Chapter 122: Atypical Soul Vessel

"Boom!"

Flames erupted behind him; even though he had lost his sanity, the lich instinctively fired twin heat rays in a sweeping burn attack.

As a red dragon descendant, Li En should have been fully resistant to fire.

But he had no intention of testing how hot a high-ring fire spell could get—or whether it could burn through dragon hide.

"Ssshh!"

The flame ray slashed past Li En's face; his instinct for danger made him duck just in time.

But seeing the heat ray melt the steel wall into "ice cream," his scalp prickled.

"Absolutely cannot be hit!" He abandoned all hope of luck and stepped faster.

His earlier guess was likely correct—the lich's original rank was certainly high.

Even now, the lich was in terrible condition; precise spellcasting was impossible, and he'd used only quick-cast spells along the way, their power likely less than one-tenth of normal.

But fortunately, he wasn't fast, and his reactions were as sluggish as a typical spellcaster's.

This thing, missing half its limbs and floating solely on magic, moved purely by instinct—its speed naturally couldn't increase.

Yet Li En, under the boost of acceleration magic, surged forward at full speed.

The lich had already been left far behind.

"Crack-crack-crack!" The skull behind him gnashed its teeth, clearly frustrated and enraged by its inability to catch up.

But then it stopped, as if deciding to turn back.

"SOL (Holy Sun)." Li En saw it all.

Orange-red light seeped out, enhancing Li En in every direction, even causing his muscles to swell slightly.

And that holy radiance pierced the darkness, striking the lich directly!

"Aaaahhh!" Flames erupted across his body.

"Boom!"

The next instant, the entire corridor was engulfed in sudden, explosive fire.

This wasn't because Li En was strong enough to ignite the lich—it was the lich's pain-driven instinctive magic burst, turning the surroundings into a sea of flame.

His earlier tactical judgment was correct: if they'd fought on the spot, once the lich went mad, the machine creature on the ground would surely be caught in the blast.

"Never underestimate a high-rank mage's burst and trump card."

"The weakest high-rank mage will still set up an 'accident spell' (auto-trigger effect) to chain automatic reactions. The standard tactic: once severely wounded, immediately cast random teleport, then casually summon a meteor shower."

Kuku's teachings were correct, even if his record was zero wins and five losses. Surviving until that point meant his survival experience was rich and practical.

Li En maintained sufficient distance before activating the SOL dragon rune, avoiding being caught in the explosion.

"Hum!"

The next moment, the skull appeared eerily right before Li En.

"Snap!" The lich, having completed precise teleportation, grinned at Li En.

Blue skull, black teeth chattering up and down, about to bite Li En.

This was clearly a malicious contact spell.

The lich, having "lightened" again, discarded more limbs, preparing to transmit a fatal curse through its teeth.

"Bang!"

But Li En reacted with astonishing speed, unleashing Dragon Claw.

The sudden expansion of the dragon claw smashed the skull flying at point-blank range!

"Fighting a close-range battle with a Dragonblood Holy Knight? Are you insane, lich?" This wasn't mockery—it was pure truth.

Even as he said it, Li En didn't even glance at his result—he turned and ran again.

"So tough." A moderately skilled lich could immune ordinary physical damage and low-tier magical weapons. Kuku directly told Li En he probably couldn't kill it.

Even if you split the skull in half, the thing still seemed capable of casting.

Now, Li En had the chance to strike—and felt absolutely no penetration.

This confirmed his role even more clearly.

In the following escape, he made zero attempt to land a hit.

He simply maintained the Holy Sun's radiance, keeping the hatred firmly locked.

For a mindless, powerful madman, direct confrontation was too costly. Kuku and Violet Rose had repeatedly warned Li En not to underestimate high-rank spellcasters—even mad ones, for the crazier they were, the deadlier they often became.

They could go mad enough to hug you while chanting a reinforced meteor storm, or drag you straight into another dimension.

It was said some top-tier space magic specialists, upon nearing death, would broadcast their location across all planes—who knows how many unethical acts summoners had committed, tricking countless otherworldly lords into lending power, resulting in dozens of spatial gates opening at once, or sudden divine punishment descending from the heavens.

"Here." The designated room was right here.

Li En dropped low and slid swiftly, dodging another ray.

Simultaneously, he flung a burst of flame, neutralizing the sudden indoor blizzard.

It seemed the monster was regaining its spellcasting ability?

But now, the collision of ice and fire created thick steam, making the battlefield even more chaotic—and aiding Li En's strategic goal.

"Let's begin!"

As Li En passed by, he noticed Kuku still scribbling on the ground!

But the mad lich's skull only wanted to "turn off the lights," hurrying over without caring about the "junk" beneath its feet.

"Hum!" Kuku happily added the final stroke.

The ground's array suddenly activated, glowing with runes of the spellcraft school—obviously a spatial spell with teleportation function, unmistakable to any high-rank spellcaster.

"Go on." Kuku grinned broadly.

