Mana Wells

The four blasts of ethereal swirling energy that everything Kurt had ever seen take had been completely eviscerated from the four void balls. And the ball held firm, swallowing all the energy effectively nullifying the entire first hit. And they wouldn't be able to do that again for a while.

"We weren't expecting that right?" said Kurt.

"No," said Layla.

The Bone army started to rush toward the formation, and various fireballs began to fill the air. A dead bird fell from the sky as griffins took them out one by one. The smaller attacks were working. In the middle of the mass, an eerie sound was growing louder and a purple mass of energy was forming in front of a creature.

"That's him, Kurt!" Said Layla, "Go."

Kurt looked at Boris and pulled his head down and shoved a water boot into the ground and shot forward directly at the creature. The glowing purple mass fired at their forces which scattered away from it. Kurt reached the front line of the army in a flash, stopped and quickly drew his sword, and gave out a full power slash horizontally towards the Lich, the Skeleton animals in front of him were sliced in half as he pushed forward through them. Boris was behind him slicing the bones around him.

He saw the Lich, in a tattered black robe, its skin seemed to just hug its bones, it had four arms and two legs, and seemed to be able to slightly float or glide when moving. The Lich turned to Kurt who was in a mad dash right at him. When Kurt got close enough a copy of him went left, another pushed forward, Kurt went right, another stayed behind, he had split into illusions of himself.

"That's interesting," said Lich. As one of the illusions he blocked and passed through, the real Kurt made a slash with his sword slicing right through a bone body in front of him. But at the last moment it had been switched, the Lich had moved. Kurt felt a heavy punch to his left cheek that sent him flying into the crowd of skeletons around him. Boris ran to clear them off him. What was that? Kurt was sure he was right under his blade, and then it was something else.

He got up to his feet and swung his sword, slicing the enemies around him. Then one of them blocked his blade with his, and it was the Lich, it wasn't there a second ago, and it took the other of its two right arms and punched Kurt in the face. "Did you think it was going to be easy?" The Lich laughed.

Kurt had seen something like this before and poured mana into his eyes, but he didn't see anything that he expected. The entire area was glowing in a moving pattern. He could barely discern, nothing was ever in focus when he did this, it more identified things. He started to see a pattern though.

He continued to try and fight, and noticed the Lich could change instantly but there was a slight cooldown, if he was a bit faster he might be able to hit him. He came at him, but this time the Lich switched with a giant bear skeleton, and it made a claw swing at Kurt and dug into his back, "ahhh" that stung.

There was nothing, some of the skeletons seemed to have a connection string coming from elsewhere in the area, there were five of them but it seemed the Lich could only switch with one of those. Kurt could figure out which one but at least the options seemed a bit limited.

A fireball shot past them, Kurt was being pushed all over the area, and he had managed to create a swirling shield around his body with water, which could move quickly to cover any part but didn't give full coverage at all times. After a particularly powerful blow to Kurt's stomach sending him flying into the Bone army he had lost track of Boris. Kurt breathed heavily, his back was bleeding, and he was sore all over. He got a lucky hit to the Lich but it was practically unscathed, the power lines moved to another skeleton closer to Kurt. That had to be it, wherever those lines were coming from, he had to stop that first.

The Lich appeared in front of Kurt and Kurt dashed him, sliding into illusions. But the real Kiurt simply ran past the Lich as it reacted to it, towards the end of the line. There was another skeleton there, its skin was similar. Much smaller, almost a rabbit, maybe it was at one point. Kurt took his sword and thrusted into the creature, into the point the line was coming from, and it faded. One down four to go.

Kurt made two slashes directly up into the air, the signal to Layla to push it. If the lich figured out what he was doing he'd probably react fast. A purple blast came out from his peripheral vision. Kurt just barely dodged it by dropping and hugging the ground. Yeah, it was noticed.

Kurt began to see the power, using the illusion again when the Lich appeared. But she saw something, the same sort of line to his illusions; it was slight, and a pulse of power washed through him. Layla started to ramp up, and so did the connection. He blocked an attack from a goblin skeleton that was next to him, overpowered it, and sent it to the ground.

He saw the battle happening from the lines, goblins and minotaurs were in a clash with the skeletons. A cloud of dust was obscuring everyone's view from the commotion. Kurt's eyes stung.

Kurt was struck again from behind, the Lich was too fast, another swing to destroy it but it had already switched places with one of the other skeletons. The lines were moving widely now, not staying on a single skeleton for too long. Making it even harder to predict now. The Lich was playing with him.

But the rush of power of Layla allowed Kurt to explode to another of the source skeletons, and with a barrage of crescent wave slashes the body was annihilated. Another one down, three more to go.

He found Boris in a clash again nearby this time. And took a moment to clear the area with him.

"I'm sorry I can't keep up, Layla was right," said Boris.

"You're doing great, " said Kurt, "some of these skeletons are more special than the others, the Lich is weakening."

"I can see the size of the area has already been constricted," said Boris.

"Can you do me a favor," said Kurt handing Boris a bag, "Put this paste on my back I can't reach it." The healing paste worked miracles and Kurt's bloody back healed almost instantly.

"That's not fair," said Lich, "healing in the middle of battle."