The crates didn’t hold much. Mostly weapons and armor, and not particularly expensive varieties, either. Very good steel, but nothing more exotic than that. “The crates will keep for a few hours, David. We need to scout the rest of the place. It’s not that much money.”

“Hrmph.” David grunted as he stacked all the crates to take up as little space as possible rather than being accessible. “I know a guy we could get a good price for bulk arms and armor from. This is a good payday.”

“Fine, I’ll preserve it.” Casimir said. Walking up to the stacked up crates, he took out his heavy etching tool and drew a protective circle around them. After attaching the extended handle, he repeated the circle on the ceiling. It was cruder for the rushed construction, but it didn’t need to last that long. He pumped the circle full of cold-aspected mana and turned back around. “Let’s go.” He growled as he disassembled the tool.

“One more.” David said, picking up the last crate and tossing it on the pile. “Okay, let’s go.”

One drawback of the protective cold curse, shielding them from the massive negative magic enchantment, was that stealth was basically impossible to anything with even trace amounts of mana sense. Even the really limited ones can usually pick out fire and cold mana. The constant inflow of fire mana from the sun made it one of the most ubiquitous in nature.

So Casimir wasn’t entirely surprised to, when they found a room that looked halfwar defensible, that the inhabitants had set an ambush. The room was, to his recollection, one of the bottlenecks of the floor plan, a way between the outer ring of chambers and the interior cavern. The design wasn’t anything that would impress a military engineer, but just because it was only moderately defensible didn’t make it not one of the best places in the plateau to stage a battle in.

The monsters were pretty much exclusively undead, and advanced varieties to boot. Barbed Skeletons, Crypt Lords, and Bone Knights made up the vast majority of the force. The whole point of the massive negative energy ritual was to create powerful undead en masse, so this was an expected outcome. They had to wait until the annual undead army had marched off to wreak havoc before investigating the first time for a reason.

…Huh, in hindsight, that could be the why of how the revenants were formed… They destroyed the enchantment, so probably not, but if they had some kind of fallback enchantment they had missed in their search… It doesn’t address the soul drain issue, though.

Nevertheless, this was exactly the kind of fight that David was most suited to. Barbed skeletons were named such because the mana absorbed from the passive mana voids that all undead possessed by just existing had turned their bones coal black, and with the strength of their bodies at its peak, it started to grow small spikes to reinforce its structure.

With each strike, David left at least one skeleton as dust in the wind. The armor and weapons the skeletons wielded at the direction of the crypt lords did not materially affect the outcome, merely increased how much mana David needed to use to accomplish this task. As much as Casimir insulted the wastefulness of David’s simple applications of mana, he did have the experience of a seasoned warrior allowing him to correctly judge exactly how much mana he needed to inflict the desired amount of damage through those simple methods. Bone knights had a bit more fighting skill than barbed skeletons did, and were stronger, but it was not enough in the face of David’s raw power.

That said, Casimir did have his own job to do: kill the crypt lords. Crypt Lords were the most dangerous among non-revenant undead in that they had the ability to cast magic. Specifically, negative magic. Counter-magic wise, they didn’t have the power to bother David nor the expertise to do anything to Casimir’s well-woven magic, but they didn’t need to disrupt their spells when they could just cast Deathbolt, Soul Drain, or in the case of a force sorcerer like David, Stilling, to support their armies.

The ambush had five crypt lords. Not enough to really constitute a proper undead army, but enough to be difficult to deal with efficiently. As such, Casimir drank one of the life potions, twisting the mana within and casting it out between the crowd of undead and the crypt lords. Doing such things was difficult given that he had to dedicate at least three-fourths of his attention to deflecting weapons away from the parts of his body that weren’t armored, but David needed a few moments to establish a foothold in the battlefield.

Flowers bloomed with vitality out of apparently nothing, the tiny seed he had thrown along with the mana exploding into lush vegetation that was objectively more alive than anything within a hundred miles.

