-- You have breached the inner sanctum of Argentuvalur's tomb --

-- You woke the Eternal Guardian of his people, Argentuvalur the Vengeful --

-- May you find glory or perish --

'Triple fuck!'

Liz whirled around, only to be confronted by a milky white barrier blocking her much-needed exit. She tried to transfer through it, but it wasn't just hard, it was practically impossible. Had she not supplemented the spell with Mana Draw, her attempt would have left her empty of mana in an instant.

With her teleportation blocked, Liz tried to blast her away through the barrier. Her spells simply sizzled out of existence at the barrier. In her frantic attempt of flight, she had completely ignored the happenings in the middle of the cavern. Fearing a sudden attack from her back, Liz abandoned her attack and turned back to the center.

The now marble sized orb had increased in radiance hundredfold and was just fingers away from the open mouth of the heavily armed body on the pedestal. None of the knights had moved.

Liz saw no hope in flight. Instead, she went for the best defense, offensive. Another still nocked fire arrow flew towards the body. It never reached even the knights. Just as it passed the pillars, a blue radiant barrier came into existence, obliterating her projectile.

The bright orb entered the mouth. It closed around it. The undead king swallowed as the cave was cast into the dim light of the pillars and her light orb again.

"Feel the wrath of mine power!" a now physical voice boomed through the vault.

The knights rushed out towards Liz position. She barely had time to nock another arrow. Liz dropped the light as three sharp blades of steel sailed towards her undefended body.

Transfer barely activated in time to move her away from the deadly swords. But the next knight was already there to intercept her. She didn't see the sword coming.

One moment her back was fine, the next she felt her left shoulder go numb. Her shield had completely failed her. Her blood drooping from the blade, Liz found another knight just behind her, already reaching for another blow. This time Liz was prepared as she ducked out of the way.

But there was already another one at her back again. Before she could react, it gave the deep gash in her left shoulder blade a symmetrical twin. This time her Pain Suppression let a short burst of burning pain through. Arcane Shield only slightly slowed down the assault.

More blows soon followed from all sides and Liz could only react to each. Barely missing getting hit by the deadly steel. Before she could move away from her compromising position in the middle of the powerful undead, another blow would come at her, needing her to dodge back into the middle of it.

Her back was still bleeding, her healing struggling to contain the blood gushing out of her open skin. The barrage of the undead knights and their fast twirling blades was unending. In the middle of the rhythmic cadence of blades it was impossible to nock or shoot another arrow.

Liz never used her daggers against the undead but was now forced to drop her bow and reach for them. Both hands equipped with a knife, Liz continued dodging the swords barreling through the air, looking for an opening. It took her whole focus, Liz constantly moving, ducking, twisting out of the way of the sharp-edged steel. Her backpack also had to go to allow enough freedom of movement.

The knights had truly earned their title, Liz seeing little options for offensive. Still, eventually one of the small humanoids overextended, Liz immediately lashing out with her daggers. She hit the flesh of its arm. And its bone. And severed one hand. The hand together with the sword dropped on the floor.

The knight uttered no sound. Instead, it fell back, another immediately taking its place. But Liz attack had also cost her. The short distraction had given one of the beings the opening to reopen the wound on her back. Pain again flashed through her mind.

Liz ignored it. She barely managed to push the assailant back without another getting an opening. One of her ensuing ducks brought her close to the severed hand. On a hunch, Liz abandoned one of her blades and gripped the severed limb and the sword with it.

It was made for much smaller hands and after removing the finger clinging to its hilt, it was light enough for Liz to twirl it around just as fast as her smaller opponents.

It finally gave her the edge she needed. With her longer reach, her opponents became more conservative in their attacks. Liz however increased her attacks with fervor. Even overextending, she went for the limbs of the beings.

Her second strike already hit true and severed the weak tendons in the arm of one of the knights. It dropped back. The second she decapitated, ending its undead existence in an instant. The third faced the same fate.

Liz had finally found a weakness. Their small forms allowed for little cover from the top. And so she felled four more of her assailants, two of which the already injured. But suddenly there were no more to kill.

Liz remembered the existence of the undead king. A quick glance around the room revealed its position in the midst of the remaining knights. They congregated around the pillars. Three more of the pillars were missing their radiant objects. Liz however could feel the power emitting from the center of the center to be even higher than before.

"Thou truly see thou self capable of defeating my trusted knights? You shall feel their vengeance forever more!" the king thundered as he threw 5 orbs at the ground and 10 Revenants materialized themselves around him.

With a gesture of his hand, the Revenants charged at Liz.

