Aftermath
A pile of corpses 'neatly stacked' lay around Duth. One held the guardsmen. Their battered armor and broken bodies a messy sight.
Another pile was Adventurers, before finally the last pile was bandits and civilians. Or well the militia who fought against him. All in all, they were bodies to him. Easily two thousand plus amongst the varying piles.
Disturbing? Yes, very. Duth reached out, wiping his hand over the guardsmen pile and adventurers, expending all of his mana!
[Mp: 230]
[Raise Group] [Raise Group]
[Raise Group] [Raise Group]
[Raise Group] …
Bonfires of green roared up as Duth exhaled gales of expended mana! He had spammed the raise skill until he could not! Emptying himself!
Five companies marched out of the roaring flames, its sweeping green collapsing in on Duth shooting up his SM, he inhaled at the sudden increase in mass!
Blissful..
"You will hunt any survivors. Search the sewers, alleyways and remaining households. Bring them to me alive, the more.. The better."
Durh swirled his hand, a dense mass of Soul mass swirled in his hand. An unspoken incentive, a blessing by their king should they try.
The dead stamped their feet, many of them armored, many of them bursting outwards from each other. By the hour the city would become a living nightmare to its remaining people..
Duth nodded turning away to stare at the hundreds of bodies he couldn't raise.. Well couldn't yet.
Whilst he waited on his mana to regain, and his free exp bags to drop by unwillingly. Duth brought up the System. He had just used an absurd amount of spells sparsely different to one another.
[Lich system]
Name: Duth
Lv[13] - Exp 120/1400
[Stats]
Hp: 150/150
Mp: 12/230
SP: 50
SM: 4000[1]
Skills: Mana Bolt[Lv.1], Raise Group[Lv.6], Group Harvest[Lv.4], Bone trap[Lv.9], Souls wrath[Lv.3], and Barrier[Lv.5]
[Fire Missile] - [Mana Bolt]
[Raise dead] - [Raise Group] [2]
Ho? Fire missile upgraded? Not just, but the others leveled up significantly.
Wait? Duth saw something else. His tab was blinking?
He checked it. The upgrade tab was blinking!
He quickly pulled it up.
{Upgrades}
[Skeleton] - 30 SP
Desc: Sturdier Skeleton, increases percentile of health by 2% per level.
[Shadow cloak] - 45 SP
Desc: Stirs the shadows, gives a slight boost to stealth, shadow affinity and sixth sense.
[Magical potency] 25 SP
Desc: increases the potency of mana passives. Gives 4% boost to mana gained per level.
[Skill bank] 50 SP
Desc: Upgrade a skill by two grades. Choose and upgrade a skill each time you purchase [Skill bank] unlocking a higher skill two grades above current.
[Skill upgrade] 15 SP
Desc: Upgrade a passive skill by one grade.
The upgrades are different ish, but.. Bleehh.. The prices! Why are they so expensive! He has 50 as of now.. This is ripping him off.. For such cheap stuff! Guh.. He swiped away the system. Just in time to top out on his banks again. He glanced at the last corpses. Throwing up his hand, he expended hundred and sixty MP for eight hundred undead!
The same bursr of flames roared out.engulfing and turning. Leaving him four companies at his beckon call.
"Scour at least twenty miles outside the walls, locate survivors and bring them to me. Everything else can die."
He waved them off each getting their respective SM back after Duth inhaled it. He wanted them to be a pain in the ass. Should it be necessary.
Now then.. What should he buy? Skeleton could do, given his HP it would be the way to go. But is it?
Shadow cloak gives him affinity to the shadows, stirring it around him. Even giving a sort of special abilities.
Magical potency would increase the mana yield and even give him a greater bank to use. Given the last battle, he lacked both mana and health. Yet health was more so the issue. Whereas using mana was due to his fight with several novice mages and.. That other one.
Skill bank and skill upgrade on the other hand would be direct upgrades to his combat capabilities and even his ability to raise the dead.
Hmm.. He needed to think this through. Using the last battle as his reference. He lacked the damage to outright kill all of the mages in one go, or at least fo toe to toe with the battle mage.
But he also lacked health and mana. A fix through leveling would help. Given his actions to capture survivors instead of killing them.. So then..
He would need to choose between skeleton and magical potency. He could take both, but he wanted the rest to grab a skill upgrade.
Duth pondered, before choosing.
[Skeleton] And [Skill Upgrade]
[Choose a skill]
Humm..
[Raise Group]
[¡Upgrading!]
Duth inhaled as a gale of ambient mana culminated on his being. His HP emptied out in alarm, skeleton shattering into shards. Duth didnt know what happened. Only in the next instant, the floating shards glimmered with a sheen before darting back into place reforming him completely.
Hp:150 - Hp:178
The HP gain was so marginal, it was painful. 2% amounted to .2 per level. On top of the 10 he is getting. Given it counted his levels before the increase of health was by twenty-eight. Marginal, he could now withstand.. Well something.
Moving on.
[Raise Group] - [Raise Horde]
[Raise Horde]
Desc: Ten isn't enough, not for any Lich. Yet a hundred? That's closer to the real deal. Now you can raise up to a hundred corpses.
Requirement: 8 MP
Ho?
The upgrade was something worth it. He could now raise more than a mere ten! He wanted to laugh at the application. Just inagine the faces of his enemies when he called forth the power of tge dead. Raising a hundred of their fallen men! He outstretched his land and roared in undead laughter. An unsettling sight to the survivors who were pushed into a group. It's safe to say Duth had been rooted to this spot much longer than he intended. System stuff was time consuming.
Duth calmed down wiping a ghostly tear from his eye with a single finger before turning around to see the gathered survivors. There were roughly a hundred and forty five. Even more were being brought along. But he simply whispered to the dead. "Thats enough, kill any other that isnt near me."
He took a look at the survivors, ignoring the distant screams. They would be quiet soon. Sons and daughters to mothers and fathers. Strangers, workers of all fields. Gathered here.
Duth giggled a mad laughter, taking steps towards them. A storm of Mana bolts blossomed around him.
Mp:230 - Mp: 20
Thirty five bolts zipped from Duth striking down various citizens. Blood splattered and the people screamed. They tried to run, but the dead only pushed them back in.
[EXP 3500+]
[Lv13 - Lv15]
As soon as his mana flared up he casted another thirty five and another. Cutting them down swiftly.. Until one remained, that one had fallen unconscious from the sheer unfiltered terror they felt.
Duth tilted his head glancing down at them. He wouldn't kill this one. Not yet.
[Lich system]
Name: Duth
Lv[19] - Exp 1020/4800
[Stats]
Hp: 238/238.8
Mp: 320/320
SP: 20
SM: 4000[1]
Skills: Mana Bolt[Lv.3], Raise Horde[Lv.1], Group Harvest[Lv.4], Bone trap[Lv.9], Souls wrath[Lv.3], and Barrier[Lv.5]
–
°¬°
[1] This is a counter i rounded up to. from here i will start the base. given i can find the number that each body gives..
[2] I had forgotten to update this. raise dead, was already supposed to be raise group. i will add it here to write the wrong.