I became a legion lich

246 Field of darkness

The trolls sunk their fists into the ground and yanked all at once, the earth melting around their fists until they resembled maces and hardened to rock. Along with using skills to further increase the destructive power, each hit had the power to destroy one wall.

The ogres were next, each of their blows hitting with the same force as a tri-elemental spell. Their simple attacks didn’t have as much power as trolls or orcs because of giganticization elements, but they made up for it with sheer brute strength and their sheer size.

“Skeletons with cannons, retreat while the others buy you time. Zombies, prepare to cover them. Lichs, cast the area spell on my signal.” Louis ordered, confusing the masters of magic.

“The barrier will hold for some time yet. Its surface is shaking, but only because it’s enchanted to disperse part of the impact in waves. Isn’t it better to take advantage now and rain attacks on a safe position?” One of them commented while looking at Louis as if he was stupid, but the former elder just looked at him annoyed.

“Stop asking stupid questions and just lower the barrier while there’s still energy left. We’ll need to activate the barriers quickly after that, so heed my orders.” Louis ordered cryptically, irritating the two masters of magic.

They were about to say something, when Eirin’s voice rang over the comunication cube.

“Obey.” It was a single word, but the two masters of magic stopped complaining and deactivated the barrier.

The evolved demihumans were taken aback by the barrier suddenly ceasing to offer resistance and they stumbled forward in the midst of an attack, but their confusion only lasted half a second.

“ROAR!! The little cowards have finally decided to fight, so crush them all!” The orc commander shouted, leaping in front of the army and landing in the middle of the skeleton formation and smashing it with his warhammer.

.....

The blow crushed dozens of skeletons, the shock wave shattered hundreds, and the small-scale earthquake that followed knocked thousands to their knees.

The evolved demihumans followed suit, crushing the small undead using their weapons, fists, or underfoot. Their bodies were enough to crush the undead and without magic, it was almost impossible to cause real damage to demihumans evolved.

The skeletons tried to cut off the demihumans’ legs or even scale them to attack, but to no avail. Their attacks were too weak to cause deep wounds and a single slap was enough to destroy a skeleton trying to climb them.

Ordinary skeletons were unable to use abilities and could only circulate mana at full power, so there wasn’t much else they could do.

“And there go the last skeletons.” One of the masters of magic muttered.

The demihumans continued advancing to crush the zombies that had remained standing in formation until now and Louis decided it was time to fight back.

“Lichs, darken everything. Idiots, raise the barriers again.” Louis ordered and despite the reluctance of the masters of magic, they obeyed.

A wave of darkness spread from the lichs’ position and surrounded the entire undead army, the fortress and a large portion of the evolved demihumans. At the same time, the barrier became solid again, blocking the slower demihumans and dividing the invading army.

“Field of Darkness?” The masters of magic frowned as they felt the abundant darkness prick their skin and their surroundings darkened as if it were night, and activated the barrier of their cloaks to block the effects.

Unlike Treevor’s field of the dead, the field of darkness didn’t block the effect of items or corrupt world energy, it just broke the balance like an elemental storm of darkness.

The undead would be healed passively while the living would be weakened continuously.

The demihumans found themselves isolated from their fellows and had their strength slowly drained, but they did nothing to stop them. At least until the thousands of bones on the ground simultaneously exploded, covering them in a thick fog of darkness.

‘Corpse explosion is always a good weapon and can reverse any battle, just gather enough destroyed undead.’ Louis thought with a smile.

The fog of darkness instantly killed all of the evolved goblins, while the others took heavy damage and began to rot alive, but they never stopped advancing.

The evolved demihumans stomped and crushed the zombies in phalanx formation, or at least they tried to. The death knight moved at the same time as the demihumans, raising his shield above his head, all the zombies following his movements perfectly.

All undead gear was made of black lead, a metal with a high affinity for darkness, and enchanted to be usable by artificial undead.

The shields’ enchantments generated a second protective layer made of mana and darkness twice the length of the shield itself. Its edges overlapped each other after being activated, forming a gigantic shield that surrounded the entire phalanx.

When the demihumans’ fists, feet or weapons landed under the phalanx, the multiple overlapping shields blocked the attack, the pressure of the giant blows being shared and allowing the zombies to resist.

The powerful attacks still generated a sonic boom as if there was an explosion and the zombies in the front rows were forced to crouch, but that was it.

“How did you/they withstand these attacks?!” The orc general and the masters of magic asked in unison, albeit in different languages.

“Push them back!” Louis screamed and all the zombies moved simultaneously.

They shifted from their crouched position and pushed with their shields as they rose, pushing the evolved demihumans back. The zombies simultaneously activated their knockback and shild bash skills, their combined strength was enough to push them back, even knocking back those who tried to squash the zombies.

Zombie soldiers were warriors who were turned into zombies and could use all the skills they knew in life. All of them were at least in the third tier of life when they died, and Louis has worked on all of them personally to keep all of their abilities, even improving some.

Evolved demihumans were stunned for only a second, but that time was enough. The fog of darkness was constantly causing damage and the evolved orcs had already started to fall, their bodies weakening each time despite the negative karma strengthening them.

Their bodies were visibly withering and rotting and they fell one by one. Ogres could resist thanks to their gigantic size and the element of light they absorbed from the world’s energy by resisting darkness, while trolls regenerated faster than darkness could corrode them.

The death knight saw this as an opportunity and ordered the zombies forward while maintaining their formation. They aimed their spears at the fallen orcs and impaled them to death.

“Not so easy!” The orc general, one of the few who were still able to move shouted in rage, refusing to die so pathetically. He smashed the zombies with a low blow using the warhammer, turning the zombies to fleshy paste and husting the pieces against the back ranks.

The zombies’ shields were only able to withstand the blows of the evolved demi-humans by sharing the burden of attacks among themselves, so the front rank would have no means to defend a warhammer bigger than them.

“Stop attacking from above and strike from below. These worms are weak on their own!” The orc general screamed with the last of his strength, before a black spear impaled his throat and silenced him.

The death knight advanced along with the zombies and took advantage of the moment when the orc destroyed the front line of zombies to throw the spear and kill the only enemy that seemed to be shouting orders.

The orc general didn’t die right away and tried to touch the spear, but the last one released a blast of darkness that exploded the orc’s head. The spear flew back after killing its target and the death knight grabbed it in the air as it passed through the falling orc’s body.

The zombie horse neighed as it ran past the evolved demihumans’ feet and the death knight pierced the demihumans’ ankles or calves.

Their attacks were just a mosquito bite to the demihumans, but the burst of darkness that followed each attack threw them off balance and inflicted a curse that temporarily disrupted mana circulation, preventing the trolls from regenerating and causing the ogres’ legs to begin to come undone.

“Smash this little irritant while the rest keep attacking!” The trolls closest to the death knight roared as they turned on the knight and the rest continued to slaughter the zombies now that they knew how to get past his defenses.

The death knight quickly found himself surrounded by trolls and fists bigger than him hit him from above and from all sides, but he just raised his shield above his head and activated it.

The enchantments on his shield were much stronger than those of the zombie soldiers, but the stone fists hit him like a meteor and the weight of the attacks forced the death knight to the ground, the ground giving way and opening a crater under the weight, at the same time raising a cloud of dust and obscuring the vision of the evolved Trolls.

Mocking smirks appeared on the faces of the trolls imagining they had crushed the death knight, only for a purplish black orb to encircle their fists and slash them, sucking in the air and nearly pulling their entire arms off.