Hello everyone! With Faceless Hunter finished, it's time for me to start a new side project at 2x chapters a week on Tuesday and Thursday. I'll be posting it here instead of my alt patreon as it was getting confusing, and unlike Faceless Hunter, which I suspected wouldn't do well, I have high hopes for this project.

The Hollow King: Reborn as an Elder Lich

Synopsis:

Lucas had wanted to be isekai'd at the age of eighteen. It was a silly fantasy spun by the mind of a disgruntled youth sick of his monotonous life.

Things were different now. He had a loving newlywed wife, an adorable daughter, and owned a cozy apartment downtown. His job was well-paying and flexible. Life had never been better.

Until a violent incident tore it all away.

Now he was stuck here, in a world of magic and monsters, in the body of a forgotten Elder Lich. Whatever Archmage these enchanted bones had once belonged to was long gone, and the tomb he found himself in was overgrown.

Furious at what he'd lost and determined not to have life torn from him again, Lucas ventures out of his tomb as a low-level Elder Lich.

Though clueless and weak, what his new body lacked in flesh and blood, it made up for with immense magical prowess. The old bones remembered the arcane might they once wielded, and Lucas would soon come to discover just how fearsome a Lich could be.

= Note: this synopsis and chapter are likely to get edited in the future. (Edit counter: 7)

Chapter 1: The King Awakens

Anna had been asleep for almost an hour when she finally woke to the loud boom of a planet being destroyed.

She yawned and failed to blink away the sleepiness as she glanced at the television.

"Lucas," she murmured, "did I sleep through my show?"

Lucas looked down at her, smiling. Her cheek pressed against his chest, and a red mark on her forehead matched the embroidered pattern on his T-shirt.

"Yeah, you snored your way through the entire episode," he lied. The moment she'd fallen asleep, he had swapped channels to watch a sci-fi show instead of the love drama they had agreed to watch together.

The end credits of his episode suddenly played. It had been a decent opening episode to pass the time.

"Liar," she said, catching on immediately. "There's no way I slept through two hour-long episodes."

Anna pinched his leg angrily beneath the thick blanket.

"Ow! Okay, okay," Lucas chuckled. "I may have swapped channels once you fell asleep. I just didn't want you to miss any of your show, you know?"

It was the same excuse he always used, and he felt Anna sigh softly as usual.

"Considerate as always," she said sarcastically and yawned again.

"Want me to put on your show?" Lucas offered.

Anna slid a cold foot between his ankles. "No, it's okay. I'm too sleepy." She shifted to look up at him with her mesmerizing green eyes. "And don't forget we promised Sophie pancakes in the morning."

"You promised her pancakes," Lucas reminded her.

"So? You're part of the team, and as team leader, I've made the decision to pass the responsibility onto you," she said jokingly. "Now goodnight!"

Lucas playfully pinched her nose before she could dive under the covers to escape. "Who decided you're the team leader, huh? I don't remember being consulted."

Anna yelped and buried her head deeper against his chest to flee his hand. "Take it up with Sophie! She said she wanted daddy's pancakes, not mine."

"Did she now?" Lucas found that hard to believe. Last time he made Sophie pancakes, he attempted to make them rabbit-shaped, only for her to complain they looked like teeth. And they were burned, but that wasn't his fault. Anna had distracted him with an argument over who had to do the laundry that day.

"I promise she said that." Anna shifted under the covers, planting her head on his shoulder and kissing his cheek. "You're a great dad, you know that?" she whispered into his ear. "I'm so lucky to have you."

Lucas sighed. "Fine, you win. I'll wake early again to make pancakes for our adorable little menace of a dau—"

A window broke.

It came from the kitchen down the hall. One hard impact, followed by many small pieces striking the tiles.

Anna lifted her head. Lucas froze and waited for an explanation. Had a shelf fallen? Was Sophie sneaking yogurt drinks from the fridge past bedtime and knocked something over?

"Watch your hand," an unknown man's voice came from the kitchen, crushing all those hopeful explanations. It was a break-in.

Anna turned to look at him, her eyes wide with fear. Lucas was already throwing the covers off and rushing into action. Their bedroom was dark, lit only by the television, which had abruptly started the second episode and filled the room with dramatic opening music.

I need a weapon. He glanced around and found nothing but a basket of unfolded laundry at the foot of the bed, children's toys scattered on the floor that he hadn't gotten a chance to pick up, and his empty gym bag. He felt his heart pounding in his neck as he rummaged through the closet for a moment, then gave up.