The random teleport should hurl it far away.

Fighting a deathless lich to the death? Too stupid.

Even if you won, you'd only get some broken bones—and a respawnable enemy. Better to just dump it.

But the next instant, something strange happened.

The floating skull paused; countless characters flashed across its soul flame.

It stared at the array on the ground, as if decoding and countering it.

And the ground runes began to dim!

"Is this… spell counter?!"

Even with only instinct, even without dexterous hands, the lich attempted to counter the random teleport array.

Li En stared, dumbfounded. Weren't counters supposed to have tons of restrictions?

Didn't you need to know the spell yourself? Didn't you need higher spellcasting ability to disrupt the opponent's focus? You don't even have hands—how could you interfere?

"Snap."

But sudden magical interference produced a faint explosion in the void.

At the critical moment, Kusla stood up.

Those rapidly dancing metal hands effortlessly countered the lich's counter!

"That's allowed?!"

Actually, it was.

When first arriving, Kuku had borrowed Li En's body to demonstrate astonishing spell-counter ability.

In a sense, spell counter was really a battle of "focus" and "magic sustain"—in terms of computational power, few spellcasters could outmatch Kuku.

The spell took effect. The skull, still bewildered, vanished into the void.

The light faded. The lich disappeared without a trace, cast somewhere unknown.

Li En collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.

It had only been minutes, but he'd taken several heavy hits. Next time, leave such opponents to someone of equal rank.

"Quick, quick, quick! Loot the lich's treasure!" Kuku was frantic, extremely frantic.

"Uh, I thought you'd go look for the lich's soul container."

The lich's immortality came from embedding its soul into a "special item." Body destruction wasn't the end—the soul container was the true weak point.

"Is there a difference?" To Kuku, wasn't the soul container just the lich's most important treasure? It would be stored together.

"So where did you throw it?"

"Time's short! Can't teleport far—it's still in the Underworld! He won't return anytime soon."

This was clearly irresponsible. A lich suddenly appearing on the road was a hellish joke.

But thinking of what monsters lurked in the Underworld, Li En realized he could probably laugh at this joke.

"Ha, let's go loot."

In a sense, Li En was genuinely quite un-holy.

Excellent knights were often disliked by teammates due to their moral rigidity.

Some knights' "no looting" vows directly affected allies' loot acquisition.

Now, Li En clearly had a very flexible moral Dixian.

But neither Kuku nor Li En struck it rich: on one hand, the lich was apparently non-voluntarily transformed and had little treasure.

On the other hand, there was another urgent matter involving life that needed immediate attention.

"Can you fix it?"

The unlucky machine candidate still lay on the ground, sparking—no one knew how long she could hold on.

"... eeds time, but should be possible."

If it were elsewhere, Kuku couldn't guarantee it, but here there should be the necessary parts and blueprints—searching further might offer a chance at repair.

Thus, the focus of the search became the automaton's parts, its blueprints, and the lich's phylactery.

Considering the lich might return, the team moved swiftly and soon found their target.

Yet, how to handle what came next was delicate.

"We found both the phylactery and the parts," two targets had been located simultaneously.

The targets lay on the table, leaving those gathered with complicated emotions.

It was an object that, merely by being seen, carried the weight of tangled grudges and vendettas.

"The lich's phylactery… is that automaton's arm? Uh, should we reattach it to her, or just destroy the phylactery outright?"

Laid upon the table was a metallic arm tipped with a blade, still connected to portions of shoulder and chest—"metallic organs"—clearly matching the automaton's specifications.

Yet the party's spellcaster sensed the lich's soul within it!

This mechanical arm had become the lich's phylactery!

This made things deeply agonizing.

"Do we save the one first, or eliminate the threat first?!" When the parts needed to save a life and the enemy's weakness are one and the same, decision-making becomes excruciatingly delicate.

While Li En Sudar wrestled with how to dispose of the spoils, another group of travelers was moving swiftly.

The Horned Disciples forced to flee Mordosdilka could not possibly be only one group.

Just as the Beast Prince, protected by the Beast Cult, could not possibly be the only one.

A makeshift Horned Disciple squad, battered and bleeding, rested beneath a cliff.

The lead High Horn Priest was feeding his own flesh directly to the Prince.

In truth, had the Prince not intervened forcefully, the entire party might have perished in that city.

"Treacherous dark elves! Liars!" He raged and cursed the dark elves as countless predecessors had before him.

Cursing might be meaningless, but at least it eased his pain a little.

And having reached here, they should now be safe.

The dark elves could no longer track them here.

Next, perhaps they should consider whether to return directly to the surface through the passage…

"Orcs!" A sudden scream rang out from above.

The cultists snapped their heads up—only to see a skull blazing with blue fire!

It radiated terrifying magic and flame.

It seemed to be doing something…

"Die, filthy thieves!" Accompanied by the lich's roar, a massive meteor shower descended!

(End of Chapter)