I became a legion lich

188 Blood magic

‘If this guy is so loyal to his master, why leave him behind like that? It’s almost revolting to leave someone so loyal behind.’ Valko thought with regret. He didn’t imagine that Athos could make anyone loyal to him, nor that the mage was just a suicidal soldier.

No undead could force a slave to be truly loyal. They could force them to obey their orders, but the mind would remain free to think what it wanted.

Athos was the only one with the ability to corrupt souls and force the loyalty of others, but Valko had no way of knowing that.

“You seem like a good and loyal man. It’s a shame your master discarded you here. I know you can’t disobey the orders you’ve been given, but why not set aside loyalty to a master who doesn’t deserve it and join us? Even with your low power, we’ll treat you much better.” Valko spoke with her best professional smile.

His offer seemed fair in his head and although Valko knew that it would be impossible for the skeleton to disobey the orders received, if the skeleton still wished to live, he would contact his lord and ask to release him. The world tree would definitely be able to free him, so his words weren’t empty.

Unfortunately for Valko, his words were an insult to Athos and the skeleton would not allow it.

“Don’t you dare talk about my master like that, you leech!” The skeleton mage screamed, releasing the spell he had been casting all this time as he ordered the skeletons forward.

His rain of knives spell generated a shower of shards of black ice that hit a large area around the vampire and ghoul. Each shard was four inches long and sharp as a dagger and moved with the speed of an arrow.

The skeleton had spent almost half of its total mana on the spell, wanting to end the fight quickly.

.....

“Tch, you started it.” A vein appeared on Valko’s forehead as he felt insulted by the mage’s words. He conjured a barrier of blood around himself and the servant, easily blocking the black ice daggers.

Vampires were unable to use corrupted magic like other undead species, but could use blood magic instead.

The blood barrier was liquid and only slowed the shards’ momentum, causing them to fall to the ground around the vampire without doing any damage.

“Go and destroy them. They were the ones who started the attack, so don’t hold back.” Valko ordered the ghoul who was just watching until now.

She bolted as soon as she heard the order, leaping over the undead and taking aim at the mage in the back row. Ghouls couldn’t use magic because their half-corrupted blood core was unstable, but their bodies circulated black red mana, increasing their physical capabilities beyond what an ordinary vampire could do.

The skeleton mage wasn’t able to react to the ghoul’s speed and knew he would be unable to dodge his attacks, so he didn’t even try. He just snapped his fingers and detonated the ice shards.

The ghoul landed on him a second later, its claws piercing his skull like an eggshell. Its black core detonated and covered the ghoul in a cloud of darkness and its bones pierced its purple skin, making the undead scream in pain.

Ghouls were weak to darkness, the red-black mana that coursed through their bodies possessing a fine balance. The explosion of darkness drained some of the red energy coursing through his body, breaking the balance and letting the darkness eat away at his body.

The ghoul fell to the ground and began to thrash around, her body visibly rotting. She released mana as fast as she could to correct the balance in her body as she scrambled away from the cloud of darkness.

Corpse explosion created a cloud of darkness that wouldn’t disperse immediately, so she would never stop suffering as long as her were in the middle of the cloud of darkness.

“Idiot! How did you fall for such an obvious trick?” Valko yelled at the fallen ghoul, but he couldn’t get close easily.

The exploding ice shards generated a black ice mist and froze his blood magic, sealing his main weapon.

Valko only possessed an affinity for air, so he couldn’t heat the temperature either. He released blades of wind that sliced the skeletons to pieces, taking care to stay away from the blast he knew was coming.

He jumped back quickly, holding his hood tightly to make sure the sun didn’t hit him. The blasts of darkness from the destroyed skeletons generated a second mist of darkness, but the vampire was already far away.

‘This suicide trick is good for catching enemies off guard, but any agile fighter can easily dodge these explosions.’ Valko thought, always keeping a safe distance from the skeletons as she tried to circle them and reach the ghoul.

He quickly grabbed the ghoul by the scruff of the neck and dragged her away from the mist of darkness, before slashing his own wrist and pouring the blood into the ghoul’s mouth. It was Valko’s blood that created the ghoul, so her blood would serve to restore the body’s balance, although it would not serve to feed her.

“Haah...sorry about that, master. I was impulsive.” The ghoul apologized as she felt the darkness in her body calming down and her blood mana regained balance.

“Your punishment may come later. We have to think of a way to fix this mess.” Valko thought as she massaged her temples. They came here as peaceful messengers and starting a fight was not part of their mission.

His master Illum would understand that it was the skeletons that started the aggressions, but Valko couldn’t deny that he had provoked the enemies.

“Let’s call the master and report what happened here. I’ll apologize for provoking the skeletons, but they were the ones who started the attacks. For now, let’s just find a suitable place and wait for the sun to go down.” Valko spoke and covered her injured wrist, the wounds quickly healing.

They put the collars back on and returned to her human appearance, but while Valko looked exactly the same, the ghoul looked nearly 10 years older, with several strands of her hair turning white.

Drinking your master’s blood restored balance in your body and stopped decay, but it would do nothing to make up for the lost red mana.

“Let’s collect some of the broken bones, it might be useful to find out something about these skeletons. It should also reduce our punishment.” The ghoul spoke as she lowered her head in shame.

She was a rookie recently turned into a ghoul and this was her second mission, so she still wasn’t used to her body and got carried away by the power.

“Good idea.” Valko agreed with her idea and began to collect the bone fragments, starting with the bones of the mage skeleton. He was leader and the only mage among them, so his bones were of higher quality.

“Hmm? What is it?” While rummaging through the mage’s tattered cloak, Valko found the corrupted wooden wand, as well as the teleportation crystal. Both were valuable items, as corrupted wands were not something on the continent Caprio and teleportation crystals were rare and highly coveted no matter where they were.

‘The order’s portal tower was destroyed, so even if this crystal was from the humans, they would have no way of tracking it. I could make good money selling it on the black market or keep it for myself as an emergency measure.’ Valko thought greedily, already considering the crystal as his own.

He stowed the crystal in the dimensional ring on his finger along with bones he could salvage, while removing a corpse, a few bottles of fresh blood, and a communication cube.

Valko drank all the blood and threw the corpse to the ghoul, before activating the cube. He selected his master’s contact and waited for the other side to pick up.

Less than 10 seconds passed before Illum answered the call.

“Were you able to contact the undead?” Illum asked once the call was connected, eager for news. Kalesi was pestering him daily for news and Illum was on the verge of allowing her to send an army to Caprio, just so she would stop pestering him.

“I have bad news, master.” Valko bowed in apologies as he recounted his failure, emphasizing the fact that he wasn’t the one who started the assaults.

Illum listened in silence and spoke as soon as Valko finished reporting. “It was just a group left behind, wasn’t it? So they weren’t important and you don’t have to worry about them. I don’t understand why they would leave a small group like that behind, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Go back to the nearest town with one of our bases and deliver the bone fragments to the base superior. It will be impossible for the two of you alone to continue this mission, so you are dismissed.” Illum didn’t mind a small mistake like that, but he still dismissed them from the mission.

“Are we giving up contacting them?” Valko asked curiously, but Illum looked at him like he was crazy.

“What? If I did something like that, Kalesi would rip off every single one of my leaves and make me eat them. No, I just dismissed you because it would be impossible for a sun-sensitive species like you to continue the search across the desert.” Illum spoke as a shiver ran down his spine, making Valko suspect that something similar had happened in the past.