Lich for Hire-Chapter 76: Trust in Fates Designs

Although liches could resurrect endlessly, very few would ever choose to detonate their own bodies unless they were absolutely desperate.

Liches' physical forms were forged by condensation of dark magic. Their bodies were themselves high-tier undead constructs, and their every spell drew on power that they painstakingly accumulated over time.

As such, liches' bodies were scarcely less precious than their phylacteries.

As such, no one could have anticipated that Ambrose would self-destruct on the spot.

Dark magic refined to its absolute limit erupted in an instant, forming a pitch-black tide that surged outward in all directions, engulfing every summoned automaton in its path.

Where the black tide passed, the air filled with a suffocating stench. Countless warped, misshapen monstrosities manifested: two-headed spiders, centipedes like writhing tumors, worms covered entirely in eyes. These abominations were not physical creatures, but curses born from a vast concentration of dark magic.

Just as rotting matter produced toxic fumes, upon reaching a certain density of dark magic, virulent curses would arise naturally.

Even the lifeless automata were rapidly corroded within the black tide, decaying into heaps of scrap metal in moments.

Dippel was forced to keep invoking his legendary boon to repair his personal automaton. Otherwise, it too would have been eaten away by Ambrose's self-destruction.

The wave of dark magic persisted for two or three minutes. By the time it finally dissipated, all that remained was a field of rusted wreckage.

Staring at the debris, Dippel spat out a venomous curse.

But Ambrose could no longer hear him. The instant he self-destructed, his consciousness had broken free of its spatial confinement and returned to his phylactery.

A lich's phylactery was a very peculiar thing.

Many people mistakenly believed that a phylactery was a lich's weakness, the vessel that housed its soul.

In truth, that was not the case. A lich's soul always resided in its body. Otherwise, how could liches react instantly and cast spells without delay? Remote control would inevitably come with latency.

Ambrose's soulfire would remain within his body until it was destroyed. Only when that happened could the soulfire break through any seal and teleport directly to a prepared phylactery.

A phylactery was an escape route, an absolute path to survival.

Throughout the history of the continent, no one had ever managed to sever the connection between a lich's soul and its phylactery. Dimensional anchors, spatial isolation, banishment—none of them could negate a phylactery's function.

A Wish spell might do it, but no one would waste such a spell on a wish so pointless.

Once a lich's soul entered its phylactery, the resurrection could begin.

The time required depended on a lich's preparations. If a new body had already been prepared in advance, resurrection would be swift with little loss of power. This was why liches were so frightening: even after adventurers had exhausted all their mana and drained every potion, the lich could simply resurrect on the spot. For most adventurers, that was pure nightmare fuel.

That was why a certain saying circulated through the Nine Kingdoms: to kill a lich, you must first find its phylactery. Otherwise, all your effort would be wasted.

When Ambrose's soul returned to his phylactery, he found himself in a space slightly larger than an ordinary coffin.

Dark magic, nearly condensed into liquid form, filled the interior. Ambrose began absorbing it rapidly to prepare for his resurrection.

This was undoubtedly a long process. Ambrose had not been a lich for very long, unlike ancient monsters who had had millennia to prepare. He simply didn't have that kind of time, which made his resurrection far more troublesome.

Still, it wasn't a serious problem. His phylactery was in an extremely safe state. It would not be discovered.

This wasn't only because Ambrose had prepared countless decoys. Rather, those so-called fakes were actually just shells. His true phylactery was not hidden inside any single container, but rather constantly teleporting between them.

Each mithril box was engraved with spatial formations. In addition to expanding the boxes' storage space, these arrays allowed for mutual teleportation.

As long as a mithril box was not opened in the proper manner, the spatial array inside would be destroyed, and the true phylactery would never teleport into that broken shell.

There were many additional restrictions as well.

For example, the phylactery would not teleport into shells that were in close proximity to other shells. It could only appear in a lone, unopened mithril shell. This was specifically to guard against situations like the present, in which paladins had torn his home apart, gathered hundreds of phylacteries together, and were waiting for Ambrose to walk into a trap.

Once clustered together, those shells automatically became decoys. The true phylactery would never teleport into their midst. Only after they were separated again and stored far apart would they regain their potential as valid targets.

Other restrictions applied too: shells close to holy light were rejected, as were shells that had been moved too frequently within a short period of time. Every condition he could think of had been baked in.

Thus, while Ambrose did not know exactly where his phylactery was, he was certain it was safe.

There was, in fact, an even better option: a legendary spell known as Umvar's Shattered Phylactery, which truly divided the phylactery into countless fragments. As long as a single shard remained, a lich's resurrection was guaranteed. Unfortunately, Ambrose was not skilled enough to cast it.