The undead collectively turned away from them, attention diverted by the massive chunk of life mana. Even the crypt lords redirected their spells to casting to the mass, withering a few flowers at a time with deathbolts as they whittled down the distraction Casimir had created.

“Just like last time!” David shouted, laughing at the stupid undead as he doubled the pace of his rampage of skeletal destruction.

“Monsters never learn!” Casimir shouted back as he leapt up to the ceiling and walked along a trail of force barriers towards his targets. Monsters generally left things like regular plants and animals alone, reserving their relentless destruction only for the works of men. The undead were an exception to this rule, seeking any and all sources of life mana only to devour it in the name of growing ever stronger and hungrier.

Crypt lords weren’t completely stupid, though. The other skeletons were, but not them. When one of them noticed that Casimir was closing in, it turned the deathbolt it was gathering and turned it on Casimir.

Casimir brought out his greataxe from the enchanted bag he kept it in, using it to shove himself out of the way of the spell. Kicking off of a new force barrier, he swung the blade downward onto the crypt lord’s skull, shattering both that and the ribcage in a single stroke.

Between that violence and the fact that the other crypt lords had depleted about three fourths of the distraction’s mana, the undead proceeded to ignore the rest of it and re-prioritize killing the intruders.

Still, the distraction had served its purpose, and while carrying around his greataxe to crush the curse-resistant, stab-proof negative mages as they actively try to kill you wasn’t Casimir’s favorite kind of fight, it was the one he knew he was getting into.

After thirty more seconds that felt more like ten minutes, the last of the barbed skeletons was smashed to pieces at about the same time the last dregs of life mana from the distraction was drained away by the ritual. “Did you have to use a life potion that powerful?” David asked after he caught his breath.

Casimir turned his attention to the wounds David suffered, healing them up as he answered the question. “Given the odds of there being at least one more group of strong undead to fight? Yeah, I think I did. We can’t afford to be too tired after this.”

“You could have told me that earlier.” David said, checking his gear for damage.

Casimir took one of the bombs that Hana provided for this venture. “Top yourself up.” This one was unenchanted, so it was a simple matter to cut the top of the jug open. “It’s not potable, so soak it.” He warned.

Sticking his hand in the gelatinous mass within the jug, David focused on drawing the mana within into himself. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s cannibalized one of their bombs to replenish his reserves, and it won’t be the last… unless they get really lucky and/or unlucky, of course.

The bombs had eight times as much volume as the other potions, but the density was a little less for stability reasons, only having about five times as much mana as the smaller products. With the inefficiencies introduced from him absorbing it without consuming it, he likely could only draw in about two-thirds of the mana for his own use. Fortunately, as a sorcerer, it’s easy for him to just store it within his depleted mana heart without any other complications.

David presented his filthy hand to Casimir. “This shit is gross.” By the look of it, it was made from some very disgusting ingredients, so that tracked.

A quick water spell removed the sticky gunk that used to be stuffed full of force mana. “You good?” Casimir asked.

“Yeah, that was a pretty powerful bomb.” David said in agreement. “How many of those do you have?”

“Nine more, but I’ve already armed some of them.” Casimir said. “Let’s get into the main chamber so we can disable the enchantment. We’ll be more thorough this time.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” David said idly as they walked through the checkpoint.

----------------

The central chamber of the plateau was massive. Large enough that a dragon could fly, if they didn’t mind never being able to fly straight for longer than a few seconds and thus never be able to come up to speed. The walls, if they were properly illuminated, would be the color of ash, as while coal manages to keep its structure even in while exposed to the negative magic ritual, it loses the flammability that usually makes it useful in blacksmithing, with the appearance changing to appear half-burned to reflect this.

Casimir could see just fine, although as he wasn’t using proper vision to do so, color was not among the things he could sense right now. Navigating purely on mana sense was not something that was ordinarily reliable. However, in such a mana depleted area, Casimir’s keen senses could pick out the mana of an ordinary needle in comparison to the wide expanse of nothing.

