219 Useless territories
Athos was irritated by the wasps just circling the field of the dead and spitting acid into the distance. The field of the dead would corrupt all the acid fired, but it would still consume energy and the shared curses were rapidly depleting.
‘Change direction, let’s march in the direction the queen is fleeing. That should be enough to send the wasps into a panic and abandon self-preservation.’ Athos ordered through the mind link and the skeletons turned east and chased the queen.
The wasp queen realized that the army changed direction and despaired. Despite the wyverns’ assumptions, the wasp queen was relatively intelligent, but it was extremely aggressive towards other species and would attack anything it perceived as a threat or prey.
She rubbed the antenna on her head against each other, generating an extremely high-pitched sound that she used to command the wasps and order the other wasps to attack the unknown threat so she could flee.
The wasps went into a frenzy when they saw the skeletons moving towards their queen and returned to invade without worrying about their lives.
‘Wizards, fire a barrage of spells now. The field of the dead is starting to run out of energy.’ Athos ordered and the mages obeyed. Spells of different elements covered the sky and exploded thousands of hornets at the same time.
‘It will be over soon.’ Treevor thought, realizing that the wasps had stopped leaving the nest and most that invaded were already dead or falling to the ground. The wasps were transforming into new undead in real time, and he was awed once again by the power of shared curses and the dwarven technology that created them.
The energy of the shared curses ran out at that moment and the field of the dead disappeared a second later, but the barrier rose a second later and blocked the acid wasps.
‘Hey, Treevor. Go underground and transform the wasps that died there.’ Athos ordered and Treevor nodded, opening a hole in the ground and climbing down.
.....
Athos focused on the few insects in front of him, but it was unnecessary. The few who were still alive scattered and fled. Athos saw no reason to chase weaklings who wouldn’t be of much use, and ordered the mages to save their mana to cast a second field of the dead to raise the corpses.
‘Did we lose any skeletons?’ Athos asked and received a no from Emilia, confirming that they won a complete victory this time. Some had bones lost by the wasp’s pincers, but there were no deaths.
It was the first time that the army had won a battle without any loss and Athos was proud of that feat. In all previous battles, they always had losses, even if they were minimal, no matter how advantageous the battle was.
‘If we don’t suffer any damage, we will continue the march once all the corpses have been transformed. Will it take long down there, Treevor?’ Athos ordered the army forward while confirming the situation underground.
‘There are a few thousand here and I’m busy transforming them, but I finish everything in a few minutes.’ Treevor responded as he cast the raise undead en masse spell.
Athos nodded and waited for Treevor to finish his work before resuming his march. They used this time to fuel the shared curses and recharge the dead’s field enchantments.
Dwarven technology did not have the same limitations as realm technology and each shield could be recharged individually, rather than needing a suitable place to power them. The shields could also recharge over time if left alone, although it took longer.
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The army resumed its march ten minutes later, when Treevor had finished transforming the corpses. The acid wasps were indeed numerous, their overwhelming numbers reaching nearly 18,000. The number of wasps in the nest was much higher, but among the wasps destroyed by the spells and those that fled, the number of usable corpses was much smaller.
Athos ordered the wyverns to fly ahead of the army again and investigate the territory, using the same method as before to maintain communication.
The next territory was a day or so away, but the journey seemed to take forever for the walking skeletons. The undead wasps soared over the army as they marched, the irritating hum of thousands of flapping insect wings nearly driving the skeletons mad.
The only reason Athos didn’t go crazy from the constant buzzing was that he was crazy to begin with.
Information from the wyverns arrived while they were in mid march, informing them that the next enemy was a group of thousands like acid wasps, but a single mighty monster.
A 20-meter tall king slime was sluggishly crawling, leaving a trail of destruction behind as it sluggishly advanced. The creature devoured everything that got in its way, be it plants, monsters or demi-humans.
The creature was slow, but whenever it detected prey, it moved like an avalanche to devour. The king slime was able to detect vibrations almost two hundred meters around and unlike ordinary slimes, it could control its body partially, instead of just crawling and rolling.
Wylver and Malic watched as a herd of desert wildebeest got too close to the king slime and were brutally slaughtered. The slime leapt more than 50 meters and landed in the middle of the wildebeest herd, crushing dozens under its weight.
The crushed wildebeest dissolved in a matter of seconds inside the king slime’s body and the rest tried to run away, but the slime was faster. Tentacles made of acid appeared all over the slime’s gelatinous surface and grabbed the wildebeests, before crushing them and throwing the rest to the gelatinous body to absorb.
After it finished absorbing all the wildebeests, small bubbles appeared on its body’s surface before splitting and spreading away. The extra mass that the king slime gained from absorbing the wildebeest turned into new slimes.
Wylver and Malic observed the surroundings more closely and noticed that there were slimes of different sizes scattered around.
When Athos was told what the next enemy was, he frowned deeply. He had never heard of a slime that big before and it looked incredibly dangerous. Athos was confident that he could destroy the king slime, but there was a high risk of being seriously injured.
Using ranged magic to bombard them ran the risk of generating an acid cloud that could become a danger to the skeletons and close combat was simply a no. Athos also doubted that they could kill the king slime in a single shot, its body probably resistant to magic.
Athos had worked a lot with slimes while he was still alive and he knew how dangerous they could be if mishandled.
But the main reason for him hesitating whether to attack or not, was that there was almost nothing he could gain by killing the king slime. Slimes didn’t have bones or anything he could use to create an undead, so it was useless after killing him.
His acid could be useful, but he had obtained thousands of sources of acid recently and they didn’t need more at the moment. It was a big risk and little return, the worst kind of battle.
After discussing this with his generals, Athos decided to ignore the slimes and move on, only killing the small slimes on the way. Wylver kept an eye on the king slime from the sky, taking care not to approach and informing the king slime’s position in real time to avoid meeting each other.
Malic, on the other hand, went to investigate the territory controlled by the ogre clan, the next region they would invade.
‘The next region is the demihuman clans and the most interesting for us after the spirits, so stay alert. If the manticores saw us and decided to flee, the demihumans must also be aware of our presence as well.’ Athos spoke through the mind link looking forward to the battle to come, but the wyverns brought bad news.
‘Master, the demihumans’ camp is empty. We found tracks leading to the forest of spirits. What should we do?’ Wylver spoke anxiously, what the skeletons feared most seemed to have come true.
The demihumans formed an alliance with the spirits to face them.
The truth was that the spirits were the first to discover the presence of the undead thanks to the lookouts they posted to watch over neighboring territories. They sent demihuman messengers to alert the neighboring demihuman clan and requested an alliance, feeling that the undead were a threat they could not handle alone.
Spirits were peaceful as long as they weren’t attacked and many of their neighbors enjoyed their presence, as they fed the land and could create enchanted weapons, two very rare and valuable things in the desert.
The leader of the ogre clan had wanted to form an alliance with spirits for a long time, so he was really grateful for the appearance of the undead, even though he didn’t know what an undead was.
‘Tch, how annoying. I wanted to finish them off separately while they were at their weakest, but there’s nothing I can do. Let’s change direction and go straight to the spirit forest.’ Athos ordered after some thought.
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