Villain With The Strongest System

It took the team roughly a day's time to arrive at the necromancers hideout.

The trail leading to his fortress was dark and patrolled constantly by undead creatures who reacted violently to any sources of light in their vicinity.

To reach the necromancer's hideout, Erin had to constantly cast an illumination spell, which though easy to maintain, drained slowly on his mana reserves.

Despite the dangers of having a light source around them, Rocky insisted that Erin keep up the spell, as to Rocky the freedom to move with full vision was more important than the potential undead threat that the active light source attracted.

In his inventory, he did have a night vision potion that he could use in emergencies, however, with him having only one vial and not five, Rocky decided to have the light source around the team, for everyone's ease of movement.

Thankfully, the average strength of the undeads attacking the team was around tier two or tier three at best, and with them only patrolling solo and not in small groups, although the team encountered many of them repeatedly, handling them was never too big of a challenge.

In the back of his mind, Rocky did worry about the consequences of the team killing the undead patrol, as if the death of the patrollers alerted the head necromancer about their presence, then the team could potentially find themselves walking into a death trap when they enter his lair, however, with the lack of better alternatives, it was a risk the team had to take.
Enjoy more content from empire

Rocky had studied about the connection that the necromancer's had to their creations back at the university, and hence he was acutely aware that necromancers could sense when their creations died, potentially alerting them to intruders.

Over the years there had been many clueless adventurers who thought that despite them killing dozens of undead in a dungeon, the dungeon boss would be unaware of their approach, however, this was nothing but the naivety of uneducated children.

A high level necromancer could not only sense the death of their underlings, but could also share their senses when needed, and could hence borrow their vision and sense of hearing to spy on intruders, well before they ever reached him.

Hence, a necromancer could potentially know all about the opponents he was to face, prior to ever meeting them, having scouted their strengths and weaknesses well in advance.

Nonetheless, with the team's only option being to move forward regardless of the dangers, Rocky kept leading them towards the necromancers hideout, only pausing when they arrived at the entrance.

"Alright guys, we are finally at the necromancers' hideout, and according to my scouting, necromancers who live on this floor have a special connection to elemental spirits that specialize in casting mental illusions.

In exchange for providing them with regular offerings of blood and mana, these elemental spirits guard their lairs from intruder's, so we need to beware of them" Rocky said, as he took out two vials of [Mind Guard Elixir] from his inventory.

"Erin, Buhara, I have obtained these special elixirs that make one immune to mental illusions and I want the two of you to drink it.

It will provide you with roughly 6 hours of immunity from falling under any mental illusions, so the moment we enter this lair, myself and Kronos would rely on the two of you to guide the way.

Unfortunately, I could only obtain two such vials and not more, so only the two of you get to drink it" Rocky said, as he threw an apologetic glance towards Kronos, who gave him a knowing nod.

If there were only two vials, Kronos understood that it was best that Erin and Buhara be the ones to take it, as unlike the two of them who had a strong mind and will, Erin and Buhara were comparatively much more simple minded.

"Are you sure Sir Rocky? Perhaps you should take this instead?" Erin suggested, as he felt unsure to take on such responsibility, but under Rocky's urging did so anyway.

"Don't worry. Buhara will guide you all well–" said Buhara giving the team a big smile and thumbs up, as he took on the role of becoming the team's vanguard with joy.

**********

To no-one's surprise, the moment the team entered the necromancer's lair, they found themselves facing off against a room full of undead skeletons in a scene that reminded Rocky of the war he fought back on Earth.

"Cover each other's backs. Don't give them an inch!" Rocky instructed, as the team began their intense assault against the undead horde, exposing many of their abilities along the way.

Buhara cast his strongest AOE spells to deal with as many undead as he could at once, while Kronos relied on his sword to unleash powerful slashes.

Rocky fought with his dual blades, keeping most of his cards close to his chest.

However, despite his best efforts, a glimpse of his sword sage fighting style shone through regardless.

In the hour long fight, that saw the team become utterly exhausted, everything from Kronos's healing ability to Erin's role as the teams support mage was exposed to the observing necromancer, giving him an exact gauge on the teams strength that had decided to raid his lair.

Thankfully, the display put on by the team was not their finest, as they appeared much weaker than they really were when fighting against the horde of undead, due to them being unable to use many of their best abilities within confined spaces.

This fortunately led the necromancer to underestimate them, as he allowed them to approach his chambers, without deploying much of his stronger undead underlings, as he should have.

—-----

/// A/N - This is more of what the new pacing of the story will look like, if I was writing it normally, this same chapter would span 2-2.5 chapters, but I've started to speed things up.

I want to know if this pacing feels fine to you guys or not? Because I intend to make this the new normal for this book. ///