I became a legion lich

175 The return

“I beg your pardon, but I had to ask. Are you going to leave yet? There may still be survivors or we may need your help for something.” Malti spoke uncertainly, not knowing what excuse to use to keep Athos.

“If any problems arise, it’s your job to fix them. Don’t waste my time again.” Athos said coldly, before starting to teach her the spell. Once he was sure she had learned the spell, Athos whistled for Simogo to approach and climbed onto his back.

Both quickly departed, leaving a stunned Malti behind.

Malti continued to watch until Athos disappeared from view, before turning to the surrounding skeletons and starting to bark orders.

“You rotten bones, you heard your orders! I want you to gather all the corpses that haven’t been transformed in front of the inner wall gate. After that we’ll work on removing all the mithril plates.” Malti yelled at all the skeletons.

She was extremely hard on her subordinates, commanding them with an iron fist and strict discipline. Malti was a defender of the people, but strictly strict with the soldiers, to the point of being nicknamed the ‘little devil’.

Malti quickly organized the undead and they began combing the fortress wreckage for corpses and mithril plaques. She was organizing things as quickly as possible, wanting to leave to join Athos.

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

“You can travel slowly, Simogo. I know you’re exhausted, so don’t force yourself.” Athos stroked Simogo’s head as he spoke.

.....

Using death vision, he realized that Simogo’s two cores were almost empty. The dragon nodded and flew at its highest speed without improving its body.

It took them over 18 hours to reach the platinum fist fortress and spent most of that time focused on regenerating their own mana.

“Hmm?” The view from the fortress was strange, however. The outer walls were completely demolished, as were any buildings in the outer area. The inner wall and fortress still remained, but Athos could see that the skeletons were destroying the wall.

This was to be expected, as he himself ordered this. Athos planned to completely destroy the fortress, so the humans would have nothing to recover after they were gone.

The humans would take a huge toll and be forced to rebuild the fortress stone by stone so as not to create a hole in the defense of their border. The strange thing was who was doing this.

Athos could see some skeletons smaller than human skeletons working to tear down the walls. Initially he thought they were goblins, but their bones were too large, so it was probably the dwarves that Emilia went to investigate.

There were a few hundred of them at a rough count, probably from a village in the mountains, but Athos found it strange that they had already attacked. Usually, he was the one who forced the undead to go to war, while the others hesitated for their safety.

Athos considered the possibility that the skeletons would not be so apprehensive without Athos around, but the questions could wait. He saw that the skeletons had noticed his presence and were coming out of the fortress to welcome him.

“Land in some open area.” Athos ordered and Simogo landed where the training area was formerly.

“Boss, welcome.” Treevor was the first to arrive and greeted him, only to gasp in stuned.

Athos’ changes were really shocking, but he hadn’t expected such an extreme reaction.

“The fortress of the golden bow was enough to form a new layer and my magic organ evolved along with it. I was finally able to complete my entire body.” Athos explained the changes to Treevor thinking his shock was about his change, but he was wrong.

“You should get dressed.” Treevor looked away, his skull burning with envy.

“Oh.” Athos looked down and realized that he was still naked. He had removed his armor to see every detail of his body, only to forget his broken armor in the golden bow fortress.

‘Well I was feeling the nice breeze while flying in Simogo. I hope that undead remembers to bring my armor.’ He thought a little uncomfortably, but he didn’t look for clothes.

Athos liked the feel of the wind on his body, so he wanted to enjoy it a little more.

The other high ranking skeletons gathered one by one around him and Athos started questioning them.

“From what I can see, you found the dwarves on the mountain and have already attacked. Give me a report of what you found.” Athos ordered.

Emília stepped forward as the leader of the investigative team and reported everything that happened when they investigated the mountain. She spoke slowly and calmly, thanking the heavens for her empty eye sockets that allowed her to look around without being discovered.

Athos was shocked to discover that there was an entire kingdom within the central mountain range and congratulated Treevor on his decision.

“So, how did the attack go? I can see from the new skeletons that you were successful, but I still want the details.” Athos asked curiously.

“Well, we...” Treevor began to narrate the invasion of the dwarven village.

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

A few hours ago, in the middle of Keirasa Mountain.

“Is here.” Emilia spoke when they arrived at the scene. They were in the same place the queen had ambushed the dwarf sentries.

All the high-ranking skeletons were standing around vigilantly, fearing an ambush from the dwarves.

“This is strange. Something is interfering with earth magic. It’s like the mountain itself is rejecting my magic. Are you sure there aren’t any spells interfering with magic here?” Gaius asked the dwarf Durui as he tried and failed to use earth magic.

He felt that he could use magic if he spent more mana, but his power would be less than half of usual.

“That’s normal...dwarves can...manipulate the earth itself...and mix their energy...with that of the mountain...making our...earth spells more powerful...and disrupting the ..earth magic...enemy.” Durui explained as he took a step forward.

The skeletons had brought him so that he could open the passage and serve as a guide through the labyrinth.

Durui placed his hand on the earth, half in doubt if the mountain would still recognize him. Not only had his energy signature changed, so had the energy he used, so it wasn’t certain if he would make it.

He activated one of the dwarven racial abilities, earth son, and was overjoyed when the mountain answered his call. The skill allowed the dwarves to feed the land with their mana, increasing the mana density in the land.

This would not only strengthen the power of the dwarves’ spells, but also allow them to manipulate the earth later without consuming additional energy.

Durui didn’t need to use his own mana, so the earth was manipulated as if it were an ordinary dwarf using it. A six-foot hole opened in the ground before Durui stepped forward and led the way.

The hole descended nearly twenty meters deep before they entered a narrow tunnel. The narrow tunnel had several branches, so they had already reached the labyrinths.

“Whats the way?” Treevor asked as he bent down to fit into the tunnels. Even at his human size, the tunnels were still too small for him and all the skeletons that came with them, as they were created with dwarf size in mind.

The tunnels were six feet at most, so most were forced to bend over to avoid hitting the ceiling.

“Come this way.” Durui ran without hesitation, knowing the tunnel like the back of his hand.

They ran for nearly ten minutes at top speed, with Treevor even carrying the dwarf to move faster. For their plan to work, they needed to reach the village as quickly as possible.

“The attack is coming!” Treevor cried out in alarm, his mystical senses detecting changes around him. The surrounding temperature began to rise several degrees to the point of becoming unbearable for living beings.

The undead initially ignored the heat, but over time the heat became unbearable even for them. Holes appeared in the walls and lava began to pour out, increasing the temperature even more.

“There is still much??” Treevor asked impatiently, casting his ice age spell to try and lower the temperature.

The tunnels were covered by a layer of ice and solidified lava, but the ice was melting rapidly. Lava was also oozing from other parts of the tunnel and flooding them, making the skeletons hurry up.

“We are almost there.” Durui said hurriedly, manipulating the surrounding earth to close the holes that were pouring lava. It would only work as a temporary measure and it would erupt eventually, but they would be long gone by the time it did.

The tunnel ahead suddenly began to descend, before Treevor in front raised his hand to order them to stop.

Right in front of him was a 15 meter wide chamber with a pool of boiling lava. Lava constantly flowed down the walls, increasing the size of the pool. Treevor noticed a metal door on the other side of the pool, six feet above the level of the lava.

“What do we do now?” Emília’s voice came from behind her asking for orders, but there was only one thing to do.

“Create a bridge for us.” Treevor ordered Durui, before unleashing Ice age again.