The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 137 (Patreon)

Because I have too many bad memories of getting thrown off that damn platform...

Chapter 137 – Titan

With breakfast done, though a little more eventful than anticipated, we made our way to where the Seal of Earth lay. The sinkhole I had been told about was indeed in the middle of a park. Well, it was called Parque Alejo Barrios, at least. In reality, it looked like a series of football fields set up so locals could come together and play. A stadium was literally on the other side an access road from the park, meaning it probably also served as extra parking for events.

The hole in the earth was roughly twenty meters in width, and almost perfectly circular. Stone stairs led the way down into the ground, clearly showing that this was artificially made. That was good, since it meant that the actual seal was most likely in a constructed space, rather than a natural cavern. A cavern was more likely to collapse due to earthquakes or magical battles than someplace purpose-built to house the seal, after all.

As we descended into darkness, I conjured a small light, about the radiance of a torch, to help the mortals in my train. Chihomi’s eyes were able to see in the depths of the ocean, and my disciples knew enough magic by now to enhance their eyesight so that they could see in the dark, but the others were not as skilled as they. It wouldn’t do for one of the volunteer vessels to be lost because they slipped and fell to their death, before even approaching the seal.

Eventually, the spiral staircase came to an end. My magical senses told me that we were now one hundred and ten meters below sea level. Considering that the descent started roughly ten meters above sea level, we had come down quite a ways. However, our journey was not yet done.

A perfectly round tunnel ten meters in width continued on ahead of us, sloping downward at almost a thirty-degree angle. The walls were polished and smooth, to the point where, even without moisture to worry about, one could easily imagine slipping and sliding all the way to the bottom. Again, my companions and I weren’t troubled, as sending magic through your feet to allow you to walk up walls or across water was simple enough, once you learned it, but the others, limited as they were by CADs and the thaumaturge mindset, were having enough trouble that I had to summon mounts for everyone to ensure that there were no accidents, while not slowing our progress to a crawl.

That proved to be a wise choice, as the tunnel continued on, and on. By my reckoning, we were almost three kilometers out at sea, with the slope of the tunnel never changing, meaning that we had descended almost two kilometers, and the steeds had carried us roughly three and a half kilometers. Not a terrible distance, but if we had been attempting this without magic, then it would have taken us far longer than the mere thirty minutes it took us to ride the distance, and there would have almost certainly been injuries along the way.

As we passed the four-kilometer mark, a reddish glow could be seen in the distance, as well as heat radiating upwards. One did not need to be a genius to picture a cavern with lava in our immediate future. While lava was the merging of Earth and Fire, it was still a primordial image when one descended into the bowels of the earth to see lava, which made it perfectly on brand for this.

And then, the tunnel ended, opening up in the air over a massive cavern with lava flowing at its base. In the middle there stood a circular platform of stone, roughly twenty-five meters in width. There was no sign of the guardian, but I knew they would appear soon enough. Looking back at the others as I shed my mortal glamour and released my full power, I said, “You will stay back here. Naya and Ya will protect you from any wild attacks that come this way.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Naya nodded, along with Ya.

Turning my horse, I walked out, descending easily through the air until I got to the platform, where I dismounted. In one hand, I had my staff, an old friend that had been with me through countless battles at this point. But where was the guardian? Perhaps I ought to give them a bit of a nudge?

“The Lich Queen of Risen Athelia demands that the Guardian of this place reveal themself at once, so that the Seal of Earth may be undone!”

I felt a presence appear above me, and looked up just in time to see a massive figure fall from the ceiling, to land upon the platform with a crash that threatened to shake me from my feet. The creature was vaguely human in shape, in that it had two arms, two legs, and a head, but that was where the similarities ended. Its body was made of solid stone, with yellow veins like magma running up from its three-fingered fists, matching the three-toed feet below. It resembled nothing so much as a boulder almost five meters tall, carved to look like it had muscles. A collection of crystals hung from its belly like a belt, and long, scraggly white hair came from its head.

I knew what this creature was, even though I had never seen one quite like it before. This was a primal being of Earth, an elemental beyond the scope of normal elementals. Like the guardian of Fire before, this titan was clearly powerful beyond all reasonable measure.

I did not give the titan any chance to speak, if it even could. Instead, I launched a powerful curse made from Death mana at it, a curse of Weakening. The titan stumbled for a moment, and then roared in rage. It charged forward, hand raised to try and punch me, but I was too quick for such things.

