The Red Wizard of Thay wore a stern expression. His body was gaunt, and his bald head was unnaturally pale, making him look like an old man with one foot in the grave.
If not for those deep, unfathomable eyes, he would have been easy to overlook.
'Completely ordinary.'
Not daring to lower his guard, Anser quietly circled around and approached from behind.
The die spun rapidly before displaying the target's information:
[Thayan Red Wizard of the School of Necromancy, Lich, Challenge Rating 18]
'A lich?!'
Anser was stunned. He immediately retreated deeper into the Ethereal Plane.
Every lich was a legendary creature—without exception.
Liches were immortal masters of magic. The moment they successfully completed the transformation, they attained the essence of a legendary being.
The process of becoming a lich was both complex and perilous, and no two aspiring liches followed exactly the same path. As a result, their numbers were exceedingly rare.
'Challenge Rating 18... probably a newly transformed lich.' he guessed.
A lich's strength varied tremendously. An immortal soul was merely the foundation; the true limit depended on the caster's magical prowess.
Even so, no legendary creature could unleash its full power while the Weave remained unstable.
Unless...
They, too, had a god protecting them!
'Brunhilde's got some nerve. Is this fight even worth it?' he muttered inwardly.
Everyone knew liches were almost impossible to kill.
Even if their bodies were destroyed, their souls would remain safely housed within their phylacteries.
Only by first destroying that phylactery—which no one knew where it was hidden—could a lich be killed for good.
Anser quickly realized what was happening.
They were fighting over that coffin!
With that thought, he turned his attention toward it, though he deliberately kept his distance. Liches possessed Truesight.
The coffin had no lid.
Inside lay the skeletal remains of a humanoid dressed in purple robes.
Judging by its sharp canine teeth and facial structure, it probably hadn't been human.
The most unusual features were its left hand and right eye.
The left hand was shriveled and mummified, as withered as a chicken's claw, yet it still retained flesh instead of being reduced to bone.
The right eye was bloodshot, as though it had just been ripped from its socket. It slowly rotated within the empty orbit before locking onto Anser's position through the boundary between planes.
Their gazes met.
A chill ran down Anser's spine.
He tried changing positions.
The eye followed him.
The madness contained within that gaze was enough to make anyone's scalp tingle.
'It's... still alive?'
He wasn't sure.
He mentally locked onto the skeleton, and the die spun once more to confirm its identity...
It was the corpse of a werewolf lich.
At least, it had once been one. It was now completely dead and, by all logic, should never rise again.
'There's something wrong with that eye... and the hand!'
He shifted his mental focus to the eye.
The die spun for quite some time, yet failed to identify it.
Being separated by an entire plane greatly reduced the die's effectiveness.
But that only convinced him further.
That eye—and that hand—were definitely no ordinary relics.
By then, the battle had erupted once more.
Even while facing two Chosen at the same time, the lich remained completely composed.
He cast relatively few spells, yet every one of them effortlessly rendered his opponents' attacks ineffective.
With a casual gesture, he unleashed a triple-cast Sorcery Burst, whose devastating force damage sent both Chosen scrambling to evade.
He also wielded Counterspell with effortless mastery, employed the legendary Deathly Teleport, and unleashed the terrifying Frightening Gaze.
The lich also radiated a disruptive aura that sapped life itself. Any living creature that wasn't undead suffered continuous necrotic corrosion simply by approaching him, and even the two Chosen couldn't endure it for long.
As a result, although numerous combatants surrounded the battlefield, they could only fight from a distance.
None dared enter the dozen-or-so-meter radius around the lich.
Anser had intended to rush out and take Brunhilde away.
But he soon noticed something odd.
The Red Wizard lich didn't actually seem intent on killing anyone.
He showed no mercy whatsoever to the other adventurers, yet he was remarkably "lenient" toward the two Chosen.
His attacks looked like probing strikes—dangerous on the surface, yet somehow always holding back.
As for Brunhilde, she was genuinely giving it everything she had.
She was covered in layer after layer of protective spells, and her spellcasting was disciplined and methodical.
She avoided necrotic, poison, and control spells altogether, relying primarily on fire and psychic damage.
But against a veteran lich, all her determination accomplished very little.
