Chapter 166: Ritual Beating.
Damien thought for a moment, but nothing seemed to come to mind. He stared at the string of runes before him, genuinely considering whether he should give the undead lich a proper name. After everything the Emissary had just revealed, perhaps something grand would be appropriate, but nothing seemed to fit.
"Let’s settle for something familiar for now, wouldn’t want to create confusion in battle."
Damien tapped the string of runes before him and said slowly, "Undead lich."
The Emissary’s runes vanished and new ones emerged.
[The undead lich name has been chosen, name; Undead lich]
Damien nodded with pride. Honestly, the best thing he felt he could do was recycle the same name. He had already spent so long calling the skeleton undead lich that changing it now would probably be more troublesome than useful. Besides, the Emissary calling it the undead lich was already the perfect name. There was no reason to complicate things.
With the naming settled, Damien looked around the battlefield. There weren’t many corpses left, and most of the ones that remained were mangled beyond what he considered useful. He didn’t want those. There was a possibility the undead priest wouldn’t be able to heal them, and Damien didn’t want cripples in his army. He had enough problems without having to deal with undead that could barely function.
Damien turned his attention toward the Eidolon priest.
"Congratulations, you are the last of your kind, do you know what that means?"
The Eidolon priest shook his head, clearly unsure where Damien was going with this.
Damien continued.
"It means you are an endangered species. In my world, creatures who are endangered are protected. So that’s what I’m going to do. Come with me."
𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
The Eidolon priest gulped in fear as he stared at Damien’s unhinged expression. Somehow, the words were supposed to sound reassuring, but coming from Damien, they did the exact opposite. Still, the Eidolon priest knew he couldn’t resist him. After everything that had happened, fighting back would only end badly.
So he obediently followed.
Damien recalled his undead, one after another disappearing from the battlefield until soon only the undead therizon and the undead priest remained by his side. He was eager to return and study the changes of the undead lich. The discovery that his strange, lazy undead had once been the High Sorcerer of humanity had left him far more curious than he wanted to admit.
He raised his hand, and a string of black miasma shot out and wrapped itself around the Eidolon priest. The black mist tightened around its body, soon immobilising it completely.
The undead priest lifted him onto its shoulders as they began their journey back to the Ruins of Humanity.
The Eidolon priest remained silent as it was carried away. It had spent most of its existence following stronger Eidolons, and now it had somehow become the last one alive. Worse, its new master seemed to have decided that being the last of its kind meant it had to be protected.
And it wasn’t sure whether that was fortunate or terrifying.
By the time Damien made it through the gates, everyone’s gazes were weird. This time, however, it wasn’t because he was riding a big chicken.
It was because of his unusual prisoner.
Damien wasted no time at all. He went back to his humble abode; it didn’t have a roof, but he wasn’t complaining. Compared to the rest of the ruins, it was still a decent enough place to conduct his experiments without anyone getting in the way.
"Rise, Undead Lich."
Black miasma surged, and the undead lich was summoned once again. It stood calmly, which was uncharacteristic of it, so Damien summoned about a dozen undead around them to make sure the undead lich wasn’t trying to bolt when he had his guard down. He had already learned that the lich was capable of acting on its own, and now that he knew it had once been the High Sorcerer of humanity, Damien wasn’t going to underestimate it simply because it happened to be undead.
Damien started studying the runes, but they didn’t really change much. They were still purple, but he knew it was a result of his ability acting on the lich. He couldn’t tell exactly what had changed, but the Emissary had clearly recognised the transformation as significant enough to give him another history lesson.
"What can you do exactly?" Damien asked it directly.
The undead lich stared soullessly at Damien, but that only pissed him off. "Don’t look at me like that. I know you have a personality in there."
The lich continued staring at him without saying anything, though Damien wasn’t even sure if it was capable of speaking anymore. He had seen it communicate through gestures before, so there had to be some way for it to express itself.
Damien smacked it across the face, but the runes pulsed lightly and repelled his hand.
"Oh, that’s new. You were near indestructible before, but now you seem to have an extra layer of protection. You can repel attacks."
Damien mused for a moment, looking over the purple runes again. If the runes could defend the lich without it even moving, then its transformation had clearly given it more than just a stronger body.
"Let’s try something just as indestructible."
The undead priest handed him his ritual staff, but the undead lich suddenly shot backwards. It attempted to climb over the room’s wall, but another undead grabbed it by the feet and dragged it down.
Damien was appalled. "Okay, no ritual staff beating then."
He returned the staff to the undead priest and bent down to study the undead lich. Its reaction had been immediate, far more extreme than Damien expected. It was clearly afraid beyond mere words, which was strange considering how little fear it had shown when Damien had been beating it around before.
"Do you recognise the staff? Nod your head if yes, and shake if no?"
The undead lich didn’t seem to understand. Damien sighed and was about to give up, but then the undead suddenly moved.