I became a legion lich

227 Expedition army

“From what we know of my black chains, they corrupt souls similarly to poison, taking control of skeletons’ bodies and spreading murderous thoughts and servitude.” Athos chose his words, so that the two would understand his point. “So we can assume that like a poison, its effects will spread faster if injected from the inside out.”

“It is likely that spirit corruption will happen faster because of this, but it is just a hypothesis and only time can tell what will happen.” Athos concluded and the two skeletons nodded in understanding.

“We’ve spent a lot of time here talking, let’s go back to the others and organize the army. We have work to do and some decisions to make.” Treevor spoke and broke away from the ground, returning to the rest of the army.

Everyone knew that they would need to make a decision on how to proceed from now on, as all neighboring territories had been destroyed. Athos planned to send skeletons to the far south and form a defensive line, but expanding in this way was dangerous.

Stretching your forces too far would risk the bases in the middle being exposed and if destroyed, the undead would be cut off from each other. Treevor still believed that Athos’ plan could work, but some changes would need to be made to avoid being torn apart.

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After the skeletons finished picking up the bodies of the demihumans who had died buried in the ground, the mages began to cast mass undead on top of the crowd of corpses.

This time, there was no waste or corpses being used as nutrients to heal other undead. Athos wanted as many undead as possible to start creating the defensive lines.

The battle was definitely profitable for the undead. Although they lost a few thousand skeletons, mostly ogres, they gained nearly 45,000 new undead and their current numbers nearly reached 140,000.

.....

The choice of generals was left for later, as Athos did not know enough about the new skeletons or the power level of the demihumans to choose generals based on core layers alone.

But the biggest gains were not soldiers. As the spirits showed no signs of recovering, Athos and the high-ranking skeletons interrogated some of the demihumans living underground, making a startling discovery.

Beneath the underground village where the demihumans lived, there was a mine of magic stones. It was a small mine, with only low-level magic stones according to demihumans themselves, but it was still a priceless treasure for someone like Athos, who didn’t have any source of resources.

The skeletons immediately dug a tunnel to investigate, finding it to be true. There was a natural cave under all the lifeless sand that Treevor left after devouring the forest.

The cave entrance was buried under sand, but it was easily removed with magic. The first parts of the cave were empty, all the magic stones had already been excavated, but after going deeper, the skeletons started to find small magic stones on the walls.

They left the cave shortly after confirming the truth, taking only a magic stone as a souvenir. His objective here was just to find out if the magic stone mine was true, a mining operation could happen later.

Athos and Treevor, those most sensitive to world energy also noticed that the concentration of world energy in the tunnels was much higher than outside, even though the concentration of energy in the savannah was higher than normal.

After this discovery, Athos made his decision. He would build his army’s first base right here, on top of the remains of the spirit forest. The magic stone mine was an adequate source of resources and fulfilled Athos’ requirements for building a base.

Athos ordered the dwarven skeletons to begin creating a building plan to create a suitable base and defenses to protect their newfound source of resources. Dwarvin wasn’t an expert when it came to engineering, but there were other dwarves with the necessary skills who could create the blueprints.

The high-ranking Skeletons, on the other hand, gathered again to decide who would stay at the base and who would continue to expand southwards. Treevor also planned to make any changes to the plan that he felt were necessary.

All the skeletons were nervous at the thought of being left behind when Athos left, but Athos’ words betrayed all their expectations.

“As for our southern expedition, I don’t plan on participating. I have a lot of experiments and work that I’ve been putting off since becoming an undead, so I’ll take advantage of the fact that we’ve found a suitable location and my settle down temporarily.” Athos spoke seriously once everyone was gathered, shocking all the skeletons present.

None of them expected that Athos, the maddest for blood and wars, would miss the opportunity to fight.

“Master, are you feeling well? Are you not sick or have a fever??” Emilia asked incredulously, momentarily forgetting that they were incapable of getting sick.

“I’m healthy so stop trying to check my temperature, you know my skin is cold to the touch from lack of blood.” Athos stopped her hands before they could touch his forehead.

“But I must say, I’m surprised by your decision. I understand that you want time to research and work, but it’s not like you to be left behind with the possibility of a fight ahead.” Treevor crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes, not convinced by Athos’ words.

“Haah...the truth is, battles aren’t as much fun as they used to be. With armies that big, my role as a leader is mostly to stand back and give orders, so there’s little chance of fighting directly.” Athos spoke with a despondent sigh.

“Furthermore, even the few battles I have are becoming dull. My skills and spells are stalled as a first tier mage and I’m not tapping into my full potential.”

“Use the fight against the ogre patriarch as an example. I just relied on my equipment for the fight and my spells only finished off the ogre. My spells are simple and easy to predict, so I intend to step out of the front line at least until I develop spells suited to my current level.” Athos explained his motives and the undead nodded in agreement this time.

The main reason for his nervousness was the idea of Athos continuing to advance and being in danger, but he himself decided to stay in a safe place, so his worries were gone.

Your objectives have now changed from going to the front lines to staying behind and defending the base with Athos. Everyone racked their brains to think of plausible reasons for staying behind and not joining the expedition.

“I believe I should stay behind. My close-range combat skills won’t be very useful in a war, so acting as a bodyguard and base lookout is a better way to use my skills.” Emilia was the first to speak. the other generals quickly began shouting reasons they should stay behind.

The argument grew more and more heated as the skeletons kept an eye on Athos’ expressions to check for any changes in his expressions, but his face was a mask of stone.

Athos was paying attention to his subordinates’ opinions as he thought who would be useful if he stayed behind and who could be sent. He easily noticed the skeletons’ intentions and partially undid the nerves in the face to prevent them from displaying any expression.

‘Who shall I send? Human generals are the weakest physically, but are far more cunning than beasts and demihumans. Their intelligence and decision making will be very useful when exploring unknown territory, as well as the experience of the demihumans in the savannas will be crucial.’ He thought.

‘The division of the army is also important. Manpower needs to be left behind to build the base, but more still needs to be shipped on the expedition. They’re going to need a lot of dwarves and earth mages to be able to form proper bases as they go.’ Athos began to do some math in his head, counting how many dwarves he currently had and how many he could keep with him without disturbing the expedition.

‘To make matters worse, just creating traps and earth walls is useless around here. A single tyrannical mammoth can bring such a thing down in one charge. In order to form a base and maintain it, large-scale spells would be needed or a large standing army at each location.’ He started biting his nails as he thought, the stress nearly giving him a headache.

Large scale spells would need at least 10 runesmiths and large amounts of magic metal. Athos possessed both, but not enough to spread from its present position to the edge of the continent.

‘Perhaps if we turn mithril into powder and mix it with the earth it will save us a lot of material, but it still won’t be enough. We could melt shared curses for mithril, but they are needed to advance and minimize skeleton losses.’

‘Hmm? Why is everyone silent all of a sudden?’ Athos looked up and noticed that everyone was staring at him in silence.