Processing the current state of the battle didn’t take long, as even while I was busy creating my self-System, I was taking occasional glances, to see if there was any great change.
The undead continued to entrench themselves along the river, slowly expanding their wards to get closer while sending a continuous wave of zombies, and the elves continued to rain their arrows.
At first, I expected elves to have some logistical trouble, but when their mage used another spell, continuously taking branches of the wall they had created, manipulating them with simple spells, and turning them into arrows.
Rather efficient, I had to admit. I preferred explosiveness over sustainability, of course, but it was clearly a philosophy that wasn’t shared by my new friends.
Elves got surrounded tighter and tighter as the undead magical encampment spread, but that did little to damage their morale, because, even when I was lost in experimentation, I didn’t stop feeding the tree with mana, fueling the wild growth of the tree further and further.
Of course, I knew that, even with its Spark completely merged to its structure it would take seconds for it to burn completely the moment I stopped feeding it mana, but elves lacked the ability to discern that.
Luckily for them, I planned to stay for a while more. The discoveries I was making were simply too important to abandon the location until it became too dangerous for me to handle.
But, with the battle going slowly, I decided to make some more preparations, to make my stay more stable.
My first attempt was to create a large array surrounding the root of the tree, connected with an opening that constantly provided mana, then filled the storage with enough mana to continue supporting it in case I had to move.
{-2103 Mana}
I didn’t want the tree collapsing the moment I moved around, looking for some convenient targets.
My next aim was to make sure I didn’t kill myself accidentally, and started converting some more pseudo-HP. It was harder to store than mana, but considering the next step of the plan, it was a reasonable choice.
I didn’t want to die to an accidental burst of necrotic energy. It would have been a pathetic way to go.
{-1428 Mana}
{+419 Pseudo-HP}
Then, I moved to my next plan, and started digging another tunnel, deep through the floor, passing right under the undead encampment, barely digging a couple feet every minute, more focused on filling the tunnel with numerous wards that would reinforce the walls and keep me hidden.
For that, I didn’t use my stored mana, limiting myself to the speed I could convert from the Aether. Even then, I prioritized supporting the growth of the tree and keeping the elves alive rather than speeding up the tunnel.
As I passed the line of fortification and arrived at the undead side, I started adding a great number of small wards, each pointing upward, filled with nature-life mana. I would have preferred to fill it with light mana instead, which was significantly more deadly against the undead.
But it would also shout to both parties that there was a third party playing with them, which was a bad trade against the possibility of victory.
Digging the tunnel was a long and laborious activity — not the digging itself, but the number of wards that I used on the path. But, while the labor was difficult, the rewards were equally delicious.
As I continued to dig, the number of elves started to increase. First, another squad of five elves joined, followed by a larger squad of ten soon after, all coming in the direction of the small delta I had discovered earlier.
I didn’t know if the numbers I had seen them fighting were their full force, but if it was, it meant that they had committed almost four-fifth of their fighting force to here.
A shockingly serious commitment, though I felt like it was more a sign of their desperation rather than incompetence.
Their arrival was welcome, making their defensive line much stronger. Especially since the undead was more occupied by trying to create a strong defensive encampment than attacking, concerned with the potential of the tree — a concern that I fueled by raining more and more nature-life bolts against their defenses.
Their defenses stood strong, giving confidence in their defenses — unaware that I was putting finishing touches to the great trap right under their base.
It took hours for me to finish the trap, and when I finished, it was dawn once more. The undead continued to gather their forces. Of course, the only reason that they did so despite that, was whenever they sent a zombie force that looked strong enough to overwhelm the little force of elves — exhausted despite the constant absorption of nature mana — I used the tree to intervene whenever they were close to death, sending another concentrated blast of energy to destroy a critical part of their attack.
And the elves pushed back the attack without a loss.
Yet, the repeated failures didn’t make the undead retreat, but instead receive more and more reinforcements. Their magical messages of communication weren’t subtle enough to avoid the detection wards I had sprawled around.
