Chapter 34: Together into the 5th Floor Part II
Its form was tall, impossibly lean, bones bound tight by black silk that drank the light around it. Its robe shimmered with the color of absence — no hue, only the suggestion of darkness too deep to be named. Gold thread wove patterns of ancient heresy across its chest like veins.
A crown of bone and fractured gemstones sat atop its skull, each gem pulsing faintly in time with the rhythm of our breath. Its staff — gnarled, warped wood fused with ore from another realm — flickered with veins of molten mana, pulsing like magma beneath cracked earth.
And then...Its eyes opened. Twin remnants of a hatred that had not faded — even across timelines.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Noel stumbled back half a step. "W-What is that thing...?"
"Don’t move," I said. Quiet. Measured. My eyes never left the Lich.
Its gaze swept over us like a verdict. No emotions. No words.
Just a presence.
One that told you: you do not belong here.
Its bony hand slowly lifted the staff. The ground pulsed. Shattered glass lifted from the floor in a slow orbit, circling the altar like lost planets. The cathedral groaned. Reality itself seemed to bend around that staff, as though it were a conductor of gravity, memory, and death.
And still, the Lich said nothing.