I became a legion lich

109 Acid cloud

The general on the other hand must be wearing magic items from head to toe. Also, the noise of the fight would attract several soldiers and the mages that would be nearby.

‘I understand. Let’s give up the alchemical items and focus on the control room. Can you turn it off?’ Athos asked and this time Emilia nodded in agreement.

‘Yes, that won’t be a problem.’ Emilia replied.

‘Excellent. I’m more than halfway through here, so in less than an hour we’ll have a distraction. Stay hidden until then.’ Athos said.

‘Master, I believe the acid cloud will only alert them. It’s better to use the confusion generated by the acid cloud to escape, instead.’ Emilia suggested.

‘You is sure?’ Athos asked disappointed, but Emilia was firm in her decision.

‘Yes Master. I have confidence in infiltrating the control room and destroying it, but escaping after that is a different story. If I’m surrounded by soldiers and the mages interfere, it’s going to be hard to get away. The chaos generated by the acid cloud is what I need in.’ Emilia spoke sincerely.

She already had an idea of how to break into the control room, but the escape was a different story.

‘OK. Wait a little longer and I’ll be ready.’ Athos spoke before ending the communication.

.....

Approximately an hour passed and Athos got in touch again saying he was ready. In front of him, there was a mountain of slime that covered almost the entire passage. The skeleton soldiers were right behind him, awaiting his orders.

Emília and Caio didn’t stay still during that last hour. They invaded every room within the floor and killed every employee while they slept, before turning them into the undead.

The entire floor was full of undead inside the rooms just waiting for Emilia’s orders.

The two moved while hiding their presence, moving slowly thanks to the guards going up and down the stairs. When they finally reached the control room floor, they could only sigh in anger.

The general’s office was at the end of the hall, and two robed men stood on either side of the door. Emilia had no way of knowing what layer they were on, but two mages wouldn’t be easy to deal with without making any noise.

The distance between them was also long and the torches on the wall at regular intervals did not allow them to move in the darkness.

‘Any idea what to do?’ Caio asked.

‘...’ Emilia didn’t respond immediately, looking at the mages and around. The wizards were inattentive and bored, leaning against the wall as they spoke, but she was too far away to understand what they were saying. The most important part was that their wands were in their belts, so they wouldn’t have any spells ready.

The problem would be magic items with no casting time. Emilia had no way of confirming whether there were magic items or not, but it was likely that at least her cloak was.

After some thought, Emilia came to a simple conclusion. ‘Caio, we have no choice but to invade hard. We’re going to run at full speed and while I throw a smokescreen to make it difficult for them to see, then I kill the one on the left and you kill the one on the right. Any question?’

‘I could use earth magic to block the entire passage, but I would need to use the floor or walls.’ Caio spoke, but Emilia had a different idea.

‘Earth magic will cause tremors throughout the fortress and alert the soldiers. Use only corrupt magic and darkness.’ Emilia warned as she took out her wand and began to cast her spells. Caio did the same and as soon as they were both ready, they left the corner and ran at full speed, using the acceleration skill.

“WHAA-” The mages were taken by surprise and only saw two shadows moving through the dark, their eyes unable to follow the skeletons’ fast movements. Their army-trained bodies swung into action at that moment and drew their wands by instinct, at the same time activating the army cloak enchantment and forming a barrier of mana around them.

Caio was the first to attack, conjuring three condensed corrupted mana spears, firing one at each enemy and a last at the door behind them. Emilia was faster and conjured a smokescreen made of darkness in front of her, obscuring her and Caio.

The mages didn’t have much time to think and one of them just launched magic missiles while the other launched fire arrows, but both attacks missed their targets as Emilia and Caio could still see in the black smoke, easily dodging the attacks.

Corrupted mana spears pierced the barriers and flew precisely to the mages’ foreheads, but they activated abilities to boost their reflexes and dodged at the last second. Caio detonated the spears of darkness, spreading darkness within the barrier and suffocating the mages. The last spear hit the door, but the door enchanted resisted, leaving only a deep dent.

