I became a legion lich

225 A victory and a discovery

He climbed on top of Athos and grabbed Athos’s free arm to stop him from using his sword and slammed his injured arm against him. His severed wrist was still healing, but he strengthened his arm with a skill and the earth element hardened his arm like a club.

‘Why is this bastard’s armor so strong? Without a weapon I-‘ The ogre patriarch was frustrated at not doing any damage despite his best efforts. His wrist finished healing and he grabbed bonesaw and tried to pull it off Athos’ arm to use as a blunt weapon, but it was too late.

‘Finally it’s full.’ Athos thought and released all the kinetic energy that his equipment had accumulated. A shock wave spread from its body and hurled the shocked ogre into the air, where it would be an easy target for Athos.

Athos had purposely let the ogre capture him to accumulate kinetic energy and finish casting his spells. A meteor spear flew straight into Ogre’s chest, but the latter punched the air with his right hand, releasing a fist of aura to propel himself away from the spell.

The meteor spear passed inches from his body and for an instant he thought he had successfully dodged it, at least until the spell detonated at close range and drowned him in black flames.

The ogre patriarch screamed in pain as his body flew even further thanks to the shock wave, but Athos gave chase, conjuring platforms of air underfoot to catch up.

“Fall.” Athos smashed bonesaw at the face of the ogre who was still struggling to breathe. The curved blades cut his face deeply and blinded him in the right eye.

The ogre fell to the ground creating a crater and Athos landed on top of him, impaling him with the dragontusk in the chest, missing his heart by inches.

“You will die with me!” The ogre roared and grabbed Athos’ head with both hands and tried to crush him like a can, but the armor’s barrier expanded from the inside out and pushed his hands away.

.....

Athos’s visor opened and he spat a breath of black fire, charring the ogre’s face. The patriarch was unable to cry out in pain and his lungs burned with flames, suffering an agonizing death.

“Having the right equipment really makes the difference in a fight. I still can’t believe I defeated an ogre patriarch suffering only light scratches.” Athos muttered as he analyzed his armor and realized that despite the efforts of the ogre patriarch, there was only a slight dent on the side of his helmet that was barely noticeable.

The demihumans who were fighting with their lives around to stop the undead from interfering roared in rage at the sight of the slain patriarch and abandoned their positions to attempt a desperate last attack on Athos.

‘I would love to have fun killing them all, but with so many at once it would be difficult, Let’s reduce their numbers a bit.’ Athos thought and started releasing aura blades without stopping.

The demihumans blocked with their own weapons or crossed their arms in front of their bodies to defend, making a huge mistake. The aura blades sliced through enchanted equipment like paper and caused deep gashes on the demihumans’ bodies, those who tried to block with their own bodies being cut in half.

Unbeknownst to the demi-humans, tiny threads of corrupted mana were connecting the sword to the aura blades, sharing the sword’s effects with each aura blade at the moment it was fired. It was the effect of their shared blessing spell, which allowed Athos to share the effect of a skill, potion or enchantment with his equipment or his own body.

Athos used the spell to share the high-speed vibration enchantment with his aura blades, increasing their sharpness several times over.

‘I think I could have killed the ogre using that same method, but it seemed too impersonal to me.’ Athos thought, but the truth was that he wanted to prolong the fight as long as possible to have fun.

The undead who lost their enemies for a moment attacked again and easily killed the heavily injured demi-humans.

‘How is the fighting on the front line?’ Athos asked through mind link.

‘We’re almost done here, master.’ It was Malti who responded, her position as an archer allowing her more breathing room than the others. ‘We lost a lot of ogre skeletons, but luckily the time for enemy giganticization was over, and the bone abominations made their way among the demihuman forces.’

‘The bone abominations turned into balls of bones and rolled over the demihumans. It was a really funny sight.’ Malti explained while laughing and Athos laughed too.

‘It seems they learned by imitating Hecatonchires. Their learning ability seems to be quite high.’ Athos thought and jumped high into the air to observe the end of the battle.

Just like Malti said, the bone abominations were rolling all over the demihuman army, while the demihuman skeletons massacred the survivors.

The hive hawks were constantly casting spells to raise the corpses as undead, further increasing the survivors’ despair. The demihumans had already given up the fight and were trying to flee, but the bone abominations surrounded them, blocking any escape route with their speed.

The abominations pumped mana full force through their bodies and their speed was something even Athos had a hard time keeping up with.

‘The forest was destroyed, so Treevor must have won too. There’s not much I can do here, so I’ll see how things are on his side.’ Athos thought and called Simogo, who appeared beside him in a few seconds.

SImogo had been kept hidden as a secret weapon in case something unforeseen happened, but it wasn’t necessary.

Athos flew on SImogo’s back to Treevor, who was still busy draining the spirits.

“My plan was perfect, wasn’t it?” Athos boasted as soon as he got off the dragon, a condescending expression on his face.

“Almost. We lost many more skeletons than necessary. It was a command error on our part not to think that the enemies wouldn’t think to teleport as well. We were lucky they didn’t target the mages or the chariots, or we would have taken much more damage.” Treevor spoke with a sneer and Athos’ expression sank.

“It was a stroke of luck from the enemy. They teleported in at the exact moment we lowered the defenses, so there was nothing we could do.” Athos spoke in self-defense. “But what about the spirits? Was it easy to defeat them?”

“To the point of being boring.” Treevor crossed his arms and Athos could have sworn the wooden skull was smiling. “The fighting experience of these spirits is almost equal to zero. They act like amateurs, taking rash actions and easily panicking.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ve never had to fight for their lives before.” Treevor spoke with a mixture of contempt and envy for the spirits.

“Got it. It seems we’ve overestimated spirits too much and underestimated demihumans. It’ll be valuable experience for the future.” Athos nodded his head a few times. “And why aren’t the spirits dead yet? I’m curious to know if I can turn ordinary spirits into undead or if you are an exception.”

“Wait a little longer. I discovered that I can also absorb energy accumulated by other spirits and add to my own, so I want to absorb everything before transforming them.” Treevor answered, but suddenly choked.

His body started to tremble involuntarily and a burning spread through his real body, more precisely in his right eye. Her spirit was forced back into her body against her will and the corrupted willow tree split open, her body bouncing to its knees as it screamed in pain.

“Argh!” He rolled across the floor as he held the eye that wouldn’t stop burning. Treevor began to scratch at his face in desperation and tried to poke his own eye out to make the pain stop, so Athos was forced to intervene.

“Treevor, stop it.” Athos grabbed him by the arms to stop him from hurting himself and ordered him to stay still. Up close, Athos could see that its amber eye was pulsing and contracting with energy, reminding Athos of a heart, or the contractions of an energy-saturated core forming a new layer.

‘But that doesn’t make sense. Despite the amber eye being similar to a core and even possessing life force, the energy density is on the same level as the mana core, according to Treevor himself. He never mentioned that he could develop independently of the core.’ Athos thought in confusion, as understanding finally dawned on him.

He activated death vision and looked into Treevor’s core, realizing it was resonating with the amber eye and pulsing in the same way. The amber eye had reached its maximum limit and unable to accumulate more energy, so it was trying to evolve and forcing the real core to do the same.

Treevor had been stuck in a growth bottleneck in the fifth layer for a few decades and was now breaking through thanks to this serendipitous discovery.

‘I’m surprised. I would never have guessed that spirits would be able to forcefully break through layers like that. If I didn’t have even better racial ability, I would have been jealous.’ Athos thought as he immobilized Treevor so he wouldn’t get hurt amidst the pain.