The Runesmith

“We made it laddies!”

Everyone cheered as they watched the lava swallow up the swarm of skeletons. This group of people had come from the mining camp in the mine. Everyone had somewhat expected this line of work to be dangerous but they never envisioned themselves fleeing from a small army of skeletons. Luckily a massive eruption of some sort that exploded in the middle of the lake saved them all and now their pursuers were gone.

They naturally questioned the strange explosion but they couldn’t really stop. While the enemies from the rear were gone another large group of them was coming from another side. This area had also become flooded with magma which was proving to be a stopgap for the monsters.

There they also noticed two humans that were keeping the monsters at bay, one was swinging a large hammer around to produce various spells and the other just crushed the skeletal heads with his fists. Wedamir, who reported the monster attack had gone over to offer some help and it seemed that everything was going well. However, just when everything was going well a strange phenomenon started.

“Shit, get these people out of here, make them toss all of their equipment away and run if you want to live.”

“Ye can’t expect us tae juist…”

“Just do it!”

Roland grabbed Wedamir by the collar while shouting. There was no time left as the Lich was here, and while the others couldn’t see it yet, it was there. The multiple explosives were supposed to stop it or at least keep it from progressing as the underground would flood with lava. His plan was to set off the explosion while the Lich was inside the secret chamber below the lake but he had to detonate it prematurely to save the miners.

Now the creature was slowly lifting itself up from the underground. This was presented to everyone through a strange red sphere rising out from the ground. Roland knew that inside of it was the Lich and the circular shape was just the mana shield it was producing. It was coupled with the levitating spell to make it look like some kind of large bubble.

There was no time to lose, Roland only had one weapon capable of contending with a tier 3 monster of this caliber. This was the large cannon that produced the mana-drill spells he used for farming experience. At this moment it was inside of his mule golem that he quickly sprinted towards.

‘Common, open up…’

He already sent the order to his golem to turn around and open the large latch but this model wasn’t really built for speed. In his hurry, he had to actually tear it open to get to the equipment he needed. There was no time to actually attach this cannon to a stable base or to the battery unit that used the mining area Elokin’s crystals.

Luckily he had updated this cannon to be used with other attachments. It was still an experimental model that could go together with this slightly upgraded runic suit of armor. The cannon already came with thick cables that would carry the required energy. What he needed to do was connect them to his armor.

There wasn’t really much to it, there weren’t any latches, just a flat surface at the end of the cable that would stick to his metallic armor through magic. It was quite similar to magnetism which didn’t suck up that much mp. Thanks to this solution the cables almost guided themselves towards the entry point that he included on this improved armor.

Small blue sparks flew as he attached the last one to his neck. The other ones were tightly connected to his back and chest without getting in the way of him holding it up on his shoulder. The small turret that he had on the other shoulder that previously continued to shoot at the skeletons had to be turned off. The mana it required needed to be moved towards the large cannon.

“What are ye…”

“I told you to go, that thing is here already, if you want to save your people you should run.”

Wedamir that was somewhat away, continued to ask questions while batting some skeletons away. Finally, as he noticed the lava bubble rising up warning signals started going off in his head.

“A' body, listen the th' human, yer lives are more important than th' equipment yer carrying.”

“Ye can’t be serious! If anyone listen to him, everything that ye lose wull come out o` yer salary.”

The dwarven adventurer wasn’t the man in charge, this title belonged to a foreman that was overseeing the entire mining operation. He was an old dwarf that clearly saw that the company that he was working for was above the simple miners. Probably the punishment for him would be severe if all of this equipment was lost here. It seemed that for him the miners were more replaceable than the pickaxes that they were carrying.

It was understandable that the foreman didn’t want to get in trouble but he was underestimating the threat here. Without seeing the Lich that could devastate them with a few spells he would probably be unwilling to give out an order to abandon everything. To Roland’s surprise, Wedamir was the one to step up.

“Whit do ye want, ye'r not part o' th' miners guild.”

Without giving an explanation Wedamir’s fist made its way towards the supervisor's jaw. The man did not have a proper battle class so a punch from a high-level tier 2 warrior wasn’t something he could take. It was an instant knockout that made the hired guards and other dwarven adventurers that were here stunned.

