Plim was a recent addition to the lich family, recently being only 130 years ago. He enjoyed this war as it gave him the chance to let out his true desires without having to worry about the retribution of lich hunters when he kidnapped women from places.
He was currently in the middle of putting together his newest undead minions when he felt a sudden tug. It wasn't someone pulling on his clothing either, his body and soul were being physically pulled in a certain direction.
"Huh? What's happening? Did some stupid animal swallow my phylactery to help their digestion and now they are exiting my phylactery range? Ugh, what a pain in the ass, now I have to catch up to them and take my phylactery back."
With anger rushing through his body and mind due to being interrupted, he exited his monolith and began to fly in the direction his phylactery was moving. He wasn't worried that a person actually found it as that would be a ridiculous thought. Why would someone pick up a random rock and hang on to it? He disguised his phylactery impeccably, no one would be able to know it wasn't just a rock, except for maybe Mitas.
Oddly enough, this had happened before, so he wasn't worried about taking any guards with him as it would simply be a waste of his time and resources to bring along minions to deal with some stupid animal. He was quickly gaining on his moving phylactery, and soon it would be back in his hands to be hidden better than last time.
...
Once Kayn thought that he had gone far enough, he slowed down his movements to allow the lich to catch up to him. Soon enough, he watched as a handsome man landed in front of him, his eyes glaring at the hand holding onto the phylactery.
"You look quite alive for a lich." Kayn stated in order to initiate conversation. He wanted to probe this lich with his Mana Sense for a minute or two before the fight began.
"And you look quite alive for someone who will soon be dead. I still don't understand how a mere 4th stage bastard infiltrated my stronghold and stole one of my precious lovers. However, now that I have you cornered, you'll soon join my forces. Any last words?"
"Lovers? Is that what you think they are? I bet they would argue strongly against that themselves, if they could anyway. Last words though? Don't make me laugh. Do you not see what is in my hand? I was struggling to find a way to kill you with just your phylactery, but with your body here now, I'll be removing your filth from this world for good."
Plim scoffed before activating a movement spell and launching at Kayn, attempting to rip off the arm holding his phylactery. Unfortunately, this thief somehow saw straight through his movements and his arm was instead grabbed and ripped off.
Plim staggered back, looking at his arm being held within the vice-like grip of the man in front of him. "What...?"
Before he became a lich, Plim was just another perverted magic warrior who luckily chanced upon an old research lab while out in the wilds looking for unsuspecting prey. The lab contained books talking about eternal life without having to ascend and detailed out exactly how the process was performed.
Taking his chances, he followed the book and became a lich. With his newfound power and the left behind notes in the research lab, he began formulating how to create his own undead army in a way that suited him best. Of course, that meant using woman as incubators. He would have his fun and grow his army, it was a win win.
He was already a powerful 5th stage magic warrior at the time, and not long after becoming a lich, he entered the 6th stage. His power relied heavily on himself initially, but over the last hundred years, he had lost his touch for fighting one-on-one as he would typically just overwhelm with numbers.
That didn't mean he should be losing in a melee battle to a meager 4th stage mage though. He had seen this individual use ranged spells when he was trying to catch up during the escape, so why was this person so strong and quick to react in melee combat?
Plim watched as the person ignited his arm in flames strong enough to destroy it within seconds as he tossed it away. Gritting his teeth, he drew the sword at his waist that he hadn't had to use in years.
"Why are you making this more difficult on yourself? If you just obediently die without struggle, it will be far less embarrassing and painful for you." Kayn spoke as he had gauged the lich in front of him. This lich in particular seemed quite weak when he was by himself. It was exactly as Yelena noted, this lich relied far too much on his army and was weak by himself.
Kayn watched as the lich charged at him once again, but rather than move to engage, he stood there while simply raising his right arm and extending the pointer and middle finger, folding the rest into his palm. He wasn't truly skilled enough to do what he was about to, but what better way to get experience than during a battle he wasn't worried about losing but could still push him if he used skills he wasn't as familiar with.
He knew from Takemikazuchi's temple that he would eventually be able to infuse his Sword Aura into any object shaped like a blade and his hand and fingers could be considered a blade shaped object.
Unfortunately, his mastery over Sword Aura and the sword in general was pathetic compared to where he needed to be to use this skill properly. When the blade of the lich struck his fingers, Kayn was slightly able to deflect the blow, but soon after the Sword Aura failed, and his fingers were sliced straight through.
Kayn's body was enhanced to the point where not even a 5th stage could cause him to bleed with a weapon, but a 6th stage expert was different, especially if they were wielding a tier 5 blade.
