Chapter 127: Chapter One Hundred Twenty Seven

I had to admit, on a scale of one to crazy, a whirling funnel of blue  flame jamming itself down the throat of a screaming corpse was one of  the crazier things I'd seen so far in my life. As the flames were  crammed into his mouth his body seemed to bulge as if it would explode. I  was half expecting to have to five for cover, but apparently Carks  flame didn't react with the cold fire the same way mine did. After a bit  of bulging the Lich just sort of...popped, but not with explosive  force, more like a soap bubble, with all the pieces dissolving into  fiery ash.

We all just stood there, staring. No one had  been expecting that, this was some huge endgame fight and we'd been  expecting to have to throw down with everything we had, but despite the  stats and everything, this was real life and not a game. Sometimes  things just...died. Lucky for us, but not really for long since we  needed to get out of here now. Scooping up the staff Callie tossed it to  Cark. "See if that works for you, if it does put up a wall behind us to  block our way. I want each of the H rankers carried by a G ranker, we  don't have time to take it slow, we need to get the hell out of here."

Benny  grabbed Celine, I grabbed Martin, and Jessie grabbed Sarah as Cark  wheeled to face behind us, checking to see if the staff could do for him  what it did for the Lich. Since he had the most Might of all of us, we  all took off at a dead sprint back the way we came. As we ran I pulled  even with Jessie, yelling to Sarah. "Hey, weird question, did that  seem...too easy? Because I know you guys were fighting him for a while  but that Lich died really fast. I kind of expected more based on all the  hype."

Sarah actually giggled at that. "Oh he isn't  dead." I stumbled slightly, yelping a bit but managing to adjust my foot  as Callie caught me and we both looked at Sarah to wait for an  explanation. "Liches aren't just undead wizards, theyre a special class  of being. A Lich removes his soul from his corporeal body and stores it  in a special container called a phylactery. Even if you destroy the body  the Lich is fine as long as the phylactery is safe. No Lich will bring  their phylactery into battle with them. But we don't need to worry about  that."

That seemed pretty damn optimistic, and I couldn't  help but glare at her. "Why the hell not? Because I feel like an  immortal undead who cant be killed is exactly the type of thing we  should be worried about, especially one that has a vested interest in  destroying us." I paused for a second. "Wait do we have its phylactery?  We stole a bunch of shit from that treasury maybe it was in there."

She  just shook her head. "I doubt it, he would have been much more upset.  That was just typical undead arrogance, they get uppity because they  think of themselves as immortal. If not though like I said, no need to  worry. Liches are incredibly powerful and dangerous, but they're also  limited. They're bound to within a certain radius of their phylactery.  Once we get out of this cavern theres almost no chance it'll be able to  follow us to the surface, and even less it could trail us into the  forest." She paused. "The ghosts probably could, but they don't do great  with sunlight so it wouldn't be a smart call."

We were  interrupted by an explosion of heat rolling over us, and I was able to  look back really quickly to see a massive wall of fire filling the  cavern behind us. Apparently the staff DID work for Cark. Callie was  already next to use and we all slowed down a bit to wait as Cark came  barreling across the field, doing his damndest to escape from the the  horde of ghosts that was being held off by the firewall.

The  original explosion of the Wyvern had chased off a bunch of specters but  apparently that had been a scouring party or something, now they were  out in force, and I could see some G ranked spirits among them in  positions of authority that seemed to be commanding, some of them on  ghostly chargers and wearing armor, while some were clad in fine silks  and fancy noble clothes woven from silvery light. Nobles I assumed, and  members of the Grave Lord's court. Luckily they were shying away from  the flames too. We kept looking back for about five or ten minutes ,  sure not to slow down as they finally broke through the wall.

Our  view of the things was cut off as we hit the edge of the cavern and  entered the tunnel back to the surface. Without having to sneak or look  for enemies and without holding back for our H rankers we were moving at  dozens of times the speed we'd been going on the way in, which was good  because even with the head start it wasn't a simple task to escape from  the ghost army. Even as we escaped the odd scout would phase through  the wall ahead or next to us and try to attack or slow us down.

I  dispersed more than a few with poison fire, and Cark blasted others  away, while Sarah slapped them out of existence from Jessie's back. All  in all the ghosts that managed to find us were only a threat because the  otherworldly wail seemed to signal others, forcing us to change  directions a few times. I had to trigger Seek Hidden again to make sure  we didn't get lost on the way, and I stumbled as a wave of exhaustion  hit me, running pretty close to the end of my rope as I approached my  charge limit while still weakened.

