As Sear was flying away from the citadel, he soon found what he was looking for. He had been following a road for a good amount of time to try to make his was to the next time or castle to get even more gold. Even though he now had enough to buy well over 600 square kilometers of land, it wouldn't be enough for what he planned to do.
Down on the road was a caravan of merchants. He could tell because of the amount of guards that there were. Not enough for royalty to travel, but more than a mercenary group would need.
Without even lifting a finger, all the bodies fell to the floor, unconscious. This is what happened when he released even a miniscule amount of his aura in front of normal people. He used enough to not kill them, but they would be hurting for a long time.
Swooping down, he quickly took all of the coins that he could find. It would be weird for him to walk around with no money other than bricks of gold. He also took one of the guards clothing and weapons after making sure that there was no emblem on it. While he wouldn't be going around all sneakily like, he still wanted to keep some sort of privacy.
Looking on the map, he soon found what he was looking for. The nearest capital city to him was the city of Lufador, in control of the royal family The Florents. They controlled an empire that spanned roughly 1/10th of the continent, which meant that they would have a good amount of gold and some equipment that Sear could take.
Quickly orienting himself towards the city, he took off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In less than a minute, Sear had stopped flying, he was currently just outside of the city walls. In the distance he could see the gates to the city.
*Well then, I guess it's time for me to begin my plans.*
Those plans, would turn out to be to conquer the continent. Once he found out that he could still use his skeleton warriors, and that he could make them much stronger than before, he realized that taking over the continent would be easy. All he would need are a lot of bones. And that's easy to find in a city with over 50,000 people. Especially if they are all dead.
The reason why he stopped outside the city and not inside is because the graveyard was nearby. Quickly going over to it, he closed his eyes for a second before 5 skeletons appeared before him. All five were 4 meters tall, and had a greatswords in their hands. Each sword was 5 meters long and was stronger than enchanted silver-steel. On their backs a tail appeared. It was covered in spikes capable of piercing through iron with ease.
Over all, they would be like berserkers, which is what he needed to find more bones. While this graveyard had a large amount of bones, he realized that the more bones you put into one skeletal being, the higher their potential would be.
Sighing, he watched as they all came to life.
""What can we do for you our lord?"" - Skeletal Berserkers
*Good, they work.*
"Go terrorize the city, kill all of the guards and than start killing the people, but stay away from the palace. That place is mine." - Sear
""Yes lord."" - Skeletal Berserkers
As he watched, they all went to go do their work. He had limited their use of mana to some basic offensive earth magic. He wanted them to learn on their own. But what he gave them, was an incredible body. They could run at 1/10th of his max speed and had enough strength in their arms to punch a hole in steel.
*I kind of feel bad actually. To these people, these berserkers will probably look like their worst nightmare, but I plan to make them the weakest people in my army.*
As Sear casually walked towards the city gates, he took in the sight in front of him. The 20 meter tall wall had multiple holes in it, and their were fires burning across the town. Blood was splattered everywhere he would look. Every soldier he looked at had been either cleanly cut in half of their armor was so dented that it looked like they never had bones to begin with.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Another thing he learned was how good it is to absorb a human body. He would leave the bones, but the blood and meat would all be absorbed by his mist. He didn't know why, but a human always gave over 0.01 units of mana when absorbed, even if they couldn't use mana. That's not a lot, but when you consider the fact that there are around 50,000 people in the city, it would be easy for him to gain over 50 units from it. It's not a lot compared to him now, but slow growth is still growth.
Soon, he came to the palace. In front of him was a group of royal soldiers at at least 500 strong. Even for one of his berserkers that would be hard to fight against without taking some damage. Smiling, he simply let out his full aura over the entire area of the palace.
He smiled as he watched the men instantly collapse. Some of them had their bones crushed to dust and bodies turned into pulp. Luckily for him the bones didn't need to be intact for him to use them.
Further away, the palace crumbled and collapse in on itself, but no dust rose up. His aura was strong enough that now it even held a gravitational force over other things.
Closing his eyes, he used earth magic to sense where all the gold was, and pulled it all towards him. Some of it was shaped like ornaments or decorations, but he changed them into the shape of bars. Soon, he had absorbed all of the gold in the palace. Turning around, he realized his aura was still on.
He quickly turned it off, and walked back to the outskirts of the city.
Unknowing to him, his aura had such an effect that the entire city got pushed down a few centimeters into the ground.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back at the edge of the city where he first walked in, he found his five berserkers, and he could already see differences in them. While making them, he had made it so that the more people they kill, the stronger they become and more intelligent they become.
Two of them had become smaller and their swords thinner. He could see that they had a larger concentration on mana on their legs and feet. They were slowly becoming more speed based.
Two of them got bigger. One's sword had gotten smaller while a shield appeared on his other hand. The other one just became bigger, along with his sword.
The last one stayed the same size, but he changed the most. His sword completely dissappeared. Instead, what was there was a staff with a small blade at the end. When looking at him Sear could tell that the reason for his change was the amount of people he killed with earth magic and his understanding of it increasing.
They were all also at least 10% stronger than before. The reason he gave them such good potential was for what they would end up being, his commanders. The other troops would also have great potential, but they would change much slower than these. He wouldn't be surprised if the other skeletal berserkers he created would have to kill over 10 times the amount of people these did to change like this.
For now, he decided to call these guys Stage Two Skeletal beings. back while they were berserkers they were stage one. Their next change would be stage three.
"So, have have you five been?" - Sear
"Very good, my lord." - Skeleton Mage
"Can I kill more people lord?" - Skeleton Advanced Berserker
""We have killed everyone with our superior qualities my lord." - Skeleton Scouts
"I am ready for your next command, and will carry out your will my lord." - Skeleton Shield and Sword
*Perfect! Their personalities are already beginning to pop up. This will make everything much more interesting. Now to name them.*
"Well, you guys did a good job, and now that you have somewhat developed, I'll name you. You, mage, will be called Ilodis.(Pronounced Ee-load-is). You, larger version of the berserker, will be called Yrol(Pronounced Ee-roll). You, shield and sword, will be called Klod(Pronounced Load). And you two scouts will be called Flint(Pronounced like the word flint) and Grev(Pronounced Gree-ve)." - Sear
"Now then, Ilodis, I want you to go and uncover any large packs of buried bones. The graveyard was too small for a city as big and old as this one, so this is sure to be a mass-burial site somewhere. Flint and Grev, I want you two to go scout outside the city and make sure nobody comes close. Klod, you are coming with me. Yrol, you begin breaking down the walls of the city." - Sear
As they all left on their own, only Klod was left.
"Now then Klod, you will be my general. You will train and command the normal army to the best of your ability. I'll find some books on battle strategy as soon as we go to the next city. For now, come with me while I create an army for you to command." - Sear
As he walked back to the center of the city, he sat down and closed his eyes. As Klod watched, thousands, if not millions of bones flew towards Sear all at once before stopping and clumping into a ball above him. The ball split into 1,000 smaller balls and took the bones took the shape of the berserkers. The bones condensed down until they got to a potential Sear would allow. Now just infusing mana into them, they all came to life.
They were exactly the same as the other berserkers, just with less potential and growth. Opening his eyes, Sear spoke.
"Now then Klod, I have put in their minds to listen to you and the other four as superiors but with you as a bigger influence. Of course I wam above all of that, but for now, what happens is by your verdict.