Kyle and the knight looked at one another, equally shocked. The knight spoke first. Its voice was raspy and unused, and its muscles appeared to be equally stiff. As it moved, it limbered up, however.

  “Who… who are you! No one has entered the city in centuries. How did you make it through the hordes of Forgotten and reach the palace?”

  Kyle was equally shocked to find another living soul. “What do you mean by ‘hordes’? Assuming you mean the shadowy humanoid things, I only fought and killed 2 to reach here. I’m just an… uh… explorer, who’re you?”

  The desiccated creature chuckled. “An explorer, you say? I’m afraid your journey ends here, my friend. I’m honor-bound to defend the door behind me. No one can stop my master's work.”

  In that case, thought Kyle. He whipped out his revolver again and pulled the trigger. The dread knight somehow dodged the shell. It didn’t look like he had dodged, more like something had jerked his head out of the way.

  Regardless, Kyle tracked the revolver on his head and pulled the trigger. The thing had doubtless been about to monologue about how his trick had failed, and how doomed he was, but it hadn’t expected the second bullet.

  It entered through the helmet, punched through skin, skull, brain matter, and back out through the helmet again. A large hole appeared on the wall behind it.

  The knight collapsed in slow, disbelieving denial, gauntleted fingers scraping at the floor. A few gurgles later, the knight expired. A pool of rancid-looking blood covered the ground around the fresh corpse.

  A shame, thought Kyle. I would have liked to know more about this place…

  Kyle stepped over the clearly unnatural being and approached the thrones. Behind them, what he had taken for a wall was actually a huge door. It wasn’t intricately carved, and simply appeared to be a large stone wall with some scraps of old tapestries above the throne. Only his sonar module had informed him of something beyond it.

  Deciding the time for subtlety was at an end, he unclamped his railgun again. Reaching back, he grabbed a rod that the Nanofactory had produced and slotted it in. Waiting for it to spool up took only half a minute.

  Aiming at the middle of the door, he pulled the trigger. The plasma exploded against the wall calamitously, and the entire door fell inward. Again, a huge wall of dust arose.

  Inside, a huge room was revealed. It looked like the stereotypical mad scientist workshop, just with more magic than science. Huge arrays of glowing signs covered the walls, and multicolored liquids sat in vials and cisterns everywhere. In the middle of the room, a huge figure was suspended from the ceiling, and covered in chains.

  The moment Kyle entered, a hunched figure spun around to look at him.

  It was a black skeleton in a green robe. It was about half his height, but it still managed to look down on him somehow.

  Kyle was kind of shocked by the general chain of events he had been a part of. His basic instincts from being genre savvy were telling him this guy was ‘evil’, but he tried not to judge. The mad scientist aesthetic and the zombie outside weren’t helping, however.

  “Wha… how did you get past my Dullahan outside? How did you even get through the city? No matter, I’ll kill you here anyway. Your armor will be an interesting study material…”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Kyle was quite annoyed at all this magical nonsense. “Who are you? Why is the city destroyed?” The lich considered his words. “I caused the devastation; at the behest of the previous rulers, no less. They wanted an invincible army… needless to say, they got what they wanted. I created their army. It was truly a work of art! A legion of ghouls that could use anything they killed to replenish their numbers, the kingdom stood no chance. Without their resources, I never could have created something so elegant. Sadly, the Gods were angered-they smited the whole region, and scoured the earth of my creations.”

  Kyle nodded along. Most of that could be explained away by magic-ghouls, reanimation, gods, even. The lich continued. “My patron god sensed my talent-he saved the capital city from destruction, and sequestered it here in the depths.”

  That actually answered one of Kyle’s questions from earlier-if there was a surface or not.

  “I have been undisturbed to work on my greatest creation, with the last of my ghouls outside protecting the city. Who are you, to interrupt me?”

  Kyle had, for once, allowed a monologue to happen. This guy was pretty obviously deprived of any social contact whatsoever. He’d taken the chance to monologue like a starving man to a buffet.

  Kyle had had enough. He doubted the skeleton would give him any more information, so he decided to end it there.

  His railgun was still warmed up from blowing the door open, so with a simple motion, he fired another bolt at the lich. Before the blinding lump of ultra-energized matter could impact the lich, a green wall sprang up in front of it. Kyle once again spoke to the lich. “Magical bullshit? Of course, what other party tricks do you have!?” The lich answered with a bolt of sickly green energy. It rushed off the raised platform it had been standing on, towards a desk covered in vials of liquid.

  Kyle dodged the relatively slow-moving green bolt easily. What he feared was acid. Repeatedly, it had proven to be effective against even nanoscale armor. The lich may not have known that, but it was still heading for a table with some acid-y looking bottles on it.

  Nope, Kyle thought excitedly. He simply grabbed another desk nearby, his fingers creating dents on the wood.

  With a heave, he launched the desk at the counter full of potions. The desk exploded into shards on impact-every single vial was shattered, and a huge explosion from the mixing of so many volatile substances followed.

  The lich made a complicated hand motion, and a huge green barrier sprang up in front of it. Most of the explosive force and liquids splattered against it harmlessly.

  “Gah! Who even are you? What strife do you have with me?” The lich called out to him, sounding very frustrated.

  “I’m just a guy trying to get out of a cave-” at that moment, a thought struck Kyle. How the hell was he communicating with this fantasy undead? Or with the Dullahan from earlier? It was so natural, he almost hadn’t noticed. Anyway, it wasn’t the time.

  Deciding to close in on the lich, he sprinted forward and raised his fist to land a brutal haymaker. The lich barely dodged the sudden strike and shot another green bolt at Kyle.

  Kyle spun to the side to avoid the close-range attack and turned back to bring his other hand around.

  Just before his fist connected, one of the lich's many necklaces disintegrated-and all the force in his fist suddenly reversed.

  The impact was incredibly strange, as his entire arm suddenly turned against him.

  He spun backwards awkwardly, but the lich was too distracted to take advantage. Thanks to the confusion-proof suit and his Cochlear Combat Stabilizer implant, he quickly righted himself.

  Confidently running towards the lich again, he found that this was the best way to fight it. At range, it could effectively block and shoot back, but it was clearly relying on one-time use items in close combat.

  Swing after swing, more and more artifacts across the lich shattered or melted. Some pushed him back, others shoved the lich out of the way incredibly quickly, and a whole host of more arcane defenses activated with every swing.

  Finally, as the lich’s final artifacts were breaking, one of his fists connected with the ribcage. Several ribs snapped instantly, and it was sent flying into the opposite wall.

  Its eyes flickered with the impact, and it was clearly in horrible shape. Sprinting forward, he picked it up by the spine and pulled its head off.