I became a legion lich

84 Corpse explosion

“No!” Treevor had given up using mana vision on the undead, so he didn’t notice the teleport crystal inside Finn’s ribcage. He hurriedly tried to move his head back, but the crystal activated and his vision darkened.

A purplish black sphere with a radius of 2 meters appeared around his helmet, engulfing his head and Finn’s body. The sphere immediately shrunk, ripping through space and generating a vacuum that drained the air for a second before disappearing. Treevor’s whip dropped to the ground with a thud and his headless body stopped moving.

“He is dead?” Gaius asked, positioning himself in front of Athos as if to protect him, looking vigilantly at the half-transformed willow, as if he might come back to attack them at any moment. The crystal was only supposed to teleport them to a desired location, but the hole in space was totally unexpected and made him question.

“Unfortunately not, the second team has him now.” Athos responded by sitting on the ground, trying to focus on the second army waiting outside the forest, receiving confirmation of a black hole suddenly appearing and a giant wooden helmet falling to the ground.

‘Now it is no longer in my hands. I can only hope they succeed. I’m counting on you, Emilia and Sevenus.’ Athos thought, throwing himself backwards and lying on the floor. He felt mentally exhausted, but no one could blame him. Athos created a plan of attack based on the information that Emilia brought, but it proved to be totally incorrect.

He had to improvise on the fly, so he refrained from participating in the fight and just commanded. Originally, Treevor was supposed to slaughter all the undead that attacked him, while the archers, the skeleton mage, Caio and he drew his attention, for Finn to teleport along with half of Treevor’s body. His body must have been 4 meters tall so the teleportation would have taken some part of his body.

In the worst case scenario, the true body would have been left intact, but with half of the plant body missing its fighting ability would be greatly reduced. At best, they would have split the elf in half and the fight would have ended there. Athos panicked a little when he saw Treevor’s 8 meter form, figuring he hadn’t used all his strength against Emilia, but continued the attack anyway, betting everything he had on a chance to kill him.

A burst of darkness in the distance told him he’d won the bet.

***********

.....

Outside what was left of the Faltra forest at, the same time.

The purplish black sphere appeared about 5 meters above the ground, releasing a gust of wind and Treevor’s wooden head before disappearing. Treevor was thrown into a new environment by the enemy, but he didn’t have time to think about it.

“ARGHHHH!!” The head gave a cry full of pain, feeling a part of itself being lost. The moment the purplish black sphere disappeared, the connection between its amber eye and the amber gem at the center of the willow was severed, causing Treevor excruciating pain.

The shock forcibly disconnected him from the wooden helmet and he jumped to his feet while screaming. His amber eye was cracked as it gushed amber energy condensed like tears. He fell to the ground while holding the amber eye with both hands, screaming at the top of his lungs.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but could you stop this ugly demonstration and take a look around?” A female voice spoke, one Treevor was sure he’d heard before.

Treevor summoned all his strength and gritted his teeth before looking around in shock. He was completely surrounded by the undead. In shock, Treevor tried to say something, but Emilia spoke again, cutting him off.

“This is for my team, you tree-eating motherfucker.” Emilia spoke, before disappearing from the crowd. All the surrounding undead did as instructed earlier and detonated their cores, creating a gigantic blast of darkness. The explosion generated by over 500 self-destructive undead was powerful enough to change the surrounding terrain.

The darkness devoured everything, spreading over 50 meters like an avalanche in all directions. The earth was turned upside down while the air turned into a toxic gas, unable to sustain living things.

“Was that really necessary? I believe 100 of them would have been enough.” Sevenus spoke, looking at Emilia in exasperation. Athos had given command of approximately 2,000 undead the day before, so now he could speak without any problems.

“It’s better to sacrifice a little more than risk him running away. Your limits are unknown, after all.” Emilia replied, looking at Sevenus. The two entered a sort of conquest contest and tried to point out flaws in each other.

Of course, they didn’t do any of that in front of Athos and they didn’t even try to sabotage the given tasks, they just had a war of nerves with each other. Emilia was more powerful than Sevenus, but the latter had already gained Athos’ trust (or he thought he had) and bragged about it whenever he could.

“My lord’s soldiers are not infinite, so you shouldn’t waste them.” Sevenus spoke, looking at the skeletons around them the way an adventurer would look at his potions. They shouldn’t waste them and only consume them when necessary.

“It’s not a waste, it’s-” Emilia was about to retort, when the fog of darkness began to disperse. A crumbling white barrier was revealed, showing that Treevor was still alive.

He had conjured up a barrier of light and fed her amber energy, even though it made him feel the pain of having his eye squeezed inside the socket. The blast was still violent enough to break the barrier, but he still survived, if only just barely.

His body was thin and with black spots all over his skin, while his plant arm was withered like a dry twig. His amber eye had lost all its color and was flickering weakly with the remaining amber energy. His white hair had disappeared while the vine leaves on the right side were brown and dry.

“*****,***** ********!” Treevor glared at Emilia hatefully as he spoke with difficulty, but the undead didn’t understand a word he said. His pain and agony was such that he had forgotten to speak in the human language and ended up speaking in the elven language.

“Yes, yes, your mother is one too.” Emilia replied ironically, not understanding a word he said. She looked completely relaxed, even though the enemy was glaring at her.

“You filthy thing!” Treevor yelled, this time in human language. He was breathing heavily and looked like he was going to fall to the ground at any moment, but he held his ground somehow. He was desperately thinking of a way to survive and escape, but he couldn’t think of anything.

‘I don’t want to die, but I want even less to become one of them. I don’t know if that skeleton can turn someone like me into an undead, but I don’t want to risk it.’ Treevor thought. He resigned himself to the fact that he was going to die, but he needed to find a way to get out of this place first. Treevor began to drain what little energy was left in the amber eye, but Emilia didn’t give him time to act.

“Corpse explosion.” Emilia said, causing Treevor to freeze for a second. There was nothing around them, just a barren, blast-torn earth, apart from the completely destroyed wooden helmet. That’s when he remembered the skeleton clinging to the helmet.

Treevor felt a shiver down his spine and tried to turn around, but Finn’s skeleton exploded in his back, smothering Treevor in a cloud of darkness. The bone shards hit his unprotected back like a frag grenade, as the darkness rotted the freshly made wounds and drained what little strength he had left.

Treevor fell forward, too weak even to scream in pain. The most he could do was shake his body, but even that stopped a few seconds later.

“Finally dead?” Sevenus asked, using death vision on him. The shadows were spread all over the body, but not evenly like on corpses.

“This guy is resilient, I have to admit.” Emilia did the same and was surprised that he was still alive, but that was it. She walked up to him and cut his neck on the human side, finishing him off. Interestingly, Treevor’s blood was light red, unlike human blood which was darker.

“There, now he’s dead.” Emilia spoke, before reporting to Athos. ‘I managed to kill him, master.’

‘Great, I’m already on my way with what’s left of the skeletons.’ Athos replied. A few seconds later, Emilia saw the skeletons coming out of the edge of the forest, or at least what used to be the edge.

Athos was ahead of them, riding the rock bear that Caio was originally using. He still hadn’t regenerated his legs, so there was no choice. His skin had been almost entirely consumed to heal him, but his shin bone was still half-heal.

“Master, are you okay??” Emilia screamed in panic when she saw his state, quickly approaching him.

“Yeah, I’m fine without both legs and an arm, so get out of my way and don’t ask stupid questions.” Athos nodded in irritation, before looking at his prize.