Lich Lord, Chapter 153

Captain Core patrolled the street leading past the temple of Olattee when the fog arrived. He was immediately suspicious, as this was the wrong time of year for fog this thick. He was no wizard, but he could tell unnatural fog when he saw it.

“Sergeant Regulus,” Captain Core snapped. “Raise the alarm and send your men out for check-ins from all our patrols, something’s wrong.”

“Yes sir,” Sergeant Regulus snapped a salute, then began giving orders to the accompanying soldiers.

He turned and headed back towards the temple for which they had just passed. “Deacon Avoca,” Captain Core said to the cleric accompanying him. The church of Olattee insisted upon their members being attached to the garrisons or military forces of Valdor be addressed by their rank in the church. A deacon was essentially equivalent in rank to that of a sergeant and were able to command acolytes. Core found the practice annoying, but this was not the time for that. “Wake the bishop, I have a bad feeling about this night.”

The horn blew an alarm that was echoed throughout the city. Each horn had a slightly unique sound that could be used to indicate which patrols were checking in with the help of a magical device that could detect the differences.

Suddenly, the sound of something charging down the street had Captain Core turning quickly. The lights from the brazier of the temple and the torches his company carried only lit a small area the fog was almost impenetrable beyond it. “Men, put out your torches! We need to see through this fog,” Captain Core ordered.

His men reacted quickly; the torches extinguished as a flash of magic from Avoca drew his attention and he looked over to see her casting a spell. Her scepter tipped with the symbol of Olattee, a four-pointed star inside a circle, flared at the tip and though the fog was not pushed back, they could momentarily see through it, even if it was far too late.

“Oh no,” was all Captain Core had time to say before

A figure galloped towards him on the back of a nightmare, purple eldritch flames left where every hoof landed in a trail behind the figure. In its hands was a scythe that hooked over its head. Around  the nightmare were larger mounts propelled forward by their massive rear legs. On the back of each were tall, powerful figures.

They were upon them before all but the captain could react, but even he could do little more than cry out  in alarm. The figure on the nightmare struck with the tip of the scythe, hitting the center of the captain’s breastplate. There was an explosion of eldritch power as it punched through the enchanted armor, the wickedly sharp blade nearly cut him in half as the terrifying reaper and his mount thundered past.

***

We got lucky eliminating the captain on our way to the temple. Each of the companies had been given orders and were being led by their captains freeing up some of the Terhaim to accompany me.

The two biggest threats we faced were the bishop and the colonel commanding the fortress. Since the bishop was a larger threat than the general, I had headed here. Abimelech was leading nine of the Terhaim in a rush assault on the fortress, accompanied by the life thieves and elemental zombies.

The clerics of the temple were already waking up, they had either sensed us or the horns brought them to alertness. Either way, as we thundered in, cutting down the priests and clerics who were working the night shift, the alarms started to ring throughout the temple. The holy magic of the place pressed down on me, but my resistances from the Order combined with the weaker version given to my creations allowed for us to create a small domain around us free of the suppressive force.

As we made our way to the center of the temple Raven was already there, flitting through the shadows leaving horrendous wounds on unsuspecting clerics as they tried to build hurried spells. The average level of the members of this temple were low, ranging from mid fifties to low nineties, but that would change as the higher-ups began to make their way towards us.

With me were Ehud, De’Barak, Jepthen, and Abon. I specifically brought all the skirmisher types. This would not be a frontal assault like at the fortress. I leapt off Shadow and threw Mercy at a priest who just rushed out of the hallway.

Mercy pinned the man to the wall, its tip having been reshaped into a spear tip. Summoning Mercy back to me, I started gathering power with my other hand. The holy magic of the temple normally would’ve made it difficult, but not only did I have resistances to holy magic, but my command of my magic was absolute.

Mercy landed in my hand as I flooded the power into the staff and leapt up onto an altar kicking aside the religious artifacts there. I pierced the razor-sharp tip of Mercy through the symbol of Olattee, destroying it even as I continued to build a mixture of eldritch and death magic inside the blade.

The Terhaim spread out around me. Our combined presence allowed them to work their magic with little hindrance. As they did I noticed Raven suddenly standing beside me. She drew her dagger and stabbed it into the middle of the altar. The bone tip did not puncture the stone, but the ritual stored within the dagger activated. Even though the altar resisted the eldritch power within the dagger overcame it.

With the ritual delivered, Raven took her dagger back and darted away. Eldritch fire burned at the center of a small circle before it began to spread out in a ritual pattern across the altar. This wasn’t anything more than an etching ritual laying out a design, though a very powerful one.

A wave of death magic flooded out from Abdon, annihilating a group of approaching clerics. My power inside Mercy rose past the threshold I was looking for, and so I started pouring in soul energy, even though it was something I still struggled to do. The moment the etching finished, I spun Mercy around and slammed its tip into the middle of the ritual, where Raven had plunged her dagger.

Mercy bit into the stone and the power stored within it pulsed into the ritual, but as it did there was a sudden presence that took notice of me. A presence that chilled me to the bone. I felt its anger at what I was doing.

“Fuck you, Olattee, you crazy bastard,” I snarled.

Power lashed out from the altar, the statues and edifices of the god corroding and breaking. A surge of divinity ran through the altar as the mad god attempted to protect his altar.

“Now!” I yelled. The Terhaim disengaged and leapt towards the altar. They all grabbed Mercy and channeled their one point of divine energy each into the weapon. The gathered power slammed into the altar, and the god’s presence was driven out.

