A fellow transmigrator.
The revelation was a bucket of ice water. The Lich King wasn't just another monster on my checklist. He was me, from a different story, a different timeline. A version of me that had already won, and had then become a stagnant, tyrannical god. He was a vision of the very fate I had rejected when I met the Guardian of the First Floor.
My contempt for him was instant and absolute. He was a king who had chosen to become a jailer. A sovereign who had put on the chains of a stagnant immortality.
"So, the king of this graveyard is just another piece of stolen trash," I mused, a cold, dismissive smile on my face. "How fitting."
The approaching army of death knights was no longer just a wave of enemies. It was a statement. A message from one sovereign to another. The Lich King knew I was here, and he was sending his toys to test the mettle of the new challenger.
"Silvana," I commanded my new, perfectly logical Echo. "Analyze the enemy forces. Tactical weaknesses, energy signatures, command structure. I want a complete breakdown. Now."
"Elara," I said to my fanatical battle-priestess. "Prepare for cleansing. Their power is based on stolen soul energy and necrotic magic. Your new form is a vessel of my will, but your core concept is still 'Holy Devotion'. You are their perfect counter."
My two queens went to work, their movements a perfect, harmonious dance of logic and faith. Silvana's silver eyes glowed as she scanned the approaching horde, her Aethernova-infused mind processing data at an impossible rate. Elara's hands began to glow with a golden, sun-like light, a pure, concentrated 'holiness' that was a conceptual poison to the undead.
While they prepared, I focused on the bigger picture. This changed my objective. I was no longer here just to rescue a fragment. I was here to perform a hostile takeover. The Lich King didn't just have the Infinity Shard. He was the Infinity Shard. To get it, I had to devour him. I had to consume his story, his power, his very being.
This was no longer a simple smash-and-grab. This was a battle for succession.
And I would not be the one to be succeeded.
The Necropolis of Floor 77 was a vast, continent-spanning graveyard. A billion souls, at least, were trapped here, their energy used to fuel the Lich King's stagnant empire. It was a buffet of unimaginable proportions.
As the death knight army drew closer, my System, ever the pragmatist, chimed in with a new, delightful whim.
[SOVEREIGN'S WHIM: A LESSON IN TRUE POWER]
Description: The approaching army is a display of the Lich King's power. It is a crude, inefficient use of enslaved souls. Your own methods are superior. It is time to demonstrate this.
Objective: Do not engage the army directly. Instead, use your 'Pactmaker' authority. Select the most powerful, non-sentient entity in their ranks (e.g., the 'Colossus of Bone' at their center). Forge a pact with its 'animating spirit'.]
Term of Pact: 'I offer you freedom from your eternal servitude. In exchange, you will turn and destroy your former masters'.
Purpose: To demonstrate that true power is not in commanding the dead, but in ruling the will of the living... and the dead.]
Reward: A new, temporary siege weapon, +7,500 SP for creative, psychological warfare.
It was a beautiful, elegant, and utterly contemptuous plan. I was going to turn his own greatest weapon against him.
The army was a sea of black iron and bone, a relentless, silent tide. At its center was a true monstrosity: a Colossus of Bone, a hundred-foot-tall giant made from the skeletons of a thousand dead dragons, its eye sockets burning with a cold, blue fire. It was the centerpiece of his army.
I reached out with my will, my Pactmaker authority a golden, conceptual hook. I bypassed the lesser soldiers and sank it directly into the animating spirit of the Colossus. It was a simple, primal thing, a bound elemental of rage and bone.
I offered it my deal. Freedom, in exchange for a single act of glorious betrayal.
The Colossus, which had been marching in perfect, lock-step formation, suddenly stopped. Its head, a dragon's skull the size of a house, slowly turned, its burning blue eyes fixing on the ranks of death knights around it.
It raised a colossal, bony fist. And it brought it down.
The resulting carnage was a masterpiece. The death knight army, a perfectly ordered legion, was thrown into absolute chaos as its own centerpiece began to systematically, and joyfully, tear them apart.
I stood on the plains, my arms crossed, watching the show with a detached amusement. I hadn't even thrown a single punch, and my enemy's entire vanguard was already destroying itself.
From the distant, black ice fortress, I felt a new wave of psychic energy. Not rage this time. But a cold, analytical, and grudging respect. The Lich King was watching. He was learning. He had recognized me as a fellow player.
With his army now a self-destructing mess, the path to his fortress was clear.
"Let's go," I said to my two queens. "It's time to meet the king."
We walked through the battlefield, a serene, untouchable trio amidst a maelstrom of shattering bone and dying soul-fire.
We reached the gates of the fortress. They swung open before us, an invitation. The king was ready to receive his challenger.
We entered the throne room. It was a cavern of black ice, the walls themselves seeming to weep with a frozen sorrow. And on a throne of polished obsidian, sat the Lich King. He was not a skeleton. He was a handsome, ethereal man with long, white hair and eyes that glowed with the cold, blue light of a billion captured souls. His power was immense, a quiet, deep ocean of deathly energy.
"So," he said, his voice a calm, echoing whisper. "Another piece of flotsam from a dead world. I had wondered when a real challenger would finally arrive."
"I am not a challenger," I replied, my voice equally calm. "I am a collector. And you are the last, most valuable piece in this room."
He smiled, a thin, bloodless expression. "Many have tried. They all now serve as the mortar for my walls. Tell me, usurper of a dead prince's body, what makes you think you will be any different?"
He knew about me. His own System had likely analyzed my arrival, my very nature. He was not a fool.
"The difference," I said, "is that you are a king who is content with his prison. I am a god who intends to break it."
The battle was about to begin. A duel between two transmigrators, two System-wielding sovereigns, for the fate of this floor and the prize of a Main Core.
But as our auras began to clash, my own System, which had been running a deep, passive scan on him since my arrival, delivered its final, critical report. The twist wasn't just that he was another System user. It was the nature of his System.
[!!! CRITICAL ANALYSIS COMPLETE: 'THE LICH KING'S' SYSTEM !!!]
[SYSTEM NAME: 'THE INFINITY SHARD'. CLASSIFICATION: MAIN CORE.]
[...But the core is... different. It has been modified. Augmented.]
[A foreign, parasitic code has been detected, interwoven with the fragment's core logic. It is a piece of a different, hostile Omnistructure.]
[ANALYZING PARASITIC CODE SIGNATURE...]
...
[!!! SIGNATURE MATCH FOUND !!!]
[The parasitic code is a 99.8% match for the 'STATIC' entity that corrupted the 'Primeval Edict'.]
[CONCLUSION: The Lich King is not just a transmigrator who has won his game.]
[He has made a deal. To achieve his victory, to secure his stagnant immortality, he willingly integrated his own System with a piece of The Static's power.]
[He is not just a rival Administrator. He is a willing, high-level agent of the ultimate enemy.]