Still,  I was able to find the same ethereal trail in the air as before and I  took the lead, showing the group which direction would take us to the  surface without running into any dead ends. A single blockade would have  pretty much doomed us, because while we were more than able to handle a  few stray ghosts as they came through the walls at us, if they'd pinned  us down we would have been absolutely screwed. Even with the advantage  of fire and holy energy we couldn't take out a whole army of the things.

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Flexing  the skill was agonizing in my current condition, and I knew without a  doubt I was going to refrain from using Afterburner so liberally in the  future. I honestly couldn't imagine going through this again, and the  next time I decided to invoke that skill I would make damn sure it was  at the very END of an operation, not right in the fucking middle of it.  Granted I hadn't known about the Lich attack when I'd used it, so maybe  this was just a case of bad luck rather than bad timing, but either way I  was going to have to be more careful.

I  was able to keep my feet though, despite the discomfort, and being at  the front of the group meant it was obvious when I was having trouble  and the others were able to help me. As we went we ran into a few groups  of H rank undead of the more physical variety, and Cark used his new  staff to steamroll them so to speak. We didn't have time to train the H  rankers in our group, and Cark was built for taking out undead, so any  skeletons and zombies we ran into were wiped out fairly quickly.

Even  the two Dullahan in our path couldn't hold out against his new staff,  and despite the blockages we were able to make good time toward the  surface. Unfortunately we were on the upswing here, and the tunnels were  at a fairly steep incline, which meant Cark couldn't plug them up with  firewalls without flooding the tunnels we were in with bursts of heat  and smoke that rose up from the lower positions. Hell, even the bursts  of fire he used to clear the undead were making it pretty damn  sweltering in here, luckily our Impact was more than enough to protect  us.

Finally  we made it up to the ledge we'd viewed the original cavern from. Despite  our speed all the turns and obstacles had meant this was a much longer  trip than the return across the cavern floor, but once we got up there  we officially needed that firewall. The open ledge was a killing field  for the specters to hit us from, and Cark was forced to output so much  fire to block it off that he nearly passed out from the exertion.

Callie  was able to seal the entrance to the labyrinth of hallways with shadows  to prevent the heat from making them impassible, and she picked up Cark  to carry him since the rest of the G rankers were otherwise encumbered.  Getting back through the halls was much easier. I was able to drop Seek  Hidden because we'd been this way, plus there was a trail of undead  corpses to follow, though I wasn't sure if that was an oxymoron or a  tautology. Still, we made excellent time despite the turns since we knew  the way, and as we broke through the doors of the crypt into the fresh  air of the admittedly still pretty dark field we all breathed a sigh of  relief.

It  took everything we had to slam the doors shut, and as soon as we did, I  heaved with all my might and SHOVED Consecration of Flame into the doors  when the others were clear. The metal groaned as the two doors were  flooded with fiery energy, transforming into literal mediums to channel  my skill as my head swam so much that Martin, who was still on my back,  had to hop down and catch me. I could barely move. Not just because of  the twenty two or three charges I'd used, but the weakening combined  with all the pushing I'd done to mold those skills. I'd overworked my  brain and it was officially done.

Cark,  luckily, had rested up during the run and was able to stand again,  leaving my girlfriend free to carry me. She scooped me up in a princess  carry, giving me a gloating smile as she did. "This is just to pay you  back for earlier. Thank you ever so much for carrying me to safety." She  batted her eyelashes and I would have chuckled if I could fucking move.  Then we all took off for the forest. It was daylight outside...somehow,  but we needed to get outside of the Omen Stars reach before that would  be of value.

As  we ran I looked back over Callie's shoulder to see the doors to the  crypt warping and shaking. Even imbued with flame the ghosts were  throwing everything they had at them, but they didn't need to hold long.  Cark was carrying Martin, and at top G rank speed, even our lowest  might score was enough to get us out of the range of the army before it  broke through the huge barricade.

There  was an unearthly howl as the doors were torn apart and the ghosts  poured out, barreling toward all of us as we slumped down on the ground,  exhausted from the fight and flight both. We didn't even pay attention  to the things as the bullrushed the edge of the field and  then...stopped. They kept howling and shrieking but they wouldn't pass  into the sunlight of the empty clearing we were sitting in. We blocked  them all out and Callie set me down to rest, lying on my back in pain  and exhaustion. We were free, and we had time to take a breath, which  was good, because I wasn't going anywhere for a while on my own.

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