As the chaos swirled around me, I decided there was no room for half-measures. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I channeled Arcane Step and vanished, reappearing behind Ravros in a flash of light and determination. The moment that I appeared I kicked the back of his legs to knock him down, willing Arcane Detonation to try and blow off the limb and grabbed a hold of him. Holding on to him I used Arcane Step once again to put my back to one of the larger trees and punched down on the back of his neck. Disoriented from the teleport and his fall to the ground he did not react in time, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Again, I focused fully on using Arcane Manipulation to try and create almost a guillotine with the edge of my shield. However, instead of an explosion knocking me back he used his beam of death energy to heal himself.

  The power of the beam was unreal, eating through Arcane Armor quickly. Part of me hoped that the zombies might show up so that Arcane Surge might start hurting them, helping to keep my Arcane Armor up and running.

  Jumping out of the beam before it was able to kill me, I sighed at having missed my opportunity. When the light from his skill disappeared, he sat there staring at me with his empty eye sockets and even though he did not have lips I could feel the smirk he was sending my way.

  “I must admit that it is quite rare that someone lasts this long against me. You are admittedly, stronger and faster than I, in a completely physical sense. However, you have no way of defeating me. While I will wear you down before too long.” He chuckled once again.

  Dropping my arms, I responded, “I must admit, you are a pretty good counter to me. I don’t put out enough damage at one time to truly beat you.” I said while reaching down to pick up a handful of pebbles and dirt.

  It had not occurred to me when I did it earlier, but I conjured a spear of Arcane mana from nothing. I didn’t use my Arcane Armor skill first and manipulate it into a spear, I conjured it from nothing. And that reminded me of the conversation that I had with the Grand Elder about pushing her talent.

  She used her analyze to see mana doing something, even if it was doing it, and used her will to force that result upon the world. Well, I was pretty stubborn, or so I have been told in both lives.

  “Oh, look a distraction!” I yelled while throwing a pebble and willing Arcane Step to teleport the pebble behind Ravros.

  “Really, is tha— what the hell?” He asked as the pebble hit the back of his head and made him turn around.

  I smiled even though Ravros couldn’t see it and charged. Even with the reduction in mana cost from my new race, Arcane Step had been something that I felt. The pebble teleported with no strain at all.

  I started laying into Ravros with everything I had—left jab, right cross, a swift uppercut, and another crushing right hook. Each strike landed with satisfying impact, but the damage barely registered as Ravros’ form absorbed the hits. Occasionally, I conjured knives mid-assault, hurling them to create distractions before teleporting with Arcane Step to strike him from unexpected angles. The rhythm of my attacks was relentless, but my growing frustration mounted every time he summoned his spell—a brilliant, deathly beam of light that enveloped him in a column of energy. The light didn’t just heal him; it forced me back, the oppressive aura burning against my Arcane Armor and draining my stamina as I struggled to maintain the assault.

  With a deafening roar, Ravros unleashed a blast of raw deathly energy, the sheer force of it slamming into my Arcane Armor like a tidal wave. The air around me crackled with energy, and I felt the oppressive weight of the blast pressing against my body. But I refused to relent. With a flash of light and the surge of Arcane Step, I teleported through the devastating wave, my focus unwavering. The disorienting shift left a faint tingling sensation in my limbs, but I ignored it and launched myself back into the assault, refusing to give him a moment to recover. Punches, kicks, different weapons conjured and thrown mostly to distract him.

  This went on for a little while before he tried to use his healing beam once again. The beam instantly appeared, but I had been waiting for it, I had finally come up with a plan that I thought would work. I had been constantly attacking so that the moment this beam came, at least one of my hands was close enough to grab him. The moment it appeared I grabbed a hold of him and use Arcane Step to appear high above the cage below. I spun and threw him as hard as I could toward the cage headfirst.

  I had not expected that the light would follow us, but it did, I also had not expected how strenuous it was to Arcane Step myself and another person up into the air. With another Arcane Step I appeared below, knowing that I would not be able to do that again anytime soon.

  Before he even landed the light from the beam had disappeared, and he landed lightly upon the cage. Laughing boisterously, he shouted, “Do you not see that there is nothing that you can do? I cannot be beaten by you. For every move you make I have a counter, give up and kneel before me.”

  As Ravros laughed, confident in his invincibility, I felt a surge of determination. The Arcane knife I had been carefully charging with Arcane Detonation finally reached its breaking point and, with perfect timing, I used Arcane Step to have it appear above him and it dropped. Every step leading up to this moment had been deliberate, setting the knife in place behind my back and holding it there with a tendril of Arcane mana earlier, charging it unnoticed, and waiting for the exact moment to strike.

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  The glowing blade, imbued with all the mana I could spare, descended silently, a harbinger of destruction aimed directly at his head. That was why I was running low on mana with all the Arcane Steps I took and the one I took carrying him. I had put most of my Arcane mana into that knife, hoping it would be enough to actually kill him.

  Oddly enough, whether it was due to overconfidence or the fact that I had yet to inflict damage he couldn’t instantly heal from, Ravros hadn’t reactivated his death shield. The Arcane knife, shimmering with the energy I’d poured into it, landed squarely and slid into his head with unnerving ease. A heartbeat later, it erupted in a burst of energy—both more and less intense than I’d anticipated, sending a shockwave rippling through his head and down his visible skin.

