Zarek's eyes narrowed. 'Interesting.'
The jaws of the undead creature suddenly unhitched, a hissing fog of black jetting out in long streams that quickly shaped up into the form of fluttering bats. Their pattern of movement was nothing short of erratic, lunging at Zarek with all it could muster.
With a tap of his foot, Zarek accelerated back.
"Running out of your movement technique's usage, is it? Too bad, that makes you too slow."
Chi. Chi. Chi.
The bats whipped by Zarek and he immediately felt blades cutting into him. However, what made his eyes narrow was the poison suddenly pouring into his veins.
'Trouble.'
Zarek frowned.
He didn't have any easy method of resisting poison outside of Godsfall.
The good news was that he had a very good supply of it, not because of his own personal stores, but thanks to Thalion and his tent of goods.
The bad news was that resisting poison with Godsfall alone wasn't good enough unless the Godsfall was powerful to the point of crushing it entirely.
The situation was worse, though.
Urouge was gone, and even if Zarek had immediately found his new location, there was no reason he wouldn't be able to swap with one of his undead again. That meant that Zarek had no choice but to kill all three before finally being able to kill him.
But if he were Urouge and watched Zarek walk through his death traps not just once or twice, but three times over, while that third fight was ongoing, he would certainly run.
And then there was the fact that Eliz and her group were already rapidly catching up. In as little as another half minute, they too would be here.
Zarek knew that this sort of swapping skill couldn't be used casually. It certainly had a range limitation, and the quality of the puppet was certainly important.
Urouge would be careful with summons of this quality because this swap wasn't just as easy as a teleportation Skill—it was a life-saving Skill. So that meant that Urouge almost certainly had at least one other, maybe even two, that he hadn't even brought out to battle just yet.
This was all to say that, given the situation, the odds of getting a chance to kill Urouge were zero.
But running was almost impossible too—not when his opponents had stats far stronger than his own and a bone to pick, seemingly. This is part of a series from My Virtual Library Empire (M|V|L1EMPYR).
It was true that he had outplayed Urouge to get to a point where he could stand here. Unfortunately, schemes could only go so far. Nothing Urouge was doing right now was particularly clever, but his Skills, stats, various methods, and attributes were simply far too beyond Zarek's own.
Axiograft was a shockingly effective Talent, but it was still D+, and his body was limiting it in too many ways.
Compared to these Demons, even though he could lead them by the nose to a point…
Even the Ashborn Demon had his limits.
Feeling the bat wings cut into him continuously like this, his arms crossed before him as the lich seemed all too patient to just watch him drown slowly, Zarek sighed inwardly.
He had known this already before he reached this point. But his judgment had been affected by Priya's situation and Suki's scheme. He had been in a perpetual state of fury for the last over-week, and it had obviously gotten to him.
The smartest thing to do would have been to find a way to slip free of Urouge's scouting—though that was certainly easier said than done. But he had to admit that he was dead set on killing him as though that would prove a point.
Zarek closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled a breath. Then, a smile spread across his face.
He was so old, yet he still made childish mistakes for love. He was better than this.
'One step back for three forward. Fine. I'll take this as my first loss of this lifetime. No… the second.'
The first loss was courtesy of Suki.
This second one, however… was of his own making.
BANG!
Eliz suddenly came rounding the narrow path. But she didn't expect for Zarek to suddenly throw something at her right at that moment.
It wasn't that it was dangerous. If it was, she would have been ready for it.
The problem was that it was decidedly not. She had to hold back her subconscious reaction to take a swipe at it with her greatsword, catching it out of the air instead.
The badge.
"Have fun," Zarek said, his patented smile having returned. "Keep it safe for me. I'll be taking it back soon. Whether it's from your corpse or someone else's, though, that'll be up to you and how much skill you have."
As Zarek was speaking, he had already sent out a line of Lurker's Godsfall, sending himself flying over the cliff face.
Normally, this wouldn't be enough to save him. It would just delay the situation.
He was on a mountain, not a true sheer cliff. So inevitably there would be a rocky surface below he'd have to sprint down the steep slope of—something that he most certainly couldn't do nearly as fast as Eliz or Urouge.
But right about now, those two would be having their own problems.
"He…"
Urouge and Eliz seemed to freeze at the same time, the former looking at things through his lich's eyes while the latter was staring down at her palm.
Eliz wanted to go after Zarek, still furious. But she was also smart enough not to turn her back to Urouge's lich. Gritting her teeth, she sent a glance toward where Zarek had leapt off to safety, before facing off against the swarm of bats that had instantly come her way.
If she ever got her hands on that Zarek Ashborn, it would be his last day.
…
BOOM!
Zarek landed heavily at the base of the mountain.
'Convenient shortcut.'
The one thing this trip had saved him was going around the mountain.
'You get one time, Zarek,' he said to himself.
He wouldn't allow himself a mistake like that again.
BANG!
He shot off toward the distance.