Chapter 11: Cutting Through Adversity

Bairus swung his staff and all the shadow weapons rushed forward.

*Clang Clank Clang!*

Marcus cast [Self-Reinforcement], jumped aside evading the semi-lich's attack, and hid behind a column. The weapons pierced the ground and embedded deep into the column filling it with holes.

Bairus summoned more weapons and hurled them towards Marcus.

*Clang Clank Clang!*

The column he had been hiding in was almost destroyed, so he ran and hid behind another column.

Marcus' strategy was very simple: make Bairus spend all his mana and then kill him. Although the plan seemed very simple, it was not easy at all.

First of all, Marcus didn't know how much mana Bairus had or how many spells the undead could use. And, secondly, he didn't know how long he could hold out while enduring the semi-lich's continuous attacks while being careful not to expend his precious MP.

*Clank, Bang!*

Marcus evaded a spear made of shadows while hiding behind another column.

He had no idea how many weapons Bairus had summoned, but in the few minutes, since the confrontation began, the undead had already destroyed three of the twenty columns in the room!

At this rate, Marcus would run out of places to hide and be exposed to the semi-lich's attacks before his mana ran out.

'Seriously, how much MP does this motherf**ker have?!... Huh?'

But then, Bairus' attacks suddenly stopped.

'Did he run out of mana?.... No, the spell blocking the exit is still active... So what's he doing?' Marcus was perplexed and used the full potential of his non-existent brain in an attempt to predict his opponent's next attack.

From the first moment he entered the room, Marcus had realized that, unlike the other undead, Bairus had a certain degree of reasoning. As a result, he found it very difficult to predict the semi-lich's actions.

*Tack!*

Bairus' staff touched the floor again, creating a gigantic magic circle that spread across the room, and from within the circle, dozens of shadows began to emerge and transform into corpse soldiers.

'Sh*t! He was preparing a large-scale spell?!'

Marcus put away his weapons as fast as he could, pulled out two more swords from his inventory, cast [Self-reinforcement], and started slashing at all the minions that appeared in the room.

*Slash, slash, slash!*

Marcus ran around the room and every time he swung his swords, many undead were decapitated only to then go up in smoke.

The semi-lich's minions were no match for Marcus before and even less so now that his stats were boosted thanks to [Self-Reinforcement].

But there was a problem.

'These guys are very weak, but there are too many of them and I'm running out of MP.'

The main objective of the minions wasn't to kill the opponent directly. Their purpose was to exhaust the opponent and then finish him off more easily.

Although Marcus was undead with infinite stamina, his MP was very limited. At this rate, his mana would soon run out.

*Slash!*

Two more undead soldiers were decapitated and instantly went up in smoke.

Marcus looked at his blades and noticed that they were already badly worn from stabbing and slashing so many minions.

Fortunately, Marcus had gotten a large supply of weapons when he checked the facility's armory and was now armed to the teeth. So he discarded his worn-out swords, pulled two more from his inventory, and continued decapitating the undead.

*Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!*

But, although Marcus managed to kill over 40% of the corpse soldiers, it had cost him a great deal of MP. He was close to reaching his limit.

[MP: 335/999]

'Goddamn it, at this rate!... I have no choice, I'll have to take my chances and try to cut off the snake's head.'

Marcus was sure that if he wanted to defeat Bairus, he had to wait for the semi-lich's MP to run out. But he couldn't wait any longer, if things continued like this, he would be the one to run out of MP and die.

So, if he wanted to survive, he would have to take the risk and try to attack Bairus directly.

He immediately stopped attacking the minions, pulled two more swords from his inventory, and charged straight at the semi-lich.

Marcus ran across the room ignoring the remaining undead and in a matter of seconds, managed to get within inches of Bairus.

*Slash...*

But just as Marcus' blades were about to cut Bairus' mummified body...

*Tack!*

The staff hit the ground again, creating a huge dark shadow that spread out below Bairus.

*Clang!*

The shadow blocked Marcus' attack. Then, it began to expand and split until it formed multiple tentacles of shadows.

The tentacles began to writhe and quickly rushed forward.

*BAM!*

Marcus managed to evade the attack by jumping backward, however, the power of the tentacles was so great, that it ended up creating a crater where they had impacted.

'Well... at least I know what kind of fetishes this guy had when he was alive.'

Marcus was in trouble.

As long as Bairus had those shadow tentacles, he couldn't get close and attack. That spell was practically good both offensively and defensively.

At that moment the tentacles rose again and began to coil around the columns that were still intact.

*Crack!... Crack!... Crash... Thud! *

Finally, the columns began to crack due to the pressure exerted by the tentacles, and a few moments later they collapsed.

Marcus quickly ran to get out of Bairus' reach, while dodging the debris. Unfortunately, the corpse soldiers were not so lucky and were crushed by the columns.

'That bastard! Is he trying to leave me with no places where I can take cover?!!'

Without the columns, Marcus had no chance of blocking the shadow weapons created by the semi-lich. Although he didn't want to admit it, Bairus turned out to be smarter than he had expected, to the point of leaving him completely cornered.

