Chapter 47
The instant Elise cast [Holy Light Arrow], one truth landed hard on Lofnar and the others.
Elise could instant-cast a spell at Senior Second-tier level.
Then Anarias evaded the arrow with some unknown spell, and the brief exchange that followed shook them even harder.
That had been a threat from the Death Sovereign.
Who wouldn't fear a supreme powerhouse capable of endless revival?
Yet Elise had answered him to his face.
"You are a creature that should not exist in Aurelia."
Her stance was too firm.
And far, far too disrespectful toward the Death Sovereign.
Was Elise genuinely unafraid he'd revive and come for revenge?
If Anarias lay low for a while, reaching Third or Fourth-tier would be trivial. A return to Legendary rank was entirely plausible—and he might even have a shot at the Sacred tier again.
Could Elise's growth truly outpace the Death Sovereign's lich body?
Impossible... right?
But when Chalmers, Lofnar, and the others weighed what they knew of Elise, their certainty wavered.
The Death Sovereign was powerful, no question.
But Elise had gone from illiterate commoner to High Cleric in three months, and as an ordinary Second-tier Awakened she could instant-cast Senior Second-tier spells.
Keep growing at that rate, and one day it might be Elise hunting the Death Sovereign down to purify him.
"Earth Mother, forgive my wild thoughts. I will show the courage of the dwarves!"
Lofnar charged Anarias, hand axe raised.
He understood there was no road back now.
Chalmers, in his leather armor, gripped his greatsword two-handed and followed. His role: help Lofnar pin down Anarias's movement.
Adair and Mona brought their own methods to bear—throwing blades and spells streaking toward the lich.
Glenrius, Harkian, and the other First-tier Awakened contributed what they could, but they understood their role with perfect clarity.
They might become living barricades.
If Anarias broke through the Second-tier encirclement, the First-tier Awakened nearby would have to spend their lives slowing his escape.
Fortunately, most of those assigned to cut off his flight were Church members or people bound tightly to the Church.
They were the ones Elise worried about least.
At the center of the battlefield, Anarias sensed the noose tightening.
The flames in his eye sockets flared wild.
He surged his mana, and the whole area plunged abruptly into darkness.
Then he pointed a single finger.
Lofnar, mid-charge, stumbled in a grotesque, unnatural lurch.
Even while doing it, Anarias spared the strength to project his thoughts directly into their minds.
"Cleric... agreement... I leave..."
He was offering terms: an accord, and his withdrawal.
Elise didn't answer.
She simply instant-cast [Holy Light Arrow] again and again, buying her teammates time and space.
Clang!
Chalmers's greatsword rang off Anarias's arm with a sharp metallic note.
And that gave Elise the opening she needed to fully condense her next [Holy Light Arrow].
"Elise—"
Lofnar saw the opportunity too. He rushed in to help Chalmers hem Anarias in, opening his mouth to call the tactic.
But the instant the name "Elise" sounded, Anarias—who had already caught the scent of his own approaching death—went berserk with mana.
He stopped conserving anything.
One pointed finger, and Lofnar dropped.
The veins across Anarias's body flashed, and Chalmers sank into darkness.
Then two spells thick with the aura of death swept toward Adair and Mona.
And through all of it, Anarias stared fixedly at Elise, the twin flames in his eyes blazing as if they would burn him to ash from within.
A veteran of countless battlefields, he knew there was no way out. But before dying, he still had the means to kill or cripple one or two of them.
And yet...
This soul with its irresistible fragrance was named Elise.
"Ellie..."
"My Ellie..."
Anarias stood rooted like a man struck dumb, his spiritual fluctuations climbing toward madness.
An arrow of holy light condensed in the air.
[Holy Light Arrow Skill Experience +8,160.]
As the system granted the largest spell experience reward she'd received since transmigrating, Elise felt her mind sag with exhaustion.
For that [Holy Light Arrow], she had forcibly mobilized a full 12 points of Second-tier spirit energy.
Its spell strength was the highest she had ever produced.
She refused to believe Anarias could dodge it under these conditions.
But she hadn't counted on one thing.
Her opponent had no intention of dodging.
Taking the [Holy Light Arrow] head-on, Anarias's lich body burst apart as if struck by a siege bolt.
Then the scattered shards of holy light delivered a second wave of punishment.
None of it mattered.
At the moment of Anarias's death, a gray light shot free of the ruined body.
Like a suicide charge, it streaked at Elise—disturbed her senses for a heartbeat—then dissipated almost entirely.
"Ellie..."
"Elise..."
"Wait for me..."
"This is fate's guidance!"
With that final cry, the soul-light vanished without a trace.
Elise felt as though something unseen had branded her, and a chill swept through her body.
But the two names—"Ellie" and "Elise"—left her silent.
"Elise. Anarias spent all the spirit energy in that lich body to mark you."
Chalmers came from a noble house and had read more widely than Elise. The possibility occurred to him immediately.
The joy of felling the Death Sovereign froze on every face.
Marked by the Death Sovereign?
It did make a terrible kind of sense.
A supreme prodigy like Elise, converted into one of Anarias's lich bodies, would stand a far better chance of reaching Legendary—or even Sacred—tier.
But was Anarias insane?
Elise was a supreme prodigy cherished by the Church of Light, and he dared mark her?
Wasn't he afraid the Church would use her to bait a trap?
Or...
Even knowing it was a trap, did Anarias still mean to revive through Elise?
"High Cleric Elise."
"Your talent has drawn the Death Sovereign's attention."
"We sincerely hope the Church can purify the mark upon you."
Lofnar, Adair, Mona, and the others approached and offered their blessings with grave formality.
Elise, though, was somewhere else. She looked at Chalmers.
"Have you heard the name Ellie before?"
"Anarias's wife was named Ellie."
The moment the answer left him, Chalmers connected it to Elise's own name, and a chill crawled up his spine.
More absurd still, he had chosen not to kill Elise's teammates before dying.
Partly, he'd been hoarding strength for that final spiritual invasion and scan.
But partly... he hadn't wanted to make Elise sad.
"That damned thing marked me because he wants to turn me into one of his lich bodies?"
Goosebumps rose across Elise's skin.
This was ridiculous.
She'd been given this name the moment she transmigrated. How had it gotten tangled up with the Death Sovereign's wife?
And Anarias was clearly unwell.
He'd heard a name and started screaming about Fate's guidance.
Which was...
Entirely too consistent with his life story.
"Chalmers, how many phylacteries does Anarias have?" Elise asked, deeply troubled.
"At least eight. It's said that by the time he became a lich, he was already a Sacred-tier powerhouse, so he had the ability to split his phylactery. And every revival lets him set up one more..."
Chalmers answered from his reading.
The longer Elise listened, the colder she felt.
At least eight.
In truth, no one knew the real number.
No wonder the Death Sovereign could never be purified for good.
He was running a genuine undead swarm strategy.
With himself as the swarm.
My growth has to outrun Anarias's.
A sharper urgency than any she'd felt before took hold of her.
Then she opened her system interface, stared at it, and muttered viciously, "Come on, then. Come at me. I'll purify you every single time. I'll treat you as my personal loot deliveries."
Chalmers, Lofnar, and the others caught the mutter—and every one of them drew a sharp breath.