Chapter 254: Crystal Skull

The once shattered, dead undead creatures suddenly regained vitality under the power of the Death Realm and began to reassemble themselves. Before long, Donald and his companions were surrounded by thousands of undead creatures.

Donald, still protected by his divine shield, was in relatively better condition, but the rest were in a dire strait. These undead resurrected in the Death Realm were as ferocious as wolves possessed with a bloodthirsty curse. What was even more terrifying was that they came in endless waves, like a tide—destroying one group only for another to appear and surround them immediately.

Seeing this, Donald realized that even with his divine shield, he would eventually be exhausted by the legendary lich, let alone the others. So he quickly decided to take action. He shouted at his companions, “Carlisle, I can give you one chance. The others need to cooperate. Remember, you only have one chance to strike…”

Carlisle, the magic sword, looked solemn. He swung his long sword continuously without looking back and said firmly, “One time is enough!”

Having spent a hundred years in the underground world and enduring countless battles, Carlisle had faced more life-or-death situations than some ordinary adventurers had in all their battles combined. In addition to his swordsmanship, he possessed several explosive secret techniques. Even against a legendary lich, if struck with his full power, the chance of survival would be less than one in a thousand. As a battle-hardened legendary warrior, Carlisle had such confidence, waiting only for Donald to give him the chance.

He gave Vincent beside him a subtle signal. The Storm Sword Saint immediately understood Donald’s intention. With a clear call, his legendary long sword turned into a beam of green light, creating a tornado-like wind that destroyed all the undead within range between Donald and the legendary lich.

With the obstacles removed and the target just a hundred feet away, Donald unleashed seven Frost Stars in one breath. The icy frost energy exploded around the lich. Under the pressure of the realm’s rules, although its explosive force couldn’t harm the lich directly, it trapped its body in place, and the freezing effect slightly impaired its mobility.

At that moment, Donald’s divine magic surged, accompanied by an even more powerful force. Raising his arm as if carrying a heavy burden, he pointed solemnly at the legendary lich. “Deep Freeze!”

A pale cyan-white airflow surged toward Lich Kattafi. Though it seemed slow, it reached the lich in less than a second. The few undead skeletons that had just revived along the way were swept up by this airflow; like wood rotten for thousands of years, they instantly turned into ice crystal dust, unable even to resist it.

At that moment, Lich Kattafi was trapped in place by the spell effect instantly unleashed by Donald. Although he wasn’t harmed, his movement was halted for a brief moment. Before he could react, the seemingly harmless airflow rushed at him.

“Crack, crack, crack…”
Even the lich’s body, immune to cold damage, was frozen by the extreme cold, making cracking sounds as if its soul were frozen solid, leaving it stiff as iron. But in the next instant, under the powerful force of the domain rules, its frozen body began to thaw from within.

“Hah…”
Carral seized this moment. As the extreme cold airflow was still dissipating and the lich’s body was struggling to recover, he transformed into a streak of light, pushing aside the undead creatures surrounding him and striking the frozen legendary lich.

The red figure seemed to pass through the lich’s body. When the red light faded, Carral’s slightly trembling figure appeared about ten steps behind the lich. His face was terrifyingly pale, devoid of any color, and blood mist burst out from his joints with each pop—clearly, the cost of using this move was high.

Yet Carral’s ultimate move achieved the desired result. In an instant, the extreme cold was driven away from Lich Kattafi’s body, restoring it to normal.

But just as the lich planned to move and retaliate against those hateful humans, he found his body refusing to obey him, cracking as it began to disintegrate inch by inch from the chest and abdomen. Even as Kattafi tried to repair it with negative energy, it was useless.

“How… is this possible…”
After uttering these words in confusion and despair, Lich Kattafi was destroyed by a sword blast fired by Vincent beside him.

Without a physical body and with its soul severely damaged, the legendary lich was no longer a threat. Until its death, it never understood why a spell from a human mage in its own domain could be so powerful.

In fact, the last spell Donald had cast earlier, prepared for today, was originally incapable of having any effect on the lich within the domain. Although Deep Freeze could freeze a target creature with extreme cold, causing continuous fatal damage, the target would be completely frozen by the intense cold once its life force was exhausted. Unless it was a spell like Wish that contained powerful laws, even the Resurrection Ritual cast by a Golden Priest would find it difficult to revive the target.

