Chapter 801

Ritchie staggered back several steps and blurted out, "Y-You're Mentor Phil?!"

Fire Eater Phil!

The inheritor of magic who had suffered a crushing defeat when challenging the Mercenary Emperor fifty years ago!

"Y-You really are Mentor Phil? Why did you vanish without a trace back then? Iliya and Tuckerau have been searching for you all this time..."

Ritchie murmured.

"Iliya..."

Phil's soul fire flickered unsteadily once more. After a long while, he let out a bitter laugh. "After that defeat... I was already dead!"

"But you came back to life! I want to learn that magic—the spell that brings the dead back to life!" Ritchie dropped to one knee, not forgetting his greatest goal. "Please help me, Mentor!"

"Undead magic!"

Phil's skull turned slightly as he let out a rattling laugh. "The dead do not die—they shall rise again! The Mercenary Emperor never imagined that the defeat he gave me would instead allow me to comprehend a power completely opposed to flames—the power of death and frost! But... this magic is extremely dangerous, and terribly incomplete... To survive, I had no choice but to alter my life form and become this ugly 'Lich'!"

"I lost my sense of smell, taste, touch... Trapped inside this body, I endure torment day and night!" Phil said. "I can't even appear before the one I love... Even so, do you still wish to learn it?"

"Yes, because I want to revive the person I love!"

Ritchie shouted, "And... you've been trying to improve it all along, haven't you, Mentor? Those ghouls are your creations!"

"Clever little fellow. I think I need an assistant."

Phil smiled.

There was something else he did not say.

The only reason he had managed to survive back then was sheer luck, combined with a timely Lich transformation.

By now,