The lich was still wondering how I was able to fight his Dread Knight and beat it even though I was a ‘weak noble’ when Katsuki slashed her dagger across his sternum.
There was a loud ‘crack’ and the blow sent him flying towards the other end of the cavern.
Hmm… When an enemy like him where he possesses better magic stats than I do but relatively weaker physical stats… I suppose the better option would be for me to use physical attacks against him.
That means casting [Body Current] to boost my physical strength as well as layering my strikes with lightning by casting [Lightning Clad] as well.
I did just that and even used my newly learned [Link Portal] to teleport myself to where that lich was, finding him still in the midst of pushing himself up.
He turned his head towards me just in time to see my fist punch descend on his head, smashing him back down into the ground.
I cast the same buffing magic on my other arm and punched down at his head, smashing him deeper into the ground before he could even realise what was going on. I repeated the spell again and punched down one more time, cracking both his skull and the ground underneath him.
I was about to do it again when something smashed into my side and sent me flying away.
I looked back to see it was Katsuki who had pushed me away, having used her daggers to block a blow from the Dread Knight who had somehow freed himself. She was of course not strong enough to stop the blow from the undead and she ended up getting flung into me.
What? How did it manage to free itself? Why didn’t it make any sound when it did?
I looked at the hole and realised that the one that I had been fighting was still stuck there, which means…
[Name: Reanimated Dread Knight
Stats:
400 Strength
400 Dexterity
400 Endurance𝑜𝗏𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t
400 Magic
Skill:
Martial Skill-(Sword Proficiency (Tier 2), Shield Proficiency (Tier 2)]
Ah, correction, this is another Dread Knight. The lich must have used up his remaining mana to summon another one I see.
I caught Katsuki and placed her down gently beside me, making sure to use a quick cast of [Close Wounds] on her.
“Thank you for the help, Katsuki.”
“Nnghh… I apologise for needing Mistress to heal me so many times…”
“Nonsense, just like how you have been supporting me, I would also support you as well. The lich should be running out of mana at this point, so we can just concentrate on this Dread Knight before going for him!”
“Understood, Mistress.”
I immediately summoned another one of my [Shadow Summon] and directed her to attack the new Dread Knight.
I was just getting ready to join my summon to deal with this new Dread Knight when a portal opened up and another Dread Knight stepped out.
God damnit! That stupid lich left himself with enough mana to teleport the stuck Dread Knight out from that crevice!!
Why does he have to have such good battle sense despite being an idiot?!!
Alright then, no more holding back! I’m going all out now!!
I recalled a portion of the [Shadow Summons] that were attacking the zombies. There weren’t any casualties on my side in that part of the battle but I definitely misjudged the amount of zombies in there since the fight there still seemed to be unending.
Since I only needed them to be there to hold back the tide, I called back half of them to help me deal with this stupid skeleton.
It tried to charge towards me with its shield raised, only to be stopped in its tracks when five of my summons appeared in front of it and blocked its advance.
A handful of my summons then jumped at it from behind, all of them wielding blunt weapons of various sorts to attack it.
The Dread Knight half turned and slashed its sword in an arc, slicing through the midsections of those summons in the blink of an eye and killing them instantly.
It then raised its shield and slammed it down, creating a shockwave that blasted us away from it.
The other Dread Knight also came to join its brethren’s side. Although it was weaker than us, it could still take advantage of any openings my summons might show when attacking the stronger one.
In that case…
I instructed my summons to concentrate on the stronger Dread Knight while I went to the weaker one, fully intent on taking it down myself.
Katsuki joined my side in dealing with the weaker Dread Knight, my Inugami maid already quite experienced with supporting me from our Dungeon dives together. Once we kill these two, we would have no problems dealing with the lich later.
I first fired off a [Spark Strike] at it, the small lightning bolt shooting out from my palm to hit the undead on its shield.
The electricity was conducted through its armour, dealing damage to it even though it managed to ‘block’ my attack.
I then leapt forward with Katsuki, my Inugami maid attempting to flank it while I took advantage of its attention being momentarily distracted to get close.
Using my superior strength, I tore away the shield from its grasp before it could even react to me, giving me the space I needed to deliver a punch buffed with magic to the skeleton in the chest.
The armour it was wearing caved in and I could hear the sound of its ribs shattering too.
Despite that, the Dread Knight was still able to swing its sword at me, not even caring that it most likely had a hole in its chest right now.
I conjured my own shield with [Shadow Forge] and raised up my arm to parry it, causing the skeleton to lose its balance and allowing Katsuki to slash her dagger through its neck.
I was expecting her weapon to bounce off but contrary to that, her blade actually cut through the bone and separated the Dread Knight’s head from its shoulders.
The body hit the ground first before the head, only to both disappear into dust a split second later. Seeing that Katsuki did not react to that, I guess that this was probably something that was normal for an undead like this.
Well… That was easier than I expected.
Turning back towards the stronger Dread Knight, I found it still fighting against my summons albeit in a worse state than before.
My summons have basically been throwing themselves at the Dread Knight while trying to take it down, using each other as sacrifices just to get past its guard to deal damage to it.
Its armour was torn up in several places with fist sized dents on its chest and abdomen armour, its shield had chipped corners and a long gash along the front and its skull also had a cut across its left eye socket to the cheekbone.
Just to deal that amount of damage, about a quarter of my summons had been slain but those were sacrifices I was willing to make.
I joined in on the fight while directing a few summons to distract it on the opposite side.
While the Dread Knight had its back turned to me to deal with those summons, I joined a few other summons to assault it from behind.
All of us jumped on it and my shadow summons pushed the Dread knight onto the ground, prompting even more of my summons to jump on its back to hold it down.
I pulled off its helmet while it was trapped under our combined weight before I strengthened myself again. I then began raining down blows on the back of its unprotected skull until I felt the bone shatter underneath my fist.
The body of the Dread Knight then disintegrated like the first one, meaning I had indeed successfully killed it.
I stood back up and turned to the lich who was now cowering on the floor while looking at me with what I assumed to be fear.
I gave him a fake smile, “So… I would ask what you are expecting to happen to you but I think you already know, right?”
“I… I don’t know… Wha… What are you going to do?”
“Hmm? Isn’t it normal for someone to expect themselves to be killed when they are trying to kill someone else? You broke into my bath on my birthday no less and created such a big problem for me. I’d think that offering me your life is the least that you could do?”
“I… I obtained immortality! I sacrificed so many people to obtain it! Do you… Do you think I’ll just let myself perish like this?!”
I tilted my head at him, “Oh, no, no. I’m not going to kill you… Yet. I still need you to suffer a little bit for targeting me and ruining my daily life after all~ Not to mention the fact that I also want to know if you know anyone else who was targeting me too~ So if you would just stay like this for a little while so that we can bring you back~ I’m sure Mary has ways to make even undead like you talk~”
Hehe, that’s one problem dealt with~