The existence of the statue explains why the pirates abandoned their ship. This monster could summon lower classes of the undead, and creating those arms was an easy feat for him. The statue’s powers must have attracted the undead, just like the case in Rohan Ruins.

“You’ve evolved because of Val’s fragment, interesting.” Nikolai gripped his gun tightly.

A mage skeleton also protected the statue he found. It seems the powers of Val were naturing to these undead monsters so that they would evolve beyond their limits.

‘That one was only a mage, not a lich.’ Nikolai frowned as he looked at the furious monster in front of him.

“Puny mortal, you dare ignore me?” The lich rose as the spirits screamed in wrath. “Prepare to die!”

The lich waved its bony hands at him, and the spirits flew everywhere. They screamed as they ran toward him. Nikolai stood there silently and raised his gun, firing his enchanted bullets and striking the spirits in their head, dissipating them temporarily. Yet, more appeared. 

Nikolai ran to the side as he dodged and rolled away from their attacks. Every time he could, he fired several shots and took down more spirits.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

The gunshots resounded in the dark hall as the lich kept waving his hands in a frenzy, summoning monsters left and right. Nikolai furrowed his brows as a thought occurred to him.

‘He can’t leave that throne; it must connect him to the statue and the powers of summoning.’ Nikolai rushed forward as soon as he knew that. He raised his gun and fired several enchanted bullets with amplified mana at the lich.

Spirits rushed his way to block his attacks, but some of his bullets managed to reach the lich. However, a giant bony wall appeared to protect him.

The bullets destroyed the bones, crushing them to smithers before losing their power. Nikolai raised his gun again and fired several shots in the same trajectory.

The lich raised his wall again, and the bullets dug deeper into it one after the other. What made the monster scared was that Nikolai’s shots struck the same spot, and they managed to penetrate his wall of bones and reach him.

“Impudent Mortal!” The lich roared as it raised hands, black energy swirling into them. A mouth came out from the black portal to devour the attacks, and Nikolai’s bullets sank into a bottomless abyss. “Your tricks are useless!”

Nikolai didn’t attack again and simply turned toward the spirits. His mana was low, and these spirits were the perfect monsters to change that.

He aimed his gun at the spirit coming toward him. It was the ethereal shape of a screaming man, and Nikolai fired an enchanted bullet at the slightly bluish dot in its center.

Without being close enough to the spirit, it was hard to tell the location of this dot. It was the point where the spirit’s body held together. This was the case for unmanifested souls, unlike the ones Nikolai killed to free Val’s servant.

‘Change probability,’ Nikolai invested 2 points to raise the chance of this spirit dropping loot into 60%. The bullet struck the ethereal man, and it screamed as it disappeared, dropping a white crystal.

Nikolai ran toward the crystal and snatched it from the ground. Then, as he rolled on the ground to avoid a different spirit, he invested two more points into the crystal and broke it.

[2 Mana Stats Points have been absorbed.]

“You won’t be lucky for long!” The lich screamed as he started chanting something. A sea of bones rose from behind Nikolai as the wave began chasing after him.

Nikolai sprinted away as he shot another spirit he encountered. However, he didn’t invest anymore and simply relied on countless ethereal beings to beat the probability.

His bullets decreased as the spirits fell one after the other. Most of them didn’t drop crystals, but as soon as one did, Nikolai ran toward it and broke it, investing two more points every time he did.

[2 Mana Stats Points have been absorbed.]

[2 Mana Stats Points have been absorbed.]

[2 Mana Stats Points have been absorbed.]

His mana reached 20 as his Fate Points dwindled to 51. However, the bones started to surround him, and wounds riddled his body from the spirits’ attacks.

“Al, mon, Sae!”

The lich finished chanting, and a giant summoning circle appeared on the ground. Nikolai ran away as the summoned monster appeared.

A giant undead knight began appearing from within the summoning circle as the lich kept chanting. Nikolai ran to get a better angle before taking out his longbow.

“Say, lich. Do you know what Holy Light does to the undead?”

The lich flinched when he heard the words. He looked at the human taking a stance below, with a longbow in hand. The arrow he held radiated powerful holy energy that could obliterate its existence from this world.

“You lost the moment you’ve revealed this opening.” Nikolai released the arrow as all of the spirits ran away from him. He was waiting for the lich to try summoning something powerful so that he would reveal the opening. The arrow, infused with his mana, gave a brilliant radiance as it zoomed through the hall. 

Unable to break his chant, the lich tried running away from the throne. But, as soon as he did, every spirit ran away, and the summoning ceased.

It was still not enough, as the Holy Light filled the grand hall. Every brick shone with holy light as the lich’s life began disappearing.

“No! Why can you use the holy powers while you are also an…!” The lich screamed, but Nikolai didn’t understand what it meant.

‘Is he talking about Val’s fragment?’ Nikolai frowned as the arrow struck the lich, and the monster’s body began to disintegrate to ashes.

He walked toward the throne, where holy power was at its strongest, but stopped when he felt nauseous.

‘Is my body… rejecting the Holy Light?’ Nikolai realized with dread. He never felt this way toward Holy Powers in his past life. ‘Does this have to do with my bloodline?’