Liz answered in return. Not with words but with ten small blasts of her coveted mana. It was an already precious resource. Liz didn't dare to move from her backpack three meters behind her, holding her only remaining sources of magical power she could draw from. But now she could only giggle. The situation was just too strange. All her Blast hit simultaneously before the apparitions even came halfway towards her. The Revenants all vanished in an instant.

"No! Thou shouldn't have access to this power! It belongs with the Ancients! A heretic! Thou may have stolen the power of the Ancients, but thou shall not survive to blaspheme them any further!"

Instead of sending the knights, the king charged at Liz himself. The knights stood inside the ring of pillars.

But that was none of Liz concern at the moment as the king easily tripled the speed of the knights. In the blink of an eye he was next to her and in the same fraction of a second, his gem-encrusted blade was stuck in Liz's arm.

Just as the steel left her arm again, her Transfer went through, which she had activated just as she had registered the first of his movement. Just about an eternity too late. It was as if the king teleported as well. And his blade, leaving Liz with a paining wound quickly coloring her sleeve with crimson liquid.

Her health just sped towards zero. Not a single wound had hurt so much since her skill evolution. Neither had one left her losing health so fast. Not even a torn artery. It was a case for her unspent stat points. Dumping all her available points into Vitality gave little reprieve. Her health shortly spiked up before returning to its downfall.

The undead king just stood in her previous position, watching her struggle to survive just one of his hits. His completely black eyes bore into her as he caressed his blade.

"Not so strong after all? Should have desecrated another pantheon. Maybe of Thiranaz"

Liz paid little mind to the jabs. Her most pressing issue was getting the vial of healing potion open with shaking hands and apply it to the wound spraying her life-giving liquid out of her body.

The clear liquid hit the wound and sizzled. It burned. Pain. Like acid entering her bloodstream. None of it was suppressed. And Liz screamed. But the blood flow slowed down. And stopped.

The undead king had simultaneously stopped his gloating behavior. Instead, he gawked at her closing wounds.

"What kind of ungodly concoction is this! Nothing should stand the Curse of the knighthood! Thou and thine concoctions shall not exist!"

It turned its broadsword in his hands, scrutinizing the blade. Even as Liz was still struggling with the pain from the battle of healing magic against an ancient curse infecting her wound.

Liz regained her bearings before the king did. While he was still inspecting his sword for a reason for failure, Liz finally reclaimed her bow.

Just as she got hold of the handle, the king noticed her movement. It tried again to compel her.

"Halt! Face your judgement!"

The compulsion was even weaker now than before. Liz barely stilled before moving once again. The king hadn't moved from his position, even in her completely vulnerable second of forced stillness. But Liz wasn't hoping he did either. She wouldn't be able to bear another injury by his cursed blade. As it was her arm was barely able to hold up the bow.

Instead, the knights surged forward once more. In seconds Liz was surrounded by heavily armored beings again. She had dropped the sword when the king had hit her and could only wave her bow around to keep them from reaching her weak side.

The knights had changed their behavior severely. Her expectation of their tactics became her weakness. Where before they had approached her carefully, they now charged at her with abandon, completely careless of the three undead she felled with her bow, wielded like a club, before a sharp sword turned her bow into shreds.

But she could only block one direction with the wood and without it even less, a deep flaw as she found out when two undead latched on to her legs, making her practically immobile.

The undead immediately capitalized on this fact, when even the ones she had clubbed returned to attacking her, crowding her in an instant. It wasn't a fight anymore, rather a brawl of undead, swords, and Liz. Thankfully their chaos became a downside, as only one or two would ever be able to actually hit Liz. And then their hits were severely weakened by the obstructions in the way and Liz's shield, sapping most of their remaining strength.

Only every third attack actually pierced her skin. But every hit was one too many. Liz struggled to keep up with the swords twirling through the surrounding air, all the while grabbing another dagger and brandishing it towards the two stuck on her legs, like child throwing a tantrum.

Unlike handling a child, Liz didn't proceed with care, instead her sharp blade easily severed the arms of her assailants. Dead flesh could do little against her sharp blade and no matter how well the magic preserved them, the animated bones were made brittle by their age.

Her two captors were quickly left without limbs to hold onto anything, Liz immediately transferring away from the swords slicing into her heavily bleeding hip and abdomen.

Gasping for breath, Liz stood on the other side of the wide room and watched as the knights rushed towards her new position. Before the first reached her, she teleported away again. Close to her backpack. Her fast dwindling mana supply.

Status:

Health: 78/492

Stamina: 56/374

Mana: 143/624

None of her resources looked good to face an undead king wielding a cursed blade and his squad of fast zombie knights. Liz was sure she still had a replenishment tonic in her backpack. And so she perused through it, in search for it. And transferred away from the knights whenever they were about to reach her. The king only watched from the pillar circle, no emotion, neither anger nor happiness, visible on his face of sunken-in face.

