[Undying Apparition] activated.

Body Integrity acceptable...

Tethering soul to body...

Suppressing mana regeneration...

Wraith Form Activated.

[Wraith] form obtained.

Potency of all dark skills increased by 1408.5%

Increase mana regeneration by -1 per second

Skill expires in approximately 93 minutes.

With my one good eye, I watch the changes take place. My mana rushes out of my body in a concentrated torrent, dispersing and condensing around me. It coalesces a foot from my body, tracing my flying form, giving it form and structure. I feel disoriented as my soul trembles and my vision changes.

“What?”

My voice warps, sounding as though I was speaking through a tube. I blink, or at least try to, but seeing through my eyelids disorients me further. I look around and find something slightly off. I raise my hand, to be greeted by a clawed arm that looks like it is made to rend flesh. Only when I focus on the hand do I see my human body within.

“Ohhhh. Wraith. I’m a wraith. Of course.”

I look down at the bloody lake and study my reflection. My body lies within a construct of mana, increasing my size considerably. My new body stands over ten feet tall and looks like it’s wearing a cloak of fervent energy that churns and twists in each passing moment. Its head has now face, just expressionless glowing eyes that I am looking out of.

The moment I begin to think of moving, I glide as a ghost would, my internal true body suspended within my new form. My wings of bone do not even move to keep me floating, but they shift as I intend them to.

My amusement and curiosity quickly end as I sense movement. My gaze swivels up, towards the boss. The boss, at that moment, shudders as its chest opens up like an aircraft bomber about to drop bombs. From its opening, four toothed tentacles shoot down with a thunderous crack as they break the sound barrier.. The tendrils plunge into the bloody lake and haul corpses back into the monstrous maw.

An echoing murmur escapes my lips as I relax. The boss’s movement had scared me into thinking it had sensed me. If it had, I doubt I would have any chance of defeating it, not without preparation.

With a thought, my internal and spectral body floats down until I’m near the water’s edge. With another I have my internal body lower the [Staff of Dark Blood] and activate its effect with a desperate hope that it will work.

I’ve been carrying this staff for a long time, holding it since I killed the [Necromancer] that summoned me. The ability of the staff seemed incredibly useful under the right circumstances, but I haven’t had a chance to make use of it yet.

It has the ability to convert one liter of blood into one hundred mana.

The staff activates and I watch as liters of blood begin disappearing. I feel as though my spells no longer have costs; an entire lake of mana and corpses are now at my disposal. Ideas funnel into my mind, but very few would be truly adequate.

I could use all the corpses to summon a single undead, but if the whale could destroy it, then everything is wasted. Considering It seems to be able to create a black hole, I doubt a single undead would be capable enough.

The same problems come from using an [Enchanted Bone Javelin]. A nuke is useless if the explosion gets consumed by a black hole, or even the projectile itself.

Creating a massive swarm could work, but if the individual undead cannot penetrate its defenses, then that also is moot.

I take a moment to look around my environment, allowing the staff in my hand to continue to generate mana. Eventually, I formulate a plan, one which will require perfect timing and positioning.

“Alright.”

I open up my menu for undead that I could create. I scroll through the list until I find the specific one that will allow my whole plan to succeed.

“[Skeletal Creation]:[Bone Worm]:[Greater Undead Modification]”

The mana produced by my staff starts to disappear as the millions of monster bones under the blood begin to degrade, creating a behemoth of bone and power that sends the bloody waves reeling everywhere. Thankfully, the boss either does not notice or does not care.

Eventually, after eight thousand mana worth of time, my creation is complete.

Mana

4380/5634

Damn, seventy-three minutes left. [Greater Undead Modification] takes a hell of a lot of time.

I lower my body, and with it the staff further into the blood, increasing the suction by a significant amount. With a mental command, I begin casting [Skeletal Creation] as fast as I can think it. Mana is burned as fast as the staff secretes it and the corpses of monsters in the lake begin to disappear at a speed that causes the water level to drop noticeably.

__________________________________________

Mana

980/5634

After a significant amount of time, my mana hits a critical point and I am forced to stop creating undead. The blood level has dropped by over three feet, even with most of my minions currently submerged.

Sixteen minutes remaining.

With my time almost up, I begin the next part of my preparation.

“[Arcane Instrument: Conducting Baton].”

Though the main body holds a staff, the spectral body now holds a dark violet baton.

“[Resurgent Melody].”

A melody begins, a slow melody, but one already increasing in tempo, volume, and potential. The music expands from me, reaching my minions and all those that can hear.

With a force of will and a wave of my baton, I accelerate towards the boss.

I watch as it floats slowly in a semi-circle around the summit of the bloody mountain in the center of the floor. It has been lazily gliding about, ignoring everything nearby and only occasionally opening itself up for food.

