Chapter 49 Round Two.

  Lenna’s crown heated up but was ultimately overpowered. Her skin was cracked under her armor as it had become the battlefield for her own mana and aura to fight against the curse attempting to burn her to ash for the crime of destroying the king’s bracer. She had started to tip the scales fully into her favor when she heard that word spoken once, twice, and then thrice. “Die. Die. Die.” King Malcolm had ordered time and again. The worst part was that he had hardly used any mana throughout the entire battle so it was unlikely that he was going to bottom out his own mana pool from casting the most lethal Word of Power back to back to back. Lenna felt her core tremble under the order of magic itself to end her. Her core burned and then her heart collapsed in on itself. She swayed as her pulse stopped cold.

  Shamesh felt the hostile spell lock onto him and an implosion definitely happened around his core, but other than some missing bone inside of his chest, he was entirely unbothered. It might’ve given him some kind of opening to counter attack the king but a singular thought completely overpowered everything else: ‘The Mistress does not have an item to cheat death.’

  Isaac felt his headband activate and his ring heat up. He then felt the familiar implosion of the Word of Power. Immediately after that, he heard his necklace activate with a sound like shattering glass that reverberated through the local mana. All of that was secondary as he was already moving to help Lenna. “Feed her.” Isaac ordered the dark mana all around them. Dark mana began to pour into her before he could even appear at her side. He had been in the middle of an attack, immediately after a shadow-step, which was what caused the momentary delay before he could appear at his wife’s side. He had hoped that the command would help her out until he got there.

  Isaac appeared next to Lenna and converted all of the dark mana flooding her into pure death flames. Lenna’s body erupted like someone had thrown lamp oil into a fire. He realized in that moment that he had not actually made a direct connection with the dark mana but had simply thought that it should turn to death flames for her.

  “Are you alright?” Isaac asked his wife as Malcolm launched towards them. Isaac barely got his sword up in time to parry the swordspear of oblivion but that was when something unexpected happened. Isaac managed to parry the king’s attack but the king’s oblivion blade still bit into Isaac’s darkness and reality one. Isaac’s sword exploded. The Reality Magic that made up most of Isaac’s sword was totally consumed and obliterated in equal measure. That sudden loss of an entire section of the blade had caused all of the mana that Isaac was feeding it to blow up in his face like the world’s darkest fireball. Both Isaac and Malcolm were forced back, though the king moved back defensively just as much as the explosion of pure and dense dark mana had pushed him.

  More Stars of Doom came in from the side as Shamesh tried to split the king’s focus without dipping too hard into his mana reserves. He couldn’t afford to keep wasting Disintegrate spells worth of mana in exchange for the king’s first level Reality Shield. The king sliced through two of them, took one to the already half destroyed arm, stabbed a fourth, and then one managed to slip through enough to leave a small coin sized hole in his armor directly in front of his core.

  Isaac slid past Lenna and she immediately went on the offensive leaving him with only one word: “Yes.” As a reply to his previous question.

  Isaac shook his head as he tried to reform his sword. It flickered and sputtered but then eventually stabilized again. He frowned down at his sword as Lenna was instantly put back on the defensive. Shamesh was forced to move her out of the way of another attack and then Isaac appeared to put more pressure on the king. He was back to dealing with both of them. That was, until he abruptly launched towards Shamesh. Shamesh shot up into the air as he cast a Quicken spell on himself. Both he and the king shot straight up as their Quickened Flight spells were pushed to the limit.

  Shamesh started to cast Stars of Doom but was met by a Command Negation. He tried to use Command Negation on the king’s flight spell but was countered by the same spell again. Sheesh tried a lightning bolt next but the king just let it wash over him. His left stump and the small hole in his chest armor both smoked but he was otherwise fine. Shamesh gave up trying to win in a proper wizard duel in the air and decided to just fall back on a tried and true plan: Attrition.

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  Shamesh kept a trickle of power maintaining his Telekinesis spell just in case he needed to use it on himself at a moment’s notice. While he did so, he tried to fire off Stars of Doom over and over again as he led the king in a wide horseshoe arch that ended with them heading straight back down towards Isaac and Lenna. Shamesh fired off six more Stars of Doom and had them all countered before they came screaming back down towards the dais at a dive that would put a falcon to shame. Neither of them had to worry about how much stress their hearts were under as neither had one, so when Shamesh was about to splatter himself across the dais, he just stopped in place and shot off again to the side.