"Anna," he said quietly. "Take your phone and run upstairs to Sophie. Lock yourselves in the bedroom and call the police."

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. Just go," Lucas said, opening the door and pushing Anna a few steps down the corridor toward the staircase on the right. He saw shadows moving in the kitchen and heard glass crunch under their boots. There were at least two.

Lucas's hands felt clammy, and his breath came in ragged gasps. Two people were in his home. What was he supposed to do? Fight them off? Hide until the police came? How long would that take? What if they hurt Anna or Sophie to get money out of him?

His hand clenched on the stair railing as he debated what to do.

"Mommy?" Sophie's sleepy voice suddenly rang through the house.

Lucas's head snapped to the second floor, where he saw Sophie clutching her favorite white rabbit plushie and looking up at Anna, who had just opened the bedroom door. Anna met his gaze, her body frozen.

The window breaking must have woken Sophie.

"Someone's here," one of the intruders said from the kitchen.

Shit.

The shadows in the kitchen didn't turn to leave through the window. Instead, they advanced toward the door, even though they knew people were in the house.

Lucas grabbed a porcelain bowl his mother had gifted him from a nearby table and hurled it toward the ajar kitchen door. The sound of it shattering erupted through the silent house, making him flinch.

"What the fuck?" one of them said from beyond the door.

"Get out!" Lucas yelled. "The police have already been called!"

The kitchen door swung open, and the hallway light flicked on.

Lucas sized them up and didn't like his odds. He worked out, but these two masked men in all black matched his height and were bulkier. They also wore puffer jackets and heavy-duty boots while he was barefoot in his pajamas.  

"You said he would be gone," the one in the back complained.

"He should've been."

They were right. He was supposed to have left for a work trip this morning, but Sophie was ill with a fever. He had stayed behind to look after her.

Which meant they had planned this break-in knowing Anna and Sophie would still be here. Lucas clenched his teeth.

"He can't have called the police already, and his wife is missing," the second man said and glanced toward the staircase. "She's going to call them."

"I'm on it," the first man said and walked down the lit hallway.

Lucas went to stop him, but he brandished a knife that shone menacingly in the light.

"Don't be a hero," the man said, forcing him back toward the bedroom with the knife pointed at his throat. "This doesn't have to end badly. Just give us everything, and we will be on our way."

Lucas gulped, his mind racing as he ran combat simulations. What if he grabbed the man's arm from the side and pushed it into the wall? That would neutralize the weapon but open him up to a brutal knee to the chest.

That's when he noticed the second man jog up the stairs.

The locked door would slow him, but only for so long. This semi-detached was a new build marketed as a starter home for couples. Built in an up-and-coming part of town, it was spacious for the price, but the builders had clearly taken shortcuts. Lucas had already called an electrician twice to fix faulty wiring, and they had only moved in a few months earlier.

The doors were thin. They wouldn't hold against a guy like that.

Anna's scream cut through the house.

What? Lucas looked past the knife-wielding man and saw the door was open. Why? Had Anna forgotten to lock it?

That's when he remembered he had removed the lock a few weeks ago after an incident where Sophie locked herself in to avoid going to school. Anna had no lock to use, and it was his fault.

Rage and panic surged through Lucas.

"Anna!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Shut it," the knife-wielder demanded, clamping a hand over his mouth. "Not another word outta—"

Lucas threw all his weight into a right hook, slamming the man's head against the hallway wall before he could finish talking. Pain shot through his hand. It was broken. He didn't care. He kicked the man to the floor, scrambled over him, and charged up the stairs.

Anna, Sophie, I'm coming. So tense he forgot to breathe, he took two stairs at a time and rushed into Sophie's dark bedroom. The man towered over Anna, who desperately cradled a crying Sophie in the corner of the room. Noticing Lucas's shadow in the hallway light, the man turned, surprise in his uncovered eyes as he realized it was Lucas, not his buddy.

"Lucas, how did you—"

Lucas threw himself at the man, tackling him to the ground.

"You know my name. My work schedule. Who fuck are you, and how dare you intrude on my family?!"

Lucas had never been so furious.

The man didn't answer him. Anna and Sophie's screams were all he could hear as he delivered blow after blow into the intruder's face. The man's nose broke with a sickening crunch, splattering blood across Lucas's broken fist. Still, he kept swinging.

He stopped only when the man went still beneath him. His trembling fist hovered above the man's bloodied face, twitching in pain.

Exhaustion hit Lucas all at once. Every breath came ragged and shallow. His whole body burned, but the pain felt distant. He rocked back, gulping air.

