I became a legion lich

141 Complete preparations

The hive hawks had arrived with the storm cloud nearly a day ago, its size nearly triple what it originally was. The clouds gathered as they moved, slowly growing.

When they arrived at the fortress, Athos stopped what he was doing for a few seconds just to admire them, before ordering them to move the storm cloud to the center of the fortress. The hive hawks began to spin in circles releasing strong winds to keep the cloud still above the fortress.

They had been on this unbroken cycle ever since, increasing the cloud’s charge every time they had spare mana. Some of the mage skeletons with an affinity for water and air also helped, increasing the cloud’s size to its current size.

“It’s painful to admit, but you’ve earned this one. A wall of dark stone, an army of the undead, and a swirl of dark clouds in the sky create the perfect weather. It’s impossible to have a more evil stronghold atmosphere than this. A spectacle to be seen, at least for our side. It will be a nightmare for our enemies.” Athos spoke with an amused smile as he looked at the sky, until he felt a pair of bony hands touching his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“A massage, master. You’ve been working with minimal breaks the last few days, your shoulders must be stiff. I’m only made of bones so I don’t know, but your muscles can end up getting stiff so this is a necessary measure.” Emilia spoke seriously, never stopping to massage him.

“My muscles are a mass of semi-solid darkness, so there’s no need to- wow, that’s good.” Athos tried to refute her, but realized that the massage was really good and let her continue.

Athos ordered some skeletons to bring tent tarps to cover the bone abominations as they were supposed to be a surprise to the human army, while also checking on the other skeletons’ work.

The forge was working non-stop while forging all kinds of weapons non-stop. Athos had considered using dark iron, but he would need to enchant each weapon to make the metal permanently corrupted, impossible with the tight time they had.

Low-ranking skeleton soldiers would have to make do with common iron and steel. Treevor and the skeleton mages were busy corrupting and reforging all of the army’s enchanted weapons. They previously annotated all the runes of an equipment before corrupting, so that the weapons would be the same or as similar as possible to their original equipment, so the skeletons wouldn’t have a hard time adapting.

.....

Astrus has also been working hard to reorganize the army. Skeletons that originally belonged to the army already had their own positions in the army, but the citizens of Faltra had no sense of combat or strategy and just ran into enemies mindlessly.

After discussing the matter with Athos, he decided to turn them into cannon fodder, forming the second line of defense when enemies attacked. The first would obviously be the corrupted mana barrier around the walls. Astrus also gathered most of the army’s beasts, whether animals or monsters, into a single battalion.

With the exception of the horses that would be used as mounts for knights and the birds flying overhead to give an overview when the battle began, all the beasts were gathered in this group.

The group of demihumans led by Vanilla were also ready to fight at any moment. Weapons made for humans wouldn’t fit in the hands of the largest demihumans, but goblins and kobolds had once armed themselves with short swords with daggers suited to their size, while forges created adapted iron armor after taking their measurements.

The minotaurs and orcs were without any equipment, but Athos forced Treevor to create weapons made from the wood of the corrupted willow for all of them. Treevor needed to use darkness to feed on 100 corpses to have enough mass to make weapons for nearly 50 demihumans.

He created only greatswords and axes, leaving the enchantments to the skeleton mages.

Blockades were built around the outer area of the fortress to slow the enemy’s advance, and traps such as pits dug with wooden spears at the bottom were scattered throughout the fortress. The skeletons didn’t cover these traps on purpose, so invading humans would notice the traps and be forced to dodge them.

The main streets were full of traps and the humans would have to make several detours or break down the roadblocks to get through.

‘Someone seems to be relaxing while the others are working, doesn’t it?’ Treevor complained through the link. He and the skeleton mages had already finished corrupting the enchanted weapons and were busy creating the weapons for the demihumans.

‘My part is already done, I don’t know runesmithing and I can’t craft the wooden weapons, so there’s not much I can do. Just stop complaining and focus on your work.’ Athos ordered and removed the cloak he wore.

