Chapter 144 The Lich’s luck

Mara’s Point of View

Before heading back home, on a whim, I decided to check on the undead castle to the south. Every dozen or so years, I’d do a quick flyby to see if the defenses were weakened, and so far, I hadn’t had any luck… But as I flew closer and could feel the wards weakened by the lack of a controller, I knew my luck was running overtime again.

Why would the lich finally leave his home? I didn’t really care; all I cared about was the delicious valuables of an entire kingdom inside. I couldn't help but feel unfamiliar facial muscles move as I formed a smile in my dragon form. It was happening more and more ever since I met him; people didn’t realize how much of a difference luck made, and I was proof.

There were still defenses, but without the controller, without someone actively defending against my attacks, rerouting power, and making taking this building down not worth the effort, I would blow through them in minutes or hours rather than days. Smashing through the first defense with only my body weight alone, the gigantic spherical bubble designed to work as an indicator of bigger threats popped like a bubble, and I got to work on the much thicker actual shield that was there for defense.

Three breaths and I was through that layer as well; now came the hard part. Destroying any part of the castle would take breaking through an ever-replenishing barrier while also destroying the magically resistant material the building was made from. This would be impossible for almost everything else, except that I was a dragon. As potent as my breath was, my massive body and sharp claws were just as, if not more effective, at tearing through the stone and mortar.

Breath, claw swipe, breath, claw swipe. For hours, I hammered away at it, finally breaking through enough to enter in my humanoid form, and after doing so, all the defenses would no longer matter. If the fool were still here, he could have empowered the area I was attacking, lowering the shield defenses elsewhere to make sure the areas I attacked were powerful enough, but since the defensive magic encompassed the entire building, it was only a matter of time before I broke in.

Just as I smashed my way in and was going to start looking for the phylactery or treasure room, a wall slid open, revealing a lich. We stared at each other for a moment before we both acted. He put up a shield thicker than I had ever seen before, while I conjured up dragon fire to attack him with. It wasn’t as powerful as if I were in my dragon form, and it took mana instead of being a natural process of the dragon’s body, but it was still magic more powerful than most other races had access to.

The shield was so thick I couldn’t see through it to break, melt, and then shatter. Another shield appeared, then another, and another as my magic kept pouring out; it may have even turned into a contest of who had the most mana, but the structural stability of the wing we were in was weaker. The ground shifted under both our feet as my mana compromised the floor even more. He began to fall down directly into the room the stairs were connected to, which happened to be his phylactery room.

It would have taken hours, perhaps even days, perhaps even hiding from me altogether, because I got bored of looking; whatever defensive wards he had in place to hide it didn’t work if I could see the physical wall slide away. And I stumbled across him right as he opened perhaps the most magically defended room in the entire castle. I really couldn’t help but laugh as I jumped down, following him in as I looked at his skeletal appearance.

The lavish robes he wore were gone; the magical staff he held that empowered him even further turned to charcoal, then dust from my powerful breath. Even the bones that made the core of his body were withered, blackened in some places as they became fragile from the heat that seeped through even the shield he had up. I could see it already, the defeated look in his face as he asked.

“How? You don’t show up for decades, and then you decide to try again in the few hours I’m gone? Did you have this castle warded and know when I left?” I chuckled at his question. Almost sneering at how defeated he looked as I spoke. “No, just lucky.” With that, I channeled again, and this time, he didn’t put up a fight. The room was engulfed in my draconic flames, the contingencies he had burned away with him as I felt whatever power source supplying the building falter before finally cutting out.

I yawned. Even if the Lich had his defenses up, it was only a matter of time before I destroyed them, but with him in this weakened state, he was comically easy to deal with. It was something I hadn’t believed would ever happen. Catching a lich with his pants down was like finding a dwarf that didn’t like booze; it just didn’t happen.

Now… Where was the treasure room?

…

I ate a peach as I dug up the ground behind me, tossing the pit in and burying it as we moved on. My farming skills were to the point that by the time we left, there might be a trail of new fruit trees leading the way back; the ground was that fertile, and nothing had been grown on it for years. I imagined trails of merchants coming here and following the orchard road all the way to the castle as we slowly made our way there.

We had to deal with the lich still, and even now, I felt anxious. He was strong outside of his lair; inside it, he could be a complete nightmare, and that’s if we could even get in to fight him. I motioned with a basket of fruit to everyone else, and some of them took the fruit as I asked. “So, how close are we, do you think?” Silk was leading us while Tems scouted ahead. Just as I asked, she spoke.

“Let’s ask Tems; she’s coming back this way.” We kept making our way toward her as Tems huffed it the last quarter mile or so back to us. Her breath hitched, and I thought she might have run back because she came on an enemy and had to make it back here quickly, but she was just excited. “We’re almost there. Just five miles until the castle comes into view!”

We kept walking with Tems urging us on until we finally reached the crest of the hill and looked over at the castle that Lich came from. I couldn’t help but breathe in at the beauty of it; something like this shouldn’t exist, especially in a dead country like this. Perfection. The castle was bigger than the one in the western capital; even if we moved in all our children, not even the entire village before it developed into a city could move in with room to spare.

Except for a single area that looked to be hit with lightning or something, something enough to char an area and blacken the bricks, with the roof and part of the wall gone, revealing the inside, it looked timeless, like it hadn’t aged a day in a thousand years, like someone was actively taking care of it and keeping up with the maintenance for the castle to still appear so pristine.

The countryside was overgrown, but there was something special about this castle. Finally, we made our way inside. I was wary, wanting to take a window or go through the burned-down area, but everyone else wanted to go through the front gate and large castle doors. As we did so, I heard a familiar and unexpected voice. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?”

I looked at the voice and saw that Mara was here. Confused, I couldn’t help but ask. “Huh? How did you get here?” She smirked at me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She said. “Oh, I just killed a dragon and came to check and see if this guy let his defenses down. Turns out, he did. I guess I have you all to thank for tricking the hermit crab out of his shell.”

Tems chimed in. “Speaking of hermit crab. We have some if you’re hungry.”