Ronan was satisfied. He'd just swung his mace, shattering the front legs of the skeletal horse. It collapsed to the ground, where it remained, unmoving.

He wouldn't put it past the infuriating creature to stand up and try attacking him even only possessing hind legs. It hadn't died after he smashed its head to dust, after all. No, the infuriating creature had just charged right into him once again.

Not that Ronan had suffered much damage because of it. While the charge had taken him by surprise, he'd managed to sidestep the horse's clumsy assault. Destroying its head hadn't killed it, but he was certain it impacted its sensory capabilities.

His destruction of its mount had caused the elite death knight to tumble from horseback. Ronan gave the undead warrior credit for adaptability—it simply rolled onto the stone brick and came up equipped with a shield to block his incoming mace.

The sudden appearance of the shield took him by surprise once more. In fact, it caused him to lose 2 points of his precious momentum, as his intended strike faltered against the death knight's defense. He cursed, dropping down to just 103. The lost stat multiplier was an awful sensation.

His strength lurched, and it didn't help that the knight immediately struck out with a sword, as a rippling torrent of mana flooded into the undead warrior from Tharaxes' direction. A brief glance was a risk, with the death knight on the attack, but he had to know what the boss was up to.

His heart began beating a thousand times a minute.

Tharaxes had vanished from view. Only a few sparkles of cyan mana lingered atop the dais. That was all he could see before he was forced to engage the death knight in melee. From the very first sword-slash he felt its increased strength, the difference made worse by his own loss of stats.

"Watch out!" Ronan yelled to the two women. "Boss is gone."

He didn't even see their reactions, as every iota of his focus was on the death knight. I thought it would be weaker after losing its mount, but it only got faster and stronger, Ronan inwardly cursed.

Alyssa was actually more useful now that the knight had been forced to the ground. She didn't deal much damage, other than the occasional minor nick in the warrior's bones. The damage wasn't what made her contribution useful.

Every time she flitted in and struck at the knight, it was forced to, at the very least, shift to reduce the damage. Her sword wasn't a deadly weapon, but a precise stab would cripple their foe. With every slight shift in its focus, Ronan was able to regain momentum in the battle.

Ronan's momentum remained steady, but he was far from winning. There was no sign of Tharaxes, ever since the boss had powered up the death knight. He'd expected an ambush, but it was possible the lich-lord had sacrificed its vessel to supercharge the undead knight.

Given that he'd not received a notification about killing the boss, and they had yet to complete stage 4, that meant Howard's theory had to be correct. They needed to destroy the lich's phylactery to truly put it down.

At one point, the death knight used what felt like a skill. It thrust at Ronan with lightning speed, knocking his mace to one side. Rather than press the advantage and stab at his exposed chest, however, the undead whirled and slashed at Alyssa.

She'd attempted to take the monster off guard while it was trying to attack Ronan, but the knight had somehow sensed her. In turn, she partially avoided the lethal cut, but it still dealt crippling damage to the swordswoman.

Her right arm had been severed two inches above the hand, there was a deep, bleeding gash across her chest, and one of her thighs had been cut into as well. She stumbled backwards, but managed to slip away from the follow-up shield bash. After the caustic acid steam, the woman was well used to dealing with extreme pain, and kept her cool.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

While the death knight was handily dealing with the two melee fighters, Jenna hadn't been sitting idle. As it recovered its balance and stepped back from Alyssa, a huge bolt of black lightning struck from the ceiling.

Clearly, magic was a weakness for the elite undead. As the magic lightning coursed through its body, it shook as though undergoing a seizure. The bonemail helmet seemed to melt into its skull, the visor twisting and snapping. A similarly gruesome process repeated itself all the way down to its feet, until the lightning dispersed into the ground.

While Jenna's assault hadn't outright slain the death knight, it created a vulnerability that Ronan could exploit. The monster had barely stopped shaking when he activated unstoppable charge of the juggernaut.

