But even so, the Trolls surprised him because they soon started counterattacking their Undead invaders. While their resistance was useless in front of the Undead Horde, which was advancing and taking the life of one Forest Troll after another, Samiel couldn't help but grin at the situation.
His Undeads breached the first defensive walls after nearly 10 minutes of fighting and killed all Forest Trolls which were patrolling up there. Unfortunately, right now, the entire Troll Colony was alarmed, and now the strongest fighters of the colony started crawling out of their holes.
Suddenly, it was Samiel's turn to be surprised by what he saw because he saw several Bronze-Tier Frost Troll Shamans existing in ruins. They looked more scrawny and weaker than the rest of their kin; they were clad in fur clothing and holding weird-looking wooden staves.
"One, two, three, four, five... dammed... those idiotic scouts said only two shamans were present in the Colony."
He cursed because while this wouldn't really change the outcome of the siege, he would lose some of his Undead, but on the other side, he could resurrect these Shamans as one, and he could finally get Undead Mages.
Right now, all Undead Samiel were only Warriors, if he went through some basic classification. Undead Mages were rare because they required specific conditions to be created naturally, or someone needed to resurrect a magic user as an Undead.
Shamans were a sub-category of Warlock Magic Path. This Profession depended on borrowing the powers of Spirits and Ancestors or whatever to cast their Magic. Even though, Samiel knew that in many cases, the Shamans were borrowing power not from the Spirits they were worshipping but from Evil Gods, Daemons or other similar entities.
Reason for that?
Shamanism was spread only in more primitive cultures, and here and there, it happened pretty often; some Daemon or Evil God who wanted to cause mischief or just wanted to cause chaos and slaughter would impersonate Spirit from some Tribe.
It even happened to Orks, mainly because the Orkish God didn't care about that; for them, every killing and war was good, not to mention they were busy waging war against each other rather than tending to their believers.
So, Samiel observed the Shamans attentively, not wanting to miss any detail.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtAll of them were Bronze-Tiers and were protected by several tens of Steel-Tiers Forest Troll warriors who were probably some kind of their personal guards. Fortunately for the Troll Shamans, they were some distance from the Undeads, who were slowly killing their way to their position.
What was weird was the Forest Troll Chief didn't show itself even now when the entire Troll Village was basically burning, and approximately one-third of the village was killed by his Undeads.
After several seconds, all Troll Shamans started chanting something in their native language, which Samiel didn't understand, as he didn't speak Orkoid Languages. He could speak some of the languages of his old home, but those were useless.
Then he was fluent in his native tongue, the Eldritch Speech and Void Speech; Yvraine was teaching him the various types of Elvish Languages, starting from Common Elvish, High Elvish, and Silvermoon Language, which was used only by Silvermoon Elves. Then, of course, he spoke fluently with Cosmos Common, which was like universal language for the entire Cosmos, and could understand some Dwarvish.
Despite not understanding their language, with his keen eyes of Old Deus, he could see the huge amount of Magical Particles gathering around the five Shamans of the Colony.
"Hmm... casting some collective spell which requires all of them to cast it... should I allow that?"
He muttered as he observed the five Bronze-Tier Troll Shamans casting some kind of collective spell, so its power would be pretty high, possibly a Level 7 Spell... that one should be enough destructive power to obliterate the entire mountains...
"That would mean loss of many of my Undeads... especially when those greenskins are now using their Lifeforce to power up the Spell... ah damm."
Samiel cursed at the decisiveness of the Troll Shamans. It appeared that they indeed chose to sacrifice themselves just to cast a spell that would destroy the majority of his Undeads... not like that would solve their situation because he was still here and waiting in the shadows to strike.
Still, it would be foolish to lose all his Undead basically for nothing; thus, he decided to entertain these Forest Troll Shamans a bit.
Casting a spell was a process that consisted of several steps. Basically, when a Magic User, or rather most of the Magic Users, were casting their spells, they were constructing a Spell Matrix based on the Spell Model.
If a Casters makes even a single mistake during the creation of the Spell Matrix, it usually results in the spell failing; in the majority of cases, also violent backslash in the form of an explosion would take place as a reward by heavens for those who are smart.
Samiel instantaneously cast 2nd Level Spell of the Void Magic Destructive Resonance, which was basically attacking the minds of the people in the vicinity. Samiel knew that with this, he would basically kill all five Bronze-Tier Shamans and all of their guards at the same time, as they would suffer the backslash.
He cast the 2nd Level Spell Void Magic Spell Destructive Resonance, attacking the minds of the five Bronze-Tier Spells.