Sighing, Kayn realized that his body was currently his weakest asset somehow. Technically, he had never reached the 5th stage before and his body never went through the qualitative changes that came along with it. While he had gained several bonuses on Earth, in the end, he was still a 4th stager.
Kayn healed his fingers within seconds after they were removed as he dodged each and every follow up attack from the lich. The lich started adding the darkness element into his attacks as well as the fire element, but Kayn brushed every elemental attack off with a wave of the hand.
Kayn didn't want to give up on using Sword Aura without a true weapon yet though, so he began weaving Mana Threads around his newly regrown fingers for protection and created a small blade with them. He then once again tried to coat his fingers with Sword Aura.
Even with the lich breaking through his Sword Aura still, he was able to successfully defend without injury due to the Mana Threads now. The fight continued in this way for hours as Kayn adjusted and honed his Sword Aura, trying to gain some insight into its true use and power.
He hadn't attacked the lich once during this time, simply deflecting each attack thrown his way. His current speed was equal to this lich, so unless the lich had some trump card, he would never gain the upper hand in this battle and was merely acting as a training puppet for Kayn.
Kayn watched as the lich blew through his mana while he himself was still as fresh as when this fight started. Truly, the difference in how he had to deal with his last opponent versus this one were like night and day. One made him fear that he would run out of mana far too quickly, and the next he was barely using mana and could probably fight for days if not a month on end.
This lich would be terrifying if he had his seemingly infinite army around as he did when Kayn rescued Britta, but now he was nothing more than a low 6th stage magic warrior who hadn't properly experienced combat for years.
Even his temper wasn't very well trained anymore as the more he was blocked, and his spells were waved off, the angrier he became. As he became enraged at the situation, his combat abilities dropped even further, and his sword swings were more like a child waving around a stick in a tantrum.
Once it reached this point, Kayn found little point in continuing the battle and began to slowly chip away at the lich with various spells. He wanted to push his limits with mana efficient spells to end this lich rather than instantly relying on any of the void infused elements.
The lich had his own protections and was able to mitigate Kayn's attacks for a while, but eventually he was overwhelmed by Kayn's attacks. He desired to run away, but the bastard had his Phylactery. He was truly cornered.
"Check." Kayn said as he finally eliminated the last of the lich's physical body. As he watched the process of the lich's soul flying into the phylactery, he was finally able to find a vulnerability.
"And mate." Kayn smiled. He unfortunately didn't learn much about how to destroy a lich without killing their physical body first, but the experience was still helpful. The more he learned and experimented on liches and their phylacteries, the sooner he would be able to eliminate them without much effort.
Kayn utilized the weak point in the phylactery to cast Extinction Flames within, slowly burning away at the lich's true self. The lich inside the phylactery began to scream and shake violently within his hand, but he maintained a firm grip around it even as it tried to escape. He pumped more and more mana into his flames until finally the screaming and shaking ceased.
Immediately he dismissed the Extinction Flames as he didn't want to ruin the now extremely vulnerable core. Previously, when he tried to eat Sevrin's core, he practically broke his teeth. However, after he killed the lich for good, he instinctively felt that he would be able to crush it within his mouth without issue.
Kayn placed the newly acquired 6th stage lich's mana core into the same large preservation box every other core was inside of and threw back into his Void Loop. Now that there was nothing "alive" about the core, he could store it within the other dimension of his ring.
...
Kayn arrived at the previous location of the lich's monolith, but now it was just a pile of bones and flesh strewn around the ground, making for a gruesome and nauseating scenery. Weapons were scattered around the piles of flesh. Not wanting to leave behind anything, he methodically made his way through the lich's region, picking up anything useful and throwing it into the Void Loop after a quick clean.
Surprisingly, the lich had nothing on himself other than the sword he used, but that broke during the fight due to mana overload, much to Kayn's disappointment. The last place he searched in was the area the monolith once stood. He saved this for last as it was going to be the worst part to actually look through.
He found nothing useful once again. It was like this lich didn't care about any worldly goods and only had breeding slaves and minions. Speaking of the slaves, Kayn found a few that were still alive, but their expressions were lifeless.
The only thing Kayn could do for them at this point was to send them on to their next lives. He quickly dispatched any he found alive, giving them a painless death. Kayn's mood became solemn as before he left the area, he put everything to flame.
The rage in his eyes was clear as he watched the flames consume the flesh and bone, leaving nothing behind for another lich to use. Before this war was over, Kayn vowed to destroy any lich he could find.