Translator: CinderTL
"The magic arrays... have they all been destroyed?"
As if sensing something, Ellis, who was exploring the empty room, paused.
"I'm sorry... Holland. I'm sorry... Van Buren."
A faint glimmer seemed to flicker deep within his hollow eye sockets.
"But... I still have unfinished business to complete."
A long, heavy sigh escaped the Lich's withered chest.
"Once all is settled..."
He murmured to himself, as if speaking to an invisible audience.
"I will personally go to the soul wall and confess to you. But..."
A bitter twist contorted the Lich's face, made even more grotesque by the dried blood.
"I wonder where Kelemvor, God of the Dead, will banish me? Mount Celestia?"
He let out a short, hollow laugh.
"Given my countless sins, I'm probably only fit for the Abyss..."
Shaking his head, Ellis dismissed the useless thoughts. He extended his gnarled, wood-like arm and swept aside the clutter on the wooden table before him.
In the dim light, an object resembling an eight-sided die hovered eerily in mid-air, as if suspended by an invisible force.
As the Lich's withered fingers touched the die, a cold, mocking sneer escaped his teeth.
"Schmidt, you remain as vile and repulsive as ever."
"So high and mighty in public, wearing a false mask of compassion, yet secretly using such forbidden rituals to seal away your treasury... truly..."
Ellis seemed about to curse further, but ultimately shook his head, swallowing his unfinished mockery.
"Though, in my current state, I have no right to condemn you."
He murmured, his voice tinged with self-deprecating weariness.
"Because..."
Before he could finish, Ellis withdrew a prepared parchment scroll from the depths of his tattered robes.
He slowly unfurled it, revealing a dense, interwoven network of magical runes—so intricate they would leave any mortal dizzy.
"...we are both now despicable wretches, stained with the same filth."
As this near-inaudible declaration hung in the air, a thick, almost tangible wave of negative energy surged from his deep-set eye sockets, like a viscous black fog.
The energy writhed in the air, transforming into countless invisible, pitch-black tendrils that swiftly enveloped the parchment scroll before him.
The tendrils precisely probed the scroll's intricate patterns, like ink seeping into ravines, gradually merging with it.
When the last wisp of cold, negative energy had completely fused into the scroll's patterns, the wrinkled parchment seemed to come to life, floating upward on its own to hover in mid-air.
Immediately, a colossal wave of magic element erupted from the scroll's core.
It spread outward in visible, ring-shaped shockwaves, rapidly expanding in all directions.
In an instant, this tide of magic swept across the empty room, surged through the battlefields of the Demon Capital where humans and magitech constructs clashed fiercely, and finally...
...reached the farthest corners of the Mistland.
Moments later, the receding magic wave began to rapidly contract, surging back toward the hovering scroll.
Yet as it returned, it carried more than just pure magic element.
The invisible tide grew heavy, flickering with faint light as it coalesced into a raging sea of souls.
Countless souls were forcibly dragged from the Mistland by the scroll's terrifying gravitational pull.
Within the churning torrent, the souls of human soldiers were the clearest and most tormented, emitting silent, anguished screams.
The turbid, wild souls of demonic beasts followed closely, their twisted forms writhing with bestial fury and defiance.
And at the depths of the torrent, one could find the lingering obsessions of warriors from ancient battlefields, the fragments of decaying nobles' vanity, and even countless faint life imprints nearly fading into oblivion.
All the lingering spirits of the dead—those not claimed by deities or assimilated by the planar fabric—were ruthlessly harvested by the Magic Scroll, its patterns resembling a greedy maw and a soul furnace.
The core essence of each soul's "being" was stripped away and absorbed, fueling the scroll. After a flash, the essence vanished.
The scroll's glow shifted from dim to blindingly sinister, finally coalescing into a deep, pitch-black hue.
The air in the room seemed to freeze, leaving only the sighs and curses of the living.
"Using the dead as keys..."
Ellis's voice was nearly drowned out by the wailing.
"To unlock the repository of filth... how laughable."
Before the words had fully faded, the scroll erupted with a powerful yet razor-thin beam of pitch-black light, striking the eight-sided die hovering before Ellis.
Hum!
A resonating hum echoed.
The forbidden runes on the dice's surface flickered violently under the light beam's impact, twisting and distorting until they shattered into fragments.
It was as if an invisible layer of ice had been broken.
A musty, icy air, tinged with faint arcane dust and the tang of rust, surged forth from the fractured surface.
The space before Ellis collapsed inward, spiraling into a distorted portal.
Without hesitation, Ellis stepped through, his form cloaked in the lingering wails of souls and the embers of negative energy.
The treasury's interior wasn't filled with mountains of gold and silver, but a void so profound it seemed to swallow light itself.
Countless items, each encased in powerful restrictions, floated like stars in a dark cosmos.
Daggers radiating cursed light, bizarre creature organs sealed within crystals, ancient scrolls pulsing with ominous energy...
Each occupied its own small, magically isolated space.
Yet Ellis ignored these treasures, enough to drive any mortal mad.
In his hollow eye sockets, two points of soul-flame, as eerie as grave-phosphor, locked onto an inconspicuous corner deep within the treasury.
There, a palm-sized box, neither gold nor stone, floated quietly. As Ellis approached, the restrictions on its surface silently dissolved.
His phylactery.
It was as dark as obsidian, its surface covered with countless twisted, etched runes that flowed with a faint, dark purple glow.
At its eight corners, delicate mithril threads formed an intricate binding array, locking in the dissipating energy.
At this moment, the phylactery pulsed faintly, like a sleeping heart sensing its master.
With each beat, the dark purple glow rippled across its surface, resonating coldly with the soul flame in Ellis's eye sockets.
Ellis extended his skeletal hand, his fingertips trembling from the energy resonance, and gently caressed the cold runes on the box.
A torrent of strength, a mixture of liberation and belonging, surged into his skeletal frame.
The soul flame in his eye sockets flared violently, its eerie green light illuminating his silently opening and closing jaw.
Immediately, his skeletal remains groaned under the strain, as if undergoing a reshaping.
Within the light, the bleached bones rapidly filled and coalesced.
Tendons wove together like writhing shadows, and pale skin re-covered them.
Deep within the hollow sockets, the eerie green soul flame contracted and solidified, finally transforming into two cold pupils, those of the living—yet tinged with the detachment of one who had crossed the boundary between life and death.
As the light faded, what remained was no longer decaying skeletal remains, but a tall, gaunt man with a stern face.
His eye sockets were deep-set, his thin lips pressed tightly together. Beneath his tattered clothes, the black obsidian phylactery was clearly visible, embedded in the center of his chest like a living thing, fused with his heart.
Dark purple veins spread from there, faintly visible beneath his pale skin before fading into nothingness.
A pressure far purer, colder, and more suffocating than before surged outward from him, like an invisible cold tide.
"Finally..."
Ellis lowered his head, his icy fingers tracing the spot where the phylactery was embedded in his chest.
There was no wound, only the solid sensation of flesh and bone completely fused with the eternal core.
After shaking his head slightly, he stepped through the dark portal.
As he departed, the entrance to the treasury violently rippled, as if the surface of water had been disturbed.
Space twisted and contracted, then sealed itself shut.
The next moment...
A silver-white Battle Qi, capable of tearing through all darkness, descended from above without warning.
Boom!
The solid stone roof crumbled like paper, torn open by a massive hole.
A rain of rubble and dust poured down.
Blinding silver-white light pierced the dust, locking precisely onto the reborn Lich.
(End of the Chapter)
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