Ronan shot up like a launching rocket. His leg muscles seemed to have transformed into belleville springs, exploding upwards with incredible force. A fireball soared under his feet as Tharaxes desperately tried to blast him out of the sky.

It was too late.

Ronan was already spinning forwards, as though performing a frontflip. Silent slicer was true to its name, not a single sound made as it arced upwards, towards the beautiful, frescoed ceiling.

The first slash cut into the stone. Another first—Ronan used magic strike alongside surging strikes. This time, he went for broke, dumping enough stamina and health points into the latter to do five simultaneous attacks.

"How could you possibly have known!?" Tharaxes roared, electricity crackling around its staff as the lich-lord prepared to fry Ronan in mid-air.

Unfortunately for the poor boss, Ronan hadn't used a drop of mana to carve the ceiling into rubble. With a wave of his free hand, the lightning was dispelled before it even left the staff. Chunks of painted stone fell to the ground alongside Ronan.

"Aargh! Curse you, damned adventurer. So be it. You may have destroyed my phylactery, but as long as my spark remains, I endure. You, on the other hand, have signed off on your death."

The last iteration, it had been somewhat amusing to listen to the infuriated lich roaring at them, especially when Jenna insulted its size. Now, Ronan grew tired of the inane ranting. "Skeletons should stay dead, arsehole. Just try and kill me!"

Leaping from one piece of falling rubble to the next, Ronan dodged one stray fireball after another. The surprise impact of dispelling Tharaxes' magic had vanished. Ronan would save it for the final moment, when it most mattered.

If he even needed it. Right before he hit the ground, Ronan leapt onto the stone dais, gaining a running start. The moment his foot hit the stone, he activated charge of the juggernaut once again, his momentum already at 102 points, multiplying his stats.

He smashed into the boss. This time, Ronan swung his sword too slow. He ended up punching the lich-lord's shoulder with the handle of the blade as he barrelled right through the undead necromancer.

Tharaxes in this bony form wasn't so sturdy. The entire shoulder cracked under Ronan's charge. Before the boss could strike back, he grabbed hold of the broken bone and activated stone grip.

The boss, to its credit, didn't try to wrestle itself out of Ronan's hold. That would've made his job easier. Instead, Tharaxes cast a lightning strike out of its own body. The casting speed was instant. Ronan was paralyzed as electricity surged down his arm, torso, leg, and into the ground. In that moment, the lich-lord tried to slip from his grasp.

Tenacity was a hell of a stat.

Truly, Tharaxes' sudden lightning strike had paralyzed Ronan. Clenching his teeth, he pushed through it. As the lich-lord attempted to break free from his stone grip, Ronan clenched his fist, and pulled.

With an echoing crack, the shoulder joint shattered in his palm, and the boss' arm clattered against the stone. As Ronan stepped after the retreating boss, he raised his blade once more.

Tharaxes roared in frustrated rage, tossing out three fireballs that Ronan instantly dispelled. He didn't actually need to wave his hands to break the lich-lord's magic, but he simply enjoyed the theatrics during his initial entrance.

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First impressions mattered, after all.

When he raised silent slicer overhead, Tharaxes unleashed his final gambit. The skeletal hobgoblin slammed his staff into the stone, both hands clutching the ivory shaft. Ronan recognised the sensation.

The same action, the same feeling in the air. When the lich-lord had sacrificed himself to fuel the elite death knight cataphract to unprecedented levels of strength, it had felt identical.

Instead of Tharaxes unleashing all of its stored mana, however, everything in the room was being sucked into the staff. It was as though a black hole had been unleashed, devouring all mana in sight. Ronan even felt his heart trembling.

By cycling his mana, he was able to keep a firm grip on it. No ugly skeleton was going to steal his magic juice. Unwilling to allow the boss to finish charging up whatever devastating spell it had up its sleeves, Ronan took another step closer.

Unfortunately this spell was a fast casting one, too. The moment his foot touched the ground, the suction force stopped. The calm before the storm.

Anyone who knows about tsunamis, will know that the biggest warning sign that a devastating wave is approaching, is a rapidly receding tide. The lack of mana in the air was a glaring warning, but Ronan lacked the time to react.

With no time to truly think about his reaction, he did the only thing he could. Ronan poured all of his mana into dispel, throwing it at Tharaxes like an anti-magic sledgehammer. At the same time, he used unstoppable charge of the juggernaut, magic strike, and surging strikes.

It might have seemed like using four skills would take a long time, but Ronan had been using those four so often that they were second nature. His body almost used them instinctively.

As he reached the lich's skeletal frame, his sword swinging downwards on a collision course with Tharaxes' skull, a crackling firestorm exploded out of the boss' staff. Ronan's brute-force dispel smashed into the roaring wave of fire and lightning, moments before his blade struck its target.

As a magic war of epic proportions unfurled, his first sword strike cut into the lich-lord's reinforced bone. The boss roared, and unleashed a fireball directly onto the blade.

Ronan winced as the centre of silent slicer grew red hot. It was a race between surging strikes and Tharaxes' genius strategy. The second strike deepened the furrow in the bone, sending hairline cracks riveting across the ivory dome.

The searing heat of the firestorm burned his skin. He felt blisters forming as the top layer started to peel. Even with his stats, and mutations, Ronan wasn't immune to damage from the powerful spell. He clenched his teeth through the pain, even going so far as to smile when he saw his crude dispel was slowly unravelling the storm at the seams.

His third strike split the skull, breaking through to the glowing lights within. The hairline cracks expanded, sending a spiderweb of vulnerabilities riveting across Tharaxes' skull. Due to that, the fourth cut shattered the lich's head, leaving just a floating cyan spark above its spine.

Ronan wasn't sure what he'd expected, but reality was disappointing. The lich-lord was sturdy.

The firestorm still raged, though it was far weaker now, most of its energy being spent on fighting his dispel, rather than burning off his skin and charring his flesh. The next attack, the fifth and final chained strike from surging strikes, would be a critical hit. Or so he hoped.

Ronan wasn't sure if being constantly damaged by the firestorm would cancel critical tempo. Even if it wasn't, he was confident in his ability to keep fighting. If a fifth slash didn't kill the boss, then a sixth would. Or a seventh. He had stamina to spare.

Tharaxes, in a last, desperate bid to survive, grabbed its staff from the ground and thrust it at Ronan's throat. Electricity gathered at the tip as the rapid, lunging thrust pierced the air.

He had no mana to dispel the lightning, but he didn't need it. His fifth slash arced through the air, striking against the crystal at the staff's tip. For a tense breath of time, steel kissed gemstone.

The crystal shattered.

As silent slicer continued on its path, it cleaved the lich-lord's staff in twain, followed by its skeletal hand. When the blade struck against Tharaxes' chest, the bones offered little resistance. Its ribcage shattered, along with most of its body.

Ronan heard the beginnings of a pained cry of anguish, but it faded along with the cyan spark that gave the lich-lord life. He had obtained his vengeance. He had defeated Tharaxes the Hobgoblin Lich-Lord.

He had completed the hard difficulty tutorial. And the system confirmed his achievements in neon blue.

Congratulations, you have cleared Stage 4 of the tutorial!

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