  During the ten seconds that Shamesh and Malcolm were fighting like a pair of birds of prey, Isaac and Lenna were not idle. At least, not until after the first second or so of surprise passed. Isaac boosted himself up to half of his regeneration rate and let his sword die out. “Lenna, I am going to try something.” He told her. He had been running on his regeneration rate alone since his coin barrage had ripped nearly all of his reserves out of him.

  “Go ahead.” Lenna instantly agreed. She knew that it had something to do with her, otherwise he would have just done it, but she trusted him completely and they didn’t have time for him to explain as Shamesh was diving directly at them.

  “Help her as you help me.” Isaac ordered the dark mana around them, more than just the dark mana, the death flames that it could become. He felt his regeneration rate and expenditure equalize in an instant as the mana understood what he wanted of it.

  Lenna had never felt so detached from reality. Not only was she under the effects of Quicken but Isaac had just doubled her strength, speed, and perception of time. She was now twice as strong, four times as fast, and saw the world as if it were moving one quarter speed. Shamesh stopped directly in front of her and took off between her and Isaac. Malcolm tried to do the same but her sword flicked out like a lightning bolt. The air split and her sword groaned for the briefest of moments before her blade came down on the haft of Malcolm’s swordspear. The weapon was ejected from his hand and instantly set ablaze. A massive gash marked the metal as it was nearly cleaved in two. Lenna’s blade had a crescent section that was pressed inwards, bent, and broke apart but the rest of the blade maintained its form. Thankfully Gilgamesh’s enchantment was still perfectly fine as Malcolm practically tripped over it.

  The tip of the lich king’s boot was caught by Lenna’s blade as he flew past her and his entire form was instantly covered in flames. The flames died out in the time it took for him to turn around to face her but it was instantly clear that he had decided to temporarily ignore Shamesh once more in favor of Lenna. The V’Nova was proving to be more troublesome than he had originally thought.

  He turned to face her but she was upon him in an instant. He was forced to block her newest charging thrust with his remaining bracer as he tried to yank himself away from her. He was anything but prepared for her to double in speed a second time. Lenna’s sword punched through the bracer and it exploded in her face just like the first one had. Unlike the first time, however, Lenna did not instantly back off in order to cleanse herself. This time she had the spare mental faculties necessary to throw her aura at the curse while she continued to go on the offensive. Her sword stabbed directly into the small hole in the chest of Malcolm’s armor just as five more Stars of Doom slammed into his back.

  The tip of Lenna’s sword may have reached into the small opening but the outer quarter of an inch on either side was stripped away as the blade plunged deep into the lich’s chest. It made it two full inches before the lich king exploded with a shockwave and a roll of thunder. Lenna was forced backwards as Malcolm was ignited both inside and out of his armor.

  Three ninth level Reality Binds attempted to lock onto Isaac, Lenna, and Shamesh. Lenna powered through hers as if it were merely an annoyance but Isaac and Shamesh were not so overpowering. Isaac was able to shadow-step away at the last moment so the spell caught nothing but air while Shamesh had been successfully captured. It wouldn’t be for long, however, as he was already starting to chant a Command Negation. A tunnel of reality magic wrapped around Malcolm and led him towards the space directly behind his throne on the dais.

  Malcolm flew towards the location his dais’s magic led him faster than Shamesh could get out of the Reality Bind. Lenna barely kept herself from breaking her sword across the Reality Walls in the shape of a tunnel and Isaac could only cancel his own boosting in an effort to power his damaged sword. Isaac’s sword flickered to life just as Shamesh got free and the lich king planted his feet directly onto the Dais.

  “Round Two.” King Malcolm Millen spoke and magic surged all throughout the dais. His old Reality Armor fell away, as did his old Flight and Quicken. And then, right before the trio’s eyes, he was bathed in death flames that geysered up from beneath his feet. All of the damage they managed to do to him vanished in an instant and the death flames subsided. Half of a dozen layers of magic settled over him once more, right before Shamesh hit the Reality Wall next to him with a Disintegrate and Isaac impaled it with his sword on the other side. The Reality Wall broke apart but it was already too late.