Several liches were moving around a dingy, creepy looking room
"Excellent, sire. With this artifact, you can indeed create a phylactery for your soul and overcome the Demon Lord Trocious! The lifeforce in this thing seems to be nearly infinite" a skeletal lich said, holding the object Genghis Khan recovered from the strange skeleton after the brief destruction of Dildao
"It seems to have the lifeforce of the very land inside here" another lich said, eagerly touching the object
Genghis Khan rubbed his hands with glee. When he and the other heroes attacked the Demon Lord, they actually managed to attack deep into the Demon Realm
But the demon forces were too many, and the more powerful demons gave them pause!
They were engaged in the battle, fighting demons whose power rivalled their own!
Each of them were able to use aura, mana or whatever you call the energy of the land through their whole body, but the more powerful demons could match that with physical strength alone, or had regenerative abilities that could recover from any damage they dealt!
That was when the Demon Lord appeared, showing power beyond his imagination.
In the battle, Roland screamed in pain when the Demon Lord covered him with a deathly shroud of deathly mist, where he quickly removed the helmet to try to breathe
His very flesh melted before Temujin's eyes as he fell to the ground, dead. But the Demon Lord waved his hand and Roland arose, putting on his helmet to become the Demon Lord's Death Knight!
Cuchulain had turned into his beastly form, but in his berserk state was fighting several monsters. But because he was in this state, the Demon Lord easily took over his mind and he became a pawn loyal to the Demon Lord
Achilles slaughtered his way through several terrible monsters and charged at the Demon Lord. Achilles was near indestructible, but the Demon Lord subdued him easily, grabbing him by the neck and slamming him to the ground
The next few moments were the most damage Temujin has ever seen Achilles endure. The Demon Lord's fists were not haltered a bit by Achilles' supposed gift of immortality. He plummeted Achilles to the ground, leaving him in a bloody mess in seconds.
He stood up as the other demons pounced on the prone Achilles' mangled body
Here he was, Temujin also called the Khan, practically taking over the human world, and suddenly brought to another realm to kill this Demon Lord
But this Demon Lord was more scary and powerful than anything he could imagine
When he faced the Demon Lord, he was instantly intimidated due to the Demon Lord's intense presence and he immediately fell to his knees unwillingly.
As the Demon Lord looked at him, Temujin felt his strength abandon him, and he faceplanted in his bow to show total submission
He knew he had to bow his head and had a chance to live. Otherwise he would face the same fate as the other heroes.
The Demon Lord offered Temujin power beyond comprehension, tempting him with power to conquer the human lands
The Demon Lord laughed, but somehow agreed to have Temujin become a Demon General, like Roland and Cuchulain whom he had turned
He had been impressed by the heroes, in particular Temujin's brutal and vicious ways
In order to control Temujin, he placed a seal on his soul, becoming his one sole master!
Temujin became the lord of the undead, the King of Liches, and in charge of the undead army, with Roland serving as his underling.
The King of Liches was someone the Demon Lord had defeated on the way to become Demon Lord. But he detested the undead creatures and didn't use their formidable army. Thus, he put them under Temujin's leadership
But now, with the help of his liches, who the the most powerful among the undead, he planned to free his soul, and fight to overthrow the Demon Lord!
Genghis Khan had witnessed the power of the undead army as he conquered a deadly path through Evalonia.
He found the cold cruelty of the undead more of a match for his tactics than even his own forces on Earth. And in turn, his savage tactics impressed the undead creatures, like the liches and the two bone dragons
His undead army could very well overpower the demon army, as every dead body only adds to his power, and the undead had powerful creatures of their own.
And his liches were only loyal to him, not the Demon Lord, as the Demon Lord had killed the previous Lord of the Liches in order to become the Demon Lord!
As such, the liches and Genghis Khan had the same objective, to free himself of the Demon Lord, and to take over instead!
It is with this ambition that he looked at the object in the lich's hands
They had advised him that to become like them, practically immortal, they would have to seal their lifeforce into a phylactery. Usually, they would use a common object and bury it where nobody would find it
With their phylactery intact, they will never die, and can instantly recover from any wounds, even fatal ones. But if their phylactery was destroyed, they will be destroyed forever as well.
However, upon finding this strange object, and turning it into his phylactery, he will never die even if the phylactery is damaged or destroyed, since the phylactery itself seems to be regenerative power and full of lifeforce itself!
"Fortunately I found this thing, giving that human strong regenerative abilities. Roland was a fool to not notice this" Genghis thought to himself, not recognizing Michael whom he had long forgotten about.
Even though Roland was now an undead under his command, he didn't fully trust him as he suspected he was a spy sent by the Demon Lord to keep an eye on him
"We are ready, sire" the lich said as 4 powerful liches stood around a runic circle made with blood on the ground
"Then let us begin. I will become not only the King of the Liches, but also the Demon Lord!" Genghis Khan smiled as he stepped into the circle
The 4 liches all started chanting. They were once powerful mages in their own right, all delving in the dark arts of necromancy.
