I became a legion lich

162 Dragon core

“Was that enough?” Treevor asked in a slurred voice, feeling physically tired for the first time since becoming undead. It should have been impossible, but the lack of darkness gave him the closest feeling to physical exhaustion his body was capable of feeling.

“Hey, wake up boss! How long are you going to stay asleep?” Treevor climbed out of the corrupted willow tree and ran to Athos’ fallen body. The corrupted willow was creaking every time he tried to move it, so he was forced to leave it behind or risk taking permanent damage.

He had abused the willow too much, using the darkness cannons twice in a short amount of time.

Athos was passed out on the ground just like the other skeletons, although the dragon’s mana was dispersing much faster than the others. Dragon mana was extremely dense compared to humans, so even a mana body user like Athos would take time to recover.

His body was expending the mana stored in it to try to expel the dragon’s mana, but it would still take a few minutes for him to recover. Minutes they didn’t have.

“ROARRR!” A mighty roar echoed from outside the fortress, showing that the dragon was still alive and likely running back here now.

“I have no choice.” Treevor placed his right hand on Athos’ chest and circulated the amber energy through his body. He would have avoided doing that if he could have, but the situation was urgent and he needed all the help he could get.

The dark amber energy quickly spread through Athos’ body, the mana core’s teamwork, Athos’ body and the dark amber energy quickly eliminating the dragon’s mana.

Athos leaped quickly, casting a spell in each hand as he looked around for the dragon. From his perspective, his entire surroundings had blacked out when the dragon roared and the next thing he saw was Treevor’s ugly face in front of him.

.....

It wasn’t the first thing he wanted to see after waking up.

“Boss, the situation is critical. I tried to attack between the wings as you suggested, but the dragon’s column prevented me from advancing. I managed to blast the dragon away from the fortress, but he is already on his way back here and my willow is inactive. I need one of your crazy ideas to get me through this situation.” Treevor spoke quickly to get Athos’ attention.

Athos shook his head a few times to regain focus and quickly thought of what to do.

‘I still believe that attacking his back is his weak point. Bones wouldn’t be unnaturally hard if they weren’t there to protect something. But if not even Treevor is able to cross it, how can I destroy it?’ Athos thought as he ran towards the gates along with Treevor.

A sudden flash crossed his mind and he turned to Treevor. “Hey, how much energy do you have left? I mean the amber energy.”

“I saved as much energy as possible so far, so I have enough energy. Why?” Treevor asked back.

“I want you to seal the dragon’s movements one more time. I know even you can’t cast something on par with a large-scale spell, but I just need you to hold the dragon down for a moment.” Athos spoke confidently, but Treevor hesitated to follow blindly.

“How about explaining a little more?” Treevor asked, despite the little time they had.

“I think I can get through the tough zombie dragon bones, but I need him to stay still to hit him. Don’t worry too much, we’ll have backup.” Athos spoke, although it did not explain anything.

The abominations appeared in good time, surrounding Athos and Treevor before picking them up and placing them inside its ribcage, where the mass of bones that hid the main body was.

‘Let’s use the abominations as a distraction and heavy weights to attack the zombie dragon. You yourself have seen how strong they can be when using mana.’ Athos spoke through mind link, as they were in different bone abominations.

The zombie dragon broke through the gates before Treevor could say anything. His chest was completely destroyed with the rib bones exposed and cracked. Also, maybe it was because of the fall, several of the scales on its back were broken and its last wing was missing.

‘Advance.’ Athos ordered and the bone abomination ran furiously against the zombie dragon.

The zombie dragon reacted quickly, conjuring a breath of darkness as it shook its head in a fan. The bone abominations hit by the breath of darkness took serious damage, but never stopped advancing, protecting the abominations behind.

Wounded bone abominations threw themselves at the zombie dragon, trying to knock it down with their weight, but to no avail. The zombie dragon only swung its claw, crushing fragile human bones.

