I became a legion lich

228 Ripha family

“You got lost in your thoughts, so they figured it would be pointless to argue further if it fell on deaf ears.” Treevor spoke for all of them, completely nonchalant.

He knew that as commander and second-in-command, he would be the one to lead the troops when they left. Treevor had already resigned himself to the fact that they would part for the time being and was fine with that. The black currents in his mind injected thoughts of servitude into his mind, but he was able to resist to some extent, though not most of the time.

Athos explained all his concerns and all the planning he would need to do for the expedition, making more than one general laugh wryly.

“Master, what you are experiencing right now is the weight of decision making. We are flattered that you are thinking so much of us skeletons and not just ordering us forward without thinking, but would like you to share your thoughts with us.” Emília spoke a little emotional.

“Our job is to ease your burden and help you make the right decisions so be sure to share your thoughts so we can advise you like your generals.” Malti approached, and soon other generals offered words of encouragement.

“Well, now that you know my concerns, we can organize everything at this meeting and decide the proper time for the army to leave. It’s not like you’re going to leave right away.” Athos spoke after the words of encouragement turned from being kind to irritating.

The skeletons just laughed at his irritability and began to give their honest opinions about who should leave and who should stay, instead of just staying close to Athos to make sure he was safe.

At the end of the meeting, it was decided that of the 140,000 skeletons in the army, 100,000 skeletons would go on the expedition. Among the skeletons that would be left behind would be the human skeletons that were not yet destroyed in battle, the bone abominations, half of the hive hawks, 300 dwarf skeletons including Dwarvin and demihumans of different races.

The skeletons wanted to leave more soldiers behind to ensure that Athos was safe, but the last one insisted that he already had enough security. Athos almost cried at the idea of parting with his pet dragon, but he did it anyway.

.....

The generals that would be left behind would be Emília, the hydra and Vanilla, all others would be sent on the expedition under the command of Treevor. Athos also gave Treevor permission to freely choose generals from among the skeletons to fill the vacancies open to generals.

Their magical resources also needed to be divided, but they left that question for a later time, as it would be more suitable to have Dwarvin present as the leader of the army’s runesmith team.

The dwarf was busy runesmithing the enchanted magic wood weapons they obtained from the spirits, so it would be a few more hours before Dwarvin ran out of mana and had time to attend the meeting.

They held out hope that the dwarf could think of a way to solve the problem of low amounts of magic metals for runesmithing large-scale spells in their future bases.

After they finished discussing the division of the army, Treevor explained his concern about overstretching his forces and the danger this posed, but Athos had already thought of that.

The bases they would be creating would not just be a barrier to stop the advance of the unknown undead, but an advancing post for the skeletons to gather more soldiers.

The undead left in the bases would not stand still and exploit the natural resources in silence, but would hunt all monsters and demihumans around to get new soldiers and spread out to the east and west.

Thanks to the mind web, the skeletons could keep in touch with each other over long distances and if some base couldn’t accumulate enough soldiers to expand, other bases might that had extra troops could send their own soldiers to help.

Athos was confident that they could prevent the troops from being isolated from each other that way and the skeletons had to agree that currently, it was the best plan they could think of.

Without access to communication cube or portals, there was no quick way to move large numbers of troops.

They adjourned the meeting temporarily, leaving only the problem of resources open until Dwarvin was available.

************

Kingdom of Belaster, Ripha Island, in the far north of the kingdom.

Ripha Island was approximately 15 kilometers long, with a forest of coconut trees, palm trees and other trees common in beach regions.

Despite its extensive size, the island was almost uninhabited. Its only inhabitants were the Ripha family, the rulers of the island and all nearby islands, in addition to the servants who maintained the island’s few dwellings.

In the exact center of the island, there was a huge five-story U-shaped mansion, the Ripha mansion. Just the mansion itself was over 500 meters wide, its size absurd compared to the small amount of people who lived here.

In one of its numerous rooms, a meeting was in progress. The subject of the meeting was a sensitive one, and the master of the house had ordered all servants not to approach the hall or the surrounding areas.

The only people inside the room were the master of magic Lukas Ripha and The water elder Thersec Ripha, all other family members had been were on other tasks. Most of his sons held important positions in the order of magic or the nobility of Belaster, so it was rare for them to get together.

Lukas himself was an extremely busy man, and his schedule only became more crowded with the impending war, but he promptly canceled his appointments when he got a call from his father, saying they needed to talk in person.

His father was an extremely serious and practical man, for him to want to report something in person could only mean that it was a matter so important that it could not be discussed in a dubious way with a communication cube. They knew that it was possible to tamper with communication cubes and spy on conversations and calls, since it was Thersec himself who invented the communication cubes.

But after hearing what his father had to say, Lukas wished his father was kidding.

“You’re kidding, aren’t you? Emilia...is she dead?” Lukas muttered in disbelief, letting the wineglass he was holding fall and shatter against the floor. He stared at his father with a dazed gaze, feeling the world around him spin and it wasn’t because of the wine.

“That’s exactly what you heard, son. Emilia is dead. She was the captain of a unit of mage slayers on a mission to kidnap members of the word keepers on the border of Mirkor’s kingdom, but they were caught by the new breed of undead, that appeared in the region and were all killed.” Tharsec coldly related it as if he were speaking of a stranger, rather than his own granddaughter.

“But I... I had placed a bodyguard to protect her and organized everything so that she would have the necessary resources and not be trapped in progression walls. When she decided to join the mage slayers, I bribed Louis Zahara’s apprentices not to reveal to the elder that she was my daughter lest he try to get his hands on her!” Lukas got to his feet and screamed, unable to accept reality.

He revealed secrets that Emília herself was unaware of, but which explained how she was able to advance so quickly in a few decades and how Louis did not know about Emília’s existence until he personally checked her file.

“Don’t blame yourself, son. None of us could have foreseen a new species of undead suddenly appearing in such a remote area, or that they would be powerful enough to slaughter an entire unit of mage slayers.” Tharsec spoke words that seemed to sound consoling, but it was only a rebuke for his son losing his composure.

“But how did you come to know about it before I did? I thought you didn’t care about her after my daughter left the family.” Lukas looked suspiciously, hot tears starting to run down his face.

He had always watched over his daughter from the shadows and knowing that she was suddenly dead broke his heart.

“It was during the interrogation of that bastard Louis. We thoroughly investigated his lab and forced him to explain in detail what caused him to send a zombie dragon through teleportation.” Thersec narrowed his eyes, offended by his son’s suspicion, but let it go as Lukas was clearly shaken.

“He ended up revealing a lot of things under the influence of drugs and a lot of things that until then didn’t make sense in this story of the undead. A young man with a body of mana who died and became an undead, somehow managed to gather power the enough to kill an entire city and a unit of mage slayers.” Thersec narrated everything that Louis let slip during the interrogation/torture.

“Louis couldn’t stand the thought of losing his prized specimen and sent mage hunters to try to retrieve the undead boy’s bones in the midst of battle to reclaim the fortress of the platinum fist and when even that failed, he tried to send the dragon, resulting in the disaster we have witnessed.”