Oh, also he could sense the shape of his immediate surroundings just by feeling the aura of cold his negative magic protection created. David just turned on the light crystal he has on a circlet, illuminating a small portion of the area around him before the light was devoured by the enchantment.

As for enemies… as expected, it was just more undead. It’s not like anything else can survive in the place for long. Unlike the checkpoint, there were a collection of lesser undead as well. Ghouls, regular skeletons, and even a massive quantity of the most basic of undead, the zombie. At a glance, it looked like the necromancer guiding things had deployed half of their stronger undead to defend the checkpoint, as there was an equal amount here on top of the additional fodder.

The central throne/lounge chair that once held the Soul-Devouring Dragon was gone, replaced by a raised dais that held a more ordinary throne, where sat the one that restored the place: a Lich.

Liches were massive pains to fight, revenant wizards whose cores could be miles away from their bodies, defended by a dungeon that hasn’t been found, and you couldn’t kill them without destroying that. Unlike other powerful undead, their bones were bleached white, with runes drawn into each bone of a shade of black so dark, it gave the illusion of endless depth.

The good-ish news was that Casimir didn’t recognize the lich. He had reviewed the Guild’s roster of outstanding revenants, and this particular runed skull didn’t match any of the known ones. This means that it was likely relatively recently created. The bad news was that Casimir didn’t recognize it, and thus had no idea what specialty this particular lich favored.

“Well well well…” The skeleton’s voice was high pitched, feminine. “I see some handsome men have decided to pay little ol’ me a visit.”

David chuckled at the coquettish tone the lich used. “Hey hag, you got a name?”

“Hm. I must correct myself: Some uncouth brutes have barged into my home.” The Lich said, her eye sockets glowing as the lich started to stand up slowly. That infirmity is pretty ordinary for liches, but it confirmed that they weren’t a curse wizard. With a wave of her hand, the oppressive atmosphere of the Wounding Wastes suddenly faded, as she bent the negative magic enchantment. “I am Petranis Shorebreaker, Archmage of Malice.” Ah, that rang a bell. She was a veteran-ranked enchanter, but unless becoming a Lich significantly increased her magical knowledge, she hasn’t been dead long enough to become an Archmage. She was one of the Soul-Devouring Dragon’s last victims before that fateful battle.

“She’s not an Archmage.” Casimir informed David. “She’s an enchantress though, and who knows what modifications she’s made to the place.” Negative magic enchantments were usually used to draw ambient mana to power some other effect. Originally, all it did was create and strengthen undead, but with the mind of an actual enchantress… sky’s the limit.

“I am too!” She shouted, offended. Gathering fire mana in her hands, she completed her spell and released it: “Fireball!” She called out as she launched the promised dense sphere of fire mana.

Theoretically, it was a weak enough spell that Casimir could just barrel through it, cutting it with his verenium knife to disrupt it and trusting in his fire protections to keep him unharmed. However, Casimir had a bad feeling, so instead he leapt upwards, intent on going over the army of undead to take out the lich and her crypt lord attendants.

True to his instinct, the fireball multiplied to ten times its size as it traveled the distance to where David was. “Shit!” He exclaimed as he jumped with far more speed than he needed in the name of getting the hell out of the blast radius.

The fireball exploded into a massive column of flames, illuminating the chamber completely with a roaring sound as the unnaturally still air was violently shoved around by the magic. “Do you see my power?” Petranis exclaimed. “Fighting me within my fortress will be the last mistake you ever make, adventurers!”

Casimir, ducking into a tiny alcove on the chamber wall, opened up telepathic communication with David. “We’re in trouble.” He sent.

“You think!?” Was David’s irritated reply. A massive, drawn out booming sound echoed throughout the chamber as he used Vocal Tremors at the highest levels of power he was capable of. If that sound didn’t completely drown out anything else, Casimir was sure he’d be hearing bones shatter as the wide area spell devastated the undead army.

“Just stay on the defensive.” Casimir instructed. “I have a plan.”