit, one feels the burn, and it is more painful than I had ever thought it would be.
 
It is my fourth healing and stamina potion and also my last one; if I drink further, the potions will poison me. 
 
Instead of helping me, they will kill me, and it will not be pretty.
 
The burn had begun, and the pain was not a worse thing about it; the worse thing was that the potions would not work with the efficacy as they had before.
 
Still, I am quite grateful for myself; even in the weakened power, I could feel the healing potion stopping my injuries and stamina potion, filling me the strength.
 
With their help, I kept killing as we cut through the endless undead. 
 
There did not seem to be any end of them, maybe they were endless, or they seemed to like it because of the very low light. Half of the mage lights have disappeared, and what had remained are barely providing enough light to fight.
 
Sup Sup Sup
 
“We are close; just twenty more meters, and we will be out,” said the mage with eyes gloving before launching another barrage of mana bolts.
 
It is the only spell that the mage in our group is using, likely because it is the most efficient spell; each bolt will kill the undead, and it does not cost as much mana as other spells.
 
His words filled my tired heart with newfound spirit, and I began to hack the undead with greater intensity.
 
I finished the thirty-sixth strike and moved my sword to the thirty-seventh when suddenly, I gritted my teeth and broke the skill before activating again, but now it had much less speed and power.
 
I had done it intentionally because, if I had not, then the strained muscles of my hand would snap instantly, making it useless.
 
I was only able to continue this far because the healing potion, continuedly to heal my strained muscles, but an increase in power at the 37th strike would have been above its limit.
 
If I survive this, then I am going to spend a good amount of attribute points on strength and vitality.
 
With my strikes becoming weaker and slower, attacks on me increased; I am quite grateful for the mage's help, who would release the mana bolts whenever the undead got too close to injuring me.
 
Time passed; every few seconds, we would take a step, and soon, we had crossed half of the distance.
 
Now only ten meters remained, and we continued with our killing, using every bit of our strength.
 
I, too, gave my all, using all three of my skills to their maximum efficiency, especially the Consecutive Strikes, which I began to take at the 30th strike at each cycle, breaking the skill and starting again.
 
This is truly a broken skill when one thinks about it, as it will constantly increase power. 
 
Unfortunately, it is useful only for dumb enemies like the undead, who can’t properly respond with all the power they have. 
 
The intelligent enemies did not let such skill continue for long; they found a way to break it before it became too powerful. One would need to be very talented and experienced to bring the cycle to the twelfth strike against the intelligent enemy.
 
Rip!
 
The blade of a zombie struck squarely on my chest, giving me a bone-deep injury and blood-curdling pain.
 
“We are close,” said the mage, and I felt like I had seen the light.
 
The injury was the gravest one I had received till now; it had reached dangerously close to my heart.
 
A few more inches more, and it would have had me.
 
Still, the injury is bad, and I am losing blood through it, which is making me weak with every breath I take. If this continues, then I won't be able to fight for longer.
 
Thankfully we are quite close, just a meter or two before we are out. We will not lose undead, but the pressure on us will be much lesser.
 
Pachac Khac Pachac 
 
I cut through one undead after another; it became a kind of instinct that, before I realized it, there was no undead in front of me to kill.
 
“We are out!” Eva shouted loudly while her string moved to cut a couple of undead coming from behind.
 
As I had said, the undead wouldn’t stop chasing us, but now coming from all directions, they will only come from one direction.
 
“You are a quite injured young man; let me bandage you,” said a beefy man, and bandage appeared in his hand, which he applied around my chest at a very fast speed, while Eva, the mage and short man, handled the undead.
 
The beefy man seemed to have skills related to it, as he not only wrapped the bandage around my chest at an incredibly fast speed but was also able to stop bleeding from every injury the bandage had wrapped.
 
He also seemed to know where I was injured the most, as he wrapped the bandage around my stomach and left leg in a quick fashion.
 
“It is quite bad that Jorge does not know any healing spell, but I am sure you would be able to hold on till the help arrives,” he said and tapped on my shoulder, and immediately, I felt a third of my weakness disappear.
 
The mage gave him a look but let him wrap the bandages around his injuries.
 
After the mage, he moved to the short man, then Eva, and lastly, himself before joining the battle.
 
A few minutes passed, and we finally walked out of the grove; with the large group of undead chasing us and weakness filling every part of my body, I could barely kill an undead with each attack, but despite that, there was a smile on my face.
 
For the first time, I felt that I could survive.
 
The mage, not long ago, had revealed that he knew a spell that could hide the life signature.
 
We are planning to hide in the far corner of the island, so even if they are unsuccessful in killing the lich, we will have a chance to survive, at least better than those hiding in the bunker.
 
The lich wouldn’t be here long; Namdar would know what happened if it hadn’t already, and help will come, and it might be already on its way.
 
So, there is quite a high chance that we might survive if we hide in the far corner of the island.
 
Hun!
 
A few more seconds passed when suddenly, the mage looked to the left, and his expression changed suddenly to that horror.
 
I opened my mouth to ask when through the corner of my eyes, I saw a blurring figure coming out of the grove. 
 
It was blurry, but a faint outline of it could be seen, and understanding what it was, a shock couldn’t help but appear on my face, but it transformed into horror seeing coming toward us.
 
Lich is coming toward me directly.

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