Evolution: A Warlock’s Rise To Power

Like most dungeons and jails. The prisoners outnumbered the guards, and with their forces drawn elsewhere. Lucan and the others moved through the remaining guards like a hot knife through butter.

"Ha ha!" Lucan exclaimed after finding a chest with his gear in the armory. "Gear up. There is likely to be a fight above."

Lucan started to re-equip his gear. When he was halfway through putting on his armor, the door suddenly opened. Lucan and the prisoners grabbed their weapons and turned towards the intruder.

"Hold up!" Lucan shouted.

Silent was dazed for a moment as she opened the door to find 35 NPCs gearing up with Lucan in the center. She ran forward and wrapped her arms around him.

"You are alright." She breathed out in relief before embarrassingly letting go and backing up a step.

"Ha, ha, ha, don't worry. I am fine and we will have your mana core completed soon enough." Lucan said with a smile. "These people are interested in leaving, so I said they could come with me."

Silent nodded. "Lord Mentas is in the foyer with the others. It will be impossible to escape without going through him."

Brandt cracked a smile. "My one regret about leaving was not being able to deal with Lord Mentas."

Lucan smiled back. "Let's leave with no regrets." He said while pinning his cloak to his leather armor.

***

The players were struggling under Mentas's telekinetic grasp. Lucy turned into a shadow and shrugged off the chokehold. Cheese the druid transformed into an owl then back into a human once he was free. Calder only laughed at the warlock's magic.

The barbarian's muscular neck was as thick as a tree trunk. Even with his magical might, Lord Mentas could only lift him off the ground. His magic didn't have the strength to actually choke Calder.

Cheese waved his staff. 12 woodland spirits began to swirl around him as they took physical form. 12 elk appeared around Cheese and lowered their heads as they charged through the guards and up towards Mentas.

The knight defending him became overwhelmed and let an elk slip through.

*Bang*

The elk knocked the warlock off his feet and sent him sliding across the floor. The players fell back to the ground after the spell was released.

Hellfire started his own chant while Will, Madlad, Van and Calder went running to the guards. The sounds of weapons clashing rattled the entrance of the manor.

"Your magic is nothing to me." Mentas said while waving a hand towards Hellfire.

The spell that the fifth Hand of Raze was preparing backfired. An explosion of purple flames rippled around Hellfire as he lost a quarter of his health.

"Damn it." Hellfire cursed. "It's like he knows what's coming. We can't use direct magic against him."

Hellfire gave up on summoning the purple flames and instead called upon lower demons of the Abyss. He opened a portal in the middle of the guards. 2 fell straight into the realm of demons. The guards quickly moved away, making space for the horrid creatures to come through into this land.

The players struggled for over 15 minutes to get the lords health down to 70%. He saw their moves coming and prevented anyone from getting a clean hit against him. Mentas only had 2 knights left under his command but both stayed close to him. All 3 worked together leaving almost no opening.

"Your feeble attempt bore me." Mentas said before starting to chant. Before they could react and try to stop him. Their allies disappeared. They each saw themselves alone and outnumbered while fighting Metnas. He had altered their minds to show everyone as enemies.

Van backed away and unintentionally stepped closer to Madlad.

"Back you evil hell spawn." Madlad yelled while striking at Van.

The players started turning on each other.

***

Lucan and Silent ran into the foyer to see their party members attacking each other along with the enemies.

"MENTAS!" Brandt screamed while running toward him. "You will pay for your betrayal of our village."

"What?!" Mentas was shocked to see the prisoners.

Lucan appeared before him holding a black dagger. His teammates were relieved to see him and company. Since they weren't here when the mind-altering spell was cast, they saw him as the normal Lucan.

"Your appearance is meaningless." Mentas said. "And you should have learned by now that your illusions can't fool me." He said, ignoring the shadow illusion that was walking towards him.

"Don't worry, I will teach you to fear my illusions." Lucan said. He used a technique he hadn't pulled out in a while. The illusion cut with its dagger while Lucan cast Telekinetic Slash from his hiding place.

[You have created a variant spell.]

[Spell 'Phantom Slash' has been learned.]

[Progress to Intermediate Spell Weaver: 1 of 4 spell variants created.]

Lucan ignored the good news for now.

And arc of red blood splattered the wall after the dagger cut at his neck. The damage was minimal, but his illusion had made Mentas bleed. Lucan laughed before attacking again. His dagger moved with supernatural swiftness to keep up with the speed that Lucan sent out the Phantom Slashes.

"Just wait. I am going to cut off your head and claw out those eyes you cherish so much." Lucan yelled with a deranged laugh. "I will make them my own."

The damage barely hurt but Mentas could do nothing to stop it. The thing he coveted the most was his eyes. He wouldn't let any harm befall them. The Lord started to run. The two knights who were pinned down by Van and Calder couldn't stay close to him. Will and Madlad moved after Mentas once he had created some distance from the knights.

Brandt and the other Elites had a grudge they wanted to settle with Mentas and didn't plan on letting him go. They moved to chase him down while the regular villagers who escaped the dungeon with them ran towards the exit of the manor in the moment of confusion.

"Don't come any closer." Mentas yelled while throwing his hands out. The combined onslaught from almost 50 people was too much for him to handle. Telekinetic walls stopped the players and NPCs from getting closer to him.

Lucan chuckled. "The walls only stop physical objects and people. It won't stop magic or shadows." He called out.

Brandt and the others smiled. They turned into shadows and passed through the invisible wall. And started hacking and slashing at the warlock who was doing anything to escape.

Hellfire, Lisel, Lucy and Cheese started to launch spells through the walls while the physical damage dealers turned to the knights and the guards who were cut off from their Lord.

"If I can't escape, I will take you with me." Lord Mentas said to Brandt. The lord held out his hand as a blue spike of mental energy formed. It was one of the strongest single target offensive mental spells. "Mind Spike."

Brandt turned into shadows to try and avoid the blow. But becoming a shadow would only evade physical damage. Magical damage was a different story entirely.

Lucan cursed while running forward. He turned into a shadow and slipped forward.

*Bang*

A shadow exploded when it came in contact with the Mind Spike and turned gray before disappearing. The other shadow turned back into a person.

"YOU BASTARD! I will cut off your head for Lucan!" Brandt yelled swinging his longsword with all his might.

*Slice* *Plop* *Bounce*

The severed head of Lord Mentas landed on the ground and took a couple bounces.

"Protect Lucan's treasure." Brandt yelled out to the others that had followed him through the Telekinetic walls. A young woman who was a guard under Brandt scoped up the head.

Lord Mentas guard's and Knights were shocked at their Lords death. They were cut down while their minds were absent.

"Damn it." Silent stomped. "I had just found him again."

"Don't you worry about me." Lucan said appearing beside her with half health and mana.

Silent's eyes lit up. "You tricked him?"

"Nope. I died, but death is not the end for everyone." He said while walking towards Brandt and the others. Surprisingly Menta's head didn't turn gray and disappear. After his death it turned into an item. Lucan happily took it for his share of the boss fight. It also helped that Brandt and the others wanted him to have it. On top of that, he was halfway to level 51.

"Lucan, we are still willing to follow you back to your territory, but we want to take some time to go to the village. I want to find my family." Brandt said.

"No problem. Take your time. Make sure your family and friends are doing well and invite them to come. We welcome anyone who is willing."

"Thank you." Brandt said, giving Lucan a deep bow before rushing out of the manor with the others.