Though abominations could fortify their bones with mana, human bones were brittle compared to the dragon’s body, shattering into pieces even when they managed to land attacks.

Luckily, Athos wasn’t expecting the bone abominations to damage the zombie dragon, just to seal its movements.

One after another, the abominations threw themselves at the zombie dragon and knocked it to the ground. The zombie dragon writhed furiously, indignant at having its body trapped once more.

He tried to roar to knock the skeletons down like the first time, but a black-orange chain clamped his jaw shut while a second one sealed his hind paws, knocking him to the ground.

Treevor had only conjured two chains, focusing his energy to make them more resistant.

The zombie dragon realized that the bone abominations couldn’t damage it, so it focused on the abomination that seemed to have conjured the chains and released a sphere of darkness.

Treevor slipped between the abomination’s ribs and fell to the ground, leaving the abomination to die. ‘Boss, if you’re going to do something, do it soon!’

‘Working on it!’ Athos responded, retracting his body as he disassembled his skeleton. Dragon senses were incredibly keen, so Athos would be discovered if he tried to run to him. But black bones sliding into a bone abomination would go unnoticed.

‘This is uncomfortable.’ Athos thought as he gathered his body just above the dragon’s weak spot. Treevor had left a gaping hole in the wound and Athos could see the hard vertebrae just below. Treevor’s venom had barely spread for a few inches, the dragon’s natural resistance plus the darkness that coursed through its body protecting the dragon.

Athos released his body again and placed his hands on top of the dragon’s bones, releasing tendrils of corrupted mana that sank into the dragon’s body. Athos’ corruption fought the dragon’s darkness and lost by a large margin, forcing Athos to spend a large amount of mana to compensate.

Athos accompanied the tendril with the vision of death, realizing that there was a heart just below the bones.

Unlike most creatures, a dragon’s heart was closer to its back instead of its chest and had hard bones to protect it. A dragon’s heart was its most important magical organ and was responsible for keeping all other magical organs working, the dragon core.

A dragon’s heart possessed life force and functioned like a mana core, even forming layers of life to match the actual mana core as it developed.

It pumped mana along with the dragon’s blood, constantly reinforcing the dragon’s body and turning most of the organs into a magical organ, although many of the organs had passive effects or were difficult to notice at first glance.

The dark elder had ensured that his heart would continue beating even after he died, or all the abilities that made dragons so feared would be lost. It was also the reason why Athos could see shadows on the dragon despite him being undead. For the death vision, his body wasn’t completely dead, so it still revealed his weaknesses.

‘I knew it! Abnormally hard bones usually mean important organs to protect.’ Athos thought happily, feeding the tendrils even more mana and tangling the magic organ below.

The zombie dragon began to shake its body violently, almost breaking Athos’ focus. He was still completely focused on Treevor, considering him the biggest threat while Athos was just a nuisance. Whatever the skeleton on its back was doing, it barely managed to scratch it.

‘Treevor, get me a few more seconds, I’m almost done here.’ Athos asked.

‘You asked for a second and it’s been more than ten. I’m burning my amber energy while you’re standing there!’ Treevor yelled angrily. He couldn’t see the tendrils of corrupted mana because of the dragon’s powerful mana, so it looked like Athos was just standing on the dragon’s back.

He was having a hard time dodging the orbs and breath of darkness conjured by the dragon, while also boosting the chains’ mana whenever the zombie dragon tried to break free.

The bone abominations had taken most of the damage, with nearly eight killed in less than 10 seconds of fighting.

‘No problem, the fight ends here.’ Athos spoke after completely trapping the dragon’s heart and changing the nature of the vines from corrupted mana to flames and exploding the dragon’s heart.

The zombie dragon widened its eyes and let out a muffled cry of pain, feeling pain for the first time since the fight began. The pain of having its core destroyed was something no creature could resist, so the dragon began to writhe in pain despite its undead nature.