So he could only rely on ingenuity and sheer quantity to imitate that spell. It was a crude, brute-force substitute, but effective enough.

His body began to reconstruct little by little. The skull formed first, as it was the seat of his soulfire. With a head, the rest of his body could follow.

Though his safety was assured, being forced to self-destruct left Ambrose feeling deeply dissatisfied.

He had assumed that Alkhemia's attention was entirely focused on the sewers. His plan had been to escape the tower first, then find an opportunity to slip into the sewers and seize the final fruits of the Wish ritual.

All he needed was to leave that tower. Alkhemia was vast; hiding would have been trivial.

He had been right at the exit, only to have been blocked by Dippel at the last moment.

Was the Wish ritual in the sewers truly fated to be beyond his reach? Those bastards—that ritual was the payment he had demanded for handing over those paladins. The thought of being cheated out of his reward made Ambrose itch all over.

"No. I need to calm down. In the prophecy, there was a scene where I appeared in the sewers, presiding over a ritual. I couldn't tell what ritual it was, but now I know it has to be the Wish ritual. Given my personality, I would never step forward unless I was sure I stood to gain. So they cannot possibly complete the ritual before I resurrect.

"The prophecy will come true. Fate is on my side!"

Reassuring himself, Ambrose waited quietly for his resurrection.

His skull had already reformed, but the dark magic stored within the phylactery was nearly exhausted. At most, he felt like he would have half a neck's worth of growth.

"If only I had a few more centuries. Just like certain other professions, liches only get stronger with age."

Enchanting his skull with Levitation, Ambrose pushed open the lid of the shell in which his phylactery was located. His skull returned to the real world.

The instant the lid snapped shut again, the true phylactery teleported away once more, preventing Ambrose from being killed the moment he emerged.

Only then did Ambrose look around. He immediately sensed that something was wrong.

Before him was a dimly lit yet extraordinarily opulent chamber, seemingly built entirely of silver, with intricate patterns traced in gold. This was no mere extravagance. At a glance, Ambrose recognized the patterns as layers upon layers of magical arrays, stacked with countless enchantments.

Looking closer, he realized this was not ordinary silver and gold, but rather mithril and adamantine. The value of these materials alone exceeded that of all his phylacteries combined.

"What a lavish palace. Have I ever been somewhere like this? Or did someone pick up one of my discarded phylacteries and bring it here?"

The hypothesis made sense. His phylactery's shell had been placed atop an altar, surrounded by similarly complex magical arrays.

Ambrose felt uneasy. This was very likely the interior of a spellcaster's tower. Surely his luck could not be so bad that he would be killed the moment he resurrected?

The dark magic in the phylactery was already spent. To resurrect again would take at least two, maybe three, decades.

"No. Trust in the designs of fate."

Once more, Ambrose soothed himself with the thought that wealth and fortune lay in his grasp. He prepared to slip quietly out of the lavish chamber and escape this unfamiliar mage tower.

A wisp of dark magic drifted from Ambrose's mouth, cautiously probing the surroundings.

The moment it left the altar's range, the surrounding magic arrays flared with brilliant light. Spell scrolls blazed.

A translucent field of energy expanded to cover the entire room. Ambrose's skull froze mid-exhalation, unable to move even slightly. Even the dark magic he had released was suspended and solidified in midair.

Ambrose's vast knowledge immediately told him what this was: the effect of Temporal Stasis, a quasi-legendary spell capable of suspending everything in time within a certain area. Contrary to its name, it wasn't true stasis, but rather extreme deceleration that was almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Even more shockingly, the spell had been cast via scroll. The scroll alone would have cost at least five hundred thousand gold.

Ambrose felt oddly flattered. He would never spend five hundred thousand gold just to protect a single phylactery.

Now reduced to a mere skull, in his weakened state, even if he knew how to break the spell, he could not do so. Like a tiny insect trapped in amber, he could only wait for someone to release him.

It shouldn't take long, at least.

Anyone willing to deploy such high-grade defensive magic clearly valued this phylactery highly. Now that the spell had been triggered, the master of the tower should appear soon enough.

But who would it be?

As Ambrose waited in a mix of tension and curiosity, a squad of imposing death knights stormed into the room. Greatswords in hand, they cautiously searched for signs of an intruder.

Then, a woman appeared at the doorway, a beauty draped in a black robe, her figure graceful and alluring.

When she saw Ambrose, surprise flashed across her face. She hurried to his side. "I thought this would be a fake phylactery. You actually entrusted me with the real thing?"