Chapter 103: The Lich’s Ultimate Move Is…

The layered voices of countless undead intertwined, echoing with resentment toward destruction and a final longing for existence. Yet all of it—the desires, the despair—became fuel for Brutus’s attack.

Brutus had sacrificed hundreds of thousands of souls to unleash a strike that surpassed his own capacity. Watching the system warnings pop up, Raine understood Brutus’s plan: using the terrain against him. The lich was infecting the land with soul energy, turning it into a death zone where no life could survive, hoping to consume Raine’s stronghold.

If this isolated territory was completely overtaken, Raine would be forced to abandon his mage tower on this land, leaving it a desolate ruin, or transport it away, thus forfeiting any strategic ground advantage.

This posed a significant challenge.

The Grand Duchess’s land grant alone couldn’t stop the encroaching death energy. For an effective counter, Raine would need to appear on-site to manipulate local elements to counter the encroachment directly.

Brutus cackled with an owl-like screech: “Hahaha! Tesla! Do you dare come face me in person, coward? If you won’t, then surrender this land to become an undead haven. Hahahaha!”

Sofia suddenly felt a chill of fear.

Her greatest worry was that the archmage would back down now.

This battle had already exceeded any price she could pay. What was she worth? Was she valuable enough for a legendary mage to risk his tower for her?

Yet no one expected Raine’s response to Brutus’s provocation to be…

“Oh—you’re really serious about this, huh? How about this: I’ll lower my strength to a master level, one step below yours, just to give you a fighting chance. How about that?”

Some undead archliches fought at the master level because that’s all they had.

Some legendary archmages fought at the master level for the same reason.

But who could really tell?

A second later, a young mage with flowing black hair, dressed in a blue robe and exuding an air of elegance, appeared hovering in the sky above the mage tower. Gasps echoed from all around as onlookers realized—he had come, the legendary Archmage Tesla had actually shown up.

Even Brutus froze, halting the death energy’s assault on the enemy territory.

With a formidable opponent before him, there was no way he could risk channeling the lengthy spell of War Magic while Raine watched. If he dared to continue pouring his energy into corrupting the campus, Raine could slap him right in the face, reducing him to dust.

Not only did Brutus stop his assault, but he quickly layered several protective shields around himself, eyeing Raine with dread.

The aura surrounding Raine felt utterly authentic: the seething mana, the perfectly controlled elements—all screamed his presence was real.

Yet, he was there…and he wasn’t.

This was actually Downs’s latest creation: True Mirage!
With the help of Raine’s system, Downs had finally managed to produce an 8K three-dimensional projection, infused with elemental energy and enhanced by Raine’s game-breaking Realness stat boost, making this Raine appear genuinely alive to any observer.

Raine’s teleportation limitations made it impossible for him to physically be there.

It’s not that he feared for his life!
In full view of everyone, the Raine projection smirked mischievously. “Well, little lich, here I am. Show me what else you’ve got.”

Brutus felt like a mouse, helplessly caught by a cat that wouldn’t finish him off, but kept tormenting him instead.

Frustration! Humiliation! Agony!

When a legendary Lich’s Bane shamelessly lowered himself to overpower a lesser foe, what else could that foe do?

Brutus looked on in despair, unwilling to believe in that unreasonably youthful face.

This made absolutely no sense.

There was only one possible explanation…

Brutus gritted his teeth and asked in shock, “Are you a demi-god level legendary archmage!?”

I’m not! I didn’t! Don’t spread rumors! In his mind, Raine instantly denied it three times over.

Out loud, he replied with the same lighthearted tone, “Even if I say I’m not, you probably wouldn’t believe me. Either way, here I am—struggle as you like.”

“You… you’ve left me no choice!” Brutus snarled, lifting his sinister bone staff high.

Suddenly, the darkened fields behind him began to quake. From beneath the earth emerged several massive bone dragons, their colossal skeletal frames shaking off tons of soil as if freeing themselves from ancient shackles.

Their membrane-less wings, long and thin, beat the air by instinct, sending waves of bone-chilling cold as they roared.

The first three bone dragons lifted from the ground and circled in the air, preparing to dive, while on the ground, Brutus’s remaining undead army surged forward in a last, desperate charge toward Raine’s mage tower.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, beams of light pierced through them.

There were no earth-shaking explosions.

The death knights and even the powerful bone dragons shattered as if struck by grenades, exploding into particles. In the places they had stood, only clouds of green spectral dust floated in the air.

Only one of the bone dragons, caught mid-air, showed the entire process. Spectators stared in shock as the seventeen-meter-long dragon split in two, its serpent-like neck, dead wings, and frost-covered claws quickly disintegrating under a mysterious, terrifying force.

You’d think shards of bone would rain down, right?

No—in midair, the frozen bones had already dissolved into streams of light, vanishing into the wind.

Only by tracing the green beams could one see six massive floating eyes high above.

The answer was revealed: it was the Beholder’s Disintegration Ray! By today’s standards, this should technically be Raine’s Mage’s Arcane Eye.

The entire undead army had been casually reduced to dust.

With his mind wracked by fear and his soul trembling, Brutus stared blankly at Raine hovering above, at a complete loss for words or action.

The gap between them was too great!

Such an insurmountable difference shattered any remaining confidence Brutus had.

Imagine using every trick at your disposal and still failing to force your opponent to cast a single serious spell. Instead, his apprentice and magic servants did all the work. What kind of feeling would that be?

At that moment, Raine yawned and delivered his final sentence, mercilessly: “I’ll give you one last chance to use a spell. If you don’t take it, you’ll lose your chance forever.”

This was extreme psychological pressure.

But it couldn’t be helped—most necromancy spells wouldn’t work even if reflected.

Raine’s plan was simple: lure out Brutus’s Finger of Death using True Mirage, then unleash the full magical potential of his Physical Network in a barrage of lightning strikes to finish him off.

It was a shameless plan, a setup for a sneak attack.

Of course, it wouldn’t look very elegant and might fall short of a one-hit kill.

But then Brutus roared, flashed across fifty meters with Blink, and flung something toward Raine’s phantom face—

Durlach’s Glass Conversion!

Raine: ???