The cavernous hall was dyed a sable black and utterly silent. Just the way he liked it. It’d been a thousand years since the last army had marched through this place, and he much preferred the peace and quiet as opposed to people trying to murder him.
Below his raised dais and throne, enclosing the circular arena of blackened and paved rectangular stones was a moat. Any sort of liquid that might have been contained within had long since dried and evaporated. Instead, the perilously deep pits were stacked to the brim with discarded and forsaken skeletons, mountains of bleached bones and yellowed ivory. The ones at the bottom were pulverized into dust from the collective weight resting above. At the same time, the remains at the top were perfectly intact—preserved by an environment undisturbed by light or movement. Rusted iron chestplates and broken swords dotted the mausoleum, stark specks of grey amidst the sea of white, marking the ground like gravestones. A reminder, and a warning for those who dared step foot into the eerie domain.
…Speak of the devil and he shall appear before you.
As though summoned by his idle thoughts, footsteps resonated through the tomb, restrained and confident in equal measure. Contrary to his expectations, no additional sounds appeared, meaning this particular challenger was alone. Whether they were brave or foolhardy was yet to be seen.
A great door creaked as it opened inwards, sending flurries of dust into the air, each tiny particle outlined in rays of dim luminescence reflecting from the obsidian gate chiseled with screaming skulls and grasping limbs. Hinges that hadn’t been oiled in an age shrieked like a chorus of tortured souls. No more than two decades of age, a girl stepped unto the breach, setting her hair of alabaster fluttering and her eyes of crimson aflame. A colossal sword materialized in a flash of white light, intangible sparks rising from the hilt firmly nestled in her gauntlet’s grasp. The blade itself was more of a giant shard of twisted black stone than a properly forged weapon—a cone of crags served as the handguard, looking like a giant’s arrowhead that had been welded to a crude handle. A cloak of inky feathers obscured the rest of her body, but he glimpsed the silvery light of metal glinting from beneath the folds of cloth. Before she could continue forward in the darkness, braziers of lazuli flames sparked to life, lining the chamber walls and bathing the arena in a cold glare—and his appearance was finally cast into clarity for the first time.
Skeletal digits rasped against stone armrests as he rose.
Luxurious robes trimmed with purple and embroidered with runes were swept aside, revealing a hollow ribcage and bare ivory in place of flesh.
Twin blazes flickered into existence within pitiless and empty eye sockets, emanating an aura of disdain and arrogance.
He stood before his throne, looking down on his challenger from his elevated dais, and pounded his aged wooden staff into the ground.
Thunk.
“Graceless human. Thou art intruding upon the domain of the Tomb-warden.”
Thunk.
“The Lord of Hollows.”
Thunk.
“The Black-flame Apostate.”
THUNK.
And the final slam stirred up a gale that swept down the stairs and through the girl’s cloak, slamming the great doors shut with a howl of finality.
“I shall have it written upon thy grave. Felled by the last king of kings. Zol’kua. And it shall be the greatest honor you have ever been afforded.”
Black lightning crackled as it struck the walls, fissures splintering stone bricks and raining shards onto the ground. Clouds of dust shrouded everything from sight, and Zol’kua further amplified the visual obstruction by casting a ball of black mist into the air, where it burst into a murky shower. His opponent would doubtless find their way out in a moment, but for now he had a brief window to invoke a larger spell.
…Something to keep them distracted in a melee, perhaps.
Hovering far above the arena floor, he swung his staff in a sweeping circle like a fisherman casting bait into the ocean—only, it was an ocean of bones that the tendrils of magic sprouting from the staff’s head landed in. Fractured femurs and tibias were pulled together, ethereal ribbons weaving faster than even the greatest seamstress, forming limbs, a ribcage, and a skull. A giant crashed down to the earth with a thunderous roar, and if it had had working lungs it almost certainly would have bellowed a war cry to shatter the eardrums of its enemies. As it was, the twenty-meter-tall skeleton settled for pounding on its chest, clangorous shockwaves dispelling the remnant haze that hung in the air.
The girl was gone.
Above!
Too late. Three glowing projectiles shot from her position overhead, detonating against his giant’s skull with a flare of yellow light. Where the radiance met his undead bones, they melted away, disintegrating like ash on the winds. His summon was far worse off—it collapsed to the ground, missing its head and most of its torso, the black magic holding its form already dissipating without having ever accomplished anything. Only then did he catch sight of the luminous liquid trickling between cracks in the floor’s stone masonry, and the brown ceramic shards engraved with ritualistic patterns littering the ground. He also couldn’t re-cast the spell, as the bones necessary to constitute the giant were wholly obliterated.
I see now. She used consumable pots imbued with holy materials to substitute the divine essence of a priest, which is the antithesis of the undead.
…Wait.
Doubt festered in the back of his mind.
How did she know she would need the holy element to combat me? These consumables are prohibitively expensive, the materials to construct them are rare, and the power contained within the vessels decays far too rapidly for them to have been prepared long in advance.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Zol’kua waved his staff again while rapidly flying backward, attempting to create distance from the girl currently charging at him, having kicked off from the tomb’s walls as a stepping stone. A thousand and one miniature stars blasted downwards like a baptism of constellations, flickering as they detonated.
Not a single explosion even singed her cloak. The girl dodged them all with preternatural grace, weaving through attacks even as they were fired from her blind spot. The spells she couldn’t avoid were blocked using the broad side of her blade or the forming magic was pierced and scattered by a precise thrust.
It was as if she had faced his magic innumerable times and knew the exact angles from which the missiles would emerge…But that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
What are you?