As I get closer and closer, my music gets more energetic and lively. With a flick of my baton, my undead soar in front of me, traveling below the water at a greater speed than I can fly. The boss doesn’t react until my undead are a mile away from the mountain.

The boss wiggles as the lines across its body glow brighter alongside the horn. Its eyes instantly swivel down.

“Shit.”

I stop my own momentum as I flick my baton upwards, ordering my undead to disperse at maximum speed.

Three seconds pass before a small speck forms in the water. Air and water rush towards the singularity, dragging thousands of my undead into the tiny void, the black hole growing larger with each passing moment until it suddenly blinks out of existence.

Overpowering would be the term to describe the boss. I knew it was strong, but to destroy thousands from over a mile away is near insanity.

Only nearly...

For the next minute, I control my army of two hundred thousand, dispersing them around the mountain. The levitating leviathan destroys a third of them with black holes.

“One hundred thousand. Damn, I better not fuck up.”

Like a master conductor, I lower my baton, slowing down the movement of my undead, right before raising my ghostly arms into the air, causing my army to take to the sky.

[Bone Wyverns], [Bone Dragons], [Bone Sky Serpents], and other aerial undead leave the relative safety of the water and accelerate upwards.

It is here that I see the boss begin to get serious. It rises further into the air, away from the incoming horde, toward the ceiling, all while expelling huge swaths of mana downward. Miniature black holes begin forming at great heights, destroying the horde I am raising out of the water by the thousands.

I chuckle at the scene of mighty dragons being used as fodder for my distraction. They soar blindly towards the boss, only to be one-shotted by a black hole that consumes their bodies then explodes violently, damaging many nearby.

After another eighty thousand of my force is destroyed, the boss finally reaches the ceiling and my plan is nearing completion.

A [Bone crawler] as large as the boss had slowly been walking across the ceiling, waiting patiently until the distracted boss rose up into its claws.

The [Bone Crawler], a type of centipede like monster, extends half of its arms and wraps them around the boss while its lower body is attached to the ceiling. The arms of the crawler aren’t able to penetrate the barrier of gravity protecting the boss, but they don’t need to. In fits and jerks, the crawler drags the boss across the ceiling and into position.

The boss concentraties its mana and causes gravity to expand outward like a nova. The [Bone Crawler] is crushed into the ceiling, but it has already done its job.

“Well, you fucked up,” I say as my music reaches its climax.

[Arcane Crescendo] has been activated for your next spell. Mana cost has been reduced by 90%. Next spell cast will be unavailable for 168 hours.

I raise my free hand and mana heeds my call. Tens of thousands of mana is removed from the staff for a single spell. The excessive mana price creates a huge burden on the staff, causing cracks to form throughout the legendary artifact. Somehow, it holds together as I obtain the needed mana to cast the spell.

“[Mass Death Explosion].”

Mana disappears from my grasp and the music instantly stops as the final part of my plan activates.

My modified [Bone Worm] that I named [Primer] explodes alongside another ten thousand undead stored within its body.

The bottom half of the mountain explodes violently.

The summit breaks the sound barrier.

It then slams into the ceiling.

The dungeon shakes as the mountain shatters on impact, causing boulders to rain from the skies like meteors. My distance from the destruction saves me, only smaller rocks buffet my form.

It takes a few seconds for the smoke to settle before I see that my plan was not completely successful.

The boss is dead; or at least as close to the definition of dead that I can think of. Its body is mangled. Its internals are crushed and falling out. Blood pours from the many organs hanging from the main body, drifting in the air like rope and a swing.

In all but name, the boss is dead. It was never built to withstand the force of a mountain, nor was it built to regenerate vast amounts of damage. The only thing keeping it alive is its magic, which keeps the thing hovering near the ceiling.

Shades body moves, its one good eye looking around before stopping on my position several miles away from it.

It blinks and I then see its horn begin to glow, shining brighter than ever before.

“Fuck. You have got to be kidding me.”

Energy begins to form in front of the boss’s horn, concentrating into a small car sized ball of destructive violet energy. A similar energy that I use with my [Corrosive Annihilation] spell.

“Oh come on. Who the hell survives a mountain?”

With a mental command, I disperse my baton and call up the mana being generated from the staff.

“[Bone Wall].”

My spell takes hold as bones in the distance fly in front of me, quickly forming layers and layers of bones. Three feet, four feet, five feet. The layers compound, aiming to withstand the boss’s attack.

Crack

And then the mana runs out as the staff finally stops working, leaving the wall of bone only twelve feet thick.

“Ahhhh, shit.”

Mana

540/5634

I sense the attack from the boss release and all I can do is curse as I turn and begin to create some distance.

_____________________________