I became a legion lich

220 Forest of spirits

‘Are you sure you want to face them? We don’t know how strong the spirits are or how many demihumans there are, so facing them is a big risk.’ Treevor advised Athos to ignore them or at least think of a different plan, but Athos was determined to fight.

‘We can’t ignore them. We’re forming a web mind and even though we’ve strayed off the path and need to backtrack a bit, I can’t leave an enemy clan so close to our web mind and risk losing communication with the generals who marched north.’ Athos snapped, silencing Treevor.

It was the first time he had shown anything resembling concern for the undead and the shock was enough to make Treevor shut up and listen to him.

‘Besides, even if the spirits are powerful, they can’t move so in the worst case, we can retreat by sacrificing a few thousand skeletons in corpse explosions.’ Athos thought, but the army was already moving in a straight line towards the spirit forest, it was obvious that he was eager to fight and would not back down.

‘Do you even have a plan to face them or are you just going to charge in head on?’ Treevor asked as he sighed in surrender.

‘Of course I have a plan! What do you think I am, a madman who just runs towards the enemy and improvises on the fly?’ Athos asked in mock indignation, before starting to chuckle to himself.

‘Jokes aside, I plan to use a strategy similar to the one we employed to kill you. Using acid wasps to rain acid from the sky should eat away almost all of the forest and the demihumans in it.’ Athos smiled as he imagined thousands of demihumans being eaten alive by acid with no way to defend themselves.

‘The idea is good, but don’t forget that I managed to block the acid, although it was a much smaller amount. It’s better to have a plan B in case the acid isn’t enough.’ Treevor advised, frowning slightly at the memory of his own death.

Athos started to think of a plan B, but the only thing that came to his mind was to teleport among the enemies to ambush them, but that would be too risky.

.....

Teleporting in the middle of the forest would leave you isolated in the middle of the enemy formation, so it was a suicidal plan. He could attempt to teleport hive hawks and cast large-scale spells into the midst of enemy spirits, or perhaps even a large-scale field of the dead and seal away the enemy’s magic.

Spirits couldn’t stray too far from their main body, so they mainly used magic to fight. With their vision blocked and the main weapon sealed by the field of the dead, the spirits would be helpless.

Athos suggested this to Treevor, but the latter just shook his head in denial.

‘It will not work. Spirits can see souls, and this ability does not rely on natural or magical light. They will be able to see the position of the skeletons through their souls and the chains that bind our souls.’

‘The magic can be really sealed, but the field of the dead doesn’t last long. The spirits can release the energy they hold in the air to correct the world’s energy balance and then we’ll be trapped in the middle of enemies without our advantage.’ Treevor refused his plan completely.

‘Is it possible to do this with amber energy?’ Athos asked in shock.

‘Yes. The energy that the spirits accumulate can be used to balance the world’s energy.’

Athos whined irritably, but his expression quickly brightened. This talk about spirits reminded him of Treevor’s story about Kastil and he burst out laughing in amusement.

‘What did you thought?’ Treevor asked as he got a bad feeling from Athos’ smile, which proved true as he explained his plan.

‘This is madness and the plan depends on the spirits’ decision in the battle.’ Treevor answered, but Athos’ smile only widened.

‘Even if it doesn’t work on all of them, it should be enough to destroy at least half of them. The confusion it will generate should be enough for our generals or the monsters to invade.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting the demi-humans who joined the spirits? They are also a threat and cannot be ignored.’ Emilia joined in the conversation, but Athos and Treevor didn’t feel much of a threat from the demi-humans.

‘The shared curses should be enough to block the demi-humans for some time and the monstrous and demi-human skeletons should be more or less on the same level, so there’s no reason for our exercise to lose.’ Athos replied, not very worried.

‘Quite the contrary, between the strength of demi-humans and the unique abilities of monsters, our exercise must have an advantage over them. If the worst happens and the enemies are stronger than expected, the wasps that wait in the sky can constantly change targets and rain acid down on the demi-humans.’

‘There are many of them and not all of them are needed to cover the forest.’ Athos spoke mostly to reassure her, as he doesn’t believe it would be necessary.

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

A few hours later, in the forest of spirits.

The forest of spirits was a small place for the amount of spirits that guarded it, being more than 10 kilometers long. All the spirits that inhabited this place were in the seventh layer of life and were between 150~170 years old, considered young for the species.

There were twelve spirits inhabiting the forest and they were all gathered in a clearing in the center of the forest, talking to each other worriedly. There was an ogre among them as well, with an orc and a heavily armed minotaur on either side.

They were discussing defensive measures against Athos and his undead army. The spirits lost the tail of the army when they set out for the hydra’s territory, but the day before their lookouts reported that skeleton birds were seen in the sky from the east.

Demi-humans who lived under the dominion of the spirits were sent as lookouts to the direction the birds came from and found that the army was leaving the king slime’s territory and approaching them, ignoring the demihuman clan’s territory.

Their numbers were too great to be counted, but they were at least twice their own numbers.

The spirits were shocked when they learned of this and did not initially believe it, but after questioning the watchers personally, they were forced to face reality and think of countermeasures to deal with the oncoming danger.

Their numbers were approximately 20,000, and even when added to the ogre clan and its affiliated clans, they barely reached 50,000 individuals, not including non-combatants. The allied spirits and demi-humans were racking their brains for a way to survive the coming catastrophe.

“We’re going to temporarily distribute the weapons we keep in storage to our allies. It should help us close the power gap between us and our enemies.” A green orc-like avatar spoke.

Avatars were the souls of spirits and took on the form the spirits saw themselves, and away from the influence of humans or elves, these spirits took the form of different demihumans and monsters.

The demi-humans who served the spirits possessed weapons that were enchanted or at least made of magic wood, but those who served the ogre clans only possessed weapons of common metal or unenchanted magic.

“That alone won’t be enough. We need to set up defenses throughout the forest and in the ogres’ temporary camp, or we won’t have any chance of victory.” A second spirit with the appearance of a goblin spoke while nervously biting his nails.

It was impossible to find a place for all the demihumans within the forest, so they set up camp to the east, right in the direction that the Athos army planned to invade.

“And what exactly are we supposed to do?” a Troll spirit asked in a sarcastic tone. “Putting up walls with stone magic or digging holes with thorns at the bottom? What difference will that make against such a large army?”

“In that case, do you have any suggestions or are you just complaining?” A spirit with the appearance of a sun lion asked with an irritated growl.

“This army must have a leader, or creatures that control everyone else. If we kill such a leader, we can demoralize the army or maybe even force them to retreat.” The troll spirit suggested confidently, but the others just laughed at him.

“If doing this were so easy, we wouldn’t be here racking our brains over how to defend ourselves, you idiot!” The goblin spirit scolded him. “How the hell do you plan to identify the enemy leader in the middle of the army and go through tens of thousands of enemies to reach that leader?”

“Identifying the enemy shouldn’t be difficult.” The troll spirit responded with an irritated. “We can use our mystical senses to identify the leader. A creature capable of turning other beings into black skeletons and enslaving them must not be normal.”

The spirits didn’t know what an undead was, as they had never encountered one in their entire lives, but they heard the report from their subordinates that the skeletons were hunting monsters as they advanced and adding them to their ranks.

“Hmm...” The orc crossed his arms and closed his eyes thoughtfully. “There is some sense in your words. It should be possible to identify the enemy with our senses and even if it is impossible, we can follow those who stay behind and give the orders.”