Lich Lord, Chapter 163

I ground my teeth and took the blow. The barrier projected by my armor shattered, dissipating the attack around me like water. The residual magic still stung, but I ignored it. Leaping into the air above the paladin I met his eyes one last time. Defeat stared back at me, and I smiled.

I channeled my remaining death energy into Mercy as I drove the needlelike tip through the hole left in the armor by my previous attack. I buried Mercy almost completely in the body of the paladin.

One hand still on Mercy, I grabbed his helmet and yanked it off. “May your soul be at piece,” I said quietly as I produced a death core from my bag of holding. Crushing it in my hand and channeling the power straight into Mercy. The energy exploded inside of the paladin and his eyes went dull as it flooded out of them.

With the battle over, the eldritch fire surrounding our small arena faded and I saw not just the Terhaim and my friends watching, but also the soldiers. Our little duel had brought an end to the fight. With their commander dead, the soldiers surrendered. The priests of Olattee among them shouted and raged. But they were either subdued by their own soldiers or killed by one of the Terhaim.

“What shall we do with the prisoners, my lord?” Abimelech asked.

I was still standing in front of the defeated commander. When I had withdrawn Mercy, the body had collapsed. “See if anyone wants to join us, if they do, they become living dead.” I debated allowing regular troops to join my army, but outside of Maxwell and Raven, I decided against it. Even Maxwell was beginning to make noises about becoming a living dead, I was kinda surprised he hadn’t already. I knew Raven would not.

“Those who don’t join us, strip them of their armor and gear and bind them together in a chain. For now, they come with us.” This was the first fight we had where the troops were strong enough that we could not afford to leave them behind even stripped of their gear.

“Why not just kill them?” Abimelech asked.

“Because, if we do that then no one will ever surrender to us,” I explained. “There will be times where their surrender will save us time and resources that will be valuable otherwise. Make sure all of their gear has been stripped and gathered, including from the mindless undead. And gather up all of the bodies of soldiers from the inner section, including those currently animated, and him.” I gestured at the commander.

Abimelech bowed and stepped away to begin organizing the troops. “Thought you said you wouldn’t use his body,” Raven said, judgment, to my surprise, coloring her tone.

“No, I told him I wouldn’t touch his soul,” I said. “Why do you care?”

“Oh,” Raven changed her demeanor immediately. “That’s fine then. A duel like that one should follow through with what they promise. It’s not your fault if he didn’t clarify.”

“He didn’t really give him a chance to,” Maxwell pointed out.

“He had time enough to talk, so he had time to clarify,” Raven pointed out.

“I guess that’s true. You have any particular plans for that body?” Maxwell asked.

“Actually,” I said, looking down at the commander again, “I have something I was thinking about. It’s going to take some prep work though, and perhaps a willing sacrifice. We’ll see how things work.”

I got an odd look from Maxwell. Sacrifices were not something I normally did. Though I guess he hadn’t seen me sacrifice the high priest. Things were for sure changing, there were lines I wouldn’t cross, like messing with a true soul. But sacrifices, while not always my favorite, could be useful. It all depended on the situation.

As I waited for Abimelech to carry out my orders, I pulled up my character sheet noticing I had gained two more levels. I put ten points into agility, not liking that I had been slower than the commander even after activating my armor. Looking over my character sheet noting the changes, conquering forts and defeating armies was a lot faster way to grow than beating up on monsters Vito sent up in the arena.

Character Soul Level: 127

Name: Ezekiel Verniac

Race: Human lich

Foreboding Gravitas: 33

Unspent Stat Points: 0

Spent Stat Point: 635

5 Stat Points per level

Health: 1676

Health Regeneration: 63/sec

Death Energy Tier 1: 3374

Death Energy Regeneration Tier 1: 77/sec

Death Energy Tier 2 Storage Capacity: 0/32

Mana: 2518

Mana Regeneration: 68/sec

Carrying lbs.: 2889

Stats:

Intelligence: 249 [multiplier: 1.311] [40 from gear]

Spirit: 189 [multiplier: 1.23]

Vitality: 119 [multiplier: 1.15]

Resilience: 121 [multiplier: 1.15]

Death Core Tier 1: 270

Death Core Tier 2: 32 [multiplier: 1.21]

Agility: 132 [multiplier: 1.1]

Dexterity: 113 [multiplier: 1.21]

Experience: 108,001 of 143,121

I noticed my death core tier 1 hadn’t grown and remembered I needed to absorb death cores for that to happen, something I’d forgotten to do. I also remembered I needed to restore my tier 2 death energy.

With that in mind, I stepped over to the commander. It took a little bit to figure out how to get his chest plate off, but once it was, I stretched my hand out and pulled on the core I felt in the center. It came flying to me. I could use it for a point of the tier 2 energy. I then summoned over a bone guard and gave it an order to take to Abimelech—she was to gather up all of the death cores and bring them to me. I sat down, ready for a long session of refining energy.