Emilia followed her lead and continued her massage all over her body. Since becoming an undead, Athos has lost all sense of embarrassment and has more than once forgotten to wear clothes when walking through the fortress. He was more ashamed to walk around with a bare skeleton than to walk around naked.

‘Man, she really knows what she’s doing. If you ever get your body back, you need to try her massage.’ Athos spoke with good intentions, but Treevor refused with all his might.

No matter how gentle Emilia looked, he didn’t know what she looked like in life and the idea of bony hands massaging her body didn’t seem pleasant at all.

‘Jokes aside, almost all of our preparations are complete. How long until the enemy appears?’ Athos spoke seriously, but Emilia never stopped massaging him.

‘The enemy army is a day or two away as they need to stop to rest. The undead birds can reach them in less than four hours and are monitoring their movements. Emilia reported through the mind link, so the undead could still hear.

‘They also sent more scouts to us but fled the moment they saw our walls. There were many of them and they ran in different directions at the time of the escape, so it would be difficult to chase them.’ Astrus also spoke. He was happy overseeing the undead at work, while also inspecting his new equipment.

Treevor had corrupted his spear and armor after the blacksmiths repaired it and the skeleton mages runesmithing again. His gleaming black armor matched the giant spear very well.

‘Well, I don’t mind scouts watching the walls, but make sure none of them have a view from above. It would be a pain if they could see the bone abominations.’ Athos said.

“They haven’t sent any mage among the new scouts yet, but it will be nearly impossible to stop the spying when the army approaches.’ Astrus warned him worriedly, the bone abominations looked strong, but if the enemy took aim at them with siege weapons or ranged spells, it would be the end of them.

The creatures were stupid and didn’t know how to use abilities, so they would be easy targets if some elite soldiers blocked them while the mages attacked, just like the crusaders did with Treevor.

‘In that case, we will hide them inside buildings or tents. I can order them to disassemble to fit the buildings and remain in pieces until further notice.’ Athos quickly thought of a solution.

‘This might work. Where will you want to place them? Not every building can fit a Bone Abomination and soldiers will likely check buildings to ensure they won’t be ambushed as they advance. We can block the buildings and leave them half-destroyed so that enemy soldiers can’t get in, but that’s the most we can do.’ Emilia said, circling Athos to massage his chest and abdomen.

“Watch your hands, Emilia.” Athos spoke in jest, making sure the skeletons in the link didn’t hear and continued the discussion. ‘We don’t need to keep the abominations hidden for long, just until the enemies invade and it becomes difficult for them to retreat.’

‘Once I finish crafting the corrupted willow weapons and the skeleton mages runesmithing them, there won’t be much more we can do. What are we going to do after that?’ Treevor asked, still busy with the demihumans’ weapons.

‘We expect.’ Athos replied and donned the cloak again. His body was much more relaxed than before and he thanked Emilia for that.

“No problem master. Call me whenever you need to.” Emilia said happily and said goodbye to him.

“What the hell happened to her today? Athos wondered. He was surprised by the obvious attempt to attract attention, but he didn’t think it was a bad thing.

“She was very beautiful when she was alive. We could have fun if I found a way to return her body. It was Athos’s last thought before he forgot. If he wanted to get back in the game, he needed to focus and win the battle ahead.

A few blocks away, Emilia was walking calmly when Caio appeared and crossed his arms in front of her. If he still had a face, Emilia was sure he would have a raised eyebrow and a questioning expression.

“What’s it?” Emilia feigned ignorance.

“What are you planning?” Gaius didn’t fall for her act and asked brusquely.

“I’m just making sure the master doesn’t forget me in the future. As the army grows, more and more powerful skeletons are added to our ranks, and the weakest fall by the wayside.” Emilia spoke with the closest thing a skeleton could manage to a sigh.

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