The Lich King's presence was a physical weight, pressing down on the very air of the graveyard. The twilight gloom deepened into an unnatural midnight, the only illumination coming from the viridian fire in the Lich's eye sockets and the pulsating heart atop its staff. The guttural chant ceased, and a silence fell, more oppressive than any sound.
Fang Yuan pushed himself to his feet, his body screaming in protest. His mana was recovering, but slowly, and a new, alien sensation coiled in his gut—a hot, insistent greed. He looked at the scattered bones of the Amalgamation, and his first thought wasn't of survival, but of the immense experience the Lich King must be worth. The feeling was sharp, intoxicating, and utterly unlike his usual calculated demeanor.
This isn't me, he thought, even as the desire for more power, more levels, clouded his judgment. His Six Eyes, ever-analytical, detected a subtle, psychic pollen in the air—a necromantic miasma designed to heighten negative emotions. Fear, despair… and avarice. The Lich wasn't just a master of bones; it was a puppeteer of the soul.
"You fight with such… passion," a voice rasped, not from the Lich itself, but from the jaw of a nearby, half-crushed Skeleton Warrior. The words were formed by the clattering of bone, a grotesque ventriloquism. "But your hunger betrays you. You see power, not peril. A fatal error."
The Lich King gestured with its staff. The shadows in the courtyard congealed, flowing over the piles of bone dust and fragments. All around Fang Yuan, the dead began to stir once more. But they were different now. Their bones were reinforced with dark energy, gleaming with an obsidian sheen. Their eye sockets burned with the same green fire as their master. And among them, the earth trembled as the massive form of the Skeletal Amalgamation began to reassemble itself, its form now wreathed in a shroud of dark energy.
[Skeletal Amalgamation (Reanimated) - Level 22]
[Skeleton Warrior (Enhanced) - Level 12]
[Skeleton Mage (Enhanced) - Level 15]
The Lich's voice now issued from the reforming Amalgamation's massive skull. "You break them, I remake them. Stronger. Your struggle is a gift that only adds to my legion. Your death will be a masterpiece of futility."
The greed in Fang Yuan's chest curdled into cold fury. He was being used, his efforts turned against him. This thing saw him as a resource, a whetstone for its minions. He took a deep breath, forcing the unnatural avarice down, replacing it with his own, pure, burning will.
"You talk too much for a bag of bones," Fang Yuan shot back, his voice cutting through the eerie silence. "If you're going to rebuild your furniture every time I break it, this is going to be a very long and boring fight."
A roar of grinding bone answered him as the reanimated Amalgamation charged, its steps even heavier than before. The enhanced skeletons swarmed in from the flanks, their movements sharper, more coordinated.
Fang Yuan met the charge. He couldn't afford another massive, mana-draining strike. He had to be smarter, faster. He activated Static Charge, becoming a blur of motion. He weaved through the skeletal warriors, his Cursed Gauntlets a whirlwind of elemental fury.
Frostbite Strike shattered a warrior into frozen shards. A quick Storm Fist sent three others flying back, their bones charred and crackling. He used Frost Step not for mobility, but for control, creating patches of slick ice that sent the mindless minions sprawling. But for every one he destroyed, two more seemed to take its place, and the Amalgamation was a constant, crushing threat.
"Your resilience is… noteworthy," the Lich's voice mocked him from the mouth of a Skeleton Mage, just before Fang Yuan pulverized it. "But your mana dwindles. Your body tires. You are a candle burning at both ends."
The Amalgamation swung its colossal fist. Fang Yuan dove under the blow, the wind of its passage tearing at his clothes. He came up directly beneath its ribcage, aiming for the new, darker core. He unleashed a Frostbite Storm, but the Amalgamation was ready. A cage of shadowy bones snapped shut around its core, absorbing the brunt of the impact. The blast still shattered the shield and sent cracks racing through its torso, but it held.
The counterattack was swift. The Amalgamation's other hand backhanded him, sending him flying across the courtyard like a ragdoll. He slammed into the broken obelisk, the impact driving the air from his lungs. Pain flared through his back. He tasted blood.
"See?" the Lich whispered from the shadows around him. "You are but a man. Flesh, blood, and breaking points."
Fang Yuan gritted his teeth, pushing himself up. His Regeneration Flames ignited, the Asura Blue fire washing over him, knitting bones and mending flesh. The fatigue and pain receded, but the mana cost was significant. He was on the back foot.
The Lich King seemed to grow bored of the game. It raised its staff high, and the pulsating heart glowed with blinding intensity. The very fabric of the dungeon warped. The ground split open not to release more skeletons, but something far larger. From a massive fissure, a creature of nightmare clawed its way into the graveyard.
