The air grew cold as the Deathless King's presence fully settled into the stolen flesh. His borrowed eyes, now glowing with a sickly green light, fixed on Princess Elise.

"Princess," the Lich's voice rasped, the assassin's vocal cords straining to produce the ancient, mocking tone. "You have been fluttering just out of reach for too long. Your bloodline's light is a fading ember… and I have come to snuff it out properly."

Elise stood her ground, though tremors ran through her. "You will not have me, nor my kingdom. Your curse is a coward's weapon."

"A weapon that has brought you to your knees, time and again," the Lich retorted, taking a step forward. The assassin's body groaned in protest, a trickle of blackened blood seeping from his nose. "Your father hid you. Your knights died for you. Tell me, Princess… do you feel worth it?"

Before Elise could answer, Seraphina's rage erupted. "You do not speak to her!" she roared, her silver aura blazing anew. She charged, not with knightly technique, but with pure, protective fury. Her sword swept down in a brilliant arc aimed at the Lich's neck.

The Lich didn't move. He simply raised a hand. A shield of shimmering, ghostly bone erupted from the ground before him. Seraphina's sword struck it with a deafening clang, but the shield held without a crack. Dark tendrils lashed from the shield, wrapping around her blade and arm, sapping her strength. She cried out, straining against the binding magic.

"A knight's oath is a pretty flame," the Lich mused, "but so easily smothered."

Ignis didn't wait. With a ground-shaking roar, she launched herself forward, a meteor of scales and fire. She didn't use a skill—she simply put all her draconic strength into a single, annihilating punch aimed at the Lich's center of mass.

This time, the Lich's borrowed eyes widened slightly. He brought his other hand up, weaving a hasty, complex sigil in the air. A concave barrier of compressed shadows formed just before impact.

BOOM!

The sound was thunderous. The shadow barrier shattered like glass under Ignis's fist, but it did its job—it dissipated the raw force. The Lich was sent skidding backwards several feet, the assassin's boots scraping grooves into the stone floor. The body's arm, used to channel the defensive magic, bent at a wrong angle with a wet crunch.

But the Lich looked… intrigued. He stared at his broken limb, then at Ignis, his head tilting.

"Fascinating," the voice hissed, devoid of pain, filled only with academic curiosity. "Such pure, draconic force… in a humanoid shell. A hybrid? No… a true dragon? You are a rare specimen."

Ignis bared her sharp teeth. "Stop talking and fight!"

"As you wish," the Lich said. The green light in his eyes flared. "But this vessel is failing. Time for a more direct lesson."

The Lich abandoned defense. He thrust both hands forward—the broken one hung limply, but the other shone with concentrated death magic. Dozens of Bone Shards, sharper than steel and glowing with necrotic energy, materialized in the air and shot toward Ignis in a blistering volley.

Ignis smirked, crossing her scaled arms in front of her. "Is that all?" Her draconic pride flared. She trusted her hardened scales to turn aside the projectiles.

Most did. They shattered against her arms and chest in clouds of pale dust. But the Lich was no ordinary foe. Among the hail of bone, three shards, nearly invisible and humming with a different, piercing frequency, aimed not for her body, but for the joints of her knees and her exposed shoulder—points where her scaling was naturally thinner.

Crack. Crack. Thud.

Two shards embedded themselves deep into the side of her knee and her shoulder joint. The third, aimed for her other knee, she twisted to avoid, but it still grazed her thigh, opening a deep gash.

Agony, cold and invasive, lanced through Ignis. It wasn't just physical pain; the necrotic magic sought to deaden the flesh, to still the fiery blood that ran in her veins. She let out a choked gasp, stumbling to one knee, the confident smirk wiped from her face.

"Ignis!" Elise cried out.

The Lich let the assassin's body slump further, the green light flickering. "Pride… the downfall of dragons and mortals alike," he wheezed, the body clearly on its last legs. "Now… let us end this farce."

He began gathering energy again, this time for a final, concentrated blast aimed at the crippled Ignis and the princess behind her. Seraphina, still struggling against the dark tendrils, screamed in defiance, but could not break free.

The Lich raised his one functioning hand, deathly energy coalescing into a swirling sphere of black and green flame. The air itself seemed to wither around it. But the gesture was strained; the assassin's body trembled violently, veins turning black beneath the skin.

'Hah... Human bodies are so fragile,' the Lich's voice echoed with annoyance in their minds. 'I must conclude this quickly.'

