A lich's body could only be forged through the continual condensation of dark magic, making it a high-tier undead creature in its own right. All the mana Anbaixiu required for spellcasting was accumulated bit by bit over ordinary days.
Such a vessel was hardly less precious than a phylactery.
At any time, having one's body destroyed was a devastating blow to a lich, which was why no one expected Anbaixiu to detonate himself on the spot.
Dark magic condensed to its absolute limit erupted in an instant, forming a pitch-black tide that swept in every direction, engulfing every summoned golem puppet in its wake.
Wherever the black wave reached, the air filled with a suffocating stench. Countless twisted, deformed vermin manifested—two-headed spiders, tumorous centipedes, worms riddled with eyes from head to tail... These monstrous creatures possessed no physical flesh; they were curses coalesced from the sheer density of dark magic.
Just as accumulating rotting matter produced toxic fumes, when dark magic reached a certain concentration, vicious curses formed of their own accord.
Even lifeless golem puppets rapidly corroded within the dark wave, decomposing into scraps of rusted iron before long.
Dippel could only continuously expend his legendary power to repair his personal conveyance, or it too would have been corroded away by Anbaixiu's desperate, decisive self-destruction.
The surging black tide raged for two or three minutes. When it finally dispersed, nothing remained across the ground except rusted wreckage.
Dippel glared at the scattered debris and spat a venomous curse.
Yet Anbaixiu could no longer hear him. Following the detonation, his consciousness had already pierced spatial barriers and returned to his phylactery.
A lich's phylactery was a truly peculiar creation.
Many mistakenly believed that the phylactery was a lich's sole vulnerability, the vessel where its soul was housed.
In truth, that was not the case. A lich's soul remained in its physical body at all times; otherwise, how could it react fast enough to cast spells instantaneously? Remote manipulation inevitably suffered from latency.
Anbaixiu's soul fire had always resided within his body. It was only upon the body's destruction that it could bypass any lockdown and transport directly into a prepared phylactery.
The phylactery was a retreat—an absolute escape route.
In the continent's history, no one had ever managed to sever the connection between a lich's soul and its phylactery. Be it Dimensional Anchor, spatial barriers, Banishment... none could suppress a phylactery's escape effect.
Perhaps a Wish spell could, but nobody would squander a Wish on such a pointless desire.
Once the soul entered the phylactery, the lich could begin its rebirth.
The time required for rebirth depended on the lich's ordinary preparations. If a new vessel had already been prepared in advance, rebirth could proceed swiftly with little drop in power. This was precisely what made liches so formidable: just when you had drained your mana and chugged your last potion, they would resurrect right before your eyes—a nightmare for the vast majority of adventurers.
That was why a saying circulated throughout the Nine Kingdoms: to kill a lich, you must first find its phylactery; otherwise, all your efforts are in vain.
Anbaixiu's soul returned to his phylactery, a space somewhat larger than an ordinary coffin.
Dark magic, concentrated almost to a liquid state, filled the interior. Anbaixiu immediately set about absorbing it, preparing for his rebirth.
This was undoubtedly an arduous, drawn-out process. But there was no helping it; after all, Anbaixiu had not been a lich for very long. Unlike ancient monsters who had existed for thousands of years, he had not had the time to make extensive preparations, making rebirth a cumbersome affair.
Still, it was not a major problem. His phylactery was in an exceptionally secure state, impossible for anyone to discover.
This was not merely because Anbaixiu had forged numerous decoys. In truth, those so-called decoys were all outer shells for the phylactery. Anbaixiu's genuine phylactery was not hidden inside any single casing; instead, it constantly shifted among them.
Inside every mithral box, Anbaixiu had inscribed a spatial magic array. Beyond expanding storage capacity, it allowed them to teleport between one another.
If any mithral box was opened by anything other than the standard procedure, the spatial array within would self-destruct, and the true phylactery would never teleport into that ruined, empty shell.
Beyond that, he had added numerous restrictions.
For instance, if other empty shells were present within a certain radius, the phylactery would not teleport there; the genuine phylactery could only appear in a mithral shell stored in isolation. This was primarily a precaution against precisely what had just happened: his lair being ransacked, and a hundred phylacteries gathered in one pile waiting for Anbaixiu to walk into a trap.
Those clustered shells automatically became mere fakes, and the real phylactery would never transport into the pile. Only when they were separated once more and stashed far apart would they revert to viable destination shells.
There were also rules barring teleportation to shells near Holy Light energy, shells moved too frequently within a certain timeframe, and so on... In short, he had incorporated every safeguard he could possibly imagine.
Consequently, although Anbaixiu could not be certain of his phylactery's exact location, he knew it was definitely secure.
In fact, a superior option existed—a legendary spell known as Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery. It truly split a phylactery into countless fragments, ensuring the lich's resurrection so long as a single piece survived. However, Anbaixiu lacked the mastery to cast such a spell.
