World Online

Father Joseph smiled.

"Why have I a care for this world, with a life that has been but borrowed? I was worried about this very situation, so I made the right trade a long time ago." he said.

"My life for your rest. Doesn\'t that sound just wonderful?"

As he said this, he closed his bible and looked straight at the Lich king. His hands came together, and his mouth opened.

Jake could see golden symbols of music in the air. Notes of all shapes and sizes were flying out, some bolder than the others, some with a darker tint, but all of them shades of gold.

These notes seemed to be of some song that Jake certainly didn\'t know about, but as he listened to it, his entire mind seemed to shake for some reason.

"You fool! Don\'t listen to this!" Jake could hear Ganshin shout at him.

"Close your ears! Now! The father is performing a forbidden spell! The Eternal Melody. Even if you are not the intended target, if you don\'t close your ears, you might lose your life!" He said.

Jake\'s eyes dilated as he quickly followed Ganshin\'s instructions to the letter. He glared at the letters that were flying up in the air though.

The lich king\'s eyes, well, weren\'t eyes, so Jake couldn\'t see any expression in them. But he could feel the fear in the way the Lich king acted. He abhorred what was going on here.

"You are willing to spend half a life\'s worth of vitality just to kill me?!" The Lich king screamed.

"This is a sacrifice that I deem worthy. Why else would I have begged for this blessing by god? Do you really think that I would crave eternal life like those fools that the evil god called followers?" Father Joseph said.

Each of these notes that was emanating from Father Joseph traveled slowly toward the Lich King, who did absolutely nothing to avoid them.

It was like he was frozen in place, unable to avoid a single note.

The moment that they touched him, though, the white skeleton started cracking. The cracks were not black, but a lustrous gold.

p "Aaaaargh!"

Even though Jake had his ears closed, he could hear the discussion between the lich king and father Joseph. But now, he felt like he wasn\'t even cupping his ears anymore.

The sound of the Lich king screaming just passed through Jake\'s hands like they were nothing, and reverberated throughout his eardrums.

Slowly, the skeleton was full of cracks, and he was a shining golden piece to watch.

Jake kept watching with interest. At the rate that things were going, this one attack was enough to completely destroy the lich king. He looked like was about to break apart into thousands of pieces with just the touch of a finger.

And that final note hit.

One final note that pushed the terrifying monster off the edge.

The sound of the bones cracking apart was not one that Jake could hear. He clutched his ears harder than ever, trying to avoid the piercing screams of the Lich.

But he could see the lich king slowly break apart and fall down in multiple pieces, like a puzzle that was falling apart.

Soon, there was no lich king in the air. Instead, all that remained of Saint Ester was dust. Bone dust, to be precise.

The sound of the melody slowly started decreasing, and the moment it did, Jake saw a shadow rush past him.

It was Ganshin.

"When did he get behind me?" Jake wondered as he looked back.

When he did, his eyes grew wide open. Right behind him, while Jake was happily looking at the show, Ganshin seemed to be battling monsters of all shapes and sizes.

They were all skeletons on this field. Skeletons that were all laying on the ground.

These monsters were probably summoned by the Lich King to try and stop Father Joseph from destroying him, but Ganshin made sure that it was all in vain.

Jake looked back at where the biggest fight had just occurred.

"Damn. When I first saw the Lich King, I thought this was game over. I mean, a Lich? I though that the entire empire would be mobilized to deal with a Lich King. To think that a sixth tier priest would be so powerful." Jake wondered as he looked at the hero of the day.

But Father Joseph no longer looked so pretty. When Jake looked at him again, he was met with a familiar sight. White hair, bald face, wrinkles all over, this was the Father Joseph that he had met all the way back when the caravan started.

This was the old, tired, and exhausted Father Joseph who could barely walk.

That was when Jake remembered the conversation that took place.

Father Joseph had just executed a forbidden spell. Spells which were too strong, almost like cheats. And these cheats weren\'t available for everyone.

And they couldn\'t just be used whenever one pleased.

In this case, Jake remembered what the Lich King said.

Father Joseph had to trade half the vitality of a human to perform this magic trick.

"But he lost more than half of his vitality! There must be a set amount to execute this trick." Jake realized.

He was brought back to the previous day, when Father Joseph suddenly became so much stronger than before, with a thick head of hair and a black beard.

That man was gone now. All of the vitality that he had gained that day was gone in one spell.

Exactly all the vitality that he had gained that day.

"The god of light knew! He knew that Father Joseph would need to do this, and he prepared him for it!" Jake realized.

And there he was, the man of the hour, Father Joseph, on the ground, wheezing for air, struggling for life.

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