Xu Yue—no, Mage Nol wanted to curse.
He had always had a good temper, but after consecutive experiences of "financial freedom is at hand but then transformed into a small monster mob", "nearly falling to death due to a collapsing ground when descending the mountain", and "a high-level dungeon's hidden boss attacking out of nowhere", anyone would become irritable.
"Stop!" Nol shouted sternly. Accompanied by the hoarse voice of a skeleton soldier, this command was especially intimidating.
However, Teest didn't slow down for even half a second.
"Water!" Teest retorted succinctly.
"The water will be intercepted by the Lich! If you keep running, your life will also be intercepted by the Lich—"
Teest finally stopped.
The roaring sound of water still echoed behind them, but the rumbling gradually grew fainter. The rock passage was originally surrounded by only mud, but now there were broken stone bricks scattered around. They were uneven, carrying the regularity characteristic of man-made objects. Compared to the dry riverbed, the surroundings looked more like the remnants of a corridor.
Teest waited in place for a few seconds, and the water flow indeed didn't approach further. He raised an eyebrow. "You indeed know the monsters very well."
"The Lich is a high-level undead. As another undead monster, I can sense it."
In fact, Nol's understanding of the Lich went far beyond this. Not to mention that he had personally tested all the dungeons; he had even seen the modeling of Lich Valdorlock without clothes.
To enrich the game world, the development team designed a few special professions that could only be obtained through hidden dungeons. Hidden dungeons were limited; once cleared, they disappeared, and the requirements to conquer them were very strict. If a Player failed to clear it, there would be no second chance.
Despite hidden dungeons adjusting their difficulty according to the number of Players, they were still class-changing dungeons and had strict level requirements. If the level wasn't sufficient, one couldn't even enter the dungeon.
Teest, in his rookie gear, looked like a newbie and Nol wasn't even considered a Player; they shouldn't be here at all!
Even going ten thousand steps back, to awaken the boss Valdorlock, one must first clear the hidden dungeon "Forgotten Royal Court". To enter the Forgotten Royal Court, one must first complete a complex prelude quest.
No part of the journey included an "underground river corridor", but they had ended up right at the Lich's doorstep.
Nol had a foreboding feeling. Each dungeon had an independent map. There shouldn't be a bug like "being air-dropped somewhere after external destruction".
Something was wrong with this world.
"Any suggestions, Mage?" Teest leaned against a relatively intact brick wall. "Apart from dealing with that Lich, we seem to have no other choice."
"No, it's best to avoid it and find a way back to the surface," Nol said. That Lich wasn't something they could handle now.
"The back is all water, and ahead is a Lich. If we slowly dig a hole here, I'm sure I'll starve to death," Teest said lightly. "I'd rather try to fight the Lich."
'You're dreaming,' Nol thought helplessly.
A lone wolf challenging a lion could barely be called "trying". But if it dared to attack a dragon, that wasn't trying, it was courting death.
A cold laugh echoed in the darkness, as if agreeing with his opinion.
The next moment, the corridor in front of the two twisted. They were violently grabbed by spatial magic. The narrow and crumbling passage silently shattered, and the surroundings turned into a spacious hall.
The grand hall was slightly tilted, and knee-deep water had accumulated on the floor. The dark water surface reflected the mineral glow on the ceiling, as if the galaxy had fallen to the ground. On both sides of the hall, exquisite armor was covered with rust, golden red curtains were full of mildew, and no trace of life could be seen in the vast hall. Only the Lich—huge and floating in the center of the hall—was visible.
It stood three meters tall, draped in a tattered mage's robe, and was bound in the middle of the hall by hundreds of translucent chains. The decaying edge of the robe just touched the water surface, causing ripples to spread.
At this moment, it looked down at the two with a sneer.
Lich Valdorlock was pale, with a thin and elongated face, devoid of hair or beard. His dry skin was tightly stretched over the skull, the cheekbones were high, and his pair of eyes were deeply recessed, with only two pinpoints of cold light visible in the shadows. Just being watched by him, Nol felt the illusion of being crushed.
"Go to the throne, quick!"
He didn't want to wait for the Lich to give an opening speech. To Valdorlock, they were no different from cockroaches—the normal reaction to seeing a cockroach is to grab a slipper, not to make small talk with it.
Teest heeded the advice this time. He leaped from the water's surface and rushed towards the throne. The moment he jumped away, massive shadow spikes thrust out from the water, piercing where they had once stood.
Missing his mark, the Lich remained expressionless.
He raised his skeletal claws, and the shadow spikes splintered into countless black arrows, their tails gleaming with dark green light, aimed directly at Teest.
Teest seemed to have eyes behind his back. He gracefully leaped across the ruined hall and occasionally skimmed over the chains that bound the Lich. Many black arrows that seemed to hit him were blocked by the chains. In less than ten seconds, he landed on the spacious throne.
"What now?" He asked the skull without even breaking a sweat.
'Not bad in terms of motor skills,' Nol thought, a bit surprised.
"Now rest for a while and wait for my body to grow back," Nol said. "The throne is the only safe place here."
Teest just hummed in response and started observing the Lich with interest. In contrast to their leisure, the Lich wasn't in a happy mood—
"Sacrilege."
The Lich indeed didn't attack again. He pointed at them with his gaunt finger, his voice sharp and cold as ice water.
