I was worried about the fate of Titania, but not as much as daring to replicate my earlier teleportation feat. I had barely survived when my heath was full, and I wasn't ready to risk it again, especially without at least two complete Companion Node to guide me.

Luckily, I had made sure that Titania had her full mana, not to mention Marianne next to her, a hidden weapon ready to be unleashed against the weaker undead. I might have been still worried if Zokras had his death knights with him, but the last of them lost in the ambush, I wasn't too worried for them.

I still moved the maximum speed my air elemental allowed me to travel, covering the distance in less than twenty minutes — short enough for Titania to resist an attack from an overwhelming force as long as she was being careful, long enough for me to recover my mana completely, and even heal myself and let the girls recover their mana completely.

[HP: 2945 / 6324]

[Mana: 7231 / 7595]

I wasn't at my best of condition, but rather than delaying a bit more to heal fully, I would have preferred to arrive at the destination earlier, just in case.

"Are you sure that they have another ambush planned?" Cornelia asked worriedly as she looked at the horizon, feeling desperate. "It's so hard to believe that they still have more forces after that attack," she added, shivering.

"Unfortunately, building a huge army is not a difficult task for necromancers, nor it's too hard to raise lower-level necromancers," I answered with a sigh, which truly was the case. Unlimited availability of defenseless small towns and the huge number of monster corpses meant that they would never run out of material, and the long lives of the liches meant that they had the freedom to plan for decades and centuries while the other planned for days and months. "The only surefire way of dealing them is destroying the leadership, which is harder than it looks. The moment we destroy it, the lich's essence would escape away, to construct another body."

"Can't we just trap the essence?" Helga asked.

"It's definitely possible for weaker ones, but Zokras is certainly not one of those. I'm confident in destroying his physical shell, but catching his essence is much more difficult. I have no doubt that he has many plans to secure his essence. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to attack himself," I said. At this point, I had no doubt about Zokras' plan, because I could feel the corruption of death energy spreading from the city, getting stronger as we got nearer.

Luckily, I could feel Titania's light magic flaring against the oppressive darkness, clearly weaker, but still resisting Zokras' oppression. Moreover, as we got closer, I started to feel Marianne's presence stronger the closer we got. If she was yet to join, the battle couldn't have reached a dangerous level yet.

"What if you have been prepared against him, and manage to ambush him?" Cornelia joined the discussion.

I was interested in the ease Cornelia rejoined the discussion, and the lack of reaction from Helga. It seemed that after the dangerous adventure they had lived through, they managed to overcome their enmity.

"That's a pretty different deal. If I had some preparation time, and if I could estimate his path accurately enough… But that's a difficult thing to do. I don't expect him to be gullible."

Before the girls could answer, the town finally rolled into our field of view. A pair of simultaneous gasps reached my ears, which was a justified response to the abhorrent sight in front of us.

The town was covered by dark clouds. Not just the sky, but also the walls, rolling repeatedly like a typhoon, threatening to break through the glowing walls, each second eroding the inner walls. The outer walls of the city had already fallen, along with most of the civilian buildings. Only the inner keep survived, and even that was alive because of Titania's light magic, infusing into the walls to resist the overwhelming dark magic, threatening to devour every living person and raise them as undead.

Still, even from a distance, I could notice there were scarcely few corpses in the city under the effects of the spell, showing that both the soldiers and citizens managed to retreat safely — though I had no doubt that Zokras let it be successful, as it was better for him that Titania exhausted herself defending the citizens rather than trying to escape his attack.

"What if we distract him," Cornelia offered, looking angry at the sight, no doubt remembering her recent defeat.

I said nothing, just turned to look at Helga. "It might work," Helga commented. "We might not have your explosive power, but as long as we burn our mana aggressively while attacking from the air. And if the defenders join the attack as well, you will have some time to set up a defense."

"Might work," I said even as I looked to the city, the view getting clearer as the distance slowly dwindled. "I doubt I could completely destroy his essence, but wounding it enough to permanently damage his power shouldn't be too much of a problem. But it's going to be risky for you girls to distract him, even for a minute. Zokras is definitely not to be underestimated. Are you sure you want to take such a risk?"

"We can't avoid danger," Cornelia commented. "It's war." Helga said nothing, but her nod conveyed agreement.

I didn't try to dissuade them, as, despite everything else, I shouldn't ignore the fact that after the latest improvements, they were strong, not just in Silver Spires, but also in the wider standards of the Empire. Also, letting Zokras get away would put them in more danger if he decided to take revenge.

I waited until we were close enough to the city before casting a message spell to Marianne, asking her to coordinate with Titania and attack with their full power the moment we started our battle. An invisibility spell later, I jumped down the elemental, stepping onto the outer walls of the city, already starting to build a comprehensive ward.