They tried to move out of the darkness, but the barrier surrounded the cloak perfectly. With no other choice, the mages deactivated the barrier and tried to get away, but Caio and Emilia caught up with them at that moment.

Gaius impaled one of them in the stomach with his sword while Emilia stabbed the other in the heart.

“Argh!” The mage with the punctured stomach screamed in pain, but Caio twisted his sword and slashed to the right, ripping half of the mage’s abdomen. The man fell to the ground and agonized for a few more seconds, but Caio focus was already on something else.

“Shit!” He cursed angrily. From the floor below him, Caio could hear the sound of metal boots hitting the ground quickly, running hurriedly after hearing the scream of pain.

“Let’s speed.” Emilia said. ‘Leave the rooms as I ordered earlier.’

The skeletons of the civilian officers came out of their rooms at the same time, almost causing a heart attack in the soldiers hovering around the place. The skeletons ignored the soldiers and ran into the hallways, quickly taking over.

Soldiers trying to go up or down were surprised by the skeletons and stopped halfway.

“Undead! It’s an undead attack!” One of the soldiers screamed at the top of his lungs, but it was the last thing he did.

All the skeletons did Emilia’s orders and detonated their cores at the same time, flooding the stairs in a thick fog of darkness. The soldiers nearby were immediately suffocated by the darkness as those farther away tried to flee, but mist of darkness spread and seeped through the floors.

‘That should buy us some time.’ Emilia thought before communicating with Athos. ‘Master, you can release the acid cloud now.’

‘Finally.’ Athos smiled inside the sewers, taking only seconds to conjure up a small tornado of hot air. The heat warmed the slime and turned it into a gas, which the tornado guided through the small passage that led to the training area bathroom.

“Hive hawks, you too. Athos ordered and the hawks at different points in the sewer nodded in agreement. Athos felt that gathering all the remaining acid in one place would be inefficient, so he left the rest in strategic locations, such as in the market bathrooms, in the garrison where the soldiers slept, or in the armory.

Athos didn’t know where these points were by the sewers, but the skeleton soldiers that Gaius and Emilia killed did.

Athos conjured another tornado of hot air and split it between the four hive hawks that came with them when they teleported, letting the hawks feed the spell with their own mana.

Acid gas surged up through the restrooms, killing one hapless man who was using the restroom at the time, before corroding the wooden cabin and starting to spread across the market. The restrooms were a little far from the busy area due to bad smell and hygiene, but the hissing noise when the acid began to corrode one of the stalls caught people’s attention.

The ruckus began as merchants tried to back away in fear and off-duty soldiers went into alert mode, trying to steer the merchants in an orderly fashion away from the acid cloud.

A second acid cloud appeared in the opposite direction, forcing the fleeing soldiers and traders to split left and right to avoid being hit.

The same thing was happening in the garrison where the soldiers were, but the result here was far worse. The soldiers were sleeping at the time and the acid was only noticed when the door to the first room was corroded. The rooms for soldiers in the garrisons were large dormitories, so several soldiers were trapped at once.

The soldiers were scared, but their military training spoke louder and they tried to block or delay the acid with the lockers and bunks while yelling to alert others, but the gaseous acid ignored the furniture and spread across the room. Similar scenes took place throughout the garrison.

The situation in the arsenal was also bad, but in a different way. With the exception of the few soldiers guarding outside, there was no one here. The acid spread unhindered, destroying all weapons and armor stored here. It took a few minutes for the soldiers outside to notice the acid, but more than 1/3 of the weapons were already unusable.

The acid cloud in the training area was the most harmless, but it spread in a random direction and there was no way to predict where it would go. An alarm began to sound throughout the fortress, but with the exception of the soldiers guarding the wall, everyone was already busy trying to save their own lives.

‘That should buy us some time.’ Emilia thought and started to destroy the magic door. The door appeared to have a sensor that identified the mana signature of an individual, most likely the general himself, so she would have to force her way in here.

She injected corrupted mana and tried to contaminate the door. The door runes tried to reject the strange energy, but Emilia kept injecting corrupted mana until the runes exploded, destroying the door.

With a kick, the enchanted door fell back and Emilia finally entered the control room.