The first was Balthazar, Lord of the Underworld. He was once the most powerful mage of his era. He had decided to find the source of all magic and started to experiment in the dark arts, even starting the city of Norestgul, the city of Dark Mages!
But due to his cruel experiments, the other mages of his era teamed up with King Lochmond, the ancestor of King Gregoras, and with his sword DragonDeath, he destroyed Balthazar's body.
Unfortunately, he didn't know that Balthazar was now an immortal lich, and didn't know or find his phylactery. But Balthazar could only regenerate and restore to his body many centuries later, after his body was burned and thrown to the sea!
The second lich was Mordecai, one of the founders of Twizzlegard, the floating city of Mages. He was a famous magician who turned to the dark side after being defeated by the pre-eminent mage of his time Roselbaum the Great. He dwelved into the death arts but lost again in a second duel with Roselbaum, who destroyed his body. Again, like Balthazar, it took a long time to restore his body to it's current form
Both Balthazar and Mordecai were only skeletons, wearing robes to hide their visage. But the other two still looked human, one looking like a beautiful human woman, albeit with pale skin, looking like a vampire, and the other a man looking in his 30s, but with yellow skin and had an air of death about him
The third mage was the female of the group, Merusan. She was once called the Queen of Twizzlegard. She knew Mordecai and met him in her youth. He was already an old man by the time she became an adult.
Long after Mordecai's "death", Merusan was already c0nsidered the Queen of Twizzlegard being the most beautiful mage and one of the elders of the Council, a scandal broke when it was found that she was kidnapping children and sapping out their lifeforce to preserve hers.
She was hunted and had to flee Twizzlegard and hid in Norestgul. But King Gregoras' father King Lexor razed Norestgul to the ground, ridding the realm of the dark city.
Merusan managed to survive, and eventually became a lich herself after discovering Balthazar's tome of how to become immortal by becoming a lich.
The fourth was the sickly man named Agnal. He was once a slave to a magician, assisting him in all his experiments. But he himself was experimented and tortured until one day he killed his master.
Deciding not to get found out, he reanimated his master's body, using dark magic he learned from his master himself as his body has been experimented with himself, and was well versed in black magic. He lived for a few centuries, animating and controlling several mages of his time, using and disposing of them when they were no longer useful as his guise
Eventually, he was stopped by King Gregoras himself! He was fortunate that nobody knew who he really was, pulling the strings of several evil mages that became infamous for their time, all with him controlling them from behind.
He also turned into a lich to gain power, as well as to remain immortal and near impossible to kill.
Genghis stood in the middle of the circle as energy swirled around him and the blood rune seemed to rise from the ground and attached itself to the object
Each lich poured their necromantic power into the object as it rejected their deathly mana
"Push on! We will make master the most powerful lich yet" Balthazar yelled his order
Death mana surrounded the object, but it continued to resist with life magic on it's own.
"Break!" Mordecai yelled, putting more power into it. The other 3 pushed harder as well
Suddenly, as if a dam broke, the object's resistance collapsed and all the energy poured into it
"Noooo" 3 female voices seemed to scream from somewhere simultaneously
The 4 liches laughed as Genghis held the thing in his hands
"Wait... something is wrong. How can it need so much energy?" Agnal said, feeling something was wrong
"Don't give up! Put everything you've got into it" Balthazar said sternly
Sweat seemed to pour from Agnal and Merusan's faces, but the thing was still absorbing more
Genghis started to sense something was wrong when he looked at their faces, but Balthazar and Mordecai's skeletal faces didn't look any different
Suddenly, Merusan screamed as her body started to age before his eyes, her youthful hair turning white and her beautiful skin suddenly withering
He looked at Agnal and his skin had already melted off his skin as his eyeballs popped in it's sockets!
Merusan by now looked like a skeleton herself and her hair had all fallen out!
Both fell to their knees and Merusan's head fell off her body!
Genghis' hands started withering as he screamed in pain
Genghis panicked and released the object, jumping out of the circle to save himself
"No!" Balthazar shouted as his body exploded into bony shards
Mordecai just crumbled into ashes as all 4 liches's withered and crumbled bodies burned in a black flame
Simultaneously, around the realm, 4 phylacteries self destructed. One a beating heart buried in an unmarked grave, another a lampshade made from human skin in a private library burst into flame, a third was a strange book in the library of Twizzlegard, setting the whole library on fire, and the last was a nondescript stone on a desolate beach which suddenly shattered.
The object levitated in the air, before shooting into the sky, bursting a hole into the castle wall.
Genghis curled up in pain as both his hands were burned to a crisp, leaving only stumps at his wrists
