Overwhelming Firepower

I don’t know how long it has been since I felt this excited. Before I regained the memories of my past life, all I did was train, hoping to earn Father’s approval.

After regaining those memories, I began preparing for the sake of my survival. Since then, I have been through many life-or-death battles. However, after my first fight against those glacier hares, I rarely felt much fear during battle.

It was weird. I only gained mental resistance later, and other things to hold back my own fear, but now that I think about it, I was rarely ever afraid.

The nightmare I had before indeed made me feel fear, but it was a different kind of fear from dying and fighting.

I also thought I felt excited in battle because of the Battle-Crazed state, but I think that was wrong. Was I always like this?

Back when I played games, I loved reading their stories and discovering what would happen next. However, more than anything else, I loved the challenge. I loved facing something difficult, failing, learning from it, and eventually overcoming it.

Any gamer loves the challenge of difficulty, which is why, despite causing a lot of people anger, true gamers love souls-like games.

Even now in this life and death battle, against the Lich Aleister who was f*cking way stronger than the strongest form he had in the game, instead of feeling fear, I was feeling incredible excitement.

What other moves will he use? What kind of attacks can I use against him? What would be the best way to deal with him?

Many of these thoughts flashed by my mind as I continued kicking and punching the Lich before me, and my grin was growing wider by the second.

I did not know whether that realization should have disturbed me. But who f*cking cares? That’s a problem for the future, Lucen. Right now, I’m having too much fun!

My fist struck Aleister’s jaw. His skull snapped to the side, but before I could follow with another punch, I saw the bone sword about to strike me. It’s obvious he wants to make me distance myself from him.

That just means I need to stick to him even more closely! The bone sword passed beside my head as I entered the space between Aleister’s arm and body. I struck his elbow with my forearm, forcing the weapon away, then drove my fist into the center of his chest.

CRACK!

Once again, I broke several of his ribs, and once again, dark mana started fixing his body. If it were anyone else, they might have despaired, but I knew that he could not do this indefinitely.

The Lich Aleister, especially in the beginning stages, had a set limit. Even if he gained a mana core with circles, that just meant he had a bit more HP and MP, so let’s see who falls first, him or me!

I created a revolver imbued with lightning rounds in my right hand and fired at Aleister’s head.

The shot missed as the Lich avoided the strike; he did not block it like normal. ”Using the same thing over and over again. I already have an understanding of your abilities.” The Lich spoke to me in that eerie voice of his.

I laughed after hearing what Aleister said. ”You understand my abilities?”

The Lich raised his bone sword. ”Your weapons possess different shapes and effects, but their purpose remains the same. You imbue those metal shells with elemental spells and propel them forward, exploding, piercing, freezing, blocking is less ideal, dodging the attacks or removing the elemental spells in the metal shells are feasible.”

The Lich explained as he continued his attacks. I moved my head aside as the bone sword passed beside my cheek. The tip cut several strands of my silver hair before I struck his wrist by kicking it.

It would seem that the paralysis is wearing off. I looked around him and saw that, despite being able to defeat the undead, the mere fact that they kept on reviving was making Alexander sweat a bit.

On the other hand, Sir Thalos was dealing with them with ease, and Robert was having fun doing various experiments mid-battle.

I should increase the training of Alexander’s group when this is over. ”Are you that confident? Getting distracted in battle.”

The Lich’s voice sounded beside me, I reacted and quickly dodged the incoming disintegrate spell. I felt mana gathering and immediately bent backward.

A thin green ray passed over my face. Several strands of my hair disappeared before the Disintegrate spell struck the wall behind me.

I created a trench gun while falling and fired toward Aleister’s hands. The speed at which I fired two shots had become a little faster.

The first fire-imbued shell struck the hand holding the bone sword. Several fingers exploded into burning fragments, causing the weapon to fall.

The second shot struck his other wrist. His hand separated from his arm and spun across the chamber. Without hands, it gets a little harder to control spells, which gave him a bit of time.

As I was about to press on, I was forced to stop. I noticed the Lich was not regenerating, which was weird. I was sure he did not deal that much damage to negate regeneration; I could also sense that the Lich had ample mana to regenerate.

”To think I would be pushed this far by a young one who inherited that sinful blood. I have truly weakened, but my hatred has not. I will grant death upon all with that blood.”

I felt the change before I understood what was happening. The dark mana surrounding Aleister stopped flowing toward his broken hands. His missing fingers did not return. The shattered bones remained exposed, while the dried flesh around his wrists continued burning.

At the same time, the undead fighting behind me suddenly became slower.

The troll facing Sir Thalos stopped regenerating. One of the third-mantle aura users collapsed after Alexander cut through its legs, and for the first time, it did not force itself back up.

The blue flames within the eyes of every remaining undead began fading. It was damn obvious that he had stopped sustaining them.

Aleister had been dividing his attention between fighting me, repairing his body, controlling the undead, and maintaining his mana throughout the chamber

My gamer instincts were telling me that he was about to enter a second phase, meaning either he gets more aggressive, changes tactics, or gets a stat increase in every possible direction, or possibly all of the above.

The instant the flames inside the undead faded, the entire chamber changed. The pressure that had been spread everywhere suddenly gathered around Aleister.

The dark mana no longer moved toward the trolls, goblins, mages, or aura users. It all returned to one place, surrounding the Lich until his body could barely be seen.

Yeah, this is definitely phase two of a boss battle. I felt my body tense up as my excitement and curiosity rose.

The others who were fighting the undead looked to be quite surprised that their opponents were no longer regenerating.

I quickly made a move and used Unbound Demonic Stride. I’ve seen too many transformation sequences to understand that only fools wait for their opponents to finish.

I crossed the chamber in an instant and drove my fist toward Aleister’s skull. My knuckles stopped a few inches away. A transparent sphere surrounded him. The impact sent cracks across the barrier, but it did not break.

Of course, he ain’t like those idiots that leave themself open mid transformation. I created a trench gun against the damaged section and fired.

BOOM!

Fire swallowed the barrier. The sphere shook, yet the dark mana around Aleister only grew denser. Then the undead collapsed.

Their blue flames vanished. Every trace of mana sustaining them rushed across the chamber and entered Aleister’s body.

The bone sword dissolved. His ruined hands did not regenerate normally. Instead, black bones grew from his wrists, longer and sharper than before.

The five rings inside his mana core spun until they blurred together.

Ancient words appeared across his exposed bones.

Robert shouted from behind me, ”Those markings are gathering mana on their own! How utterly thrilling! As expected of an ancient being!”

The transparent sphere shattered outward.

I crossed my arms as the force threw me back. Before my feet touched the ground, Aleister disappeared.

Battle Instinct screamed from three directions at once. I twisted in the air. A bone spear passed beneath me. A green ray cut through the space above my shoulder.

Then Aleister appeared directly in front of me. His new skeletal fist struck my chest.

The impact launched me across the chamber. I crashed through a pile of bones and rolled until I forced one hand against the floor.

Sh*t, that was amazing! I thought to myself as I spat out more blood from my mouth. To think he attacked in three directions at once, and the power of his strike was so great, it bypassed my aura mantle.

I pushed myself upright. Every breath hurt, but Aleister’s pressure no longer spread across the chamber. It was focused on me.

The others finished the undead minions and were turning toward us. They gathered around me, ready to fight.

Heh, I guess this is the so-called power of bonds, and such that those shonen protagonists keep on screaming about.

Mana gathered around my body. My white aura mantle surged, mixing with the smoke and dust.

I wiped the blood from my mouth and grinned. ”I guess this is going to be the final round. Come on then, let’s see how far your hatred can reach!”