I became a legion lich

120 Simultaneous battles

“Shit, don’t move from your positions! Get back immediately!” General Astrus screamed in rage, seeing the Crusaders abandon the gates to attack the strange plant giant. He had no idea what it was or how he managed to teleport, but he had to be stopped at all costs.

“Mages, stop this thing from advancing and don’t allow it to approach the gate! Left reserve shield unit, block the undead rushing towards the siege weapons and the right unit take over the gates! Siege weapons, prepare to shoot!” Astrus shouted orders and the soldiers rushed to obey.

The skeleton soldiers outside came within range of the siege weapons and Astrus ordered them to fire. The catapults and ballistae fired, raining arrows and rocks onto the vanguard of the undead army.

Who advanced to block the attacks were the hawks. The hawks flew in the direction of the arrows and the queen transferred incomplete wind barriers to them. Barriers of wind formed around them and deflected the ballista arrows, but the stones were too heavy for that.

The stones would have enough force to rip through the wind barriers, so the hive’s hawks blasted the barriers on impact, the stones losing their momentum and falling harmlessly to the ground.

...Well, not so harmlessly. Several explosions took place on the ground where the stones fell. The soldiers had buried alchemical items in the ground near the gate and its surroundings, where they knew the undead would come.

It was a hurried job, as the minefield was usually done at the opposite gate, where the demihumans used to attack. The land was obviously excavated and it was just a way to delay the skeletons while the siege weapons attacked.

The undead army stopped a few feet away from where the explosions started and a single hive hawk descended. Sevenus in the center of the army transferred an earthquake spell to the hawk and the latter cast it to the ground before flying off.

The earthquake spread in front of the gate and several explosions of various elements happened a few seconds later. The army resumed the advance and Astrus began to panic.

.....

“Shoot! Shoot again!” Astrus yelled. He tried to hit the birds with a light spell, then a wind spell, he even tried to hurl the nearest soldier, but the distance was too great and it gave the hawks time to dodge even his fastest spells.

The catapults would take some more time to reload, but the ballistae were almost ready to fire again.

“Shit!” Athos shouted from behind the paladin formation. He spat a flaming breath at an armored soldier blocking his path, causing the soldier to yelp in surprise and fall back.

Athos grabbed the soldier’s shoulder and impaled him with his sword using the other. Before the soldier even fell, Athos removed his sword and cut off the man’s arm and stole his shield, before equipping it on his own arm.

Several soldiers from the same unit tried to rescue their fallen comrade, but Athos released a black aura that stopped the soldiers in mid-step. An ordinary aura would only paralyze a weaker enemy, but an undead aura sent shivers down the spine of even the bravest soldier.

It was something that shouldn’t exist naturally and full of malice, triggering all the extinct basics of survival of any living being. Athos was slightly surprised by the effect of his aura of terror, as he decided to call it, but wasted no more time.

He just ordered his skeletons to deal with the paralyzed soldiers and turned around, jumping above the paladins while conjuring wind platforms. The soldiers tried to attack the skeleton above their heads, shooting aura blade or hurling their own weapon, but Athos dodged most of them and a simple mana barrier blocked the rest.

Athos ignored the elite soldiers and fell among some normal soldiers, his aura of terror paralyzing them immediately. He advanced while using the meteor charge to run over all soldiers in his path. His shield caught fire as a blade of wind spun at high speed, sucking the flames into a spiral of fire.

Athos also used lightning thrust, black bolts flowing through his bones as he accelerated. He crushed any soldier that got in his way, catching up to siege weapons in seconds.

A team responsible for defending the siege weapons stood in front of him with determination to die to stop him, but seeing the flames concentrate in the center of the shield, they realized it was in vain.

The flames blasted the soldiers and sent them flying. Athos discarded the now half-melted shield and kept running, impaling the soldier about to load the ballista into his chest. He cut the rope and rendered the ballista useless, but the others had already shot at his army.

The hive hawks blocked the arrows once more, but the rocks flew a few seconds later and fell on top of the army, crushing nearly a hundred skeleton soldiers. The hawks were starting to run out of mana, so they could only block ballistae one more time. Fortunately, Sevenus got in touch at this point with good news.

‘My lord, leave the siege weapons of the right to me, please take care of the left!’ Sevenus and spoke and Athos immediately understanding his plan. Skeleton birds were flying towards the siege weapons on the right, carrying sacks of alchemical items.

The birds soared high above the magic’s range and dropped the sacks precisely on top of the catapults and ballistae, with only one or two missing their targets.

The bags exploded as they fell, destroying the siege weapons and sending the soldiers carrying them into the air. With that, the siege weapons on the right side were completely useless, leaving only the left side for him.

Athos activated the sensory field and realized he was being surrounded by soldiers defending siege weapons. He touched the corpse he had just killed and drained all of its mana, before running to the line of soldiers.

The paladins began to fight frantically to get to him and at the expense of some of their members, they managed to break through the blockade of the elite soldiers and were trying to team up with Athos, but the latter was too happy to worry about small details like that.

The amount of life force Athos was constantly receiving almost made him smile unconsciously, but luckily his skin was retracted at the moment. Also, the more powerful enemies were all busy focusing on Treevor, the biggest threat, so he was free to kill as much as he wanted and there was no one able to stop him.

His core was also giving the first hints of being ready for the third layer, that faint feeling of being about to accomplish something. Athos ignored that feeling for now and focused on the soldiers trying to kill him.

******

“Soldiers, stop them from breaking down the gate!” Astrus yelled at the top of the wall, casting his sword of judgment spell on the undead trying to break down the gate. The gate was also enchanted and incredibly tough, but the continued onslaught of the undead was putting the defensive runes to the test.

He raised the sword above his head, white lightning accumulating on the blade and slashing downward, releasing lightning bolts and that turned the skeletons in front of the gates to dust, but the situation was still dire.

All the mages were in the lines behind the crusaders trying to stop that plant titan’s advance, but it was proving impossible. The simple blades of aura released by the whips cut most spells in half and the spells that passed didn’t do enough damage to kill him, only to make him temporarily retreat and drain corpses back to full strength.

And this was all only possible thanks to the crusaders and the fortress soldiers pressing the plant monster and its skeletons from all sides. The crusaders tried their best to stop Treevor’s movements so the mages could do damage, while the stronghold soldiers kept the skeletons from getting in the way.

Treevor didn’t care much about the magic damage, as the mages were on the first or second tier, and only one of them was third. Instead, he fell for the Crusaders’ taunt and focused his attacks on them.

Spikes of black stone, blasts of black frost, and vitality-draining spheres of darkness rained down on the crusaders, but they did not falter, firmly believing that they were sacrificing their lives for a purpose.

Unfortunately for them, the number of skeletons was increasing rather than decreasing. Treevor was constantly raising undead, so soldiers and crusaders had to sacrifice more and more to stop their movements. It was only a matter of time before the Crusaders were decimated and then that would be the end.

Everyone knew this, but no one knew how to reverse this situation.

‘This is amazing.’ It was all Treevor was thinking at the moment. He was expending energy like a madman, activating enchantments and casting spells nonstop, all the while improving the willow’s physical prowess to the max, but he didn’t feel the least bit tired.

His core was already in the lower half, but amber energy was still around 80%, so he could still fight a lot longer. Treevor sincerely felt he could destroy this stronghold alone at this rate and he still hadn’t used all of his weapons.

Treevor took a quick look in Athos’s direction to make sure the idiot wasn’t killing himself, but saw that he was just having fun massacring soldiers and decided he wouldn’t need help.