I might not take Zokras down completely, but after everything, I had no intention of letting him go without my pound of flesh. And the best way to do so — due to an absence of actual flesh — was damaging his abilities permanently, meaning I needed to attack his soul space.

"Let's try it like this," I murmured as I conjured an earthen spear and started to etch it with runes. This time, however, I wasn't relying on my Undead Bane spell. I wasn't even using my biomancy or light magic, because while their deadliness against the undead was not in doubt, they were not exactly stealthy spells, especially against a master necromancer. And the number of times I had used these two types of spells only made sure that Zokras would be ready to their presence, ready to retreat.

And the only chance of doing something before he could destroy his own physical form and retreat — perks of being a lich — for me to ambush him with something stealthy.

Something new.

So, I decided to be exotic, and started to cover the spear with runes that would replicate my Tantric mana transfer trick, but in a much wilder, and much more destructive manner. Physical damage might be easy to shrug off, but damaging the center of his power would have been much better.

[-1832 Mana]

However, as I continued to work on enchanting the improvised throwing spear, I moved deeper into the city, paying careful attention to the diving elemental, carrying Cornelia and Helga, casting a huge inferno as they did so, trying to envelop Zokras.

Unfortunately, a swipe of his hand was enough to create a dark shield to protect Zokras, though when Helga followed the attack with a rain of arcana arrows, trying attack from multiple directions. Another wave of his hand expanded the shield, only for the arcana spells to drill through the shield with a surprising ease thanks to her spell structure, showing the advantages of her academic capabilities. Through the breaks she had created, Cornelia's flames flowed in, aiming Zokras.

It was a clever strategy. Too bad that they lacked the power to make it successful. Zokras waved his hand once again, this time creating a wave of dark energy going back, swallowing everything in its path, be it his own shield or Cornelia's flames, forcing the girls to pull up to avoid, turning them into free target practice, especially with a good chunk of their mana already spent in their first assault.

If Zokras attacked them again, I would have been forced to abandon my plan and forced to intervene. Luckily, light magic and life energy came from the town in the form of two deadly waves, threatening to drown Zokras, forcing him to shield against it.

A complicated shield went up, one that was uniquely designed to deal with my Undead Bane, too complicated to be cast instantly. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that could innovate in a hurry to adapt to new conditions. It was a perfect design, more than ready to completely neutralize my Undead Bane. If I had tried to kill him with a deadly overwhelming spell, it wouldn't have ended well.

Luckily, Marianne's usage of life energy, combined with Titania's light magic, was enough to trick him about the root of my assault.

Too bad that all his preparation was wasted because of a perception mistake, allowing me to throw my spear from my hidden spot. I wasn't exactly a ranged expert, but hitting an immobile target from a few hundred feet was hardly a challenge with someone with my physical capabilities.

It was a pity Zokras was looking the other way as the spear buried itself to his back, because I would have loved to see whether its dead face would be enough to show an expression of surprise as my mana flooded his body through the connection.

[-3112 Mana]

Though, as the spear made the connection, and I forced my mana to invade his soul, trying to find his soul space to destroy, he wasn't the only one that was feeling surprised. He had no soul space, something that would have been completely shocking if it wasn't for the discovery of the morning with the headmistress.

Luckily, even without a way to directly destroying a soul space, having a flood of mana invading one's soul was hardly a healthy activity. I forced the mana to explode from inside. Still, with Zokras' skill, I had no doubt that he could have defended himself from that.

But he failed to do so, utterly. I was ready to assume that it was because he was distracted that he was that easy to take down, but unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case. Just as its soul started to burn, I realized one very important thing, a connection with a distant entity running through the Aether dimension, far too thick to be his phylactery.

He was a fucking decoy….

The connection recreated as the soul sliver that was controlling its current body exploded, creating a perfect death scenario for Zokras the Eternal. Just like that, the question that was confusing me about his unnecessarily desperate assault was revealed. He was trying to hide his identity.

To make things much more fun, with the power shown by a mere decoy, I was absolutely sure that it wasn't me or the headmistress that drove him to this desperate show.

No, I had a horrible sinking feeling that it was about convincing his allies about his death, allies that threw our three thirty-plus level combatants just for a trick. Allies that, if headmistress' tales were even half-accurate, was busy waging a war against the full-fledged divine beings…

Allies that was inevitably my enemy considering we were competing for the same precious Divine Sparks…

But that was a problem for another day. Today, I had an amazing celebration to distract me from the weight of future problems…

—

[Level: 31 Experience: 489893 / 496000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 58

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 2945 / 6324 Mana: 2131 / 7595 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

Expert Craft [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 21/25]

[Helga - Level 17/21]