The plan was simple in concept, nightmarish in execution. Yuki would create a series of ice platforms ascending from the tower's crumbling walls. Akane would provide suppressive fire from above. Takeshi and Mei would defend the tower entrance, preventing the elite knights from swarming up. And Sanji would make the leap of faith literally onto the Necromancer Lord.
Everything depended on timing, precision, and luck.
"Yuki, start building," Sanji commanded.
She planted her legendary staff and began casting. Ice crystallized in the air, forming translucent platforms that extended from the tower's second-story window upward and outward, creating a stairway to nowhere.
The Cursed Knights noticed immediately. They moved with eerie coordination, their rusted armor creaking as they advanced. The first wave reached the tower door.
"Here they come!" Takeshi braced himself, shield raised.
Three knights struck simultaneously, their ancient swords slamming against Takeshi's defense. The force drove him back a step, but he held. -42 HP.
Mei's healing magic washed over him. +50 HP.
More knights pressed forward. Takeshi activated a warrior skill Fortify turning his body to near-stone for ten seconds. The next barrage of attacks barely scratched him.
Meanwhile, Sanji and Akane climbed the interior stairs to the second floor. The ice platforms Yuki had created were complete twelve translucent steps leading upward at a forty-five-degree angle, extending perhaps fifty feet into the air.
"This is insane," Akane muttered, testing the first platform's stability.
"Completely," Sanji agreed. "Let's do it."
They climbed. The ice was solid enough but slick. One misstep would send them plummeting into the army of undead below. Akane reached the highest platform and immediately began firing arrows at the knights besieging the entrance, drawing some of their attention.
-67 HP appeared above one knight as her arrow struck a weak point in its armor.
Sanji reached her position and looked down. The Necromancer Lord stood approximately thirty feet away and twenty feet below right in the center of its undead army. The phylactery around its neck glowed with sickly green light, pulsing with dark magic.
Through his Game Master's Eye, Sanji could see the magical threads connecting the phylactery to each undead creature. Destroy that artifact, and the threads would sever, killing everything it commanded.
But getting there meant jumping into the middle of twenty elite monsters.
"Cover me," Sanji said to Akane. "And if I die, tell the others to run."
"You're not dying," Akane said fiercely. "You're our leader. We need you."
Through the Party Link, Sanji felt her absolute faith in him. It was humbling and terrifying in equal measure.
He took a breath, activated his enhanced perception fully, and jumped.
Time seemed to slow. Sanji plummeted through the air, his legendary sword raised overhead. The Cursed Knights below reacted, some raising their weapons, others simply watching with empty eye sockets.
The Necromancer Lord's hooded face tilted upward. Sanji saw the moment of recognition the realization that someone was actually attacking it directly.
It raised a skeletal hand, beginning to cast a defensive spell.
Too slow.
Sanji crashed into the Necromancer Lord with the force of a meteor. His sword, blazing with the power of Reality Slash, carved through magical barriers like they were paper. The blade struck the phylactery around the creature's neck.
The artifact shattered.
Green light exploded outward in a shockwave. Every undead creature in the formation froze mid-motion. The magical threads connecting them to their master snapped, visible only through Sanji's enhanced sight.
Then, as one, all twenty Cursed Knights collapsed. Their bodies crumbled to dust, armor clattering to the ground empty.
20 Elite Monsters Defeated via Phylactery Destruction
+1600 EXP (80 per elite)
But the Necromancer Lord itself was still alive. Wounded, furious, but alive.
Necromancer Lord Kurokage - HP: 887/1200
The landing had driven Sanji's sword deep into the creature's chest, dealing massive damage. But now he was on the ground, surrounded by the dissipating remains of the undead army, facing a level-fifteen boss in melee range.
The Necromancer's skeletal hand shot out, faster than Sanji expected, wrapping around his throat. Deathly cold seeped into him. -78 HP. A debuff appeared: Life Drain - 10 HP per second.
"Sanji!" Akane's scream came from above. Arrows rained down, striking the Necromancer's back. -34 HP, -41 HP, -38 HP.
