Chapter 176

Chapter 176

It was remarkable how quickly we expanded and how quickly that all changed. Less than three weeks had passed since I took the first city. After Maltis fell, my domain exploded onto the plains, nothing slowing it. Freya was a blessing I hadnt expected. She organized and sent out raiding parties to conquer and expand.

The rapid assault left the local forces on the back foot. We had ambushed and destroyed several different forces similar to that of General Sextus. After a point I didnt need mindless undead any more, I needed more troops. We started loading up carts of corpses and sending them back to Maltis. I was certain Freya would have a way to help.

We were marching steadily towards the next major city. It was roughly the size of Maltis, but from the information I had gathered it looked like it might be an even easier target. It was built out in the plains and its defenses werent anything spectacular. Once we were through them, the city would fall quickly.

The main road we were following took us along a large lake. One of the mounted bone guard rode back in, acting as my scouts. As we advanced, the bone guard were steadily becoming more and more useful. They could now follow and execute more complex orders and tasks.

He was reporting to Abimelech who immediately came over to me. There is a large force approaching from the southeast, Abimelech said. That was the direction we were heading. Raven is going to check it out, but the indication is that it is rather large.

I nodded. The bone guard, while able to report back on seeing things, had no way to quantify numbers like how many were in the force. They had small, medium, large, and very large. Lets see what Raven says, if its more than we can handle, we can fall back in order to bait them into position weve prepared.

Abimelech nodded and returned to where she rode at the front of my guard.

Raven was still gone when I saw another mounted bone guard approach Abimelech. There is another force behind us, she said.

What? Did we somehow miss something? Max, check the map, did we bypass a fort or something? How big is this force, it cant be that big.

Abimelech stared back in the direction wed come from. The bone guard says it is small. Still, I sent Ehud back to check.

I dont think we missed anything. Maxwell pulled out his map. Any chance its another group of reinforcements? It has been a while since one arrived.

I rode over next to Snappy and hopped from Shadow onto the back of the giant snapping turtle to see the map up close. I dont think so, the bone guard might be dense, but they know when its our stuff. I saw something marked on the map. What is that?

It was a little symbol of an archway with something in the middle. That marks a shrine of creation. Those, Maxwell tapped something else, are altars of creation.

When I looked closely, the same symbol in the middle of the first one became clear.

You dont think I trailed off, studying the map intently, but for a different reason. Abi, warn Ehud it might be players. She nodded and raced after the sneak.

Max, find a place we can fortify, I said. We might be in a little bit of trouble.

All of the Dread Thirteen had grown with me, as soon as I leveled up, they followed. Unfortunately, this was not true for the entire army. Many of the undead from Kellnock advanced as well, but only some of the bone guard did, and obviously none of the mindless dead.

I did take the time to make sure I increased the power of all of the flesh golems and eldritch cannons. In the dungeon, I hadnt upgraded my eldritch cannon as I went, the resources just werent worth it, here on the battlefield, I saw things a little differently.

Ritual finished, I activated it, and eldritch power filled the twisting runic lines. I had a mana regeneration potion out and was already drinking itthis would take every drop of power I had.

There were three layers in total. The central one filled first. It lifted off the ground, my eldritch power solidifying into a semisolid state. It took a lot of power to accomplish that, and that power had to come from me. I needed absolute control to accomplish that semisolid state. One by one the other two layers of the ritual filled and lifted.

All three circles remained perpendicular to the ground. I was out of mana. Expending that much at once made me wince, the mana depletion headache not pleasant. At least the regeneration potion was already restoring my mana pool at the maximum rate, it was a very high-quality regeneration potion.

With a mental order, I commanded the twenty-five elemental zombies that had been standing by to funnel power into the ritual. Power flooded out of the elemental zombies and into a point on the ground underneath the ritual where it shot up in a beam into the central ritual. The ritual began to move. The center part remained flat and perpendicular to the ground, though it did spin in place. It was the most complex part, the targeting system.

The outer parts began to spin as well, but they began to weave around the central circle of runes. They never quite intersected with the beam of power pouring into it.

Again, the ground shook as another barrage of heavy magical attacks hammered into our barriers. They couldnt take much more, and theoretically they wouldnt have to. I hated that this was the first time I was actually trying to implement such a complex ritual, field testing as a trial run was not a great idea. The outer rituals began to move fast enough they blurred and left behind afterimages, forming a sphere.

A beam no thicker than a pencil shot out into the growing twilight. I followed it and though it ended a moment later, it had struck an incoming ball of white light. A moment later, another being struck it and the incoming attack spell collapsed on itself and exploded.

Before long, constant beams of power shot out from the ritual, knocking down incoming magical attacks, artillery projectiles, and to my surprise and frustration, arrows. That was going to burn through a lot of power, but I didnt have time to figure out how to fix that part, even if it were possible for me to work on an active ritual.

The elemental zombies were pouring quite a bit of power into it, too much, actually. The focus point could only take so much, and the excess power was bleeding off and filling the area.

I ordered half of them to stop. The eldritch power wasnt a threat to me, but it could cause issues if it began to destroy other things. With the beams of power cut off, less power overflowed. One at a time, I ordered elemental zombies to stop until there was only eight powering it.

I thought about dispatching the elemental zombies to help the casters, but that was a stupid idea. I divided them into three groups, including the ones currently powering the spell. They were all evenly spaced around the ritual and the order was simple.

When one group depleted half of their energy reserves, they would stop and another group would take over. I hoped that would give them enough time to rebuild power to keep the ritual running indefinitely. Well, until the ritual became unstable. Using semisolid magic was great, but it wasnt a permanent effect.

I surveyed what I could see of the battlefield. The players still hadnt arrived. That confused me. They shouldnt have been very far behind the NPC army.

I was about to say something when I noticed something along the shores, there was a patch of ice. Except it wasnt winter, and even if it was, I questioned if this waterway would ever freeze. It took a moment for my brain to catch up, and I realized where the players had gone.