Oliver bowed: "I only have enough mana to save one…"

Whoever Doevm looked at; a pang shot through his heart. 'This is what I get for developing emotions. My logic is blocked. I can't think straight.' He tried to turn his thoughts into actions, but the only result was a throbbing headache and another needle of guilt puncturing his heart.

'Think damn it. Why do I feel something blocking my thoughts?' He grasped the sides of his head and squeezed hard. 'Why is this decision so difficult? I should just choose one based on who can serve me better.' He looked at them again. He already knew the answer to that question, but he rejected it.

Oliver looked to Doevm: "After a few more minutes, they will both be gone..."

Doevm kept switching his gaze between them and imagining various possibilities. 'Frey or Hopi, who will I save?' The question repeated itself without any reasoning or logic. Each second passed faster than the blink of an eye yet also longer than a century. "I think it should be…" he never finished the sentence, he never let himself think of that day, yet he never slept again without this nightmare to wake him.

…

'That dream again,' Doevm thought as he returned to consciousness. 'Why do I keep experiencing it?' He opened his eyes to see a world full of white. 'If anything, I am not dead.' He blinked a couple times and the whiteness washed away, replaced by a dark fog. He groaned as he sucked in the wet air.

It felt like he was back at his library, every part of him burning. He stared up at the clouds for a bit until he remembered where he was, at the top of the mountain which housed Draken Capital. The air was thin, and the thick layer of clouds around him blocked is sight.

'Lucky for me, those mages bought my bluff,' he thought. 'I bet they thought I would die from a fall of over a thousand feet. They didn't realize that, on the inside of the clouds, was the side of a mountain. In reality, I only fell a hundred feet or so, and with my life essence, I could just barely take it. They most likely reported back with news of my death.'

His neck ached as it shifted around. His blood-shot eyes moved down to his body in order to measure the damage. His limbs were bruised and scratched, yet he felt no broken bones. He grimaced when he felt the pile of mud beneath him seep into his wounds.

He took a shallow breath and did an internal inspection of his energy, feeling that a large portion of his mana, soulmana, and his life essence had come back. 'If I go by how much energy I've back…I have been unconscious for an hour or two.'

He dragged his aching limbs out of the mud by flipping onto his chest and applied some healing spells to himself. The magic circles flickered until vanishing halfway through the process. Doevm cursed. 'My strength is back, but so what? I can't use it since the fear pills wore off. I can't use anymore today or I'll lose my sanity.'

He stood up and wiped most of the mud off. He slowly stretched out his bruised limbs, which resisted any type of movement with pain and soreness. 'My Undead are gone. All of them. How long has it been since I have lost a battle?' He thought as he trudged through the dark fog.

'That strange-clothed man, the one who ordered them around, it was all him. He pulled me into a false sense of security by intentionally making a pattern of gunshots and then men. Just when I had caught on, he broke the cycle and almost captured me. He would have cut off my legs, and then I would have had to spend the last of my mana on regenerating them. That's what I would do at least.'

'He was also ready with mages and technology I've never seen before. He also knew about soul magic. Out of everyone I've ever met in this life, he is the most dangerous to me, and an opponent I must take down. This won't be the last I've seen of him, nor the last he's seen of me. I underestimated them too much.'

Doevm coughed, and his legs nearly buckled under him. 'I barely made it out of there even with my army. He didn't even take me seriously either, or else he would have transformed his men into those creatures. In fact, that was way too many men just for me, even if he knew my abilities.'

He slowed down his walk and stroked his chin. 'Someone like that wouldn't bring an unnecessary amount of men like that…unless he had something else in mind, another objective. It was as if he wanted to…' Doevm stopped, his face turning darker than the fog around him. 'to go deeper into the Black Market and take everything it had.' He cursed.

'He had never intended to just deal with me. I was an excuse for him! He wanted to access the deeper floors and turn their power into his own. He wants everything, and when he succeeds, there'll be no stopping him, even if I get fixed. I practically handed them the keys to the place.

'He gathered resources using the Black Market, but he had to earn them. With this assault, he no longer serves them. He owns them, and everything that place holds. He knew the Black Market would be distracted by the noble tournament and chose to strike at the same time I did.'

'I blocked the entrance off, so the Black Market can't get reinforcements anymore. I even cleared some floors for the Resistance. So what if I destroyed four floors? Everything on the lower levels are far more valuable. What have I done?' He waved his hands for a teleportation spell, which flickered like the healing spell until it faded away.

He took deep breaths: 'I can't act while angry. Shove it all down. I won't feel anything. I can't make any mistakes.' His world faded from dim to black and white and his little strength fled from him. He fell to a knee and grasped his chest. 'Emotions only get in the way of logic. I just need to keep going.' He scratched the sides of his head so hard that they bled. 'So why can't I think!? Why did I act so impulsively? If I just had more information, this never would have happened.' The more he thought, the deeper breaths he took, and the more he felt something bubbling up in his chest.

'Humans,' he thought back to his words back on the fifth floor of the Black Market. 'Are so irrational because they are emotional. They get sad, angry, love, hate, envious, fearful, and it is all just so pointless. Undead don't have to deal with that. We are too strong for that. I'm a Lich so why can't I do that anymore? Why am I still so angry? Why has the pain never gone away, even after we left his body back in that forest? Why do I keep failing, even at something so simple as handling my strength or mana?'

He lifted his hand to his mask. A crack ran down the middle of it, exposing his left eye. The flame on the other side was shining bright. His left eye, a brown so dark they might as well nearly be black, was exposed to the fresh air. 'Fear and anger, those emotions restore my strength, but why doesn't it work anymore, even though I can't calm myself down?' He got up, sighed, and took out the book of advanced healing magic.

'Maybe this can give me some answers. I just need something, anything.' He opened it to the first page as he walked down the mountain and out of the layer of clodus. The world came into focus, and the rain fell down. It would have drenched the pages if Doevm didn't cut down one of the large leaves from the vegetation around him and use it as an umbrella.

'Everything I do just keeps on failing, but at least I have this. At least something can come of all my years of effort. The war, serving the Virility Household, fighting the academy, even unintentionally fighting the Resistance and turning them into my enemy, all I have earned from that is a book on soul magic and this book on healing magic.'

'Maybe I should run from the academy. They are just going to teach me fake magic anyway. What a fool I am? First, I can just ask Elero where she learned to fight, and then go learn. This fight against the Resistance is too much for me, and I don't stand to gain much from it. Although I do lose some things by choosing not to fight, mainly the allies I've gained.' He stopped. 'I'll lose them…'

He clenched his fist. 'When a revolution happens, most noble houses are purged. The Virility household will probably be included in that tally.' He kept walking down the mountain while engrossed in his thoughts, sliding down the mud slopes and cutting down the dense vegetation. He kept his gaze on the healing book, but the words blurred.

'I'll lose them,' he kept thinking to himself. 'But if I don't leave, I'll die, or worse, be turned into one of those things. I can't take that risk. I just need to ask Elero a question and leave. That's all I need to do. It will be easy. I am a Lich after all. I do not care for humans, not many anyway. Not even if they do remind me of him…' He cursed and increased his pace. 'I can't do anything, just like last time, so why do I…'

He kicked the ground and looked to the sky: "Fuck I hate everything!"