Reincarnated As A Plant Life

And just as expected, the burning effect from the decay no longer affected him.

~So it was really just a type of poison?~ he thought to himself, before increasing his speed. He had been moving at a slightly slower pace so that his crux could have time to purge the path ahead. However, he wasn't limited by such things anymore.

By the time he caught up to Avankor, he found him fending off 30 dark figures. And as anyone would've expected, he was being mauled down, even with the protection of his mystic mantle.

Lucius quickly got to work, grabbing a few of them off of Avankor's back, whilst his tail thrashed back and forth knocking some of the others around.

Of course, his poison would've been a better option, but unfortunately, he had already used up all of it during his prior fight. And he hadn't advanced his poison skill to the level he could use the cloud multiple times a day.

"Avankor, keep going," Lucius ordered, the sound of the river now just a few meters ahead.

Sounds were carried quite a distance in this sparsely vegetated forest, so Lucius had no doubt in his mind that more undead would start moving to this area. And although he was confident in keeping himself safe from grievous danger, he couldn't say the same for his two companions.

"We'll wait for you at the river," the chief added, as he used his fists to club an undead who had hopped onto the cart.

~These things didn't move this fast during the day,~ Lucius thought to himself, as he chased down the few undead who were still trying to attack the fleeing Avankor.

Once he had the attention of the entire hoard, he decided to lead them back to the area he had been fighting in earlier.

Leaving undead remains everywhere would prove to be a problem if the necromancer somehow got word of it. And if that happened it would no doubt increase patrols in the area, which would hinder future operations.

Luckily enough, there didn't seem to be an owl-humanoid or any other flight-capable creature in the group. Meaning that Lucius had the mobility advantage, allowing him to chip at their durability even before they got to his destination.

Of course, his attacks did not come without cost. Even though he was leagues more powerful than them, they were still a horde, and he simply wasn't fast enough to dodge attacks that came from all directions.

So by the time they reached their battleground, Lucius' body was covered in scratches, bite marks, and bruises.

~It seems they retain some form of intelligence when they're brought back,~ Lucius thought to himself, noticing that the horde paused once they saw the massacre that he had left here. Undiscernable piles of rotting flesh, numerous limbs, and even a whole owl-humanoid practically driven halfway into the ground.

"Yes, that's right, this will be your final resting place," Lucius whispered, not in a taunting way, but more as a fact. None of them would leave here alive, even if they mauled him half to death, he would take their energies and continue the battle.

And so he did.

Initially, the horde seemed to have the advantage, if one of them was taken down, the others would bite, and claw at Lucius. Tossing him around the battlefield with sheer numbers.

But soon, their numbers began to dwindle. What started as a single loss at a time, became three of four, as Lucius began to get more space to move around.

Skulls were crushed into the ground as he choke-slammed them in his furious rush. Three of four of them were impaled at a time as his tail moved around him like a hungry snake, and those that weren't lucky enough to meet such a fate were completely erased by the Kumulipo.

It seemed that when the Kumulipo drained the energy of an undead it left nothing but ash. Lucius was unsure why this was the case, but he would have his chance to find answers.

When there were only four undead left, they began attempting to flee. However, their rotting limbs stood no chance against Lucius's speed. In a few moments, he circled them all up, ripping their legs and arms off so that they would not move.

Undead juices covered Lucius's body, and the surplus energy he had gotten from draining so many undead made his eyes glow yellow in the dark.

He hadn't had time to properly realize it during the battle, but at some point, he had gotten the ability to see in the dark. Somewhat proving that the solar crux and Kumulipo shared similarities.

"Now, what was first? Oh yes, your internal energy networks," Lucius whispered to himself thoughtfully as he used Kumulipo to inject energy into one of the undead. During the battle, he didn't have time to properly analyze what was going on, and instead just converted all their energy haphazardly.

But now he would take a more scientific approach. He sat in front of his limbless lab rat and slowly used his energy to map out its internals.

"Interesting," he whispered to himself. It seemed that the necromancer's reanimation spell had created a sort of pseudo-core within each of its undead. However, it seemed that this was nowhere near as dense as a true core, and didn't even radiate a small fraction of its mana.

"Hmm," he whispered, before driving his energy into the pseudo-core. Without much resistance, he got through.

However, this seemed to cause the undead great pain. In fact, it was the first time he had ever heard an undead react to any infliction of pain.

"Stop," Lucius shot back angrily, before crushing the creature's throat. Even though this fight had been easy, there was no telling what sort of undead were wandering around here, and he wasn't going to risk attracting something he couldn't take on.

Though even with the crushed throat, the creature continued to struggle around in pain, using its limbless torso in an attempt to crawl away.

"That's enough, I have what I need," Lucius whispered, before using his tail to flatten the creature.