The disengagement of the Terhaim allowed the acolytes to surge forward, but chaos erupted as the altars change began to establish itself. Every fallen member of the temple rose as zombies, the excess divine power for the Terhaim raising them., though none were especially strong. Not only had the fallen not necessarily been strong in life, but the manner in which they’d been created did not allow for any amplification.

I wasn’t done though. As the battle devolved into chaos, a thousand points of death energy swept through Mercy into the altar. At this point I did not know what I was doing, I was simply going of a hunch. Damien had told me that death energy was not nature energy, but also wasn’t magic. It was someplace in between the two, which to me sounds like similar to how he described divine energy.

The death energy took hold of the altar, after which I poured in twenty points of tier 2 death energy. That only left me with nine, and I hoped it was worth it.

Finally done, I stepped off the altar and joined the fight. There was so much death energy contained within the altar I could sense it even once I left. The eldritch power within my ritual formed a cage that held it there. This would certainly be interesting.

A blast of pure white light erupted in a nova from the back of the room washing over the chaotic battle. The power stung me, and I saw the Terhaim recoiling. The zombies caught in it were burned to ashes—the bishop had arrived and our resistance wasn’t enough to protect the zombies against him. The nova faded before it reached the far end of the temple where our mounts were rampaging amongst the weak temple attendants.

A stream of arrows from Jephthen hammered toward the bishop. Barriers of white energy intercepted the stream, the eldritch arrows breaking against them in explosions of power.

The other members of the temple were forming up around the bishop his organizing and commanding voice bringing them together. I didn’t need to order my allies as they knew how to fight. A man, dressed in ornate robes indicating he was at least an archdeacon, made towards the bishop when suddenly he stumbled and dropped to the ground as a pool of blood spread. Raven disappeared back into the shadows, having severed his spine in his lower back.

Ehud dove through a shadow and was amongst the priests in an instant. His blades shot out, scoring dozens of wounds and leaving behind curses and hexes, all the while targeting the bishop. But the powerful priest released another pulse of pure white light that sent Ehud stumbling and purged many of his curses.

Abdon and De’Barak held back, focusing more on containing the threat and supporting the surviving zombies. I finally got a brief scan of the bishop.

High Priest

Level: 132

The bishop was stronger than I expected. With my mana pool still recovering and my death energy already depleted, I rushed forward. Mercy reformed into a long blade staff with a curved edge, ideal for slashing into unarmored opponents with powerful blows. I activated all of the abilities of my armor increasing my speed, strength, and reaction time.

The mana reserves inside the armor would allow me to maintain that level of power for at long enough to carry out my plan. As a smattering of holy blasts hammered towards me, I started dodging and blocking those I couldn’t dodge with Mercy, my precognition making the task easy. The few that I let through exploded against the defensive barrier projected by my breastplate. And then I hit the front rank.

Mercy ripped through cloth armor and flesh with ease, wide arcing attacks often hitting three or more people. I kept my momentum going, the bishop my target. I used the jumping enhancement  a very small amounts to make my lunge nigh unstoppable. I finally had enough to activate a spell in Mercy. My favorite spell.

The festering wounds left behind by Mercy were already hard to heal, but now those who fell through me would rise to serve me just as quickly. A blistering barrage of holy missiles hammered towards me. I dodged, my precognition keeping me ahead of the attack, and the edge of the storm slid unto my barrier, depleting the armors mana, but I did not slow.

The vast majority of my foes were slower and weaker than I was, only the bishop and higher ranking individuals of this temple could even hope to match me in strength. Fortunately for us, only the bishop was there, which I suspected to be Raven’s handiwork.

To my surprise, the bishop did not wield a scepter, instead wielding a sword covered in runes that glowed with pure white light. My lunging blow using Mercy was intercepted by the blade, the clashing magics sparking from the contact. He might have been stronger than I was with magic, but even without the enhancements of my armor I was faster than him. I turned aside his blade, spinning around him.

With one hand free, I slammed it towards his face, releasing a blast of eldritch power from the gauntlet,  sending him reeling, his barriers barely stopped the concentrated eldritch attack with his eyes going wide in shock.

Only then did I notice that in his other hand he held a holy symbol with white magic burning within it as he built a spell, but I sensed the blast before it hit me. It broke my barrier and seared my flesh, but as I had seen the attack coming I was able to prepare and divert the kinetic energy, taking advantage of the opening it gave.

Mercy slammed into the man’s right shoulder, his barrier flaring against it, but the power of my blade proved its worth as it cut deep into his shoulder. Mercy hit the bone and I pushed even harder. The bishop screamed in pain as I flooded Mercy with eldritch power, pumping it into the wound. It didn’t amplify the spell, but the destructive energy tore at both his ability to cast magic and his flesh.

A blow coming from a cleric behind me forced me to dodge aside forcing me to leave Mercy stuck, the effect of the power being poured into him through the blade being worth it. What the cleric who attacked me did not expect were the rapid-fire eldritch blasts that came from my fists as I hammered his face into a pulp, with his protections only lasting a moment.

An orb of pure black magic landed on top of me, erupting in an explosion of black light. Abdon had struck. He’d taken the time to build a very powerful death spell, though the power had little effect on me, with the eldritch lightning only a minor hindrance. I turned toward the bishop just to see him collapse to his knees.

I was about to kill him when a thought came to me, even if I had no idea if it would work it was worth trying nonetheless. I yanked Mercy free and the bishop hardly reacted, so focused was he on trying to keep himself alive.

With the bishop down, the rest of the clerics broke nigh instantly. Many of them surrendering and we let them. “Raven, I need your dagger,” I yelled, not knowing where she was.