The creature ignored her, focusing entirely on Sanji. Its other hand rose, dark energy gathering. A death spell, his Game Master's Eye warned. If it completed, Sanji would die instantly regardless of his remaining HP.
Sanji grabbed the Necromancer's wrist with his free hand and activated Reality Slash at point-blank range. His legendary sword's power surged, cutting through not just physical matter but magical essence. The arm holding his throat severed at the elbow, dissolving into shadow.
The death spell fizzled, incomplete.
Sanji rolled away, gasping for air. His HP was at 124/280 half gone in seconds. The Life Drain continued ticking down: 114, 104, 94...
"Mei!" he called through the Party Link.
"I can't reach you from here!" her mental voice responded, panicked. "You're too far from the tower!"
The Necromancer Lord was already regenerating, shadow replacing its lost arm. It began casting again, this time summoning reinforcements. Skeletal hands clawed up from the ground lesser undead, only level ten, but numerous.
Sanji made a split-second decision. He couldn't win a sustained fight against a boss three levels higher while taking constant damage. He needed to end this fast.
He charged directly at the Necromancer, ignoring the skeletal warriors rising around him. His legendary sword blazed with light as he activated every offensive skill he had simultaneously.
"Truth-Seeking Slash!" A technique he'd developed by combining his sword's innate abilities with his own Adventurer-class flexibility.
The blade cut through reality itself, leaving a trail of fractured space in its wake. The Necromancer Lord raised both hands to defend, but Sanji's strike was too fast, too precise. It cleaved through the creature's defenses and struck its core the dark crystal where its heart should have been.
Critical Hit! -489 HP!
The Necromancer Lord's health plummeted: 398/1200.
But Sanji's HP was at 74, still draining. 64, 54, 44...
The skeletal warriors converged, their rusty weapons rising to strike. He was surrounded, wounded, and seconds from death.
Then the cavalry arrived.
Takeshi burst from the tower entrance, having abandoned his defensive position now that the Cursed Knights were dead. He slammed into the skeletal warriors with his shield, scattering them like bowling pins.
Yuki followed, her legendary staff glowing with power. "Absolute Zero!"
The Necromancer Lord froze solid for five seconds, giving Mei time to reach them. Her healing spell washed over Sanji. +70 HP. The Life Drain debuff cleansed.
His HP stabilized at 84/280. Dangerously low, but no longer critical.
"Together!" Sanji commanded through the Party Link.
The five of them formed up, a perfect combat formation born from hours of synchronized fighting. Takeshi and Sanji on the front line, Yuki and Akane providing ranged support, Mei keeping everyone alive.
The Necromancer Lord broke free from the ice, roaring with rage. It unleashed a barrage of death magic bolts of necrotic energy that struck like physical blows.
Takeshi blocked three with his shield. One struck Sanji's shoulder, -67 HP. Another hit Yuki, -89 HP. Akane dodged by rolling behind a piece of rubble.
Mei's healing magic worked overtime, her MP draining rapidly as she kept everyone functional.
The skeletal warriors continued pressing from all sides. There were at least thirty of them now, and more rising every moment. The Necromancer could summon indefinitely.
"We need to burn it down fast!" Yuki shouted. "I'll use Blizzard again!"
"It'll freeze the skeletons too," Sanji realized. "Buy us time. Do it!"
Yuki began the thirty-second cast. Takeshi and Sanji formed a wall around her, blocking attacks with shields and swords. Akane's arrows flew constantly, each one targeting a skeleton's skull to disable it temporarily.
"Twenty seconds!" Yuki called out.
The Necromancer Lord recognized the threat. It teleported actually teleported, just like the Whisperer King appearing directly in front of Yuki.
But Sanji had been watching for exactly that move. His Game Master's Eye had seen the spatial distortion a split-second before the teleport completed. He was already moving, his legendary sword intercepting the Necromancer's staff as it swung toward Yuki's head.
The weapons clashed, dark magic versus revealed truth. Energy crackled between them.
"Ten seconds!" Yuki continued casting, unwavering.