Before the sphere could fully form, Elise stepped forward, placing herself between the Lich and her fallen protectors. Her hands glowed with a faint, crimson light—the last dregs of her mana. With a cry of effort, she unleashed not an attack, but a Wave of Sanguine Purification, a wide, cleansing enchantment meant to disrupt dark magic.

The wave of red light washed over the nascent death-sphere, causing it to sizzle and shrink slightly. Elise staggered, her breath coming in ragged gasps, the cost of the spell evident on her ashen face.

"Your Highness, stop!" Seraphina begged, still fighting the necrotic bindings. "You'll exhaust yourself!"

Elise ignored her, weaving another, simpler spell—a barrage of Crimson Needles. They shot forth, peppering the Lich's magical shield.

The Lich didn't even bother to dodge. The needles shattered harmlessly against a semi-transparent barrier of interlocking ghostly bones that flickered to life before him. He sighed, a dry, rattling sound. "Futile. Your struggles are as pointless as they are pathetic. You should have stayed hidden, rotting quietly in your chambers like the frail, fear-ridden predecessors of your line."

Elise's eyes blazed with a fire that had nothing to do with magic. "They hid from a shadow. I," she declared, her voice gaining strength with each word, "am facing the monster that casts it. And I am not hiding anymore. This puppet of yours is falling apart. How long can you cling to it? Thirty seconds? Twenty?"

'She's more perceptive than I credited,' the Lich mused, an unwelcome flicker of respect cut short by the body's rapid decay. "Every second you buy," he retorted, swatting aside another of her weakening spells, "brings you one second closer to a far more personal and permanent death, Princess."

He continued to dismantle her attacks with contemptuous ease, but Elise persisted. She was a duelist not in power, but in persistence, forcing him to expend energy, to concentrate, to waste his precious, borrowed moments.

But her body had limits. Her vision swam, her legs buckled, and she caught herself on the cold stone floor, one hand braced to keep from collapsing entirely.

'So it's me who reaches my limit first...' despair whispered in her heart.

Yet, she did not fall. Instead, she pushed herself back up, standing on trembling legs. She spread her arms wide, placing herself as a living shield before Seraphina and the wounded Ignis. "I won't run anymore," she said, the statement quiet but absolute.

The Lich's borrowed face twisted into a sadistic mockery of a smile. "And you believe that will make me stop?"

He resumed gathering power, the death-sphere growing denser, darker.

"You won't kill me," Elise stated, her voice surprisingly steady. "You need me. A corpse won't serve your ritual, will it? You can't afford to shatter your prize."

"A prize can be chipped, cracked, and still be usable," the Lich hissed, the sphere pulsating. "Broken bones heal. A shattered spirit is even more malleable. Your defiance merely dictates the degree of your suffering upon delivery."

The energy continued to build, uncaring of her logic. Elise's defiance wavered, replaced by a cold, sinking realization of her powerlessness. Yet, she held her ground.

"Enough of this," the Lich spat, the body lurching. "You! Imbecile! Don't just stand there! Seize her!"

The last remaining, uninjured assassin, who had been cowering near the wall, jolted into motion. He lunged forward, grabbing Elise from behind. She cried out, struggled, but her exhausted body was no match. He pinned her arms, dragging her back, clearing the line of fire.

"STOP!" Elise screamed, thrashing uselessly.

The Lich gave her one last, gloating smile. Then, he turned his full attention—and the fully formed sphere of necrotic annihilation—towards the helpless Seraphina and Ignis.

"Now, perish."

He hurled the sphere.

The room trembled in anticipation of the blast.

But the explosion never reached its targets.

A figure dropped from a fissure that hadn't been in the ceiling a moment before, landing in a crouch between the death-sphere and its victims with a sound like a thunderclap. In the same motion, one hand shot forward, not to block, but to catch. Dark energy, mirroring the Lich's own but shot through with gluttonous crimson veins, swarmed around the figure's hand. The death-sphere imploded into that grasping palm with a sound like a dying star being swallowed, the energy vanishing without a trace.

The figure stood, straightening to his full height. Dust and shadows settled around him, revealing jet-black horns, hair the color of a deep void, and eyes that burned with furious crimson light.

The Lich's puppet body took an involuntary step back, the ancient mind within it reeling with recognition and fury.

"You," the voice grated out, all pretense of calm gone, replaced by pure, venomous loathing. "We meet again, You damned purple-haired one."

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