"Fuck," he gasped, staring down at the man. "Is he dead? Shit…"

"Lucas!" Anna screamed.

He flinched. "What?!"

A weight slammed into him from behind, folding him forward. A sharp burn pierced his lower back and spread through to his stomach. He looked down. Blood was soaking into his white T-shirt, the same one Anna had been drooling on in her sleep just minutes earlier.

"You fucker," a hoarse voice came from behind him. "Look what you've done now! Did you kill him—"

Lucas drove his elbow behind him, catching the bastard square in the face. The man yelped and rocked backward. Lucas twisted around and lunged, taking him to the floor. He scrambled on top of him and punched him again and again, barely registering the arms that grabbed him from behind.

They were Anna's.

"Lucas, please stop," she sobbed. "You're bleeding out."

Lucas slowed, and the moment he did, the pain and panic set in. He could feel something jutting through his stomach. He pulled up his blood-soaked shirt and saw it. The crimson tip of the man's knife was sticking out.

"Oh. Oh shit." The sight of the blade made him feel faint, and he collapsed back into Anna's warm arms. He was breaking out in a cold sweat. Not good. He could hear sirens in the distance. The police were coming.

"You're going to be okay," Anna sobbed as she tried to press around the wound, but the blood kept coming. She attempted to pull the dagger out, but he stopped her. Removing the dagger would only make him bleed out faster, but its tip made plugging the wound difficult.

Anna hissed. The blade had sliced her finger as she pressed harder around it, their blood mixing in streams of crimson down his body and onto the white carpet.

This mess was going to be a chore to clean. Maybe he would need to pay to replace the carpet. But money was so tight right now...

His vision blurred, and his head rolled back.

"Daddy!" Sophie screamed as she stood off to the side, clutching her rabbit with a death grip.

"No, no, stay with me," Anna begged, but her voice sounded distant. "You can't leave Sophie and me alone. Please." He felt her head press into his shoulder. "I love you, Lucas. You're my everything. Don't die. Just hang on. Help is coming."

Lucas raised his broken hand and rested it on her head. He had so much to say but couldn't muster the energy to speak. Even breathing was painful.

Ugh. Everything hurts so bad. I'd do anything to not feel this pain right now so I could tell her it's going to be fine.

He leaned back into Anna's warm embrace. It was so warm. He could stay here forever.

"Don't die, please," Anna begged again. Sophie stood before him, tears welling in her eyes.

I'm not going to die, silly, Lucas thought. I just need a nap, and then I'll wake up and make Sophie her pancakes.

Everything... will be... fine....

***

Everything was not fine.

Lucas had spent the last three days replaying that dreaded night in his head.

What if he had never taken Sophie's lock away? What if he had disarmed the first intruder before rushing upstairs? What if, instead of letting rage consume him, he had noticed the man approaching from behind in time to stop the knife?

What if... he never woke up again?

Streaks of sunlight cut through splits in the rotten wood covering a shattered window in the tomb's ceiling, bathing him and the stone chair in a warm glow.

Another night had passed, and this was the dawn of the third day since he was stabbed.

At first, he had waited for a voice. Anna, or a doctor. Anyone to tell him he had been very lucky. That the life-saving surgery had succeeded. That the strange things he was seeing were something to do with the anesthesia.

That this was all a nightmare.

He had tried to close his eyes to escape this place, but he had no eyelids.

His hands resting on the chair arms were skinless. Only narrow bones threaded with a faint violet light remained. The glow ran through markings engraved into each finger and disappeared beneath the sleeves of a rotting robe.

On his left hand, where his wedding ring should have been, there was nothing. It was as if his wedding had never happened and Anna and Sophie were figments of his imagination. It reminded him that he was stuck here alone—wherever here was supposed to be.  

Perhaps he had woken up in hell.

Lucas clenched the stone throne's armrest and heard bone scratching stone.

Those men took everything from me. He clenched his jaw. They invaded the home I had spent so long saving up for, threatened my family, which I'd done everything to protect, and finally they took my life.

He looked down.

And then this body I'm stuck in took the rest.

Sensations, feelings, the aspects that made one feel alive. Gone.

Days had passed, yet he didn't feel hungry or tired. Whether it was light or dark in the tomb, he could see just fine. Frost covered the ground, suggesting it was cold, but he couldn't feel the slightest chill.

But worst of all, he couldn't feel his anger as he replayed that night in his head. Spiritually, he was livid at the thought of everything he had lost, but physically... nothing. He had no muscles to tense, no heart to pump loudly in his ears, and no adrenaline flooding his veins.

He felt nothing. He was empty. Hollow.

