Noah raised a hand mid-step. "Careful. There are traps ahead."
Cordelia stopped beside him, eyes scanning the corridor. The stone beneath them pulsed faintly with dull necrotic sigils — faded, but still active. Cracks lined the walls, and the air carried the stale bite of old mana.
They advanced slowly, avoiding loose glyphs embedded in the tiles. Some hissed when they stepped too close. Others flickered like dying embers.
Noah didn’t speak again, and Cordelia didn’t ask questions. They moved with the unspoken precision of two people who had done this before — not in this world, maybe, but somewhere close enough.
The corridor opened into a wider chamber — high ceiling, broken columns, and faded banners bearing the insignia of Saphielle’s house. In the center stood a group of figures in black robes, hoods drawn low. Necrotic energy pulsed at their fingertips, the air thick with the scent of decay.
Noah cursed under his breath. "Servants. They’re trying to stall us."
Cordelia narrowed her eyes. "They’re protecting the ritual."
"Yeah. Which means she’s close."
One of the necromancers turned. "Intruders!"
Noah stepped back behind a crumbled pillar as bolts of green fire cracked across the chamber.
Cordelia didn’t flinch. She stepped forward, cracking her knuckles. "I’ll handle them. You go."
"You sure?" Noah asked.
She gave him a sidelong glance. "I’m not a Read the latest chapters on NovelHub - completely free! Go."
He hesitated for a second. "Don’t die."
"Please," she said, already conjuring a wave of shimmering light around her. "I’m not the reckless one here."
Noah gave a short nod, then slipped along the wall, circling around the conflict. Behind him, the sound of spells colliding filled the air — Cordelia had already begun.
’Buy me ten minutes,’ he thought.
And then he vanished into the lower halls, alone.
The staircase twisted downward in a slow spiral, each step groaning under Noah’s boots. The walls were smoother here—less ruined, more deliberate. Runes etched in old blood pulsed faintly with sickly green light, reacting to his presence like watching eyes.
The temperature dropped.
Noah tightened his grip on the small case in his coat—the one holding the glasses. The hallway ahead opened into a vast underground chamber, and immediately, the stench of death hit him like a wall. The scent wasn’t rot. It was older, heavier. Like time itself had decayed here.
A pale-blue glow shimmered from the center of the room.
Noah ducked behind a toppled statue, just close enough to see the ritual site.
Clad in black ceremonial robes, her silver hair flowing freely behind her, she stood before a stone sarcophagus set into the ground. Runes carved into its edges sparked with mana as she placed something in its hollow center—a silvery shard, jagged and glasslike, which pulsed with a rhythm too unnatural to be a heartbeat.
Noah’s eyes narrowed. The Hollow Echo.
’That’s it. This is the moment.’
Saphielle knelt by the sarcophagus and began to chant in a low voice, her mana flaring in dark waves. Ghostly wisps rose from the edges of the tomb, coiling around her like serpents.
’She’s starting the resurrection. I can’t wait any longer.’
He opened the case and carefully retrieved the glasses. His plan hadn’t changed: put them on her—somehow—and project the memory of her past failure. The moment she sees it, she will not try to advance with the ritual.
But there was a problem.
Saphielle wasn’t just going to stand there and let him slap enchanted eyewear on her face.
Noah’s fingers twitched. He glanced to the left—no guards. To the right—just a collapsed altar. The air was still.
He slipped forward, one step at a time, sticking to the shadows.
But as he reached the halfway point—
"You’re not exactly subtle, you know."
Her voice rang across the room—clear, confident, and cold.
Noah stopped in place.
Saphielle didn’t turn. She simply rose from her kneeling position, still facing the sarcophagus. "I’ve been expecting you. I even left the gate open. Didn’t think you’d come alone, though."
Noah stepped into view, lowering his hand slightly. "Well, that saves us time."
Bones clattered as skeletal forms clawed their way out of the dirt surrounding the chamber. Dozens of them, eyes glowing green, weapons fused to their brittle limbs.
Noah clicked his tongue.
No sword. No Kagetsume.
The garden was a graveyard now.
Broken bones littered the cracked earth. The trees had long burned to twisted stumps, and the sky above was blackened by the smoke of a hundred undead corpses turned to ash.
In the center of the devastation, Lys stood—bloodied, panting, one sleeve torn and her hair singed at the ends.
The Lich still moved.
It dragged one leg behind it, half of its ribcage shattered, its crown split in two. And yet, its staff remained raised, its unholy chants spilling forth like poisoned rain.
Another wave of skeletons erupted from the ground.
Lys growled, raising her hand.
The spirit of earth roared into existence beside her, towering like a knight of stone and bark. With a single stomp, the ground cracked in every direction—deep fissures opening to swallow the freshly risen undead whole. Dozens fell back into the graves they came from, their cries silenced by rock and pressure.
Gaia answered, summoning pillars of stone in a spiral pattern, boxing the remaining undead into a tight ring. Lys clenched her fist.
From above, the crimson spirit descended like a blazing comet. A scream of fury and joy echoed through the garden as it spiraled once, then exploded outward.
A wave of fire surged in every direction, roaring through the gaps in Gaia’s walls like a furnace turned to full blast. The trapped skeletons ignited instantly, their bones popping like dry twigs. Even the trees at the edge of the field caught fire.
The flames reached the Lich last.
It lifted its staff one final time—only to have Fire crash into it directly, engulfing it in a spiral of hellfire. The undead creature shrieked, its form cracking, melting, disintegrating in the intensity of the spell.
Lys dropped to one knee.
Smoke clung to her skin. The heat shimmered in the air around her.
She stared ahead as the last traces of the Lich burned to dust, the staff clattering uselessly to the scorched earth.
The spirits faded one by one, exhausted but victorious.
Lys let out a long, shuddering breath.
Then, slowly, she stood.
She wiped the soot from her cheek, spat to the side, and glanced toward the mansion in the distance—where Noah and Cordelia had disappeared earlier.
"I swear," she muttered, "if she’s been flirting with him while I was fighting a freaking Lich..."
She turned and started walking, limping slightly, her expression darkening with every step.
’I can’t let Cordelia spend any more time alone with Noah.’