'Why won't he kill the Chosen? Is he still testing them?'
Anser didn't know the answer, but he doubted he'd receive the same special treatment. If he revealed himself, the lich would probably hunt him down without hesitation, so he dared not get too close.
His gaze returned to the coffin.
'Could this actually be the artifact?!'
Boom—!
A thunderous explosion shattered his train of thought.
Turning around, he saw that Sosk had secretly destroyed the Teleportation Circle. Several of the curved runestones had collapsed, leaving the circle dim and inert.
'This is...'
Anser immediately had a bad feeling.
Then came another muffled crash.
He sensed that the Arcane Lock Maeve had placed on the main gate had just been broken.
The faint sound of hoofbeats echoed through the hall.
A black-armored knight rode into the chamber atop a nightmare with a blazing mane, flaming hooves, and smoldering eyes.
The death knight had revived!
His gaze locked firmly onto the coffin, ghostly flames flaring several inches from his eye sockets.
To everyone's astonishment, the death knight ignored everyone else and charged straight at the Red Wizard lich.
His greatsword came crashing down, forcing the lich to teleport away.
Gone was the calm composure he'd displayed earlier. He was even forced to abandon the floating coffin that had been hovering beside him.
Among high-level undead, a death knight naturally couldn't compare to a lich.
But that was against a lich with its full spellcasting ability—not a newly transformed one like this.
Otherwise, why would the lich have needed to join forces with the others to bring down the death knight earlier?
After a moment's thought, Anser quickly understood why.
The lich's three legendary abilities—Deathly Teleport, Frightening Gaze, and Disrupt Life—were all but useless against a death knight. With its spellcasting severely restricted, the fight was genuinely unfavorable.
As the death knight relentlessly pursued the lich, everyone's attention instinctively shifted toward the coffin.
One of the priests from the Church of Myrkul suddenly lunged for it.
"Stop!" (Abyssal)
A Command empowered by Terrifying Authority froze the priest in place.
His eyes went vacant.
The enraged death knight arrived in an instant.
His black blade of terror sliced through the air, passing through the priest like a phantom.
The priest's body looked like a stack of poorly balanced crates.
As the knight's passing gust swept over him, he came apart piece by piece, the severed sections tumbling neatly to the floor with perfectly smooth cuts.
Everyone else immediately stopped in their tracks.
Not a single person dared approach the coffin again.
The death knight wheeled his mount around and resumed his pursuit of the Red Wizard lich.
'Interesting.'
Anser paused for a moment before breaking into a grin.
Since Brunhilde wasn't in any immediate danger, he had no intention of exposing himself.
He was perfectly content to stay in the Ethereal Plane and watch the show.
'Why is the death knight only chasing the lich instead of everyone else? Looks like Sosk would've escaped even without my help.'
His eyes remained fixed on the distant battle—and the coffin.
He forcefully suppressed the urge to make his move.
Not yet.
The nightmare possessed Ethereal Jaunt, meaning it could carry the death knight into the Ethereal Plane.
Acting now would only help the lich escape, which was the last thing Anser wanted.
As he considered his next move, something caught the corner of his eye.
A gaunt figure was shuffling toward the coffin with tiny, unhurried steps, as though no one else existed.
It was Sosk.
The others watched with strange looks, clearly expecting a spectacle.
Most of them knew Sosk.
Many believed the wizard, who had spent decades obsessed with "archaeology," had long since gone mad.
After all, this entire incident had begun because of him.
But moments later, every expression changed.
Even after Sosk crouched beside the coffin, the death knight made no attempt to stop him.
'Sosk... you've got something up your sleeve.'
Anser knew the death knight wasn't playing favorites.
More likely, Sosk had reached some secret agreement with him.
'I can't let you take it!'
He immediately emerged from the Ethereal Plane, kicked Sosk away, grabbed the edge of the coffin, and shoved it into the Party Storage.
He suspected an ordinary extradimensional storage item couldn't hold the coffin.
Otherwise, why would the lich have insisted on carrying it around personally? It was far too inconvenient.
"No—Anser! Give him back! It's useless to you!"
Sosk let out a desperate roar.
His hunched body trembled as he stretched both hands toward the vanished coffin, his face filled with desperate longing and utter despair.
"You weren't saying that before..."
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