  I had no idea if the knife would actually detonate, as that was not what Arcane Detonation did at all. Also, the detonation was supposed to be somewhat controlled and happened at the point of impact when I punched. So, the fact that the knife exploded at all was surprising.

  When I flooded the knife with more Arcane mana, something I had been testing out here and there since I had received the Arcane Manipulation skill, it was more hope than anything that it would make a bigger boom. Which is why when the detonation from the knife was only slightly bigger than a normal detonation when I punched something, I was a little disappointed.

  With all of that however, the knife did detonate in the Revenant’s brain. In every story, book, tale and movie, not games because there undead usually just have health points, getting rid of the head was the key to defeating the undead. I had been trying to do that this entire time and it seemed that was his weak point, as he always protected it.

  Thankfully it looked like it was the same here, as while the explosion had been smaller than I hoped it had still covered his body and made me turn my head due to the flash of light. However, when I turned back his headless body collapsed on the cage.

  With a sigh, I flopped to the ground. Only to see in Panoptic Sense that the zombies were still coming. Groaning I got back up to finish them off, when I heard the chuckling again. With a flash of deathly aura and grey light, Ravros was standing there next to the cage once again.

  Looking at Ravros, who was now cackling I sighed, ok maybe whined, “Oh come on, you’re a lich? How is that fair?”

  At my comment Ravros looked at me somewhat confused, “What is a lich?”

  Instead of responding, I decided to just continue with an all-out assault. As far as I was aware, and all my knowledge was based of stories from Earth, there were a few surefire ways of killing a lich.

  The first and, while most annoying, easiest is to destroy the liches phylactery. The hard part about this is to first find said phylactery. Usually, the lich will keep the phylactery somewhere that is really hard to find and secure. Considering I know nothing about this Ravros guy and that I am already fighting him, I doubt I will be able to find his phylactery, unless he was dumb enough to just bring it with him.

  The next surefire method is finding a way to destroy a soul—a feat that’s easier said than done. As I mulled it over, frustration clawed at me. This fight was dragging on, each second sapping my stamina and patience. The thought of having the power to snuff out a soul seemed as distant as the idea of stopping Ravros’ relentless regeneration. Still, the possibility lingered in my mind: was there some obscure, untapped potential within my abilities that could give me an edge?

  It felt like chasing shadows. For now, I dismissed the idea as nothing more than a pipe dream. The only method I had that could have even come close to destroying a soul had been through the system—and even then, Ravros had regenerated as if it were nothing. It was clear I needed another approach.

  The last thing that I can think of would be to just keep damaging him. He has to use something to regenerate himself and my guess is mana. So, that means if I keep damaging him enough to force him to regenerate, he will eventually run out of mana.

  With that thought running through my mind I just went wild. Other than his blasts of mana, and the occasional odd ball of death magic, Ravros had not seemed particularly strong. He did try to occasionally dodge or get away from me, but with Arcane Step he was never able to get far.

  Unfortunately for me, time was in his favor. As I sat there beating on him, zombies started pouring in by the dozen. Waves of Arcane Surge were helping to hurt them, but it would not be long before I was overwhelmed by the number of bodies.

  Deciding that I needed to deal with the overwhelming number of zombies, I took a more unconventional approach. Using Arcane Step to get behind a zombie, I grabbed its decaying body and, with grim determination, swung it like a grotesque club. The sickening thud of flesh and bone echoed as I smashed it against Ravros, whose laughter turned into a startled grunt, and into any undead unfortunate enough to be in range.

  Each swing was a chaotic blur of force and momentum, the zombie’s limp body slamming into enemies with enough power to buy me precious moments of breathing room. Despite the absurdity of my tactic, I couldn’t help but smirk at the sheer effectiveness of wielding one undead against another. Whenever Ravros used his heal spell beam thing, I would just concentrate on killing some of the zombies.

  This continued for the next thirty minutes and in that time, I become more and more tired. Slowing visibly to any who was paying attention, like Ravros. The clearing that I was fighting Ravros in had hundreds of undead moving around. Ravros, had used his spell at least another fifteen times. I had no idea how many times he could do it, but I knew I didn’t have much more in me.

  At one pivotal moment, I managed to knock Ravros into the cage, sending him crashing into it with a thunderous impact. The strange ball inside the cage shattered with a sharp, glass-like crack that reverberated through the clearing. Ravros’ rasping laugh echoed with what sounded like glee, though it was hard to be certain given the grating quality of his voice. "Finally!" he exclaimed, his tone tinged with an ominous triumph that sent a chill down my spine.

  Turning to the creature, Ravros reached out his hand, but before he could make contact, it let out a roar—not quite ferocious, given its youthful tone, but endearing in a way that belied its intent. The baby Nyxalith swiped at Ravros with its claws, managing to draw the faintest trace of blood.

  Seizing the moment of distraction, I moved swiftly, stepping behind Ravros and slamming his head into the cage with enough force to shatter it once more. As the Nyxalith lashed out again, scratching his face, an eerie stillness fell over the clearing. To my surprise, everything just stopped—Ravros, the zombies, even the tension in the air seemed to dissipate in an instant.

  All the zombies and Ravros suddenly froze mid-motion before collapsing to the ground in unison, as if someone had flipped a switch. I stood there, arm poised for another devastating shield slam to the back of Ravros’ head, my body tense with lingering adrenaline. For a solid two seconds, I just stared, utterly baffled by the abrupt stillness. "Huh?" was all I managed to say before my vision blurred and the world tilted, my body giving in to exhaustion as I crumpled into unconsciousness.