I became a legion lich

236 Revenge fails

“What you want?” He spoke without getting up.

“Mister Lukas, the water elder came to see you.” The attendant outside spoke, causing Lukas to freeze in place. The weapons reacted to their shock and went into alert, pointing their blades towards the door simultaneously.

‘Stay calm and return to your previous positions.’ Lukas ordered mentally and all the weapons returned to rest against the walls.

“Let him in.” Lukas actually spoke, looking coldly towards the door.

The door opened and Thersec walked in, looking at Lukas with equal coolness. The elder one sat down on a sofa across from Lukas, the atmosphere growing absurdly tense.

“I’ll leave you alone. If you need anything, just call.” The attendant sensed the tense atmosphere and closed the door to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

“I warned you what would happen if you disobeyed me, and you did it anyway. As if disobedience wasn’t enough, you started a ruckus in a human city for no reason and dared to say it was in my name. Have something to say your defense?” Thersec spoke quietly, but the air in the room grew cold with each word he spoke.

“It’s not my fault those guards you gave me were so weak. You said they were so powerful and would beat me an inch to death, but it turned out they weren’t a big deal.” Lukas taunted Thersec and it worked.

The water elder dashed off the couch similar to what Lukas did in the mansion, but with unrivaled speed. He grabbed Lukas by the throat and slammed him against the sofa, careful not to use too much force and make too much noise to alert the attendant outside.

.....

He had a reputation to uphold and until they were truly alone, he wouldn’t do anything with Lukas.

“I think you’re starting to get really rebellious. A little discipline should correct that behavior of yours.” Thersec’s voice was no more than a whisper, but it still contained enough aura to freeze Lukas in place.

“Why don’t you take a look around and rethink your words a little? My friends here are a little overprotective, so I recommend you back off a bit.” Despite Thersec’s aura freezing Lukas in place, the latter wasn’t fazed.

All weapons that had been stationary a second ago were now pointed at Thersec, perfectly encircling him. The blades pointed at every joint, ready to slice him to pieces if he moved.

Their blades began to glow as their enchantments became visible on the weapons’ surfaces, but Thersec was unfazed by them.

“Do you think these toys are a threat to me?” Thersec scoffed at Lukas’s attempt to threaten him, but the latter laughed too.

“A threat to you? No. Even my masterpieces wouldn’t be able to kill him, but a single enchantment is enough to destroy this room and make the alarms on the side of the dungeon go off. What would people think of us if we started a fight here?” Lukas countered, attacking the only thing that mattered to Thersec, his image.

“...” Thersec stared at him in silence for some time, before releasing him and throwing himself on the couch behind him.

Lukas silently straightened his clothes and corrected his posture, but his expression was sour despite successfully pushing Thersec away.

‘The power difference between us is huge, even if the layer difference between us isn’t that huge. Does mana body really make the difference in power between us that big?’ Lukas thought in frustration.

He was currently at the sixteenth layer and Thersec was only one layer above him, but the difference in power between them was abysmal. The characteristic of the mana body allowed the core to store much more energy than a normal core and the difference only increased over time.

“So what? You went out to avenge that bastard, but ended up hunting some shitty vampires in a town in the next country. How did that happen?” Thersec asked as he glared at him.

“That’s what I came here to find out. I followed Emilia’s crystal, but I ended up in the vampire hideout. I have no idea how they got their hands on the teleportation crystal, so I brought them here.” Lukas answered honestly.

Now that it had come to this, there was no point in keeping it a secret from Thersec or trying to trick him. The elder was an old fox and would see through their lies easily anyway.

“That’s really intriguing. If I were to guess, I’d say these vampires tried to contact the undead that showed up at the border, but they had already left the fortress by the time they arrived.” Thersec began to scratch his beard as he spoke thoughtfully.

“I don’t know why the skeletons would have left the teleportation crystal behind, but the vampires could have found it among the wreckage and taken it with them.”

“Well, we can only hope the jailers get the answers.” Thersec spoke.

“Wait, what do you mean wait? Are you staying?” Lukas asked confused.

“Obviously. It would be weird to leave before I get answers, so I’ll have to wait here. I’ll wait for news in another room and you’ll leave with me, so don’t even think about trying anything. You’ll be punished as soon as we leave here.” The water elder left the room with those words, leaving Lukas alone again.

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

Several hours passed before jailers knocked on Lukas’ door with news. As Lukas had thought, vampires easily gave in to torture and vampire-specific drugs, disappointing jailers.

According to the vampires, none of them knew about a specific item belonging to House Ripha and most hadn’t left town in the last few weeks, but one vampire and his ghoul servant had been ordered by the God Illum to make contact with the black skeletons and failed.

Lukas suspected that Thersec’s theory was correct, but the jailer kept talking and delivered devastating news to him. According to the vampires, Illum had ordered the vampires to return rather than follow the skeletons’ tracks and would leave it for other undead to find in contact with them.

Initially, Lukas only thought that the God Illum would send another undead spy better suited for a long journey into the desert, but the vampires said that the darkwood banshees would take care of it, confusing the jailers.

None of them had heard of an undead called the Banshee or a forest of Darkwood, but according to vampires, they were a species of undead that arose a century or so ago, and created an undead realm and the black forests in the southeast of the continent.

Lukas was incredulous and refused to believe the jailer’s words. He knew that there really was a giant forest the size of a kingdom in the southeast of the continent and that the forest only started to form a century ago, but the order assumed it to be a new type of tree that the yggdrasil sprout created to adapt to the desert, not a dead forest.

The undead’s miasma was supposed to make it impossible for any plant to grow near them, so the assumption of the order was not without basis.

Even Eirin/Canan were not aware of the banshees, as they only saw the continent of the moon. They had tortured the undead before, but the banshees were recent undead and the overwhelming majority of spies infiltrated the three realms weren’t aware of them.

‘So there’s an undead realm on the continent and none of us knew about it. As if a war against three continents at once wasn’t enough enemies.’ Lukas thought irritably.

‘Luckily, these banshees are on the other side of the continent, so there is little chance of them becoming a threat to humanity for centuries to come. Your only ways to advance would be through the demihuman empire or the sea of trees, but the demihumans are powerful and defeating the sprout of yggdrasil is impossible.’ He assessed the enemies, realizing he didn’t need to worry about them right away.

‘But when this is reported the order will cause an uproar. Up until now, the continent of Caprio has been free from invasion attempts by the Sytrer continent, but that notion has just been proven wrong and the undead have created an entire kingdom right under our noses.’

‘I too will be unable to avenge my daughter with so many enemies appearing on our doorstep. Without the teleportation crystal, my only chance for revenge would be an expedition into the savannahs, but that would be madness and no one would approve.’ Lukas looked down in dismay, realizing it would be impossible to avenge his daughter.

“Thanks for the good work. I’ve already taken care of everything I had to do here, so I’m going to meet with the water elder now and leave.” Lukas said goodbye to the jailor and left the room, finding Thersec waiting for him outside.

“I’m not going to run away, so let’s go and get this over with.” Lukas muttered under his breath, but Thersec shook his head.