I became a legion lich

216 Split exercise

The only demihumans who lived under his rule were trolls and ogres, their numbers barely reaching 5000 individuals. The basilisk didn’t like too many beings roaming its territory, so it forced the demi-humans to keep their numbers low.

It was lucky for the skeletons, as it made the attack much easier. Between their low numbers and the mages’ firepower, the battle was over shortly after the basilisk joined the fray.

The mindless ogres tried to activate gigantification as soon as they saw the undead attack the camp, but the hive hawks transferred the spells cast by the mages mid-transformation, killing most of them in one blow.

The few survivors were forced back to normal with horrific wounds, rendering them useless in battle. Alone, trolls could not break the barriers of shared curses or defend themselves from enemy magic, so they were powerless.

“Who are the insects that dare to attack my territory??” The basilisk screamed as it joined the battle and saw the trolls being slaughtered. He activated his petrifying gaze skill and fired an orange-brown laser at the skeletons, but the ground in front of the skeletons darkened and rose up like a barrier, blocking the attack.

“That laser is powerful, but it’s useless against a simple earth barrier. How laughable.” Treevor muttered as he appeared in front of the army.

“Are you the one invading my territory, freak?” The basilisk screamed in the half-human language and quickly crawled towards Treevor, but the wyverns appeared and attacked it with all their might.

“This is revenge for our pups, you crawling worm!” Wylver roared in fury as he fell on the basilisk, unleashing his dragon breath. Malic followed shortly after and did the same, both of them using spells to seal off the basilisk’s escape routes.

The basilisk sensed the danger and tried to escape across the land, but Treevor blocked the spell. With nowhere to escape, the basilisk can only hastily cast light shields and fortify its body to resist.

.....

Athos was watching the battle from a distance but quickly lost interest. It was more than obvious that the skeletons were going to win and as much fun as it was to watch the basilisk get beaten up, he had bigger concerns at the moment.

‘I was a little worried when I finished turning all the demihumans in the hydra territory into undead and I still couldn’t gather enough life force to form the fifth layer, but it looks like I’m going to get everything I need here.’ Athos thought, ordering the skeletons bearing shared curses to activate the field of the dead.

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The skeletons advanced until the corpses were covered by the field of the dead and Athos spread life force to transform them into the undead.

He closed his eyes as he felt the life force build up, waiting for the feeling of being on the verge of realizing something he felt whenever he was about to form a new layer.

‘Come on, come on, just a little more...!’ He thought as he felt the life force build up in his core and he hoped it was enough, but it was in vain. Even after all the undead were transformed, its core showed no signs of being ready to form yet another layer.

‘Damn it. I feel like I could get enough energy from a few hundred more undead or maybe one good fight to push me beyond my limits.’ Athos thought and turned to where the battle against the basilisk was taking place, but the fight was almost over.

Between Treevor interfering with earth magic and the wyverns attacking from above, the basilisk had no way to defend itself other than light magic. The petrifying gaze had a cooldown between attacks almost as long as dragon breath, so he was helpless at the moment.

Several of its scales had already been destroyed by dragon breaths and a part of its tail had been cut off. Wounds and burn marks were scattered across its serpentine body and its movements seemed strangely rigid, Malic’s yellow flames spewing electricity through its body and causing paralysis.

Athos just sighed when Wilver fell on top of the basilisk and bit his neck, spreading black flames at close range. The basilisk retaliated by firing cannons of light and trying to wrap its body around the wyvern skeleton.

Wilver separated his bones and slipped between the basilisk’s body as the cannon burned into his skull, but he refused to let go. Its fangs sank even deeper into the basilisk’s flesh until they pierced the heart just below the neck, killing the basilisk.

The basilisk’s heart was just below the neck and Wylver’s fangs hit it with precision.

‘Haah... let’s just stop to camp and hunt the monsters around to gather the missing energy.’ Athos thought and ordered the undead to break into the small semi-human camp.

He did a rough count of the undead, finding that they had finally reached 100,000 skeletons, and he smiled at the good news.

***************

As usual, Athos met with the high ranking undead in the center of the camp to decide their future plans. Basilisk and hydra had joined them today as generals, but even with their addition there was still a general vacancy that needed to be filled.

3 maps had been placed on a table in the middle of the skeletons and they were analyzing the information to decide their next course of action. The first was the one they got with the wyverns and the other two in hydra and basilisk territory, although the last map was crudely done and it was barely possible to make out anything on it.

Ogres and trolls weren’t particularly intelligent demihumans and didn’t have the skills needed to create maps, so it looked more like a squiggly drawing than anything else.

Treevor was beside him and translated everything on the map for him and the human skeletons who didn’t know the demihuman language. According to Treevor, the regions beyond the nearest territories were just monster territories.

There would be no more intelligent creatures, only violent monsters and nomadic demi-humans that were impossible to predict. To make matters worse, even the stupid monsters were starting to flee at the sight of his army, their sheer numbers causing such strong fear that the monsters overcame their instinctual revulsion.

The undead were now forced to move to hunt them and were no longer receiving attacks, heavily slowing their growth rate. It only increased the need to split the army, but the undead didn’t want to admit it.

“I think we have no choice but to move our plans forward.” Athos muttered to himself, but all skeletons shuddered slightly at these words.

“What does master mean?” Emília asked apprehensively.

“Remember what I said about forming a line and stopping the advance of the unknown undead? I wanted to wait until we were in the middle of the desert before forming a line of impediment, but maybe we’d better start now.” Athos explained.

“We’re on the border between the savannahs and the desert. So it’s a good place to stake out territory. Also, according to Treevor and the undead, the desert doesn’t seem to have as many fixed territories as the savannahs, so we’ll have to spread out enough to be able to expand efficiently.”

Treevor nodded, remembering how all creatures in the desert were forced to keep migrating to avoid more powerful monsters or go in search of water sources like oases.

“So are we going to split up here?” Treevor crossed his arms as he asked and Athos nodded.

“More or less. We’re almost at the top of the desert, so we’ll be heading down to the coast mostly. I’m going to send a few dozen demihumans with three generals max to conquer the territory between us and the mountains.” Athos spoke and pointed to Ruy, Astrus and the basilisk, who nodded in response.

“If possible, also try to raid the mountains and get more dwarven skeletons. More runesmiths is never a bad thing. If you find a suitable location or a source of magical resources, try to build a temporary base to secure the resources.” Athos ordered.

“As for the rest of us, let’s keep conquering the territories as we make our way down to the mainland’s coast. Let’s ignore the stray monsters and focus only on the rulers for greater efficiency.” Athos pointed at the small wooden statues as he took down the hydra and the basilisk.

“We will continue down to the coast of the mainland after conquering the nearby territories and building bases in places where we find magical resources.” Unlike the living beings of the desert, skeletons didn’t need any resources to survive, so Athos planned to build bases only where there were important resources to be collected.

It was the advice of his generals and Athos agreed with their idea.

“We only needed two days to finish the repairs and equipment corruption before we set out again. We were starting to run out of base metals with everything we consumed lately, but luckily there was plenty of raw metal in hydra territory.” Astrus reported, confirming real-time needs with Dwarvin.

The dwarf was the busiest one lately, but he still found time to answer Astrus’ questions. Lucky for him, many of the skeletons in the army were monsters that could fight without equipment, so the only ones who would need weapons were the demihumans.