Never fight a mage inside his mage tower unless you have the element of surprise.
This was practically common knowledge, yet things in life rarely went according to plan.
Just like right now: the battle had already begun, and there was no turning back.
The castle's magical defense systems were fully activated. Countless bolts of necrotic energy erupted from within, raining down upon the enemy ranks like artillery fire.
Mortals were powerless before such magical might; a mere touch was enough to corrode flesh straight to white bone.
Yet the paladin and the cleric of light remained unaffected. The Antimagic Field was so domineering that all magic utterly dissipated the moment it crossed into the sphere of light, granting the pair practical magic immunity for its duration.
Short of casting a deity-level spell, there was no breaking through an Antimagic Field's restrictions.
It was moments like this that exposed the difference between a true legend and a knockoff.
Every legend was a demigod, having transcended mortality to grasp a sliver of divine power.
Under normal circumstances, a legendary lich like Anbaixiu could have used a spell imbued with divine power to teach these two Ryan Empire upstarts a lesson in humility.
Having abandoned the path of the School of Divination, however, Anbaixiu lacked any magic that reached the demigod rank. Faced with such an Antimagic Field, he had no choice but to steer clear. Fortunately, this field was invoked via a spell scroll; he only had to wait until its duration ran out.
Normally, casting from such a scroll would last only a minute or two.
Anbaixiu's leisure stood in sharp contrast to the panic gripping the enemy army.
Harvey dodged left and right amidst the storm of necrotic energy, relying on his razor-sharp intuition to hold out until the first salvo of magical artillery ceased.
Though unharmed, Harvey was drenched in cold sweat. A single misstep just now would have reduced him to ghastly white bones. A wizard apprentice's negligible mana could not hold up a shield strong enough to withstand a barrage of this scale.
Looking back, he saw that the Porcupine Knight had also survived by sheer luck, but three of the lords who had joined him to subdue the lich were dead, reduced along with their mounts to bleached skeletons.
The ordinary soldiers suffered even more catastrophic casualties: over two hundred had died on the spot, with scarcely any wounded, for the magical onslaught had been so terrifying that even a graze meant instant death.
Faced with such carnage, Harvey desperately wanted to ask: *Why on earth did you people have to provoke him?*
In the end, they had still underestimated the lich's power. The lords had deliberately stayed far back from the front line, where common sense dictated they should have been beyond magic's maximum range.
Who could have guessed that the castle had specially enhanced its spell range?
Harvey could not help thinking, *Did this lich start tailoring his defenses against us the moment he took in those freemen?*
That was giving him too much credit. Anbaixiu had bolstered his castle's magical defenses purely because the Rose of Decay had sent him the blueprints and specifications for the Ryan Empire's city defense system. There had been plenty of brilliant designs to borrow, such as the extended spell range effect—it was so cheap and effective that he would have been a fool not to install it.
And today, it had yielded miraculous results.
*Truly worthy of the Ryan Empire,* Anbaixiu thought as he surveyed the aftermath, silently giving Ryan's magical technology a thumbs-up.
Harvey felt terrible. As an advisor, he had urged retreat more than once, yet the lords had refused to listen. Discontent festered in his chest; if he made it out alive today, he would resign on the spot.
Right now, however, he still had to fulfill his duties as an advisor.
Harvey spurred his horse toward the paladin and shouted, "We're on the verge of collapse! Do you have a way to deal with this lich or not? If not, we have to pull back right now!"
The paladin asked in astonishment, "You're already collapsing after losing less than twenty percent of your men?"
The paladin admitted he had underestimated Anbaixiu, but weren't these petty lords of the City of Alchemy far too weak?
A mere twenty percent, and their morale had already shattered?
Even the weakest legion in the Ryan Empire wouldn't bat an eye at casualties under thirty percent!
Harvey badly wanted to slap the paladin across the face, but he forced himself to swallow his anger and spoke as efficiently as possible: "How can an army of ordinary tenant farmers compare to the Ryan Empire's faith-armored troops? That's the reality! Do you have a plan or don't you?"
The paladin felt this expedition was truly eye-opening, but this was no time for idle reflection. He told Harvey, "Of course I do. We just need to get inside the castle and find his phylactery. Since you can't hold out, retreat then, so you don't get in our way."
With that, the paladin led the cleric of light in a renewed charge straight toward the castle's main gates.
With the Antimagic Field still active, they could ignore all magical attacks and barrel right up to the castle gates.
Harvey looked at the brilliant magic lighting up the sky, hesitated for a moment, and then followed after the paladin.
His intuition told him that running away now would not end well for him either. Charging alongside the paladin might actually be the safer bet—he only hoped his gut feeling wouldn't fail him.
Seeing Harvey join the charge, the paladin praised him, "Your courage is commendable. May the Holy Light protect you."
Harvey thought to himself that even if he were to ask for a deity's blessing, as a wizard apprentice, he should pray to Mystra, the Goddess of Magic. These religious zealots really never missed a chance to preach.
Under the effect of the Antimagic Field, all the magical traps before the castle gates were rendered inert. As for mundane pitfalls and crossbow traps, they posed little threat to a fully armored paladin, who casually batted away incoming bolts with a few flicks of his longsword.
The trio reached the castle gates having lost only two horses between them. By then, however, the Antimagic Field began to flicker and soon vanished completely.
Harvey closely followed the pair, arriving before the castle gates as well.
Anbaixiu had retreated decisively into the castle the moment he saw the three charge. Seeing the paladin arrive at the gates, he smiled and flipped a switch.
Just as the paladin braced himself to breach the gates, a sharp clicking and rattling echoed out.
None of the three understood what was happening, but the paladin resolved to forge ahead. Holy light flared along his blade; Divine Smite was not only lethal against liches, but exceptionally useful for demolishing buildings as well.
The radiant strike came crashing down, smashing the heavy wooden gates to splinters. The tremendous impact even fractured the ground into sprawling cracks.
Just as Harvey was marveling at the paladin's power, he suddenly muttered in bewilderment, "Wait, aren't there too many cracks?"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the ground before the castle collapsed entirely, revealing a bottomless pit.
Caught completely off guard, the three plunged straight down into the abyss.
Watching through his magical surveillance as the trio plummeted into the pit, Anbaixiu reached out to pat the living mercury beside him. He said to the newborn little creature, "Little one, time to show what you can do. If you can beat a paladin of the Ryan Empire, this business venture of mine will pay off in spades."
Chapter 35