"Why am I here?" The voice that came out wasn't his. It sounded ancient, and radiated from his skull without his jaw moving at all.

Silence answered him.

He sat up in his chair, his body surprisingly easy to move despite lacking muscles. Even if it made him a bitch, he desperately wanted to cry as the weight of his situation settled on him—yet his body denied him even that simple human experience.

He raised his right hand, the rotten robe falling to reveal an arm made of nothing but two thin bones engraved with the same strange markings as his fingers.

He wasn't sure why, but he could feel an unknown power humming through his bones. Is that what let him move around as if he were alive?

"Magic?" he guessed, clenching his hand into a tight fist. It creaked as he did so. "But how can I use it?"

He sighed. Why did it matter if he could use magic or not? If he'd been eighteen, broke, and alone in college with nothing to lose, he could almost imagine how thrilled he would have been to find himself in this odd situation.

But now he'd had everything to lose. His life had been perfect, not that he had appreciated it enough in the moment. His boss was an ass, but the pay was good and the hours were flexible. A promotion had been hinted at, which would have helped him pay off the debts he had taken out to cover the rough times.

Anna was the loveliest person he had ever met, and Sophie was his world.

How would they survive now that he was gone? Anna had a job as a teacher, but the salary wasn't enough to cover the mortgage. They would be kicked out and possibly become homeless if his life insurance didn't pay out.

The thought of their possible dark future caused violet light to crackle between his bones.

Turned out his new undead body could show a little emotion.

Even if my body allows it, I can't sit around in this tomb forever now that I know it's real rather than a drug-induced nightmare. I'll go insane replaying that night and debating what-ifs at this rate. For whatever reason, I died from a blade to the stomach in my wife's arms, and now I'm some kind of undead.

He glanced around the tomb. It was as large as a small church, with high ceilings that had seen better days. It seemed to be underground, as plant roots burrowed through cracks in the ceiling. A metal door stood at the far end, facing the throne.

Looking down at his robes, which may have been magnificent a thousand years ago, he felt something slide off his skull into his lap.

A golden crown.

Unlike everything else in the tomb that had deteriorated with time, the gem-encrusted crown remained perfect. He picked it up and saw his reflection: a white skull with a dim violet light in its hollow eyes.

"I really am nothing but a glowing skeleton," he grumbled, shifting his gaze to the crumbling ceiling. "Maybe the skeleton of a fallen king if the robes and crown are anything to go by, but that doesn't help me much. There has to be something more special about me than my ghost inhabiting some glowing bones..."

Lucas was a casual fantasy fan. He never got deep into board games or role-playing, but he read books on vacation sometimes and watched shows.

"Maybe there is some kind of system? Status? World voice..." he listed off, but as usual, only the silence of the frosty tomb answered him. He stared at his reflection again in the golden crown.

If magic exists in this place, and that's a big if, then maybe I can find a way to make a portal back to Earth or reverse-engineer whatever accursed method brought my soul here to see Anna and Sophie again—

A sudden scratching sound on the door stole his attention. He looked up from the crown at the metal doors directly before him.

Did my voice attract an animal or maybe even a monster?

He stayed deathly still, but the scratching on the door only continued.

"Stupid lock," a strange voice came from beyond the door. He somehow understood the words, but the voice sounded bestial, almost like a snarl.

The door rattled loudly.

Is it a person or some kind of intelligent monster trying to break into my tomb? Lucas wondered. He felt oddly calm despite how much this resembled the night he'd died. He surveyed the room for any weapons or exits and found none. He also had no idea how to use magic, assuming he could at all.

He regretted the days he had spent wallowing and hoping to wake up.

A dull click sounded, and the door gave way with a groan. A green hand curled around the doorframe. Lucas counted four fingers, each tipped with thick black claws.

Not a human, then.

The creature that squeezed through the barely opened doors was scarcely taller than Sophie. It wore a filthy piece of hide belted at the waist and carried a short, rusted knife. Large ears jutted from its narrow head. Its nose twitched as it surveyed the chamber.

Then it spotted the shiny crown in his hands.

[Next Chapter]

Author Note

Well, what do we think? Feel free to let me know in the comments! I need feedback :D

I know the opening is dark, but I wanted to experiment with an isekai protagonist who had a deeper backstory, and also one who wouldn't be happy about being isekai'd. I think it adds an interesting outlook that hasn't been explored much in this genre, and it contrasts well with the usually emotionless nature of a lich. This will be a litRPG story, but it won't go super deep into the stats side—more of a focus on magic and skill collecting.