'Tch, at this point all that's left for me to do is try that.'

Marcus opened his inventory, pulled out two huge sacks, ran to the center of the room while dodging the tentacles' blows, and, when he was close enough, threw the sacks with all his might.

The sacks rose until they almost touched the ceiling of the room and when they were about to fall, they opened revealing their contents.

They were weapons!

Dozens of spears, axes, swords, and daggers. All the weapons Marcus had collected from the armory and the other undead were stored in those sacks. But instead of falling according to the laws of physics, the weapons began to levitate.

Although his inventory space had increased from 9 to 27 squares, Marcus didn't have enough room to store all the weapons individually. So after filling as many boxes as he could with weapons for quick access, he stored the rest in sacks and put them in his inventory.

But, when Marcus learned [Psychokinesis], it had occurred to him that he could use the sacks to control the weapons and attack from a safe distance. But he had never used it in actual combat as this technique required a lot of MP.

Marcus concentrated as hard as he could and with a wave of his arms, the weapons began to move in the air heading straight towards where Bairus was.

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The weapons began to fall from the ceiling as if they were a rain of arrows raining down on the semi-lich.

But instead of being completely impaled, the semi-lich moved his staff and all the shadow tentacles joined together to create a shield over his head, managing to block Marcus' attack.

*BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*

But while Bairus was distracted, Marcus fired multiple energy missiles straight at the semi-lich's mummified face.

Marcus' original plan was not to kill Bairus by impaling him, his goal was to distract him to create an opening in his defense, long enough for him to launch a decisive attack.

Fortunately, he succeeded.

The energy missiles hit Bairus' skull one after another, causing it to explode like a rotten watermelon.

Bairus' decapitated body began to wobble as if it was going to fall over at any second. But suddenly, the semi-lich's body began to twitch and writhe.

The shadow shield covering Bairus started to split creating multiple shadow tentacles larger and longer than the previous ones.

Seeing this, Marcus had a bad feeling and quickly backed away from being crushed by the tentacles.

'What the fuck is going on, why is it still alive?!'

Marcus didn't understand what the hell was going on. All the undead he had encountered had died after inflicting a great deal of damage or decapitating them.

But for some reason, Bairus was not only still alive, but also seemed to have lost control of his movements after his head exploded.

'huh?!'

But, in between the frantic attacks of the decapitated semi-lich, Marcus had noticed what appeared to be a small black sphere inside Bairus' chest. The sphere radiated a black light that beat rhythmically as if it were a human heart.

Marcus didn't hesitate a second longer and quickly pulled a javelin from his inventory. He aimed straight for the undead's chest and threw the javelin with all his might.

*Shik!*

The javelin drew a curved arc in the air, hitting the target piercing and piercing through the undead's chest. Finally, the tentacle attacks stopped and Bairus fell to his knees.

'Phew, It finally stopped... Wait... Why didn't I get any notification from the system?'

At that moment, the room began to shake and both the shadow tentacles, as well as the spell blocking the door, began to contract until they finally pushed themselves inside Bairus' chest.

The undead's body began to shake and swell uncontrollably.

'Oh sh*t!'

Marcus didn't wait for a second longer and immediately ran towards the exit, he was only a few inches away from the door when…

*BOOOOM!*

The semi-lich's corpse exploded creating a dark shockwave that hit Marcus in the back, destroying his legs, his left arm, many of his ribs, and sending him flying into a wall.

[HP: 12/250]

'Ouch...F**k...That was a close one...I'd better stop abusing the power of luck for a while or next time I'll die for real.'

Ding!

....

{User has defeated a [Semi-lich] for the first time, 10,050 additional experience points will be awarded}

....

{You gained 100,503 xp}

....

{You leveled up}

{You leveled up}

{You leveled up}

{You leveled up}

{You leveled up}

....

{You gained 170 stat points}

....

'Huh... isn't that a lot of points for only five levels?'

Previously Marcus had only gotten about 110 stat points after going up 8 levels, but this time he managed to get even more points for only 5 levels which meant that, for some reason, the amount of points had increased.

But he didn't have much time to think about this before the system flooded him with notifications.

....

{User survived a certain death situation}

....

{Conditions have been met}

....

{The title [light-footed coward] has been removed}

....

{You have obtained the title [Adversity Overcomer]}

....

Marcus was surprised. He was a little upset that he had lost [Light-footed Coward], after all, that title had saved his life on several occasions. But, seeing the effects of the other title, he finally felt that all his effort had paid off.

{Adversity Overcomer: When you face adversity, your stats temporarily increase by 5%}

Although it didn't seem like much at first glance, Marcus knew that this temporary 5% increase could make the difference between life and death.

'This would be great... If only my body wasn't all messed up!!'

Unfortunately, Marcus' entire body was fractured and both of his legs had been destroyed by the blast. Even if he used [Necrotic Manipulation] to heal, he had no guarantee that his legs would grow back.

But, as if the universe had heard his complaints, the system sent a final notification.

....

{The user has reached level 25}

....

{The conditions have been met}

…

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