Thus, he had to rely on lateral thinking and sheer numbers to mimic Aumvor's Fragmented Phylactery, creating a brute-force, budget-friendly knockoff.
His body was reconstructing piece by piece. The first part to restore was his skull, the seat of his soul fire; only with a head could the rest follow. While his safety was assured, being driven to self-detonation by Dippel left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He had assumed the City of Alchemy was pouring all its focus into the sewers, allowing him to slip out of the tower first, sneak down into the sewers when an opening arose, and wait for a chance to seize the ultimate fruits of the Wish ritual.
He only needed to get out of that tower. The City of Alchemy was vast; hiding would have been child's play.
Yet just as he reached the threshold, Dippel had cornered him.
Was the Wish ritual in the sewers truly out of his reach now? Those bastards couldn't do this to him—that was his payment for handing over those paladins! Being swindled out of his hard-earned spoils made Anbaixiu itch with indignation from head to toe.
*No, I need to calm down. In the earlier prophecy, one fragment showed me in the sewers, presiding over the ritual. Back then, I didn't recognize what ritual it was, but in hindsight, it must be the Wish. Given my personality, unless there's an absolute guarantee of profit, I'd never jump out to preside over it. That means before I'm reborn, they can't possibly complete the ritual.*
*The prophecy will come to pass. Destiny is on my side!*
Comforting himself with these thoughts, Anbaixiu quietly awaited his rebirth.
His skull gradually took shape, but the dark magic contained within the phylactery was nearly exhausted. It felt as though he could at most grow half a neck.
*Sigh, if only I had a few hundred more years. Liches are like certain professions—the older you get, the more formidable you become.*
Imbuing the bone with Levitation, Anbaixiu pushed open the coffin lid. His head drifted out of the phylactery and returned to reality.
A skull of that size emerged from the mithral box, and the moment the box snapped shut, the true phylactery teleported elsewhere once more, preventing Anbaixiu from being spawn-camped.
Only then did Anbaixiu scan his surroundings, immediately sensing that something was amiss.
Before him lay a dimly lit yet remarkably sumptuous chamber, seemingly wrought entirely of silver and traced with intricate patterns of gold. This was not mere ostentation; Anbaixiu recognized at a glance that these patterns formed concentric, overlapping magic arrays, imbued with countless magical effects.
Looking closer, he realized this was no ordinary silver and gold, but mithral and adamantine... The value of these raw materials alone surpassed all of Anbaixiu's phylacteries combined.
*What an extravagant palace. Have I ever been to a place like this? Or did someone gather up one of my discarded phylacteries and store it here?*
This hypothesis was quite plausible, for Anbaixiu's phylactery rested upon an altar, similarly encircled by intricate magic arrays.
Anbaixiu felt a sinking sensation. This was very likely the interior of some spellcaster's wizard tower. Could his luck truly be so foul that he would be executed right after being reborn?
The dark magic in the phylactery was spent; if he had to regenerate once more, it would take at least twenty or thirty years.
*No, trust in destiny's design.*
Anbaixiu consoled himself once more with thoughts of predestined fortune, preparing to slip quietly from this opulent room and flee the unfamiliar wizard tower.
A wisp of dark magic drifted from Anbaixiu's mouth, cautiously probing outward.
The instant it left the perimeter of the altar, the surrounding magic arrays flared with brilliant light, followed by the crisp crackle of a burning spell scroll.
A sphere of translucent energy expanded, blanketing the entire room. Anbaixiu's skull froze in the act of puffing black smoke, entirely unable to move, and even the dark magic he had exhaled was suspended motionless in midair.
Anbaixiu's vast store of knowledge kicked in, immediately identifying it as the effect of a Temporal Stasis spell—a quasi-legendary spell capable of sealing objects within an area into a state of suspended time. Though called "stopped," absolute time stoppage was impossible; rather, it drastically slowed the passage of time to the point where it appeared utterly halted.
Furthermore, this spell had been triggered through a scroll, burning through at least five hundred thousand gold coins in a single breath.
Anbaixiu felt almost flattered. Even he could never bring himself to blow five hundred thousand gold coins just to protect a phylactery.
Reduced to a lone head, Anbaixiu was at his weakest. Even if he knew how to unravel the spell, he had no means of casting anything now. He could only hang suspended like an insect trapped in amber, waiting for someone to release him.
It shouldn't take too long.
To employ defensive magic of such high caliber, the other party had to value this phylactery immensely. Now that the ward had been triggered, the tower's master would surely arrive soon.
Who could it be?
Amid Anbaixiu's tense curiosity, a troop of imposing Death Knights charged inside, their grips tight around black-flame greatswords as they warily searched for traces of an intruder.
And behind the Death Knights, a shapely beauty draped in a black robe appeared at the doorway.
Catching sight of Anbaixiu, an expression of surprise crossed her face. She strode briskly to his side and addressed the floating skull: "And here I thought it was a fake. You actually entrusted the real phylactery to my care?"
Chapter 76