"Vermins trying to touch the throne—this is sacrilege."
"I agree." Teest put the skull beside his leg and sighed. "If you'd just send us back above ground, I'll get off right away and even help you clean your precious chair."
"No one can leave alive," the Lich whispered ominously. "Not heroes, not traitors, and certainly not a knight without a master."
"Don't talk about people as if they're pet dogs. I'm not the one that's chained up." Teest shook his head.
The Lich's chains rattled, and the blue light in his eyes flickered.
So the kid's profession is a knight, but he doesn't even have a sword. Nol touched his newly grown rib, feeling numb.
No matter how sharp-tongued Teest might be, he couldn't really harm the Lich. The Lich knew this and didn't show anger, only gazing down at them maliciously.
"Living things need to eat. You can't hide forever. Knight, your fate has only two endings—die on the throne in cowardice or die in despair by my hands."
Teest groped beside the throne for a few seconds, grabbed a thumb-sized stone, and with a whizz, the stone flew through the air, hitting the Lich's forehead.
[HP – 0]
This hit had no power; it only triggered the Lich's combat state.
A dark red health bar appeared above the Lich's head, long enough to make one's eyes spin. Teest paused and stared at it thoughtfully for a few seconds before the bar disappeared.
"Aren't you fully grown yet?" He poked Nol's skull.
Nol didn't answer right away.
As his body gradually became whole, he could finally take in his surroundings. Above the throne, the entire hall was visible—more real and beautiful than Nol's memory.
Even the Lich, though a creature of death, radiated a subtle vitality.
The Dragon Tomb Garden was always dim, far inferior to the splendor of the hall before him. When the world he created turned into reality, no creator could resist the shock.
"…Don't rush. I'm growing legs." Nol snapped back to reality as Teest poked him again.
"With all due respect, even if you grow legs now, they're of no use," Teest said. "Until we take down that guy, we're not going anywhere."
This was true.
Given their weakness, one direct hit would be enough to bid farewell to this place. For Teest, "here" might mean "this dungeon"; but for Nol, "here" meant "this world".
Even worse, if Teest was eliminated, Nol would also undoubtedly die. The undead had strong upper-level suppression. Even if he thought of a solution, he couldn't implement it.
He managed to pick up a companion underground, which could be considered a balance of luck.
"Did you bring any healing herbs?" Nol asked.
"No." Teest was still sizing up the Lich.
"Do you know healing magic?"
"No."
"Have you ever learned how to engrave a tombstone?" Nol decided to withdraw the thought of "balanced of luck".
"Aren't you giving up too easily?" Teest finally turned his head back.
"Then at least tell me what you can actually do," Nol said dryly. "Besides jumping and dodging."
Teest counted on his fingers. "Swordsmanship, holy light spells, fireball spells. I guess these are the only things that will work on it."
Nol fell silent; the blue flames in his eye sockets flickered.
Attacks within the safe zone couldn't cause damage, and simply attacking and dodging wouldn't work either. If anyone stayed in the safe zone for more than five seconds, the Lich would automatically disengage from the battle and recover to full health.
Someone must continually battle it.
Lich Valdorlock belonged to the high-IQ boss category. He had over sixty common attack combinations, which would continue to change with the battle.
The fighters must recognize those brief pre-casting animations.
Many of the Lich's moves were area of effects* attacks that couldn't be avoided entirely. And this would be a protracted battle where physical exhaustion was inevitable. Without healing methods, even the most experienced Players were doomed to fail.
*(AOE) An attack or defense, such as a spell or skill, that affects all characters within a specified range of the target place or character.
Fighters must have healing items or healing magic.
…These were the basic requirements for a normal raid*. But they were so underleveled that it was appalling, and they didn't even have equipment or weapons.
*Raid boss. It's a boss that's specialized and designed to be fought by multiple players, typically of significantly higher difficulty than a normal boss and requires specialized strategy and/or loadouts.
A game puzzle.
Yes, this was just a game puzzle. Nol looked at the hall filled with starlight, and the thinking made him calm, as if he had returned to that familiar office.
"Your legs have grown back." Teest spoke after an unknown period. "Mage, Mr. Mage?"
Nol raised his head from his thoughts. He had thought long enough. During that time, his body was restored, and his hit points were full again. This was a good start. Nol smiled, though Teest probably couldn't recognize the grin on a skull.
"We need to sign a contract first to prevent us from attacking each other."
"Is that a good idea? I'm human, you're a monster. I've only heard of a similar contract…"
"No, not signing a 'Master-Slave Contract'. Even if you were my biological father, it wouldn't work," Nol interrupted. No matter how dire the situation, he wouldn't do something foolish like entrusting his fate to someone else.
Of course, he knew Teest meant no harm. For Players who wanted to team up with monsters, a "Master-Slave Contract" was the only known method.
But he wasn't an ordinary monster.
He had a brain, and he was familiar with all the rules and loopholes of "Tahe".
"We're going to sign a different kind of contract."
The skeleton on the throne announced, word by word.
"…In simple terms, we have to get married first."
The author has something to say:
Teest: (Pupils quaking)
Being proposed to by a skeleton in an underground ruin is super exciting. Congratulations to the two for achieving the fastest marriage achievement