I clenched my teeth in frustration looking through the numbers. I knew they would’ve been much worse if Freya had not been there to support me, and if I had not created the additional necromancers. Still, it was frustrating. The bone guard and the eldritch death knights had been the hardest hit. Nearly half were slain. Of that group, a quarter of them had been so completely obliterated there was no bringing them back.
Of the life thieves, half were lost as well. The divine power wielded by the bishop and the archbishop had been very good at banishing and destroying the spirits. None of the bone archers have been lost permanently.
The casualties were stacked heavily on the melee front, which made sense. Freya had lost most of her melee oriented forces. She had far fewer in proportion than I did, and they had unfortunately been in the center of the fight where the archbishop had attacked.
The numbers of the mindless undead that had fallen were huge, serving their job well as meat shields. The loss of that many of the bone guard would definitely weaken my army. But the gruesome part of the battle report Abimelech included was the ‘resources’ gained.
That category was divided into multiple sections. The first section was the number of fresh corpses, ones that had not been reanimated over the course of the battle. The next section was the number that had been put back down, including numbers we had started with. The final section was a list of stronger foes of note that had been defeated.
In the fresh corpses category there were nearly a thousand, which meant they came near the end of the battle. In the used corpses category, the number was a staggering 10,000. A lot of civilians had been caught up in the fighting. The garrison of this city had been around 15,000 troops, bolstered by the threat I posed. Many of those soldiers had not been strong, lower than level 50, no doubt pressed into service.
However, unlike my forces, the soldiers had broken and surrendered. With their leaders defeated and a third of their initial strength slain, the moral had shattered. It was honestly impressive they held on that long.
That meant we had nearly 7,000 surrendered soldiers and officers. Even counting the initial zombies I started with, that did not make up the 10,000 corpses. Many of the initial forces had been completely eradicated to the point there was nothing usable left and you had to count for the fresh corpses as well and the total casualty numbers. There was likely over 2,000 slain civilians in the fighting that had consumed the city.
I shook it off as best I could. There was nothing I could do about it, and this was the price of war. “Have all of the ‘resources’ gathered up in the square before the temple, make sure to separate out the stronger bodies,” I ordered. “Also, have the necromancers go to the graveyard, but not raise the corpses. Tell them to use exhuming spells to gather anything useful and bring that as well. Finally, make sure the fallen soldiers of my army that are recoverable are laid out, obviously not counting the mindless hordes.”
“Are you going to be turning them into undead?” Gallus asked, a bit of queasiness in his voice.
“Of course he is, silly.” Freya sauntered over to the former captain of the guard tower. “You got to get used to that, it’s just part of how it works now. Zeke is a softy too, he’ll leave some behind as a free manual labor force for the city, tireless workers are an incredible work source.”
I thought I heard Gallus swallow hard. Looking how Freya was distracting him, I wasn’t sure for what reason. I ignored it either way. “Freya, I would appreciate your help and that of your necromancers in the spells I will be casting.”
“Of course I’m willing to help.” Freya smiled. “Assuming I can get your help on a large spell as well, the ritual work for setting it up will be a pain.”
“Of course, let’s go get to work now.” I headed for the temple. “I will help you convert the temple first.”
“Just so long as you don’t make it a profaned altar,” Freya said, following me and dragging Gallus with her. “No god who isn’t desperate wants those.”
I took that bit of information away for later analysis. It was going to be a long couple of days of work.
***
Living dead moved around, making final preparations throughout the public square. Freya, when she had established her control over the temple, had converted any of the surviving clergy who were interested, including Gallus. After that she declared she would wait until later before converting more. I was just glad I didn’t have to do it. Her process was definitely better, probably to do with the fact that her god was focused on expanding the living dead race.
There were different sections of rituals spread out. They were all connected. I could’ve done them separately, but with the excess help I had, I decided it was worth it to do it all at once and do it correctly. A gruesome sight was laid out before me in the form of three large piles of prepared muscles, bones, and skin. Necromancers had run nonstop rituals that took the corpses of the zombie hoard that had been raised once already and processed them down into refined material.
Stolen novel; please report.
Smaller piles were stationed farther out. One contained within a sphere of dark magic to better preserve what was inside—the brains and nervous systems. The less they degraded the better. Another pile were the valuable organs, also refined and prepared. There was a large pile of death cores as well, mostly provided by me along with many other materials.
In neat rows were 565 of my bone guard and 98 of the bone archers. Though I had not permanently lost any of the bone archers, they had still taken casualties. Another section was the 965 fresh corpses, along with another 500 of the best preserved bodies from the graveyards. The rest had been added to the piles in the middle.
