Against the renewed march of the undead, I responded with another wave of magically-charged leaves, which, unfortunately, didn’t work as well as I had hoped. The reason was a lich that moved forward before casting a spell, and expanding the protective ward over the army.
“Amateur,” I murmured in disdain. By the mana emanating from his spell, it was clear that the lich was strong, but his strength did nothing to the horribleness of his decision. By extending the wards forward, he created a barrier that was impossible to breach by the rain of leaves, no matter how many times I had repeated it.
But it came at the cost of damaging the integrity of the ward they had spent all night creating. Ultimately, the strength of any ward depended on their structural balance, and extending it carelessly was dangerous, leaving many vulnerabilities to be exploited.
I was annoyed, because I had to hold myself back to maintain my concealment, letting his ill-thought response stand.
I turned my attention to the elves, whose morale was plummeting as they started to argue once again, their language still a mystery. This time, several of the elves that belonged to the original encampment started to shout at the other warrior, who rejected their words dismissively, continuously gesturing at the tree, showing his intent to stay and defend.
The others looked ashamed, but I noted more than one of them shuffling toward the back, showing the signs of a rout.
Before they could make a move, a sharp sound filled the air, sharp enough to actually reach my cave. It was the sound of an eagle, but amplified a hundred times, to a deafening degree. Yet, as that sound reached, it changed the attitude of the elves completely.
The argument was cut short immediately, leaving the elf with the different bow with a smug smile as they focused on their defensive efforts with a renewed passion. Reinforcements, I deduced, which turned out to be a reasonable assumption, as a giant eagle appeared on the horizon.
The undead reacted to the presence of the eagle in two ways. One, a group of necromancers appeared all along the ward, already targeting the eagle with wide-area necrotic spells to slow his approach, their spells getting amplified by the wards.
They were prepared, showing it wasn’t the first time the elves chose the path of aerial reinforcement.
While most of them focused on targeting the aerial reinforcements, trying to keep them away, the lich that was responsible for casting the ward moved forward, reinforcing the army with several spells that intensified their speed.
Still, their choice left me curious, because they still had a great number of forces hidden in the base, unused, making me wonder if I was the only one that was deliberately baiting a bigger fight.
Admittedly, from a strategic perspective, it did make sense for them. Not only the battlefield was located right next to the stream, which they were using as a core part of their magical logistics, but also they were battling in a location that was very important to their enemies, triggering a defensive response that was strategically unsound.
Not just because the undead spent all night entrenching the defensive location with both magical defenses and an endless number of extra resources, but it was far into their own defensive line, making the location hard to reinforce and easy to envelop.
Which was a horrible decision. Not that I blamed the elves too much for trying to defend the position. Up until now, every single thing that I saw showed that they were losing, and losing rather spectacularly.
And, while drowning, even the flimsiest rope was worth grabbing. A guardian tree, appearing from nowhere magically, radiating far more mana than the others they had in possession, certainly qualified to trigger hope among despair.
Death knights marched forward, their blades raised, the necrotic energy they radiate enough to encourage the zombies to move faster and hit harder. Yet, I noticed a detail that encouraged me.
They weren’t just channeling the energy of the river, but actually pulling the remnants of the nature-life mana I had used against them. I sent a small tendril of Tantric mana for detection, still maintaining the connection to observe their structure.
And found what I was looking for. Right at the center of their chest, was a crystallized piece of rotten energy.
Necrotic Divine Spark.
“Not bad,” I thought with a smirk, my intention to take them down suddenly intensified with the sudden appearance of benefits. And, the amount was certainly not small, almost ten units in my new scale.
And, three more tendrils showed that the other death knights were in possession of a similar amount of Divine Spark. Four of them represented enough Divine Spark that could almost add another Stat point.
A great reward for a simple battle. All I needed was to find an easy way to take them down.
Elves proved smart enough to abandon the first line of defense as it turned untenable, allowing me to focus my attention on the death knights rather than trying to save their lives.
I had to admit, I was curious about the amount of Spark that the lich possessed, as he seemed stronger and more important. Pity he was not only a caster, but also too far away, making it very difficult to subtly infiltrate his being like I did to death knights — who made my job much easier with their effort to transform the life energy.
Luckily, I had one tool I could use really efficiently against the growing threat. I flooded the structure of the tree with my mana, but this time, rather than discharging it, I started to take control of it more directly.
Unaware of the threat they were about the face, the death knights rushed forward, confident in their upcoming victory. And, not unfairly so, I decided, as their performance was clearly over an average level fifteen warrior, while the elves could barely match a level five one.
Most of the elves moved forward, but the sole mage among them surprised me by raising his hand, and suddenly filling his body with nature mana.
He started to grow with a shocking speed, turning into a giant over twenty feet in an instant, but the moment did so, his body transformed completely.
A clearly suicidal attack, killing him before I could even attempt to intercept it — though, it would be a lie if I said that I was torn up about the result, not when he had granted me the tool that could be used to hit back the undead without revealing my position.
The treant that appeared in the place of the elf lumbered toward the death knights, swinging its arms with each step, destroying dozens of zombies with each swing of its wooden arms, destroying the empowered zombies easily.
The pause it created allowed the elves to create another defensive line, but I decided to make their lives closer. Their unique way of warding was rather weak, but easy to copy, so I used nature mana to seed another wall of thorns they could use, but this time behind the trunk of the tree, to allow the undead to approach unimpeded.
The treant rushed toward the death knights, but only two of them moved forward to meet its charge, while the other two rushed toward the trunk of the tree, determined to take it down.
A little faster than I expected, which surprised me, as I felt that they wanted to take down the reinforcements as well. However, when I turned my attention to the sky, I saw that they had already solved the problem
There were three giant eagles in the sky, two of them made of bones and rotting flesh, each carrying a lich on top, raining spells against the eagle. Worse for the elves, they didn’t arrive from the base but appeared behind them, waiting for the reinforcements to arrive before cutting their path.
Leaving the elves no choice but to land. They defended desperately against the attack, packing enough magical power to barely defend themselves, rushing toward the tree. Only to meet with another rain of necrotic energy from the wards, enough to overwhelm their defenses before they could land.
The sacrificial spell of the elven mage wasn’t faring any better. The treant was strong, but only temporary as the remains of his will directed the living will of the treant mindlessly, trying to target the nearest death knight. It was strong enough that, even a glancing hit might have damaged the death knights significantly.
Unfortunately, the death knights looked proficient in handling such tactics. One of them stood in front, dodging the attack while the other used the opportunity to deliver a devastating hit, leaving a devastating taint, shortening the already limited life of the treant even more.
A devastating counterattack, one that made me question the merits of just writing off this as a defeat and searching for a more equal battlefield.
Under the circumstances, it was clearly hopeless to expect the elves to defend anything around the perimeter.
But, before I could make the decision, one of the death knights arrived near the tree, and stabbed his sword through the trunk. I didn’t care much, more than confident enough to cure any damage he left if I decided to fight more. And if I decided to retreat, such an attack would be a good excuse.
But then, a surprising change happened when he flipped open a crystal, glowing emerald green.
It was accompanied by a sense of tugging, one that I had felt before — in a fashion — though in a way that I didn’t expect to affect me in this fragmented plane.
I might have written it off as an illusion, a paranoia, but it triggered my new, hand-crafted system.
{-0.1 Spark, God Tree}
{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 - 0.5}
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