“Someone grab this idiot, ah will explain everything to th' union chief after.”

Roland had no idea who this dwarf was that was hanging around Armand and Lobelia. He had mentioned one of the union member's names and called them his uncle. Perhaps this was not an honorary title and instead, Wedamir was actually related to one of them. This would make sense if he felt comfortable in knocking out a foreman of a mining expedition.

If that wasn’t the case, then perhaps he could see the bigger picture here and he just prioritized the lives of others over monetary gains. Roland didn’t really have the time to worry about the union’s dealings as his current situation was also dire. At least now that the miners were dropping their heavy tools and bags they had a better chance of escaping.

As if right on cue the smoldering hot bubble of lava rose high enough to reveal the monster inside. The green flames that accompanied this lich became visible to everyone. Roland had remained vigilant even while the dwarves were having their little argument. The cannon that he was holding over his shoulder was already ramping up.

???????? Lich L 171

His analyzing skill couldn’t fully identify the monster, the question marks represented the type of the monster before him. Liches were already tier 3 monsters and were an evolution of a mage skeleton. This one was in possession of some kind of special class that he could not identify. The only thing that gave him some information was the creature's level.

‘Its level is lower than that of the abomination at the village but its defenses against mana are vastly superior to that monster’s.’

The biggest problem wasn’t the monster's level but how it was able to shrug off every magical attack that he produced. In theory, his chest cannon should be able to at least deal a good amount of damage if it connected but the mana was being affected by something. At first he believed that it was just some type of skill or spell but the longer he thought about it the stranger it became.

Normally a battle between mages was decided by their mana. The person with more always had the advantage both in defense and offense. While it was possible to interfere with other people's mana it wasn’t something easily achieved. Mana disrupting existed but it usually occurred with one party having a vastly higher stat pool along with amount of mana.

The Lich here was strong but Roland also had a prestige class that boosted his stat multiplier. In his opinion, the monster shouldn’t be able to disperse his magical energies this easily. There was one way of this being probably though, if the mage grew accustomed to an enemy's mana pattern they would be able to affect it to a greater degree.

‘I can only hope that this works…’

There wasn’t much time here as his cannon was already glowing blue with energy. His aim was to catch the monster off guard, now that it rose out of the magma lake it was time. The Lich didn’t show much respect for his magic, it didn’t seem to see it as much of a threat. To some degree, it even looked as if it wanted to get hit by it.

This of course brought back the memory of seeing it jump into the mana beam on one of his grinding expeditions. At that time the monster was hit but didn’t die then afterward it had never shown its face again as if it was hiding. If this Lich was intelligent then perhaps it decided to hide away to understand the mana beam that hurt it. It wouldn’t be strange if it cracked his mana pattern during the farming spree and was now able to affect his spells.

Something like this was usually not an easy endeavor. An experienced mage would need to spend weeks or months analyzing such a pattern actually to be able to affect the spells during battle. Even then a person's mind was a fickle thing, during a direct confrontation it would be practically impossible to affect another set of mana patterns without fumbling the technique.

His opponent wasn’t quite human though, perhaps it operated on a different set of rules and could perform this deed as easily as people breathed. This little theory of his could be tested out now as if the monster could just bounce this magical cannon ray away, then running was the only option left. With how the monster was already coming closer that would become quite difficult even for Roland.

For this to work, he would need to change his mana pattern. Something like this was easier said than done, a magic user could not just change his natural mana signature that easily. Luckily Roland was not a mage, he was a Runesmith. Runes were able to change everything within a spell if the crafter knew the components.

After so many years of testing, Roland had become quite the expert. Recently he had started tapping into holy runes and was also attempting to change the mana wavelengths. This research brought in a few new discoveries through which he was now able to scramble his own mana fingerprint.

Everything was ready and he injected all that he had into the weapon that he was holding over his shoulder. The runic machine that looked like a tank cannon started releasing sparks of mana. His whole silvery armor was doing the same, arcs of blue light flew everywhere as he dumped copious amounts of his mp into this attack.

