I became a legion lich-Chapter 178
178 Five generals
“Use the mage slayer units. They have 30 mages and all in the fourth layer, so there must be at least 5 capable of using water magic.” Athos replied after thinking for a while.
The skeletons nodded their heads excitedly and began to prepare to leave again, with the exception of one of them.
“So I’m going to have to go back to that hellhole again?” Treevor muttered in desperation, his empty eye sockets gleaming in desperation, but none of the surrounding skeletons cared for him.
************
A week passed in the blink of an eye for the busy skeletons.
Emilia and Astrus had divided the high-ranking skeletons and mage slayer teams between themselves before raiding the closer mountains in search of more dwarves. They decided that with such large numbers, it would be a waste to move together.
They managed to destroy a total of 2 villages each, gaining nearly 2500 dwarf skeletons. In total they would have over 3000 new skeletons and hundreds of them were runesmithing. The skeletons tried to invade other villages after that, but they were all abandoned, so their attacks had been discovered.
Fearing retaliation or volcanoes erupting, the skeletons decided to retreat while still winning.
Athos also successfully upgraded Hecatonchires. They had separated 50 corpses, doubling the size of the abomination. Athos retained the appearance of the skeleton, only increasing its overall size and the number of skulls at the base of its neck.
.....
Hecatonchires was now a 20 meter monster, easily dwarfing its peers.
The weapons corruption was also completed in the meantime, much to Treevor’s relief. With the burden split between Athos and Treevor, they finished all the weapons in less than two days, before turning it over to runesmithing mages all over again.
They had previously copied all the equipment runes, so it was an easy but time-consuming job.
The skeletons spent the rest of the time training and fighting each other, not only as a form of training, but also to show off their power to Athos. Everyone knew that Athos didn’t care about any of them and only cared about their skills, so the only way to secure a position for himself was with his own skills. 𝑓𝑟eℯ𝒘𝗲𝑏n𝑜𝚟𝙚𝒍.𝒄o𝐦
They had an army of over 40,000 undead and that’s not counting the thousands that would soon join them, so more than a few could be promoted to important positions.
No one dared challenge Treevor as second-in-command, but Astrus and Emilia were challenged by nearly every high-ranking Skeleton. Even if they were defeated, Athos could still recognize their abilities.
All were obviously beaten until almost all their bones were destroyed, much to Athos’ surprise. He was particularly looking forward to seeing Ruy fight, but even he was defeated by Emilia in the end.
Equipment aside, Emilia’s fighting skill was the best of all skeletons. Furthermore, Emilia was in the top half of the sixth layer, almost reaching the seventh layer. Its core was also higher than average, although the difference wasn’t as big as Athos’.
Several challenges later, Athos finally managed to reorganize the army. He kept Emilia and Astrus as generals and added Ruy and Vanilla, putting 10,000 dead under each’s controls.
Vanilla also challenged Emilia even though she was still in the fourth layer of core, but a minotaur’s core was far superior to that of a human, so she was as powerful as Emilia or Astrus, despite not being able to use magic.
Below the generals were unit captains and each would receive 1000 undead as servants, but Athos agonized over who to select for those positions.
Undead like Orus, Caio, Roy e Olivia would be obvious choices, but there were still many positions that needed to be filled. Vanilla stepped forward as he thought about how to fill the vacancies and suggested they use the same method.
She caused the minotaurs and orcs under her command to fight and the winners were chosen as her captains, there were 4 minotaurs and 6 orcs.
The other generals followed suit and forced the best among their undead to fight each other.
Among Emilia’s army, Caio, all three mage slayer captains, and six of the mage slayers.
Ruy did the same, but secured a position for his brother and Olivia. The other eight slots were filled from among the skeletons of adventurers, most of whom were leaders of their own teams.
Astrus had the hardest time deciding his subordinates. His subordinates weren’t very strong individually, so he would have to look for good generals among his mages or ask his new comrades to give him good skeletons, but that would be a shame.
He filled the ranks with his brother Orus and the bishop, as well as the best mages he had at his disposal and three dwarven mages who proved to be good fighters.
“I think that’s it. My army is more or less organized now, although I’ll still need to reorganize when that undead gets here. By the way, how much longer will it take?” Athos wondered as he called the queen of the hive hawks.
Athos had ordered the bird skeletons to watch the path between them and the golden bow fortress to look for any trace of the undead army, but still no sign of them.
“Master, the journey from the fortress to here is a long one, so it’s normal for it to take so long. Don’t forget that the undead who were left behind would still have to finish organizing and gather all the useful materials before leaving.” Emilia came to his side and tried to reassure him.
“I’m not really worried, just bored. There’s not much I can do now other than watch the view and train. Even brewing potions or alchemical items like I used to when I got bored is impossible now. I’m afraid my skills as an alchemist are rusty after not working for so long.” Athos sighed wearily.
‘Something is approaching us.’ Treevor’s voice rang in his head suddenly, interrupting the conversation.
Athos quickly looked through the eyes of the hawk in the sky and noticed a cloud of dust rising on the horizon.
The skeletons went on guard against the possible threat, hastily surrounding Athos’ position and the carriages with valuable materials. They were in an open field with only ruins around them, so they were open to attack.
“Wait, this isn’t an enemy attack. It’s the undead we’ve been waiting for.” Athos spoke after the dust cloud had come close enough for the hive hawks to see the skeletons.
“Why are they running in such a hurry?” Emília asked confused while watching the same scene.
“I think they followed my orders to run here as quickly as possible.” Athos spoke with an ironic smile, but still came out of the defensive encirclement to receive them personally.
“Master, I have finally arrived! I brought everything that could be and made the undead run day and night to arrive as soon as possible!” Malti shouted in front of the army, before dismounting his horse and kneeling in front of him.
“Then we can finally leave. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the others. By the way, I don’t know your name yet.” Athos ordered her to stand up and guided her to where the high ranking undead were and ordered the new carriages to catch up with the others.
Athos and the other skeletons had decided to move in a pentagram formation, with the carriages and wagons in the center of the formation where it would be safest. Athos would also be traveling in the center, along with the runesmith mages and dwarves.
Each general would stand at one end of the formation, ensuring that nothing reached the center. It would be more effective to move in an arrow or spear formation, but they were carrying a lot of useful materiel, so defense was more important than mobility.
“It’s Malti, master. Nice to meet you.” She said as she walked beside him. “And yours?”
“Athos. Only Athos.” He said coldly and briefly introduced Malti to the other skeletons and ordered her to her assigned position. He wanted to leave soon, taking advantage of the fact that the sun had not yet risen to an epic match, when he remembered something.
“Emilia, give me your teleportation crystal.” Athos approached her and demanded, a playful smile spreading across his face.
“What do you intend to do?” Emília knew that that smile was not good news, but she handed over the crystal anyway.
“It’s my last parting gift to humans. You said that your father has a portal network of his own and only he has the coordinates of your crystal, didn’t you? So he must come to us as soon as he finds out about your death. This should cause a second anomaly and destroy another portal network.”
“I want a hundred skeletons to stay behind along with a mage skeleton. The skeletons will buy time while the mage skeleton feeds the crystal, before teleporting to the portal. Do you understand the orders?” Athos asked as the undead gathered around him.
Athos handed the crystal to the skeleton mage, before retrieving all the skeletons’ weapons. They were suicide soldiers, so they didn’t need equipment.
“Are we finally ready?” Treevor asked beside him as he crossed his arms.
“Yes, we’re ready. Let’s go to the demihuman empire!” He shouted excitedly, seeing the army begin the march towards a new world.
************
