CHAPTER 43: [ BLUE FLAME ]

The painful sight was something he couldn’t take his eyes off of.

The urge to run to her was overwhelming. He looked for any signs of life. Any movement, a blink—even just the tip of her little finger.

Maybe he could see her breathing, but he remembered how she didn’t breathe or have a heartbeat when he first found her on the altar.

The only time he inspected her was before her awakening, so maybe now she did.

She remained still, against the broken wall.

He fought the urge to run to her.

He turned back toward the Lich, severing the [ Sacrifice ] spell.

Two more torches had gone out, only four remained in the room that was now significantly darker.

Alexander started walking counter-clockwise, getting away from Fae while hoping the boss would keep its attention on him rather than try and finish her.

He could feel himself rejuvenated.

The Lich didn’t move, too concentrated on its own spell.

It gave him time to assimilate the stats he had given, his vision and headache slowly vanishing.

If the small candles on the chandelier summoned weak human undead, the big ones are sure to summon something inconvenient...

Alexander’s eyebrows suddenly shot up, surprised he hadn’t even thought of it earlier: he didn’t need any light to fight it.

Letting it finish its ritual would be stupid.

He extended his arms, rifts opened on the walls as he invoked the reach of the entity. Its arms—tendrils—peeked out of the void and slammed into the torches on the wall.

It felt like an extension of himself, he didn’t feel pain from them, but pressure.

A pressure on a limb that wasn’t his, the same way he could feel when the statue ripped one tendril to pieces.

The torches were a lot more resilient than they seemed, yet were only made of wood.

Instead of hitting them head-on, he had the tendrils slither around them, slowly clutching tighter until a loud crack could be heard from each of them.

All four remaining torches broke, their giant flames snuffed out instantly in a puff of smoke.

He let go of [ Reach Beyond ], the tendrils faded back into the void.

The Lich’s eyes were now glowing through the darkness with a blue tint.

It pointed its staff forward, the rings catching on fire with flames resembling those that had just extinguished.

No you don’t.

He concentrated once more, [ Reach Beyond ] was the only spell he had that would count for anything against an skeletal enemy with a mind too broken to be controlled.

Alexander lifted his arm, tendrils exiting the ground like a volley of homing missiles directed at the Lich.

It jumped backward, its staff still held up.

Each tendril grazed it, unable to hold onto it.

They went back into the darkness, the volley continuing forward hoping to reach the boss.

Alexander was sweating as half a dozen tendrils kept coming in and out of that abyssal dimension, following the motion of the Lich.

It then jumped upward, narrowly escaping the last tendril that would’ve reached it.

Alexander ran forward, his eyes stuck on his floating enemy.

The Lich was chanting, he could tell.

Its burning gaze was heightened, following Alexander’s movements.

Arching above its head appeared floating blue flames.

Alexander’s sight let him see them come his way the moment they started moving.

They were heading in a straight line toward him.

As he kept running forward, he swayed left and right, the rays narrowly missing him.

They hit the ground, intense heat radiating from the near misses.

The tiled floor broke under the impact, leaving small craters where they missed.

Alexander concentrated, lifting his arm mid-run.

A rift opened before him. A tendril large enough for him to run on emerged, pointing toward the Lich.

Before jumping on it, a loud cracking sound reverberated through the ground, he could feel it shaking under his feet.

He stopped in his stride, the tendril leaving the surface it was on.

Another one appeared, this time going up sideways instead of toward the Lich.

As he ascended, he could see from his new point of view where that noise came from.

Glancing down, a crack appeared, cutting the room in half.

The slit widened, fingers emerging from it.

Alexander could feel cold sweat running down his back as he watched it happen.

They were giant, each finger bigger than himself.

The cracked floor was stretched opened, the hand slowly exiting the ground.

Alexander looked further to his right, another hand was slowly coming out of the ground.

This is way too big...

His eyes darted around, from Fae to the hands to the Lich.

I need to finish it before it fully summons this monstrosity...

Alexander summoned more tendrils before him, they all formed a bridge that advanced toward the boss.

He jumped from tendril to tendril, trying to remain balanced as the ground kept shaking from the hands emerging.

The room was in a constant quake, dust and small rocks fell from the ceiling as the hands kept moving.

He wasn’t even sure if the room would hold long enough for him to defeat it.

More rays came his way, he dodged them by making himself a path that went sideways.

The hand between them reached toward the tendrils that came out of the ground, sweeping the floor.

Alexander staggered as his support shook under his feet.

A quick side gaze to the wall on his left, and he jumped.

His free fall was brief, caught by a tendril extending from the wall.

The hand, however, was already mid-air, ready to slam into him.

He felt the pressure of time building up in his mind.

He could see in the middle of the room how the tip of its head was slowly exiting the cracked floor.

Alexander jumped onto another tendril, which curled backward.

The hand started moving forward, ready to catch him.

In one swift move the tendril launched him forward.

Alexander could feel the resistance of the air while his hat barely hung on his head as he was propelled in-between the fingers.

He was in free fall right before the Lich. No additional footing was waiting for him.

He raised his hand, a short groan leaving his lips as pain surged through his palm.

His own flesh split open, endless darkness was the only thing he could see through it.

His heart nearly stopped.

Where is it?!

He stared into the rupture in his own flesh.

Relief filled him, as he saw it coming out at a speed he hadn’t seen before.

The entity was still listening.

The moment he flew past the Lich he threw the tendril exiting his palm around its neck.

He held it with both hands. Using all his strength, he whipped the Lich with him, the sheer momentum canceling the blue rays that were forming above its head once more.

He violently tugged forward.

The Lich felt weightless. He hurled it through the room and smashed it against the wall with one last scream.

The impact reverberated through the wall, leaving a circle of broken stone behind.

The Lich let go of its staff, lingering on the wall for a moment before falling to the ground.

Alexander was in free fall. He tried summoning something to catch himself yet couldn’t.

He slammed into the stone, rolling several meters in a cloud of dust before finally coming to a stop.

When he did, it felt as if the room had gone completely silent.

He didn’t move, every inch of his body in pain.

Then, as he opened his eyes, he saw.

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Level up! ]

[ Your stats have increased! ]

[ Your companions grow stronger! ]