I became a legion lich

222 Acid rain

“There, I can see a spirit there.” Treevor pointed to the orc spirit, who was at the edge of the forest without entering. He had green skin like the other orcs, but it was a light green more like tree leaves, rather than the dark green of the orcs.

“Why is his skin green? Shouldn’t it be translucent like his spirit was before?” Athos asked curiously.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a characteristic of all spirits and I’m the only one that’s translucent, or maybe this spirit is different for some reason. I have no way of knowing and it doesn’t make much difference in the end.” Treevor responded with a disinterested shrug.

‘Hey, is that a slime spirit? Why would a spirit assume the form of a slime?’ Emilia who was also scouring the enemy army asked for the mental link, catching the attention of Athos and Treevor.

Treevor shrugged, thinking they all had their quirks and oddities.

‘How much longer will we have to wait?’ She asked, noticing that the enemies were looking more and more anxious and looking impatient. Emilia knew of the plan they had previously discussed, but standing so close to her enemies went against her instincts.

‘The more time we give enemies, the more impatient they become and the more likely they are to make a hasty decision. We are beyond the reach of spirits’ magic or mystical senses, so we can safely wait here. Athos spoke, but he was the most impatient here and did not know how long he would hold out.

‘Besides, ogres can’t maintain giganticization for a long time, so we can buy time here until they get back to normal.’ Treevor added, looking at the 10 meter tall ogres that appeared to be made of white stone.

He knew how the skill worked and that the element of light plus earth would make them incredibly troublesome for the undead. Treevor also knew that the enemies would grow impatient the more time passed and the ogres would try to attack before the gigantification effect wears off, forcing the enemies to split up or leave them for dead.

.....

‘Even so, it’s boring just standing here. Let’s put some pressure on them.’ Athos thought, ordering the wasps to start their attack. The wasps in the sky were out of range, but they could communicate thanks to the few skeleton birds flying among them relaying their orders.

They could hear the demihumans panicking as the flapping sound grew faster, quickly followed by the acid rain. The wasps did not release all of their acid at once, but released it gradually and in groups, to prevent all of them from running out of acid at once.

‘Now!’ The spirits left behind thought in unison, watching the drops of acid begin to fall under the forest. Together they conjured a giant umbrella-shaped barrier of light, a cold aura covering its entire surface.

The spirits used both their core energy and the energy they accumulated over time to strengthen the barrier, but it was still thin as a sheet. In order to cover the entire forest, the spirits needed to lower the power of the barrier and spread the energy as much as possible.

The acid corroded upon touching the barrier, but the icy aura lessened its effects to a bearable level. Not all spirits had an affinity for water, but the few that did covered the barrier with a layer of cold air that was effective against acids.

‘Hooh. A smart decision. The barrier is thin, but it can withstand long enough for the acid to wear off thanks to the ice aura,’ Treevor spoke into the skeletons’ mind link, watching in amusement as the spirits struggled to defend themselves.

‘It doesn’t seem very useful to me. The barrier is only lasting because we’re saving on acid and just waiting. If we press a little more like this...’ Athos also spoke and ordered the wasps to increase the intensity of the acid rain.

Even from a distance, the skeletons could see the annoyed expressions on the demihumans’ faces as the acid built. The cold aura increased in intensity to match the acid, but they weren’t fast enough.

Holes began to appear in the barrier and the acid hit the trees below, belching black smoke as it corroded everything it touched. One of the trees that was hit was the actual body of one of the spirits, causing it to scream in pain and run to the side of its body to heal.

“We can’t just stand here and watch. Remember the spirits are fighting to protect our families, so let’s step up and do the same!” The ogre patriarch shouted and charged forward, all the demihumans quickly following suit.

‘You are crazy? Far from our forest, we won’t be able to support you with magic and we won’t be able to identify the enemy leaders you should attack.’ The orc spirit spoke in the ogre king’s mind. He had given one of his sheets to the patriarch so that they could communicate at a distance and coordinate their movements.

‘As it stands, the barrier won’t last long and the acid is far from over. Although you spirits have powerful magic, there are only twelve of you while there are thousands of insects.’ The ogre patriarch spoke solemnly as he led the charge.

‘Furthermore, the youngest among my ogres will soon reach their limit and will return to normal. We need to seize our advantage while we still have it.’ He concluded and the orc was forced to nod.

Ogres were heavy thanks to the earth element that formed their bodies and trolls were naturally slow thanks to their short legs compared to the rest of their bodies, so the first to catch up with the undead were the orcs and minotaurs.

The minotaurs run in the right, pointing their horns forward like beasts, their bodies naturally adapted to powerful charges. The orcs weren’t able to run that fast, but their battle spirit skill made up the difference with brute force.

They reached the undead army in less than thirty seconds, but the skeletons activated the shared curse barriers, blocking the demihumans’ advance.

‘More than half of the kinetic energy store was filled at once? Damn, we’re going to lose those shields even faster than the previous battles.’ Athos thought angrily, but the thin smile on his face said he was finding the situation amusing.

‘Wizards and monsters capable of attacking from a distance, blast the orcs to pieces. Physically powerful monsters and demi-humans, get ready to attack the injured orcs as soon as the barrier broken.’ Athos began to issue orders and the skeletons moved to obey.

The mages who were already preparing their spells used the standard tactic with the hive hawks, casting more than five large-scale spells on the orcs at once. His spells were simple, just spreading zones of darkness over as wide an area as possible, covering all the orcs perfectly.

They sacrificed power in exchange for increased area, but with five at once it did more than enough damage. The orcs’ skin rotted as their strength faded faster than the battle spirit could strengthen them.

Skeletons like sun lions and echoing bats appeared right behind the barrier ones and attacked from a safe position. The bats screamed, releasing a sonic wave that knocked the orcs back and burst their eardrums.

The sun lion skeletons, on the other hand, unleashed cannons of darkness from their jaws, piercing the ranks of the stunned orcs. Sun lions were able to absorb sunlight and store it in mane to fire lasers of light, making them shine like a second sun when fired.

After becoming skeletons, they could absorb the darkness of the night and shoot darkness lasers.

“Back off! We need to back off now.” The orc leader shouted, urging the ocrs to move away from the zone of darkness. Everyone was injured and weakened in the darkness zone, but hundreds were killed by the skeleton monsters’ attacks and it didn’t look like the darkness lasers weren’t going to end anytime soon.

The orcs were forced to retreat and despite the mages and sun lions trying to follow them with their attacks, the giant ogres appeared and blocked the lasers. Their bodies made of stone and light withstood the homes of darkness and only let other ogres take up the onslaught when they were no longer able to bear it.

Thousands of stone fists hit the barrier at once and the trolls attacked soon after, pushing the kinetic energy absorption enchantments to the limit.

‘Blow them up.’ Athos ordered with a smile.

The shock wave blasted the newly arrived demihumans away, the weaker ones being torn to pieces. It didn’t matter if they were ogres, trolls or minotaurs, they were all blown away, leaving the area within a hundred meters of the barrier clear of any living thing.

‘Now, advance!’ Athos ordered and the army began to advance, its barrier still intact and scaring the demihumans who still hadn’t recovered from the shock.

Trolls could naturally regenerate and thanks to the light element of gigantification, ogres were also healing quickly, but not enough to fully regenerate in seconds.