Unlike when the two balls of bone had been forming, his charge didn't instantly shatter the skeletal monster. He swung his mace as he crossed the short distance in the blink of an eye, activating his swathe of offensive skills.

The bonecrusher mace smacked against the monster's armoured chestplate, where it was held back for a fraction of a second. Then, like a car crumpling in a crash, the mace broke through, and the elite death knight's chest was smashed apart.

You have killed [Elite Death Knight Cataphract Lv.60]!

+2 Bronze Credits

+312 Copper Credits

+18 [Mace I] Mastery

+8 [Stamina III] Mastery

+6 [Momentum II] Mastery

+12 [Pain II] Mastery

+16 [Health I] Mastery

+14 [Mana II] Mastery

+3 [Grappling] Mastery

+22 [Critical] Mastery

+Reins of the Dead Lv.60 (Rare)

+Soul-infused Bone Dust (Uncommon)

+Elite Shard Lv.60 (Soul)

You have leveled up to Lv.51!

…

You have leveled up to Lv.57!

You have been restored x4!

+21 Vitality

+77 Endurance

+21 Resistance

+49 Strength

+14 Agility

+63 Tenacity

+21 Free Stat Points

You have reached the mastery cap for [Mace]!

Mace I has evolved to Mace II!

Deal minutely more damage when striking with a mace. Gain mastery over maces minutely faster. Weight penalties when wielding maces are minutely reduced.

Relief washed over him as he saw the kill notification. That, more than anything, was a guarantee they had succeeded, and this wasn't some undead trickery; a ploy by Tharaxes to make them drop their guard.

Then he felt giddy with excitement at the sheer number of levels he'd gained, and the absurd quantity of stats that came with them. So great was the rush of power, that Ronan felt himself physically changing in the seconds after their victory. His muscles swelled, tendons shifted slightly, and his soul was flush with determination.

As for the increase in tier for mace mastery, it was little more than a direct power increase. All things said and done, Ronan was happy with it. He would need every scrap of strength he could muster to take down the lich when it inevitably returned.

There was no chance that Tharaxes had simply vanished without preparing a failsafe. They'd already fought two of its vessels. The first had been the mini-boss, and the second was essentially a souped up version of the first. Whether its next vessel would be another upgrade, or simply a spare, remained to be seen. Either way, Ronan wouldn't hold anything back.

Their defeat of the elite death knight had been a panacea to the rapidly bleeding-out Alyssa. Her clothes were sliced to ribbons, but the flesh beneath was pink and glowy, freshly healed.

Jenna had been hopping from one foot to the other in excitement ever since her lightning bolt followed by Ronan's charge obliterated the undead knight. "That was awesome! I don't think I've ever charged a lightning bolt that much before. My brain felt as though it was going to shatter! Totally worth it," she rambled, passion for magic burning in her tone of voice and her exuberant gaze.

"Yeah, that was electrifying." Ronan couldn't resist throwing in the pun. Jenna took it in stride, though Alyssa threw him a withering glare. Some people couldn't take a joke. "We should try to find the phylactery before the boss returns. Maybe we can take it out without another fight."

The two women nodded eagerly at his suggestion. All of them were mentally exhausted, and the idea of another uphill battle before the end of the stage was enough motivation to begin overturning the entire throne room.

Searching every nook and cranny yielded no results. Ronan cursed the system, the lich-lord, and everyone who was listening. At one point he even began ripping up the stone tiles on the ground, in search of a hidden staircase. There had been one in the mini-boss chamber, so why not here?

A few minutes of searching passed, still with no results, when a huge pillar of cyan flames erupted at the top of the stone dais, centred around Tharaxes' throne. Jenna had been closest, tapping at the base of the dais for hidden mechanisms to unlock passageways and the like.

She threw herself backwards, and Ronan rushed to place himself between the pyre and the mage. Alyssa was on their left, at a similar distance from the flames. They had failed in their task.

As the fire flickered out, a hideous creature was revealed.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.