I became a legion lich

148 The three sides of the battle

‘Tch. It won’t be able to stop them from casting. Let’s retreat into the fortress to avoid getting caught in the spell. If it’s an offensive spell, they’ll sweep away all the undead and traps we’ve set. If it’s a sacred field, we need to let them kill as many undead as possible before attacking.’ Athos complained to the skeletons and left the building in which he was, erasing his own presence as he retreated further.

“How long will it take yet??” The blue fang asked impatiently, watching the fog of darkness slowly grow.

“Done!” The bishop shouted as he finished casting the spell. The sphere of light soared high into the sky before spreading out into a dome and filling the air within with the element of light.

The element of light began to purge the fog of darkness, while also reducing the power of the skeletons. Crusaders were also passively healed, their burst eardrums slowly recovering while any wounds received were repaired.

“Good job.” The blue fang congratulated the bishop honestly, but frowned slightly as he looked down at his feet. His brother was within his shadow and the shadow serpent’s ability was being weakened by the holy field.

“The battle is just beginning, so don’t relax just yet. The enemy leader or any strong skeletons are yet to appear.” The bishop spoke between gasps, feeling exhausted after casting a second spell large scale.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to continue the plan to lure the plant monster? At this point, either he’s figured out the trick or he doesn’t plan on fighting.” The blue fang spoke eager for action.

“That or waiting for our army to be weakened before act. The priests are already down while the paladins are now busy holding the sacred field. When the plant monster appears, the only ones with the strength to fight them will be the adventurers.” The bishop spoke, preferring to stick to the plan.

“I see. Let’s keep moving forward then.” The blue fang nodded and tightened its grip on the blue spear in its hands. There were still the elite troops for backup, but he doubted they could handle the plant monster. Hinder their movements is the most they could do.

.....

The Crusader invasion went more or less as Athos and the Skeletons had planned. The main streets were full of roadblocks and dug pits, so the Crusaders had to slow their advance to deflect or risk falling and being impaled on the wooden spears at the bottom of the holes.

The Crusaders also had to scatter after invading, not wanting to leave any skeletons behind. Some of them also climbed the walls, now that the fog of darkness had dispersed because of the sacred field and they had split in both directions, planning to cluster above the opposite gate.

Those who continued to invade searched all the alleys and buildings nearby, suffering several ambushes along the way.

Despite the skeletons being weakened, they still used the limited spaces inside the buildings to ambush the crusaders. Since the Crusaders used long weapons, they had a hard time fighting in closed spaces and the skeletons used this against them, stabbing them with short weapons or using their own bones as weapons.

Skeletons clung to Crusaders whenever they were about to die, exploding along with them. The holy field reduced the effect of the darkness, but at point-blank range it was still deadly.

The crusaders were advancing slowly, but making sure not to leave any undead behind.

************

The battle at the walls was going much worse than expected for the human army. It took them quite a while to reach the walls, as they were miles away to avoid being shot at by lightning.

They had reached the outskirts of the wall just a few minutes ago, only to be greeted by a shower of poisoned arrows. With the exception of the mercenaries who were a mixed unit, the light infantry had no way to defend against arrows.

Many were hit and fell to the ground screaming in pain. The parasitic venom spread to the wound site within seconds, causing the soldiers excruciating pain. The poison melted the bodies in less than 30 seconds, but it felt like hours to the suffering soldiers.

This caused panic among the infantry and mercenaries, causing the unhit to be on guard against the arrows, but there was very little they could do against the arrows coming from the sky.

There were no mages among them, so the only ones who could fight back from a distance were the archers among the mercenaries, but no matter how many arrows they shot, they were too few to make any difference.

Unlike siege weapons, skeletons had a much faster rate of fire and constantly fired almost without pause at humans.

The foot soldiers and mercenaries ran desperately for the wall, ignoring the cries of despair from the soldiers hit and the noise of flesh melting from the poison. They reached the walls and the foot soldiers released the ladders they were carrying.

The light infantry had dismantled the stairs for ease of transport, as stairs longer than 12 meters would not be viable. Once mounted, the first to climb were the mercenaries. It was their job to secure the walls so the soldiers could safely break through.

The skeletons on the wall used spears bathed in poison to knock them down the stairs, most losing their balance after being hit, the pain caused by the poison eating away at their flesh breaking their concentration and causing them to stumble.

Those hit by the poison fell down the stairs and knocked down those coming right behind them. To make matters worse, the skeletons only lightly scraped the wooden stairs, but it was enough for the poison at the ends to touch the wood and start to spread through.

The wood melted in seconds, the poison raining down on top of all the soldiers below waiting to climb.

A few managed to climb the stairs and climb the walls, but they were few and far between. The mercenaries fought for their lives, but the skeletons had the advantage in numbers and easily outnumbered them.

A horn sounded from somewhere and the mercenaries who were trying to climb the few remaining stairs turned around. The leaders of each unit decided that it would be impossible to take the walls this way and ordered them to retreat.

The foot soldiers and mercenaries retreated as fast as they could, skeleton archers firing at their backs until they were out of range, killing hundreds of them. They turned toward the gate where the Crusaders had already stormed, taking care to stay out of arrow range.

***********

The battle at the opposite gate was not going as expected either.

Orus had sent many troops to ensure that the undead did not flee in large numbers, but things changed when he saw the storm and the black wall. The priests and mages would spend most of their energy to break the barrier and protect themselves from the storm, they would hardly have enough energy to eliminate all the thousands of remaining undead besides the undead spirit.

The troops were ordered to storm the gate as soon as the barrier had fallen, but they had only reached the gates now. The heavy infantry and spearmen were at the forefront in phalanx formation, the cavalry split on either side as the archers followed close behind.

Orus had also ordered the archers to join them in support, ensuring they had a ranged attack if breaking through the gates took longer than expected. Orus had even given 5 enchanted battering rams to break down the gate.

With the opposite gate already stormed and with all the church forces, adventurers, and mages on one side of the army, that side’s defenses should be weak, most of its assets trying to stop the crusaders from advancing.

What they didn’t expect is that a row of minotaur skeletons was on top of the walls, carrying the giant arrows from the ballistae like throwing spears. The giant arrows looked small in the hands of the demihuman skeletons, but they were even deadlier than if they were in a ballista.

Athos had ordered Vanilla to lead the demihumans and defend the gate. He had made it clear that the only thing she needed to do was buy time and cause as many casualties as possible, but she purposely only listened to the second part.

“Shields raised!” The captains of the heavy infantry units ordered, but it was useless.

The minotaurs threw the arrows with all their might, even using a penetration skill to make them deadlier. The arrows sliced through the air as they hit the first line of heavy infantry, ripping through them as if they were paper.

Using a phalanx formation worked against them here. The arrows pierced the ranks behind them until they hit the ground, half the spear sinking into the earth, leaving the impaled corpses in place.

The minotaurs chuckled lightly as they looked at the impaled soldiers, counting how many soldiers each of them had killed. One of them raised his fist in the air in victory, his arrow had impaled five soldiers while the others had only impaled four or three each.

“Archers, take them down! Phalanx, keep advancing!” The commander shouted orders to the army that had temporarily stopped. The skeleton minotaurs had killed nearly a hundred soldiers in a single attack, so the closest soldiers were hesitant to advance, fearing they would be next.

The minotaurs on the other hand, launched the next wave of arrows as soon as they confirmed the number of casualties. Dozens of soldiers were impaled once more and this time the minotaurs didn’t stop to count and launched the next wave.

“Fire Fire!” The commander shouted at the archer units, who were further behind the army and only now came within range of the walls.