Chapter 286 – Walking into a trap.

An explosion of what some might call evil energy burst forth. It pushed a mass of collapsed stones to the side hitting the already broken trees. From under an angry-looking monster emerged, his eye sockets were burning with emerald flames. The rubble that was covering the monster started to melt while glowing red.

The monster emerged from this magically produced hole while looking around. The annoying mechanical bugs and the stationary objects were still aiming their cannons toward this monster. The blue light show didn’t stop even when their bodies turned red and the runes started melting into the metal.

This was however not what the monster was focusing on instead, it looked at the gate before it that was in the process of being closed. It could feel that the target it was after had vanished behind it. The Lich decided to give chase but it needed to take care of this minor inconvenience that persisted.

After taking a step forward it rose its staff high up to produce a mass of greenish flames. They expanded out from the magic staff to produce a mass of snakes. These phantom vipers quickly shot forth at the golemic creations that were defending this place. Even when colliding with the blue mana beams the flame snakes were able to continue toward their destination.

The blue spider golems stood no chance, the moment the strange spell collided with it, their runic traces were disrupted and their armor bent out of shape. Due to how they were connected to mana generators by large cables they were nothing more than sitting ducks. The larger turrets lasted a bit more as the green vipers stopped at the protective mana shield first but after just a second of pushing the flimsy barrier shattered.

Due to the nature of this spell the monster needed to remain stationary. It directed it at all the stationary targets and in a matter of a few moments it had managed to destroy them all. In the places where the metallic devices were nothing but scrap metal and flames existed. The Lich finally took a step forward, it still needed to capture the armored being, and with nothing in its way it had free reign now.

It noticed something though, after taking the first step it lost a bit of its balance, when looking down it noticed that its big toe was missing. This was not all, only now did it realize that it had actually sustained some damage through the continued magical barrage. Its bones were cracked in a few places and even if it could somewhat mend itself back to health this angered it.

The monster felt rage build up in it first, it was the mana cannon that almost killed it and now this. It had been injured by the prey it was chasing and it didn’t know how to handle the feeling of anger that was building up. The Lich was a monster with high intelligence but it had practically been born a few months ago. It didn’t know how to handle something like that and the instinct was to lash out at everything that was around it.

Even though it was a being made of magic with no flesh the feeling of hate and anger was something it was capable of emulating. Thus without thinking much about the repercussions of blindly charging forward it used the few phantom vipers that were still there to collide with the wall. It was far more sturdy than the mechanical turrets or the golems but with some aid from its mana, the spells were able to melt through the protective lining and create a path for it.

“It sounds mad…”

Roland was on the other side of the wall, he scrambled behind the front gate and into the fence made from thick wires. At the end of this cage was another door made from metal that he quickly sprinted towards. Behind it Agni waited with lowered ears, clearly afraid of the predicament that they found themselves in.

This monster was a high-level undead but contrary to everyone’s belief these monsters weren’t devoid of emotions. It was actually the reverse, they magnified all of the negative ones to the extreme. Roland used this knowledge to lure the monster here, the few wounds that he managed to deliver would surely madden the monster sending it into a frenzied state. It was a well-known tactic when going against such creatures and the more intelligence they possessed the higher the chance of actually affecting those negative emotions.

The monster was making a lot of noise outside, without even looking behind himself he could see a deep emerald glow emanating everywhere. The mana that this creature was capable of producing was truly tremendous, something that he could only compare to the woman from the Solarian Inquisition that fought against one of those abyssal creatures. Now, something on that level was after him and he wasn’t sure about his chances of victory.

“Agni, I told you to get back, go to the extraction point as we agreed.”

“Woooo!”

To his dismay, his ruby wolf didn’t seem to want to budge from the spot he was in. He had specifically told him to wait in the workshop where he would be safe if the Lich managed to get through the main entrapment. Perhaps it was due to Roland lacking any taming-related skills but Agni developed his own way of thinking and handling things and loyalty was one of them.

Perhaps if this was any other moment Roland would have given Agni the boot but right then, he noticed a lot of heat colliding with his reinforced gate. This gate had been produced in his own workshop and worked on by Bernir. Even now he remembered all the trouble of getting it there. Now a huge hole was burnt in the middle of it through magical means.

There it was, just walking through the molten metal like it was nothing. The drops of red blistering hot liquid just dribbled down on the monster as it was stepping through. The mana mantle it was clad with was still there but to Roland’s keen eye he could see a difference.

‘It’s not as thick and the mana is becoming unstable…’

This monster was clearly in a state of engagement, this would momentarily boost some of its stats but also lessen others. Something like this was just what he wanted, for creatures that required intelligence for their attacks like this one going into a maddened state wasn’t favorable. Its casting times would be reduced and it would probably have trouble reacting with the correct spells. Instead, it would probably attempt to use its sheer superior mana to get ahead in this fight.

There it was at his entrance gate. The cage made from wire was already heating up with the monster standing in it. The path it needed to travel through wasn’t far, around ten meters until it would reach Roland whom it was after. Thus without much thought to it, the Lich charged forward as if it had become a monster that fought at close range. This however was just the thing he was waiting for.

Right as the monster was around the middle of this cage he sprung the trap that he had been building up for almost a whole week. Everything was building up to this very moment and he needed to make sure that the monster didn’t see through it. It was very important to enrage the monster before this process as he wasn’t sure if it wouldn’t be able to detect the ruse it was standing on.

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With his connection to the entire company through his recently gained Basic Runic Region skill, everything around here could be activated remotely. Soon a large runic mana pattern started shining through the ground and quickly changing color from the usual pale blue to a deeper yellowish coloring. This elemental mana was the main weakness of all undead and evil creatures, the holy element.

The glow encompassed the entire cage and turned the thick wires into something that looked golden. Everything became illuminated in a divine glow that instantly caused the monster a massive amount of pain. Its movements became sluggish and the trajectory it was on had been broken. Instead of colliding with the door on the other end it stumped forward and onto its own knees.

“It’s working better than I expected.”