Sanji and the Necromancer Lord dueled at point-blank range. The creature was skilled, experienced, powerful. It had been an undead boss for who-knew-how-long, killing countless adventurers. Its attacks were precise and deadly.
But Sanji had something it didn't: the Party Link.
Through the connection, he could feel his teammates' positions, intentions, and support without looking. When the Necromancer feinted left, Sanji knew Takeshi was moving to cover that angle. When it prepared a spell, he knew Akane was already firing an arrow to disrupt the casting.
They fought as one being with five bodies.
"Now!" Yuki released the spell.
"Blizzard!"
The world turned white. Ice and snow erupted in a devastating storm centered on the Necromancer Lord. The skeletal warriors froze and shattered. The boss itself took massive damage: -124 HP, -137 HP, -129 HP, -141 HP...
Its health dropped: 398... 261... 124...
It was almost dead.
The Necromancer Lord, ancient and powerful as it was, recognized defeat. It began casting one final spell not an attack, but a curse. If it was going to die, it would take them with it.
Sanji saw the spell forming through his Game Master's Eye: Curse of Eternal Undeath - Anyone killed by caster within next 10 seconds becomes undead servant permanently.
"It's casting a death curse!" Sanji shouted. "Don't let it finish!"
Everyone attacked simultaneously. Swords, arrows, ice magic, even Mei's holy light all converging on the Necromancer Lord.
The creature's health hit 1 HP.
But the curse was ninety percent complete. One more second and it would activate.
Sanji made one final lunge, his legendary sword glowing with Truth-Seeking light. The blade pierced the Necromancer's core, driving all the way through.
The curse spell collapsed, dark magic dissipating harmlessly.
The Necromancer Lord let out one last rattling breath. Then its body crumbled to dust, the ancient robes falling empty to the ground.
Boss Defeated: Necromancer Lord Kurokage
+800 EXP
Level Up! Level 13 achieved
The golden light of leveling washed over all of them, healing wounds and restoring energy. Sanji's HP jumped to 320, his MP to 210.
They stood there in the aftermath, surrounded by piles of dust and broken bones, barely able to believe they'd survived.
"That," Takeshi said between gasps, "was the stupidest, most reckless, most incredible thing I've ever been part of."
"Agreed," Akane said, then started laughing the slightly hysterical laughter of someone who'd just survived impossible odds.
Yuki leaned on her staff, exhausted but smiling. "We just killed a level-fifteen boss at level twelve. The experience gain was massive."
Mei was crying, but from relief rather than fear. "We're alive. We're actually alive."
Sanji walked to where the Necromancer's robes had fallen. Among the remains was a treasure cache the rewards for defeating such a powerful boss.
Epic Staff of Necromancy - Increases dark magic damage by 40%, grants skill: Raise Lesser Undead
Legendary Ring of the Deathless - Increases HP by 100, provides immunity to instant-death effects, grants passive HP regeneration +5 per second
Rare Skill Booksx4 - Various advanced abilities
Ancient Coins x300
Necromancer's Tome - Contains forbidden knowledge about the nature of undeath in Alkhali World
And one more item that made Sanji's heart skip a beat:
World Tree Map Fragment (1/4) - When all four fragments are collected, reveals the true entrance to the World Tree
"Another piece of the puzzle," Sanji murmured, pocketing the map fragment.
They distributed the loot. Sanji took the ring the instant-death immunity could be lifesaving. Yuki examined the Necromancy staff with fascination, though she ultimately decided to keep her Frozen Abyss staff. The skill books were divided among the party.
"We should rest," Takeshi suggested. "That fight took everything out of us."
They retreated back to the tower, posting watches and tending wounds. As Sanji settled down to rest, he felt a deep sense of accomplishment.
Level thirteen. Legendary equipment. Growing stronger by the day.
They were becoming a force to be reckoned with.
But somewhere out there, the Crimson Fangs and the Three Fang Coalition were growing too. And the World Tree still beckoned, promising answers and danger in equal measure. The race was on.
To be continued...