However, for a spell targeting someone of equal strength without special physical traits or bloodline advantages, within the domain of a legendary lich, the power of a level 7 spell was suppressed to barely reach that of a level 5 spell. Coupled with the lich’s strong immunity to cold, it could at most have an effect slightly stronger than those seven Frost Stars.

But Donald infused this level 7 spell with divine power using his Hypermagic technique, endowing it with divine attributes. As a force one tier higher than a legendary domain, Deep Freeze, supported by divine attributes, was completely unaffected by the domain’s suppression effects. This was also one of the reasons why legendary warriors posed little threat to demigods.

Yet, the cost of using this Hypermagic technique, which he had only recently learned, was significant. After all, a mortal’s body could not withstand divine power infusion. This was only possible because Donald had a body modified by both divinity and high elf bloodlines, along with a robust physique from being a Demon Hunter, as well as divine power and the Book of Truth to cushion the impact. During that spellcasting session, almost half of the pressure was absorbed by the Book of Truth, allowing Donald to unleash such a powerful Hypermagic technique with only minor damage to his body.

Compared to the liches in the main world, this lich from the Totem Continent, despite his great strength, was undoubtedly an amateur when it came to magical knowledge. He hadn’t even thought to create a soul container to protect his soul, keeping his essence within his physical body. Thus, after being caught by Donald and his allies and defeated, he was easily slain.

“Victory!” Carlisle, whose face had regained some color, sat down on the ground in a disheveled manner, too lazy to move. The move he had just used was named Meteor Blood Blast—a forbidden spell that utilized blood power to achieve immense attack power and speed. In the past, each use would leave him bedridden for half a month to recover. Now that he had risen to the rank of Legendary Sword Saint, the cost had decreased significantly; it only required losing some blood, which didn’t greatly affect his combat strength.

After the legendary lich died, his body turned to ashes, but one shiny object remained.

Noticing this, Donald waved his hand, and the object floated in front of him as captured by the Mage Hand.
“Hehe! Truly befitting a legendary lich—what a great haul this time!”
The transparent Mage Hand was holding a crystal skull, clearly a remnant of the legendary lich’s body after his death. Prolonged exposure to magic transformed ordinary skeletons into high-level magical polymers like crystal. It was said that demi-god liches could crystallize certain parts of their bodies, allowing them to abandon their decaying undead forms and exist as condensed souls. Although this legendary lich hadn’t reached that level of power, the skull, where the soul flame resided, had already begun to crystallize under the influence of divinity, preparing for that step!
A faint black-golden glow shone within the crystal skull—what else could it be but divinity?
Seeing the female sword saint’s eager gaze at the crystal skull, Donald chuckled and said, “Don’t rush. There are other treasures for us to claim!” At present, only Donald, Uther, and Abel hadn’t obtained any fragments of divinity. The female sword saint, who had devoted her life to swordsmanship, naturally desired these fragments to grow stronger.
With the help of numerous summoned creatures sent by Donald, the group quickly found the altar in the legendary lich’s lair. Unfortunately, the lich hadn’t had time to achieve divinity and form a totemic deity yet; they only found some items accumulated over the years—mostly sea beast materials and crystal cores, along with some gold and silver treasures clearly from human society.
Yet these items, which seemed valuable to ordinary people, were merely materials in the eyes of powerful beings like Donald and his companions. The greatest treasure was actually a strange pirate ship they discovered in a secret harbor inside the Land of the Dead.
It was indeed a ghost ship—a ghost pirate ship.
As Donald had guessed earlier, this ship belonged to the lich Kattafi. When his strength had returned to its golden peak, he left the desolate island and headed toward the continent to gather information about his enemies. Along the way, he encountered this large sea vessel. By then, Kattafi’s personality had drastically changed. He cruelly killed everyone on board and turned them into obedient undead, then transformed the ship into a ghost ship powered by negative energy. It was like the tragedy of the Titanic in another world—only instead of hitting an iceberg, they collided with the terrifying lich Kattafi!

Thus, this ghost pirate ship, controlled by undead and immortal creatures, became the most dangerous hunter in the western seas of the Totem Continent. Kartefi, who had a strong desire to become a god, used it to plunder humans and convert them into immortal believers. Although this ship was originally a masterpiece created by a medium-sized tribe along the continent’s coast, despite having powerful totem guardians with legendary strength, they dared not venture into the ocean to chase down Kartefi, the cunning lich. After all, compared to undead liches, a totem god who had left its domain was like a delicious feast that could enhance their power for those oceanic lords.