I jumped up, evading the blow, and landed on the titan’s outstretched arm. A simple Deathbolt blasted the hand that swung around to try and smash me against that arm, forcing it back long enough that I could run up the arm, to the creature’s broad shoulders. Standing just behind his head made it so that the titan’s large arms could not reach me. At that point, using the mana in my feet to keep from falling was trivial.

The titan turned this way and that, trying to shake me off, even as it spat out elemental attacks one after another, which looked as though they were all area effect spells. Some looked to be pure damage effects, and others looked as though they were designed to throw people off the edge. However, none of them had the reach to get to me, standing on the titan’s shoulders as I was.

That gave me something I had precious little of, when I fought the Firelord: time. I leveled my staff at the stone titan’s head, and began concentrating my power. How much should I do? Fifty percent was probably too much. While Deathbolt was a single-target spell, the more powerful you made it, the more it would ‘splash’ on impact. Not enough to affect anyone that wasn’t right next to the target, of course. But standing on the titan’s head, my staff mere inches from the target point? Even I wouldn’t be unscathed from the impact of that spell, at point blank range. To say nothing of the shrapnel. I went for ten percent, instead.

KRACKOW!

The bolt exploded into the top of the titan’s head, blasting away the mane of hair, and a good twenty percent of the ‘skull’. With a roar, the titan jumped up, into the air. The sudden movement managed to tear me from the stone elemental’s shoulders, but I did not fall, since I still had plenty of magic of my own. A magic barrier of Death mana formed under my feet, strong enough to support my weight. Sure, the spell wasn’t originally designed to do something like that, but this was the difference between a Mage’s power and a Thaumaturge’s spells. I could adapt.

CRASH!

The titan came back down to the ground with an almighty crash, larger than the one that announced its entrance before. A ring, five meters wide, crumbled from the edge of the platform, dramatically reducing the available space, even as the titan began attacking more swiftly. If I was fighting the titan as a normal person, or even in any way approaching ‘fairness’, then that would have been troublesome. Thankfully, I knew better than to engage in a fair fight.

I surrounded myself with my barrier spell, now, hardening it against both spells and impacts. Just in time, too, as the titan through some kind of new spell at me. I could not tell exactly what it did, but the patterns looked like some sort of binding spell, perhaps trying to encase me in rock? Either way, such a thing was useless unless it could batter down my shield, and I knew it would not do that quickly.

I raised my staff, and began concentrating my power. Sixty percent, this time, split evenly between four identical spells. Instead of a set of simple bolts, the Death mana coalesced into four spears of power, each spinning faster and faster in the air along their axis. The ‘Mana Bolt’ was a spell to simply shoot an enemy with your power. The ‘Mana Javelin’, however, was made to pierce through armor and magical defenses.

More spells came at me, and I ignored them, letting my barrier soak the damage. My hand swept down, bringing my staff with it, and my spells let fly. Four spells, four impacts, four explosions.

The Mana Javelin did not normally explode. These, however, were not the simple Death Javelin, but the more advanced Bursting Death Javelin. The closest nonmagical equivalent would be bunker-buster missiles, designed to penetrate armor, and then explode within a target, for maximum effect. With each spell containing fifteen percent of my total strength, the effect was… emphatic.

The titan roared in pain, as it collapsed to the ground, arms and legs blown off at the elbows and knees. Its physical attacks were sealed, unless it had some means of healing itself, and I doubted its spells would be much better off. Which meant that, now, I had the time to finish things properly. I would not toy with the titan, for I did not doubt that it had some way of turning this situation around, or at least arranging a mutual defeat, if I gave it the time.

Another Bursting Death Javelin, but only one this time. I concentrated a full sixty percent of my power into this one shot, just to be certain that the titan did not survive what was coming. The air itself began to decay, due to the density of my Death mana in the air, causing a wind to begin visibly swirling about the spinning javelin. I swung my staff forward.

“NOW, LET THE END OF ALL THINGS PIERCE THE MOUNTAIN’S HEART!”

KABOOOM!!!

And then, there was light in the darkness, as Death struck the titan’s heart, and annihilated it. The explosion caused shrapnel to go flying everywhere, as a stone the size of my head bounced off my shield. When I looked down at the platform, at where the titan used to be, I found that much of the platform was missing. Only a space five meters in diameter remained, and much of it looked far the worse for wear. Of the titan, however, there was no sign at all.

In the center of the platform, a pool of light formed, gleaming in the darkness. As I descended to the platform, I looked up, to where the mortals watched, at the mouth of the tunnel. “It is safe to approach, now. The guardian has been defeated. The way forward is open.”