The First Lich Lord

Chapter 100

Clearing out the large floor went relatively smoothly. Two more small herds of blood bison attacked, and the fights went about the same. Though I had the cannon focus on crippling the bison instead of killing them so the fights would be prolonged to help Maxwell. From each skirmish I created another porter. By the end of it, I had two, mostly intact zombie blood bison. I elected to keep them so my front line would be more reinforced, and I could focus on casting spells.

I could have built a horde and stormed over the floor, by didnt for several reasons. For one, these fights were relatively easy. Two, my zombie bison had gained the ability to spread the poison that the flesh horror had. And finally, I liked having a more concentrated powerful group than overwhelming numbers.

The bison were not the only creatures we fought on that floor. When we scaled the adjacent hill we were assaulted by a kind of massive blood goat. Physically weaker than the blood bison, they made up for it with speed and agility. Still, they stood no chance against us, though their constant bounding around made them very annoying to deal with. The volans and Raven were our best combatants to counter that.

The flesh horror did alright if it could grab one, but in the end, I elected to form up around Maxwell with the cannon and zombie bison. I mostly let the flesh horror do whatever it wanted to. It was a surprisingly adaptive fighter. I hadnt created it with the intention to expand and retract like it did, nor had I intentionally given it the controls to do that. It had consumed three whole bison by this point, and the powerful magic in its stomach rending down the large amount of flesh quickly added to its own strength.

The overall level of the flesh horror had gone up as well, making it level 68, and significantly faster than before. Fortunately, it was a construct so I didnt have any immediate concerns about losing control of it. At its current rate of progression it would be stronger than me before the end of the floor.

When we reached the top of the hill, we were assaulted by the remaining goats. The fight was intense, if not difficult. We just simply weathered blows and hunkered around the fountain at the top while one by one the goats were picked off.

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Is it just me, or is that thing getting more and more freaky? Maxwell asked, watching the flesh golem slam a goat into the ground and jump on top of it.

Nope, youre right, its getting stronger. I chuckled nervously.

Once upon a time, Damien had warned me about constructs that grew too rapidly. I was beginning to wonder if giving it the stomach had been a good idea. Without it, the explosive growth from absorbing creatures like it was, wouldnt be happening. For the time being, my control over it was firm and showed no signs of weakening.

My attention moved from the fight to the fountain spewing forth thick blood-like liquid. It was similar, albeit smaller than the one at the top of the ziggurat. I began to draw a ritual around it.

Maxwell noticed me working, glancing over what I was doing while he continued to strum his guitar. What are you doing? Changing this fountain somehow I think, but are you destroying it or modifying it?

Im going to attempt to change the magic being used from blood magic in the death magic, I explained. This is a good testing ground for if I ever do it to the one at the top of the ziggurat.

You can inverse the magic like that? Maxwell shook his head. That seems too straight forward. Surely you cant just replace magic with something so close to its opposite without any ill effects.

That is both true and not true, I said. If the magical item in question, such as this one, is not using any principle inherent to that type of magic in the effect its creating, then its fairly straightforward to replace it.

Isnt it using the principle of blood? Maxwell asked. The liquid it produces is awfully similar to blood.

Not as far as I can tell. I pointed at a runic circle carved around the outside of the fountain. What this appears to be doing is infusing water drawn from another source with blood magic drawn from elsewhere in the ziggurat. The thickness of the liquid is probably a side effect. If I replace it with death magic it will likely become less viscous, but that should be the only change.

Wont you need to supply it with a steady amount of death magic though? Maxwell asked.

At first, yes. But once I finish this one, I will create one that will draw in ambient death magic. I raised my left hand to cut off his next question. Before you ask what the source is, the liquid will increase the ambient death magic in the area as it converts this small biome into a death biome. Im also going to use all the death cores Ive collected so far on this floor and a whole bunch of goat flesh to create an immobile mana generating abomination. It wont last forever, but it will last long enough. Eventually I want to get down deep enough and convert whatever the source is to all this blood magic.

By the time the last goat was slain, I was done with both rituals. Before I powered them, I created my fleshy immobile mana generating abomination. It took a lot of mana, death energy, and every core I had, but the result was a two meter in diameter fleshy thing that exuded a decent amount of death magic. It was quite horrific to look at, I assure you.

Then I activated the ritual that would gather death magic, followed by the ritual to convert the fountain. The first ritual cut off the stream of blood magic flowing into the fountain and began to forcibly corrupt and push out the remaining blood magic.

What I ended up doing was not exactly what I had told Maxwell. When I was in the middle of creating the abomination that would exude the magic needed, I realized I could make it exude eldritch and death magic. The modifications had cost me more mana than I planned on, and it took me a while to recover enough to activate the rituals. That was okay, it gave me time to modify them.

Now the ritual surrounding the fountain overwrote and re-carved several of the runes etched into the base, reshaping them so that death and eldritch magic would be usable by the fountain. The process wasnt quick, and I was done powering it before the ritual had fully completed, so I waited for several long seconds in anticipation and worry. There was a small chance that it would blow up, especially with the eldritch magic added in.

The pool at the top of the fountain began to swirl and bubble as the red fluid darkened and gave way to inky black fluid with specks and ribbons of purple eldritch magic. As more and more of the black fluid was created it began to bubble over the top and run down the sides of the hill, absorbing and destroying the red fluid.