It was a wyvern, but forged entirely from the bones of countless lesser drakes. Its wings were vast, tattered membranes of ethereal shadow stretched between finger-like bones. Its ribcage was a cavern, and its tail ended in a barbed, bony stinger. Acidic green drool sizzled as it dripped from its fanged maw.
[Skeletal Wyvern - Level 30]
The Lich's voice now boomed from the Wyvern's throat. "Let us see how your fleeting flames fare against eternal winter's breath!"
The Wyvern took to the air with a beat of its shadowy wings, stirring up a cyclone of bone dust. It banked, opened its jaw, and unleashed not fire, but a cone of pure, soul-numbing necrotic energy.
Fang Yuan threw himself behind the obelisk. The black energy washed over it, and the ancient stone didn't just crack—it rotted, crumbling into blackened dust. He was exposed.
This was it. The turning point. He couldn't win a war of attrition. He had to end this, now.
The Wyvern dove, its stinger-tipped tail whipping towards him. Fang Yuan stood his ground, a mad plan forming. He didn't try to dodge. At the last second, he reinforced his left gauntlet with every ounce of mana he could spare and caught the stinger.
The force was monumental. His arm screamed in agony, bones threatening to shatter. The corrosive magic of the stinger sizzled against his Cursed Gauntlet, but the relic held. He was anchored, being dragged along by the Wyvern's momentum.
"Fool! You grasp your own death!" the Lich crowed through the Wyvern.
"No," Fang Yuan grunted, a savage grin splitting his face. "I'm just catching a ride!"
With his free hand, he unleashed a point-blank Storm Fist into the Wyvern's wing joint. Bones shattered. The creature shrieked, its flight path faltering. It crashed to the ground, tumbling in a cataclysm of breaking bones, with Fang Yuan still clinging to its tail.
He was thrown clear, rolling to his feet as the Wyvern struggled to right itself. This was his chance. He charged, not at the body, but at the neck.
"Your defiance is a flicker in the dark!" the Lich's voice was a roar of frustration now, emanating from both the Wyvern and its own body across the courtyard.
"And your monologues are getting repetitive!" Fang Yuan yelled back.
He leaped onto the Wyvern's back, sprinting up its spine. It thrashed, trying to buck him off. He used Frost Step to freeze his feet to its bones, anchoring himself. He reached the base of its skull, his gauntlets glowing with combined power.
"This is for the headache!" he roared.
"FROSTBITE STORM!"
He drove his fists down, unleashing the combined elemental fury directly into the Wyvern's vertebrae. The explosion of ice and lightning decapitated the colossal undead beast. Its head shattered into a million pieces, and its body seized up before collapsing into an inert pile of bone.
[Ding! Defeated Skeletal Wyvern (Level 30). Massive experience gained!]
[Ding! Level Up! Current Level: 19!]
There was no time to celebrate. The Lich King shrieked, a sound of pure, undiluted rage. The resurrection of its minions stopped. The psychic pressure of the emotion-amplifying field vanished. He had hurt it, truly hurt it, by destroying its greatest construct.
"ENOUGH!" the Lich King boomed, its voice now solely its own. It pointed its staff directly at Fang Yuan. The beating heart at its tip glowed brighter than ever. "I will tear the soul from your body and wear it as a trophy!"
The remaining skeletons and the reanimated Amalgamation crumbled into dust, their energy flowing back into the Lich King. Its form grew, dark energy swirling around it. It was committing everything to one final attack.
Fang Yuan felt a massive surge of mana gathering. This was it. The final blow. He had one shot.
The Lich King thrust its staff forward. "Oblivion's Gaze!"
A beam of concentrated entropy, a line of absolute nothingness, shot across the courtyard. It wasn't fast; it was inexorable, unraveling reality itself as it moved.
Fang Yuan's mind, accelerated by the Six Eyes, saw it all. He couldn't block it. He couldn't dodge it. The only way was through.
He poured every last drop of his mana, his will, his very life force into the Cursed Gauntlets. He didn't summon ice or lightning. He focused on the relic's innate property: adaptation. He willed it to become a shield, a conduit, something that could withstand the unraveling.
The black liquid of the relic surged over his arms, forming a massive, oval shield covered in intricate, shifting patterns. As the beam of Oblivion struck, the shield didn't try to deflect it. It absorbed it. The relic shrieked in his mind, the curse within it writhing under the assault. Cracks spread across its surface, but it held, drinking in the necrotic energy.