In other circumstances, Liz might have laughed at the scene. A powerful undead king standing unmoving, all the while his minions, some missing both arms, ran after a mage teleporting in a circle around the king.

Liz search also revealed how dire her mana situation was. Of the two dozen incredibly bright mana crystal she had harvested, only four remained, dimmed down already. But she finally found the replenishment tonic.

And she instantly felt more energized again. But not exactly to the point she expected.

Status:

Health: 200/492

Stamina: 200/374

Mana: 200/624

'Fuck! Of course, it had some quirk I hadn't known about!'

Liz couldn't spend any time at all to sulking, instead she was forced to flee once more.

'I can't keep this up for long! The knights have to go!'

Her bow was gone, her magic useless against the undead, and her daggers to short to best the long swords of the undead. She needed another one of their blades.

Thankfully there were still some from the fallen near the center of the room. But they were also in reach of the king still watching her moving around.

Still Liz set her next transfer to the heap of flesh and steel. Before any of the still-undead knights could reach her, she extracted one of the swords from the unyielding grip of the completely passed. The king didn't even twitch. He just watched her grab a weapon mere meters from him.

'What the hell is wrong with him? What does it mean that he doesn't attack? He could overwhelm me so easily!'

Liz had the fear she was just being toyed with. This battle made no sense. Yet no matter how nonsensical it might be, and even if the king would just smite her soon, Liz definitely wasn't going to survive if she didn't survive the current threat, the fast approaching knights. If she was to be a toy, she would show this maniacal king what it means to have a choking hazardous toy.

Once again armed, she took to dismembering more of the undead. With a sword it became easier. Not easy but easier. The undead still attacked her without a care in the world to their own life, or rather un-life. While it left some of them more exposed, the rest made up for their weaknesses, as Liz simply didn't have the health to not have to defend herself simultaneously.

Liz practically stopped using Transfer altogether instead using her remaining mana reserves for keeping up the shield and aura. But this also meant no last-minute transfer dodges, instead she had to act ahead of time. But the knights were simply too fast. Everywhere their swords could reach, her armor was in tatters at this point. Only her shield actually kept their blades from actually reaching too deep into her skin.

But over time, if slowly, Liz was also able to cull their numbers. The first two were decapitated, and the third had his arms removed, making him near useless against her. With only three still able attackers to contend with, Liz slowly gained the upper hand.

Just a minute later, the last four were dead.

Status:

Health: 165/492

Stamina: 63/374

Mana: 121/624

She was completely worn down but the biggest threat still remained. The last two kills had been easy enough for Liz to observe the reaction of the king. While he stood still, Liz could see no more magically-radiant objects on the pillars. Still the power emitting from the center of the room had increased even further. Her magic sight showed her that it was all congregated around the king. A bubble of pure blinding mana surrounded the undead king.

Liz was unsure what to do. The king still stared at her. But Liz wasn't sure why, and it wasn't reassuring at all. But the milky white transfer-resistant barrier still blocked the only exit, so retreat wasn't an option. Arcane Eye even revealed a thin thread connecting the mana-saturated king with the barrier. Her panicked glancing between the exit and the king finally elicited a reaction from him.

"Finally realized the futility of thine fate? Thine flesh shall burn for thine heresy!"

Unwilling to stop her heavy breathing to deign the taunt with an answer, Liz stayed mute. Her study of the thread connecting the barrier finally revealed the reason for the king's behavior; the surrounding mana was slowly forming into some subtle structure. The king was stalling to release some horrible spell. All of the mana surrounding him was woven into a spell. Liz only chance was now.

She immediately charged the king even teleporting to get closer, immediately building momentum afterwards. Before smacking into an invisible barrier between the pillars. She hit the wall hard, luckily it gave and bounced her back onto the floor half a dozen meters back. Liz tried to transfer through the barrier, only to get her mana drained away just like with the exit. But it was too late, anyway.

With Arcane Eye still active, Liz watched as the bubble of mana surrounding the king exploded outwards, in a wall of purple flame. Her eyelids descend in the face of the blazing flames. Her arms instinctively move to block her face from the inferno.

She watched as the purple fire reached the pillars.

She watched as the pillars were obliterated.

She watched as the heap of bones, flesh and steel was cleansed by the flame.

Her eyes fully closed.

She felt as the wave washed over her body.

She felt it break down her armor.

She felt it attack her skin.

She felt it break down all her body hair.

She felt her skin go numb.

She felt mana burning in her every vein.

She felt the burn reach her heart.

She felt it stop.

Her eyes opened.

She saw dark.

She felt a notification.

-- [Arcane Magic Immunity] has reached level 4 --

⋮

-- [Arcane Magic Immunity] has reached level 11 --