Not even seconds later, all of the Bronze-Tier Shamans instantly stopped casting their spell, causing the Spell Matrix to collapse, as all the Magical Particles that were gathered in the Spell Matrix started colliding with each other and thus creating the explosions, which engulfed all Bronze-Tier Shamans and all of their Steel-Tier guards.
"Art is an explosion."
Samiel muttered as he observed an enormous explosion of something that appeared to be a 6th or 7th Level Spell, an endless cycle of self-destruction because all that enormous number of Magical Particles were collapsing down and colliding with each other, all over again and again.
After all the Shamans and their guards were killed, the Forest Troll colony's power fell considerably because, as it seemed, they were one of the heavy hitters of the colony. Now the Undeads had basically unhindered progress through the village, killing any Forest Troll in the vicinity.
During the whole time the siege was going on, Samiel was steadily collecting souls for him, as he couldn't wait to eat some of them, especially the souls of the Bronze-Tier Shamans, which looked really appetizing to him. He almost salivated when he collected those souls; they were bigger and purer compared to the rest of the souls, mainly because Magic Users had stronger Souls than Warriors.
He then observed how his Undead were closing the distance and were already near the village center, where a large "building" was located, or rather what has remained from it, because Trolls did a horrendous job repairing it.
He guessed that it was probably the lodging of the higher caste of the colony, meaning the leader and some of his chosen ones and personal guards were living in that place. This was the first time since the start of the attack that the Troll Chief showed himself.
He looked very similar in terms of appearance to other Forest Trolls with green skin. However, his clothing choice was more "luxurious", as he wore some jewelry, and contrary to other Forest Trolls, this one had red eyes, which was probably the sign of his mutation.
"Silver-Tier... at least Level 60... hmm... this one is pretty strong."
Thought Samiel as he observed the mutated Forest Troll in action. He was holding some crude two-handed axe as his weapon of choice, but despite its rusty and terrible appearance, Samiel could feel the power from the axe.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Why have you attacked my territory, Outsider?"
Shouted the Forest Troll as Samiel squinted his eyes at two things. The first one was that the mutated Forest Troll was speaking Cosmos Common Language, which was relatively unusual among the Greeenskins as a whole.
And the second one, he called him Outsider. This was term used to target to Outer Gods and those created from the Azathoth's Dream, basically the enemies of the most Pantheons and Transcendental Factions across the Cosmos.
Still... it was bugging Samiel that from where this stupid Forest Troll could have obtained such knowledge... unless he wasn't speaking to the Troll.
"So... which one are you? One of the Lesser Ones or some Big Shot? I think the first one... if not, you wouldn't choose something as pitiful as Forest Troll as your Apostle?"
Samiel taunted his opponent because it didn't really take him long to figure out to whom exactly he was talking. When he first looked at the Forest Troll Chief and the mutation he had undergone, he noticed something weird.
Very weird, and something normally shouldn't exist in the Material Plane and something that usually existed only in Worlds capable of holding Transcendents. Samiel, as an Old Deus, would never mistake this weirdness for anything in the Cosmos.
This Forest Troll Shaman was basically possessed by a deceased Transcendent who managed to survive despite the fact that his physical body was destroyed and now existed only as in Spiritual Body.
The common practice among some Transcendents who want to revive themselves is usually used by those who lost everything aside from their soul. Still, Samiel was extra careful because he knew that this Forest Troll, while being possessed by the unknown Soul of Transcendental, could exert frightening combat prowess for a short amount of time before the body of the Host would crumble apart.
'Inquire to the Akashic Records... what will happen if I devour the Soul of the Transcendental dwelling in that Forest Troll?'
He asked in his mind as he asked this question to the Akashic Records, fully knowing that it would cost him some Record Points. But he wanted to know because finding the soul of an almost defenseless Transcendental Being who was on the verge of death was too tempting for him to pass on.
[10 Record Points deduced as payment.]
[According to the calculations of the Akashic Records, the most probable outcome is the birth of the Level 4 Transcendental Ability if the User Samiel Zentaur is able to bear with that. Predictions are telling; with the current physique and lineage of the Old Deus possibility of birthing to Level 4, Transcendental Ability, is 87,21469782% compared to that of dying. The Level 4 Transcendental Ability would be based on the fundamental nature and existence of the Transcendent before his death.]
Hearing that answered, now that spark of greed inside his mind was ignited, and barrels of the gunpowder exploded, and the decision was made in a split of a second.