The girl was still rushing toward him like a madwoman, determined to avoid giving him any time to cast. Gone was Zol’kua’s previous confidence and bravado. Now, he scrambled away in an undignified manner, his flight carrying him away from the monstrous greatsword that he had begun seeing as a portent of fear and doom.
Suppressed panic quickly rose within him. Zol’kua had given up on anything but defeating the opponent in front of him as soon as possible. Forsaking his spellcasting staff, he extended a willowy, skeletal hand, a sphere of pure darkness issuing from his palm and hovering midway between the girl and him.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” he screamed.
At least, he tried to. Instead, his mouth moved contrary to his inner thoughts and his will.
“O’ foolish mortal. May you become one with the darkness, in the all-consuming Black Hole.”
With a final clench of his fist, the spell expanded with a dire wail. The space around it howled as it flared, losing even the minuscule depth it retained. An irresistible force dragged everything toward the center as light failed to resist its attraction. Amidst the gloom that pulled at the fabric of space, warping the edges, even Zol’kua could no longer distinguish where the original spell started or ended. Chunks of weathered stone were uprooted from the walls, sucked into an ever-widening gyre, miniature comets blazing a trail through gravity’s orbit that shredded anything that entered their domain.
Why did I say that? It was as if I had no control over my own body— No, I can deliberate on this later once the opponent in front of me is vanquished.
A quick glance showed no signs of his opponent. The ball of pure void shrieked even louder as it faded from existence like a beast’s final death throes, protesting their inevitable doom. Hope blossomed in his hollow chest. Perhaps his Black Hole had managed to claim its victim? By charging forward so recklessly, she wouldn’t have had time to escape the spell's radius. Yes, the battle was surely over. Zol’kua breathed a sigh of relief from his nonexistent lungs and turned away from the flickering, dying remnants of the spell…
An angel of ebony descended from the underworld’s choked sky, borne on feathered wings. The girl fell silently in a frozen world, without disturbance. Her blade flashed, four cuts in a single unperceived moment.
Zol’kua’s limbs clattered to the ground, the individual phalanges of his hands and feet rolling like dice in a desperate gambler’s last bet.
He didn’t, couldn’t react before the girl seized his skull, striving to crush it in one fluid motion. His cranium cracked under the strain, bone fragments splitting apart. The lich began to disintegrate as the world slowed to a crawl and he remembered.
The cavernous hall was dyed a sable black and utterly silent. Just the way he liked it. It’d been a thousand years since the last army had marched through this place, and he much preferred the peace and quiet as opposed to people trying to murder him.
…
A great door creaked as it opened inwards, sending flurries of dust into the air, each tiny particle outlined in rays of dim luminescence reflecting from the obsidian gate chiseled with screaming skulls and grasping limbs.
The challenger is a middle-aged man, clad in only a loincloth and hauling a sword over his shoulder, so large that it is almost comical.
…
After a short battle, the warrior falls to his knees. It was not difficult for Zol’kua to prevail—this buffoon doesn’t seem to have even the barest semblance of tactical thought, or even any information on his opponent. He dodged far too frequently, rolling out of the way whenever Zol’kua so much as moved his staff, making it easy to hit him with the real spells. A disappointing opponent.
The cavernous hall was dyed a sable black and utterly silent. Just the way he liked it. It’d been a thousand years since the last army had marched through this place, and he much preferred the peace and quiet as opposed to people trying to murder him.
The door creaks open. The challenger is a middle-aged man, clad in only a loincloth and hauling a sword over his shoulder, so large that it is almost comical.
…
Has he fought this man before? His preparations are almost too perfect, his counter-strategies too effective.
…
After a lengthy battle, the challenger falls to his knees. A difficult opponent. Had Zol’kua made a single mistake, it could have been his defeat. A worthy opponent.
The cavernous hall was dyed a sable black and utterly silent.
…
The challenger is a middle-aged man, clad in only a loincloth and…
…
How is this possible? Here Zol’kua lies, his skull within his foe’s grasp, about to be pulverized into dust. His spells were all dodged flawlessly. His trump card, Black Hole, which he has never used once before, was useless. This man has surely fought him before, but he has no memory of it.
Zol’kua’s final thought as he perishes is “How?”
That is his first death.
His second death occurs in much the same manner.
His third, likewise.
Fourth, fifth, sixth, they all pass by like fleeting raindrops in an overwhelming storm.
Each time, he dies in confusion, in fear, questioning his defeat, never recalling the previous cycles where he faced the same person again and again.
…
The world is fading. The walls, the pillars, the ground, and even himself are transforming into a series of numbers, binary codes of zeros and ones. Returning to a source beyond his perception, to be remodeled and reformed, his memories wiped and his body made to fight again, repeating the same lines and the same actions.
His opponent has long since disappeared in their own flash of light.
He curses whatever existence has created this… this abomination. This false world in which nothing matters, not even death. This is no paradise, no heaven for the deserving. This is hell. A hell of condemnation, repetition, and regression.
He alone is doomed to live within the same infinitesimal, stagnant time, while his opponents revive unto infinity and advance beyond his “present” moment.
Forever.
Scenes flash before his eyes. His parents. His first love. The academy at which he learned his first spell. The wars in which he fought to defend his homeland. The ritual circle he used to convert himself into a lich.
These experiences are evidence of his existence. But how can they be, when his very existence is fabricated?
Nothing he ever did was real.
Nothing he ever did made a difference.
It was all predetermined.
At the end of every cycle, everything returns to nothingness.
Thus, everything is worthless.
These are his final thoughts before he fully disappears, and his memories are reset.
…
This is his seven million, six hundred thousand, three hundred and ninety-fifth death.
And the start of his seven million, six hundred thousand, three hundred and ninety-sixth battle.
The only things remaining in the arena are digital dust and pixels.