It was a battle of wills—the Lich's ancient malice against Fang Yuan's indomitable spirit. The beam pushed him back, his boots digging deep furrows in the earth. The shield was failing, the relic reaching its limit.
"I! REFUSE!" Fang Yuan roared.
With a final, monumental effort, he pivoted, using the shield to redirect the remnants of the Oblivion beam. He swung it around, aiming the dissipated but still-deadly energy not at the Lich, but at the ground beneath it.
The earth under the Lich King dissolved into a pit of nothingness. The creature stumbled, its concentration broken. The beam from its staff sputtered and died.
It was the opening he needed.
Fang Yuan dismissed the shattered shield, the relic retreating into his skin with a pained shudder. He crossed the distance in a flash, his body fueled by adrenaline and triumph. The Lich King, off-balance, could only stare as Fang Yuan leaped, his hand outstretched.
"Reactive Copy!" he screamed, not for a combat style, but for the very knowledge woven into the Lich's being.
His fingers clamped around the staff, just below the pulsating heart. Knowledge flooded him—centuries of necromancy, of binding, of dominion over death. And one skill, the Lich's ultimate technique, burned itself into his soul.
The Lich King's eyes flared in horror. "You DARE—!"
Fang Yuan's other hand, formed into a blade of solidified relic, shot forward and pierced the Lich's dark ribcage, finding its phylactery—a small, blackened locket hidden within. He crushed it.
"I do," Fang Yuan said coldly.
The green fire in the Lich's eyes extinguished. Its body stiffened, then collapsed into a heap of inert, ancient bones. The crystalline heart on the staff cracked and turned to dust.
Silence. True silence, for the first time since he'd entered the dungeon.
[Ding! Defeated The Lich King of the Unquiet Grave (Level 35). Colossal experience gained due to level gap !]
[Ding! Level Up! Current Level: 20!]
[Ding! Level Up! Current Level: 21!]
...
[Ding! Level Up! Current Level: 25!]
[Ding! Store Function Unlocked!]
[Ding! Skill Rune Acquired: Summon Undead lich.]
[Ding! Skill Acquired: Arcane Efficiency (Passive) - Decreases mana cost of all skills by 15% and increases base mana regeneration rate by 25%.]
[Ding! Item Acquired: blink Earrings - Allows for short-distance teleportation (100-meter range) to a visible or previously marked location. Cooldown: 3 seconds.]
Your vitality has increased by 55 points(5 per level)
Fang Yuan stood amidst the absolute destruction, chest heaving, his body thrumming with new power. The cursed relic within him felt… quieter, as if respecting his victory. He equipped the earrings—simple, black obsidian studs—and felt a new spatial awareness settle over him.
He opened his Status Screen, a wave of satisfaction washing over him as he distributed his 90 new free status points, adding them to strength.
[Fang Yuan | Age: 20 | Race: Phoenix | Level: 25]
HP: 100% | Mana: 100% | Fatigue: 65%
Stats:
Strength: 100[10+90]
Agility: 85 (55 + 30)
Intelligence: 30
Defense: 10
Vitality: 180[55+35+90]
Luck: 10
Free Status Points: 0
Titles: Reincarnator, Symbol of Life, More Poor Than Dirt, A-rank Healer, Lich-Bane
Traits: Six Eyes, Semi-Immortality, All Affinity
Skills:
Cursed Techniques (Sukuna's Abilities): Level 1
Reactive Copy: Level 2
Regeneration Flames: Level 1
Asura Flames: Level 1
Primal Transformation: Locked (Level 51 required)
Stealth: Level 1
One-handed Sword Arts: Locked
Duel Sword Arts: Locked
Mana Reinforcement: Level 2
Adaptive Arsenal: Level 2
Summon Undead lich Level 1
Arcane Efficiency (Passive): Level 1
Inventory:
Ice Wolf (Epic++), Lightning Wolf (Epic++), Essence Stones[expand], Shadow-Step Earrings (Equipped)
He had come here to test his new limits, and he had shattered them. He had faced a curse, a legion of the dead, a wyvern, and a Lich King. He had been manipulated, battered, and brought to the brink.
And he had won.
As the dungeon began to dissolve around him he quickly collected all the essence stones then arrived at the exit gate shimmering into existence, Fang Yuan allowed himself a true, unrestrained smile. The world of Solo Leveling was a brutal, unforgiving stage. But with every challenge, he was writing his own legend. And this was only the beginning.
He took a step towards the gate, the Shadow-Step Earrings humming with potential, the knowledge of lich-summoning slumbering in his mind, ready for the next battle.