The First Lich Lord
Chapter 85

The fighting between the creatures and Rhea’s troops was growing tense as the seemingly endless wave of creatures pushed them back. More troops continued to drop down from above, and the priest and clerics had begun using magic to bring down the physically weaker casters to support the paladins and other melee fighters. Volleys of arrows rained down from above. But the number of creatures continued to increase.

Occasionally a few would slip past and attack Maxwell and me, but there were never enough for us to be worried, and I worked my way over to the side of the room.

Constant flashes of white and black energy filled the space, creating a strobe effect. Maxwell wasn’t playing anything, for now we were moving as quietly as we could, not wanting to draw attention.

There was a surge of the tall black-and-white creatures that caused Rhea’s front line troops to buckle. I was constantly impressed by Rhea’s troops. Despite being lower level than the creatures on average, their coordination and teamwork kept them on even footing. But this sudden rush threatened to break their lines.

Deciding I was close enough, I raised Mercy above my head, reshaping it into a black skull. I emptied my mana pool, the headache that came was worth the cost.

Death energy built around me and channeled into Mercy—my mass raise undead spell. Weaker in many respects than the spell I used in the crypt, since it did not create nearly as powerful creatures. The zombies would be far weaker, but the advantage of the spell was the large area it affected and the speed at which it took effect.

I targeted the spell at the center of the fight, it would not discriminate between fallen humans and fallen monsters, all would rise. I absorbed the few death cores I gained from the creatures that had attacked us and channeled all of the energy into the spell.

A beam of intangible black and purple energy fired from Mercy to my targeted area. As I winced from the headache, the magic spread, covering the entire battlefield. Immediately fallen bodies began to stir. There were far more slain creatures than there were humans, an advantage of the fallen creatures was that they were behind enemy lines.

Chaos erupted in the ranks of the black-and-white creatures as zombies began to tear at their former allies. Not all of the zombies were intact, some were nothing more than a head and arm scratching at the legs of the others. But it was enough.

While the zombies did not retain any of their powers, they did retain their resistances, and when combined with my own buffs from the Order of Equinox, it made them all but immune to the flashing black attacks of their former allies. In my mind, I made sure none of the zombies I raised would attack Rhea’s troops. The fallen humans behind her front lines pushed their way forward to get to the black-and-white creatures.

Unfortunately, the creatures were not stupid, they had sensed where the spell had come from and turned to me. Not all of them rushed me, but enough that I was worried for a moment. Then Maxwell began his song. As the electric guitar solo from “Hail to the King” from Avenged Sevenfold played out over the battlefield I shook my head, wondering what his obsession was with the emo songs, then I realized I was a Lich, it fit just too darn well.

I rushed forward and ordered the hand full of zombies with me to spread out and protect Maxwell as I pulled out another potion. As the song developed, I could feel the power of his harmonic magic amplifying my every move.

Mercy’s blade reshaped from the black skull into a long curved heavy blade. I kept Mercy spinning, circulating death energy throughout my own body, speeding up and strengthening it even further.

Long arms reached for me—I ignored the black ones, their effects, while annoying, were not nearly as dangerous as the white ones. Pure white hands and arms flew into the air as I scythed through as many as I could.

Every wound left behind festered, and in the pure white bodies, the progress and damage done was clear. My precognition kept me one step ahead of many blows, but as I was engaged by more and more, it became harder to stay ahead of them.

Constant explosions of black energy battered me, and even though it was uncomfortable I just let it wash past. When the slashing blows from the white hands landed, they did real damage. They ate through my resistances from the Order of Equinox and tore into my force shield. The spell flickered and held. The unfortunate part of letting the black fists connect with me was that they were rapidly draining the force barrier. As soon as I had enough mana to spare, I channeled it into Mercy for my favorite spell. Up until this point I hadn’t been going for lethal blows, instead aiming to maim and slow down the creatures. I figured that only so many could engage me at once, and if those ones were hampered it would make my job easier.

But now I changed my tactic and changed Mercy from the curved heavy blade into a long sharp spear tip. The tip was almost more of a blade in its length, longer than my arm, giving me more of an effective way to strike back.

I focused on stabbing blows at the black-and-white monsters. I didn’t know if they had a similar anatomy to humans and other bipedal creatures, but I figured whatever kept them going had to be in that area.

The first creature I impaled didn’t die immediately, but the festering magic left behind spread. I hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

I overextended myself as I lunged toward the second creature, driving Mercy into its chest. I hit something critical. The creature went rigid, and as I ripped Mercy free in a spray of the strange gray blood, the creature staggered and I felt the connection form between me and it as my spell took hold, adding to the number of bodies able to absorb damage.

It turned and I was surprised when a mouth opened on his head, like it split in half to reveal teeth. I hadn’t seen that before. It was honestly terrifying, the mouth was nearly as wide as the entire head and full of barbed gray teeth.

The creature flapped its wings once and used the motion to propel it forward and latch its mouth onto one of its former allies. Distracted, I failed to dodge an attack from a white hand that drove slashes of the pure white magic directly into my side. My force barrier shattered and the magic bit into my body. The armor absorbed a large portion of it, but I snarled in pain as some of the energy made it through.

I diverted some of the death energy in my body to repairing the armor and healing the damage dealt, making sure to keep Mercy moving, going back into a defensive position to deflect as many blows as possible.

The first creature I had stabbed through the chest with Mercy finally died. And it rose back to life as a zombie before it even hit the ground. It attacked the nearest black-and-white creature, also revealing its own gaping maw.

With two allies fighting alongside me, even if they weren’t a very strong, gave me much more breathing room. I struck out incessantly, and soon every single creature that had initially engaged me was either dead or a zombie. With a mental command, I ordered my new zombies to charge, and I followed along beside them.

I let my zombies get a ahead of me as I glanced around the battle. The group that turned to attack me had separated from the main horde. The zombies I assigned to protecting Maxwell stood around him like sentinels, nothing approached them. When I looked forward, it was utter chaos as zombie creatures tore in and bit at their former allies. Meanwhile, Rhea’s troops had rallied and were forming up, pushing in through the chaos.

A storm of golden projectiles hammered into the monsters from the priests and clerics. Rhea stood amongst a group of other priests and priestesses. She happened to look at me then, when I didn’t have my illusion up, needing every scrap of mana available. What she saw was my true form, and her reaction… It wasn’t anger or loathing, it was confusion. I shook the thought from my head. This wasn’t the time for distractions.

My contingent of zombies slammed into the side of the creatures—as much as any half-stumbling, half-shambling group could. The front opened up as the black-and-white monsters turned to engage us. I paused before leaping in, using another portion of mana to cast a spell that would enhance the power of all my creatures on top of Maxwell’s magic.

I was getting really tired of the constant headache, but the thrill of battle was allowing me to push it to the side as I plunged back into the fight. The magic on Mercy was potent enough that I raised more zombies as they fell before me.

By the time the spell ran out, I had enough mana to recast it. I reached an equilibrium, barreling into the endless stream until the horde of monsters pouring out of the tunnels began to dwindle, then cease.

With the reinforcements gone, the remaining black-and-white creatures were overwhelmed by my zombies and the paladins.

I began to gather up the still surviving zombies around me even as I prepared to cast another spell. I was uncertain what would come next, because Rhea’s troops were also gathering away from me. They’d clearly seen the zombies helping them and never once attacking them. Obviously not something any of them expected.

They’d all been told I was an evil, remorseless monster, and I just shown that wasn’t true.