And while I didn’t know the language they used, considering they were receiving more and more reinforcements during the night, with monsters that looked much stronger than the hastily-raised zombies from forest animals, I was confident enough to bet some Divine Spark to my comprehension.
However, as the sun started to rise, the undead decided that they had finally gathered enough force. Another zombie horde rushed forward, with enough members to make the ground shake, but my attention wasn’t on the ordinary members.
My gaze fell to the center, where I could see a small group of four, walking with a fascinating elegance, their black armor gleaming despite the mess of rotten flesh and bones that surrounded them.
Death knights, I recognized as they passed over one of the hidden detection wards, allowing me to detect their nature — which survived only because the undead didn’t even bother searching for them before setting their wards, the interference only helping to keep them hidden even better.
I was glad that it survived, because it gave me a chance to plan against the death knights. Technically, I didn’t know whether they were death knights, which might as well be a construct that was only useful when combined with the system.
Not that accurate description mattered much. The passive necrotic energy they radiated, leagues above any zombie left no doubt that they were magically potent yet lacking in intent to direct it externally, while every step revealed a dangerous combination of strength and elegance.
And, their blades, black enough to devour the light around their surroundings, left no doubt about their preference for melee combat.
Even if they were not technically death knights, from a battle perspective, they were similar enough not to matter.
It left me with a great challenge. How to handle them … or more accurately, how to handle them without revealing my presence. I knew from experience that several wide-area explosion of light energy was a good way to deal with them, and it could be always followed by several more targeted spells as they inevitably get slowed down.
Unfortunately, such an ability was clearly not a part of the departure of the elves, and would reveal my presence.
I needed a better way to handle them, I thought as I watched their steady approach. Halfway to their approach, elves noticed their presence as well, and a few of them focused their fire on them.
Unfortunately, deflecting these arrows was trivial for Death knights. The one at the front pulled his sword, a wave enough to deflect all the arrows that were flying toward them.
The display was enough to make the defenders shout in alarm, and more of them focused on the target, raining arrows to take them down, only to fail spectacularly. Not only none of the arrows hadn’t touched them, but the volley didn’t even slow them down.
“It’s your turn again, buddy,” I murmured as I touched the root once more, flooding its structure with mana, both pure for it to digest, and nature-life to cast a spell.
This time, however, it wasn’t just a clumsy bolt of loose mana, but something more interesting. I used my mana to etch small wards on the leaves on the edge, which gathered nature-life around them.
Yet, the nature-life was just the outward, hiding small, sharp needles of pseudo-HP in them, which was much deadlier against the undead. I used it rather than light mana directly, because of the similarities between the two energy, it had a much better chance of avoiding notice.
The rain of leaves was much more effective than the arrows. Thanks to the great amount of mana the tree had already swallowed during its growth — easily above a hundred thousand — each leaf were already magically-dense enough to threaten a zombie in the first place, and the enchanted rain of explosive leaves worked much better. It get rid of all the zombies trying to breach the defensive front, and left the four death knights alone, without logistical support.
Unfortunately, they were much stronger than the zombies, and my attack barely slowed them down as they continued moving forward, uncaring of the loss of the zombies.
The reason turned clear a moment later, when one of them raised their sword, and a wave of necrotic energy exploded, erasing the life energy I pumped into the field, the horde rising around them once more.
Fighting undead was always a frustrating affair…
{Strength: 8 Charisma: 7
Precision: 7 Perception: 8
Agility: 7 Manipulation: 8
Speed: 8 Intelligence: 8
Endurance: 8 Wisdom: 8}
{Purified Divine Spark: 43}
{Pseudo-HP: 869 Mana: 5460}
{ADDITIONAL SPARKS
Light - Chosen 7.4
Nature - Chosen 2.1}
{MINIONS
Guardian God Tree - 0.6}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