While he did not have time to connect this weapon to any batteries he could still use them. A handful of fresh Elokin’s crystals made their way into his palm and were used to boost the power of this cannon to its maximum. These crystals liked to heat up when used, his first golemic creation had blown up due to this fact. Yet now even when the crystals were starting to glow red in his gauntlet he continued to use them.

Finally, the Lich was out and its gaze was instantly drawn to the sparkling runesmith. The empty eye sockets exploded with green energy as it started approaching. The monster was like a moth being drawn to a flame. It was probably sure that the energy blast could not damage it as all the previous ones had failed before it. A staff made of bones floated before it as the counter-attack was already being prepared.

Roland was not sure why the Lich was acting this way. For some reason it was attracted to his mana and wasn’t acting as the Lich variants he read in books. Those undead monsters would usually avoid any direct confrontation and use their minions instead. If the caster died then all of the undead around it would instantly stop working. If this monster acted as it was supposed to it would have created a lair where it surrounded itself with its skeletal minions.

This one on the other hand was truly broken or crazy. Even after the beam of drilling blue mana flew forward it continued to float towards it. It was as if it wanted something from it, was it actually trying to absorb this blast of energy? This thought made Roland sweat, if his enemy had absorbing properties then after the beam was taken in he would be open to a counterattack.

Luckily this wasn’t the case, after inserting a mana pattern disruptor into the runic system, the shot actually connected. A light show of sapphire energy against emerald green set the entire underground dungeon ablaze. This intensive clash of magical energies made a lot of heads turn and everyone could see it, the Lich’s shield was breaking apart.

It was quite a strange sight to behold even for them. The Lich that was surrounding itself with green flames flew directly into the path of the spinning beam of mana. It was as if it was not even seeing it as an obstacle that it needed to worry about. To the simple miners on the other hand the high concentration of mana made their beards tingle. They knew in their very being that if they were anywhere near that blasting zone they would be turned to ash.

For a moment it actually looked like the being made of bones would break through. The beam collided with the shield of green flames but the monster continued to fly forward. Only after moving several meters did it stop. It finally realized that something was wrong but at that point, it was too late.

Roland’s sweaty face could not be seen nor could his shouting be heard as he gave it all. The spinning drill finally penetrated through the shield and collided with the monster inside. It was practically cleaved in two as it impacted the monster’s chest area where presumably the core should be. This amount of damage could not be ignored even by this creature and it lost control of its mana shield and levitation spell, it was falling down into the lava below.

“Hah, he got it!”

Armand shouted out while holding his fist high up. Everyone that was fleeing halted in their tracks as they saw the light show coming to an end. It looked like the Lich was going to fall into the lava and even it without the protection of its shield would suffer a devastating blow if it was directly submerged under lava.

‘Did that do it?’

While the monster was falling down his armor was on fire. Various skills like rune overload and empower rune were used to boost the spell past its limits. The smoke that was produced from his machinery was due to the runes burning through the metal. Even though his equipment had been damaged if the monster fell into the lake of lava now it would have all been worth it.

‘I didn’t get its core which is a shame but that doesn't matter, please just fall in.’

His reserves were drained so he didn’t have anything left for a follow-up attack. If only the monster fell into the lake then this all could be over. Yet it wouldn’t be so, suddenly something burst forth from the middle of the lake. It was a skeletal monster just like the rest but it was much bigger and of coal black coloring.

Before the Lich fell into the pool the monster produced a set of wings that propelled it towards its master. Within a few moments, the skeletal mage was being carried to the other side of this lake to safety. Everyone looked in horror as the one responsible for this predicament had not been killed. Instead, it would be safe on the other side to recover and return to haunting this dungeon again.

Roland was stunned and shocked just like the others. The arrival of this creature was something that he didn’t factor into. After a quick scan with his analyzing skill, he was even more perturbed. This creature was one of the Lich’s minions and it was also a tier 3 being.

Obsidian Skeleton Gargoyle [ Summoned ] L 150

‘Shit, could there be more of those around…’

This was no time to take a rest, while he had gone through most of his mana they still needed to evacuate. The skeletal soldiers continued to arrive and they were not alone. From the corner of his eye, he noticed the appearance of another one, another large skeletal monster made from black bones.