At the foot of the temple stairs, the archbishop’s body lay in the middle of a complex and intricate ritual. Attached to that ritual were others containing bodies of strong fighters from the city.
Spread throughout the square, configured like the one in front of me, were three other rituals. One for the meat head paladin, one for the general, and one for the brainiac bishop. I had learned that was what Raven called her, because like the paladin, she had focused almost exclusively on her intelligence score. The priest’s entire body was encased in dark magic to preserve the nervous system and brain as much as possible.
Across the square was Bishop Dolores looking out across the scene. A frown on her face. As a signal was given that everything was ready, she turned and walked away followed by her attendance.
At two of the other rituals, one for the general and one for the meat head paladin stood Tola and Izban. At the ritual for the bishop, Freya waited. Around the fallen bone guard were my six necromancers and necromancers from Freya’s forces stood near the fresh corpses.
I raised Mercy into the air, and a flash of eldritch power signaled the start. The elemental zombies had been divided between the other three rituals, providing eldritch power. The excess necromancers and other caster types funneled death magic into the central piles as all six of the rituals became active. I knew the quality of the work done and trusted the casters, so I could focus on my own work.
Music from Maxwell increased everyone’s focus, as all of the Dread Thirteen added their one point of restored divine energy to the overall process. The powerful energy was focused not on creations, but on enhancing everyone’s focus and concentration. The same power came from Freya and her priests she had stationed around every other major ritual but hers. Evidently her god wanted to help, and she assured me there was no hidden intentions. I saw no reason not to trust her.
All around the square, five large rituals began. Three of them were like mine and would follow a similar process, while the fifth would be restoring my fallen forces.
The archbishop’s body was picked up and immediately began to change. Huge amounts of death energy flooded into it. The energy was both provided by me, the death cores which were now dissolving, and the excess amount of death energy that now flooded out of the temple. When Freya had converted it, death energy blanketing the city left over by the battle had been pulled in and stored, which was a good thing. If it wasn’t, it could cause problems. There were benefits to having death gods around.
The death energy concentrated on the archbishop’s body. The divine energy that was innate to his form was purged and overwhelmed by the death energy. Even in death his body contained the power.
As if stretching out a gummy man, the ritual pulled. The power of the death energy and death magic did not let the bone and muscle rip or break, instead it stretched an elongated. By the time it was done the, archbishop no longer looked like a person. He was a very skinny and narrow five pointed star with the top point shorter. The star was twenty meters tall.
Similar processes had happened all around with the exception of Freya’s ritual. The brainiac bishop had also formed a star, but was only four pointed, the point where the head would’ve been was shorter to preserve the powerful brain.
That was the simplest part. Though the rituals did most of the work it still took the hand of a skillful necromancer to control it. Streams of magic reached out to the material in the center from all of the rituals. Only small amounts went to the ones with the bone guard and fresh corpses, the rest poured into the four main rituals.
Nervous systems were laid and wrapped around the black star-like skeletons. They then spread out like complex trees forming humanoid frames of nerves. They weren’t as complex as an actual nervous system, but they didn’t need to be.
In the next part, eldritch power burned through the entire framework of nervous systems changing its very nature. I provided my own eldritch power while the elemental zombies helped the others, Freya needing the most since she had none of my eldritch power.
In the next step, the skeletal structure was built with thick bones supporting all of the limbs and forming compact cores at the center that would house the death core. The skull was covered in black bone spikes and filled with dagger-like teeth which were the composites of all the teeth from the resource pile.
Organs were placed inside of the reinforced central torso as a large conglomeration of brains was placed inside the skull. The ritual crystals glowing with purple eldritch light dimmed as power was poured into the skull. Through the ritual I could see the hellish inferno that blazed in their refining and changing the brain into what we needed it to be, a mind full of terrible power and might.
Rivers of flesh flowed next. Under my control it wrapped around the growing form. The nervous system installed was offset against the black flesh that began to encase it. Powerful muscles and tendons stretched as the massive creature was built. The eyes were made of black glass we had the artisans of the city make for us. A few of them had taken persuasion, but ludicrous amounts of gold taken from the treasury paved the way.
Finally, layers of gray skin laid on to the gigantic figure. When the first layer was down, a mesh of black bone that had been formed into a chain mail-like weave was laid over the entire body before another layer of skin was laid on.
The final part of the rituals activated, the one I was the most uncertain about. Huge amounts of death energy and divine energy from the temple itself flooded the rituals. I looked over at the naked living dead standing beside me.
He met my eyes and smiled. “We chose this,” he said simply, and stepped into the ritual.