I became a legion lich

100 Hive hawks

In the middle of the Faltra forest, a few minutes later.

The flock of hive hawks descended on the forest and immediately began looking for food, but it was a futile effort. The fight between Treevor and the undead army destroyed much of the forest and most of the monsters woke up from hibernation and ran for their lives.

The queen landed on a tree while the males flew around her to protect her. She became dissatisfied with the lack of food, ordering them to scatter and search further afield. The queen flew over this forest every year when she migrated and always stopped at this particular forest.

A few years ago, when the queen was much weaker and her band much smaller, the queen was attacked by an unknown enemy and forced to flee in fear. By sheer luck, the queen found another weakened band and killed their queen.

Her band has grown since then and the queen made a point of stopping in this forest to face the unknown enemy, but he never revealed himself again.

The queen tapped her beak in frustration and was about to fly away when the birds transmitted to her a group of walking bones in the big hole in the center of the forest.

Curious about how bones could walk, the queen looked through the closest male’s eyes and saw that he was right. The black bones were climbing a strange looking tree in the middle of the hole, while one of them seemed busy digging over the roots.

His presence was mixed with the surroundings, so they didn’t detect him until he was close.

A group of males near the edge of the forest reported the same thing, a group of walking bones was approaching the forest. The queen confirmed that the bones approaching were in greater numbers and looked more dangerous.

.....

The queen felt that these would be dangerous and that they should prepare for the fight, but a sudden noise came from the side. The nearby males became alarmed and finally noticed a gray-skinned skeleton next to them.

The males began to scream and immediately flew at him with claws outstretched, determined to eliminate the threat to the queen.

Athos smiled at the attention of the hawks in the hive and conjured a black tornado that sucked them in while draining their strength. The hive hawks recklessly attacked Athos ignoring the risk to their own lives, only to crash into a corrupted mana barrier.

The queen looked at the walking bones attacking her slaves in annoyance and conjured lightning before sending it to the males trapped in the barrier of Athos. The relayed lightning became weak after spreading to several hive hawks, but the males fed the lightning with their own mana, returning the lightning to its peak.

“Wow!” Athos was a little surprised that the lightning was able to break through his barrier, quickly using the lightning impulse and jumping backwards. He snapped his fingers, turning the black tornado into flames, burning all the trapped hawks at once.

“Kaa!?” The queen screamed in shock, quickly flying away. The males flew left and right, skirting the flames as they chased Athos.

The males flying around the forest now recognized the black skeletons as threats and attacked them, but were quickly shot down.

All the skeletons that Athos brought were mana users and most of them could use aura blades. Arcs of aura rained down on the hive hawks, but their onslaught did not stop. They soon got too close to the skeletons to use aura blades without hitting each other, but it wasn’t much of a problem.

Male hive hawks didn’t know how to use magic or skills, so their claws and beaks only scratched the iron armor they wore. A skeleton mage used to raise undead en masse, turning all the dead hive hawks into skeletons.

The hive hawk skeletons ignored the battle taking place and flew to the forest where the queen was.

Athos circled the queen’s position while hurling blades of wind at the hive hawks, who promptly conjured barriers of wind to block. He did his best to keep the queen’s attention on him while the skeletons killed as many as possible outside, but the queen noticed their numbers dwindling and ordered the pack to hurriedly flee.

The queen conjured dozens of tiny blades of mana and transmitted them to males engaged in combat with the skeletons, who would then consume their own mana to transform them into real wind blades.

The skeletons were caught off guard by the wind blades and suffered severe damage, some unlucky ones being cut in half.

The band surrounded the queen and tried to flee, but skeletons of hive hawks blocked the queen’s path. Athos conjured a 5 meter fireball and transmitted it to a skeleton above the queen.

The queen conjured a barrier of wind to block the fireball, but Athos’ goal was never to kill her with one blow. The fireball detonated just before it hit the barrier, the explosion knocking the queen to the ground.

Athos jumped up and grabbed the falling queen before running with all his might. The queen struggled desperately in his arms, hurling lightning bolts to try to paralyze Athos, but it was ineffective. Athos’ bones were not paralyzed and his skin was only slightly singed. Athos released his own black bolts in response, paralyzing the queen while draining her strength.

KAA! KAA!

The hive’s hawks tried desperately to chase after him, but Athos under the effects of the lightning impulse was too fast for them to catch up. Athos dodged left and right the hive hawks ahead, burning those he could not avoid, and leapt from the edge of the forest, running toward the skeletons.

The hive hawks appeared behind him a second later, screaming at the top of their lungs.

“Fire!” Athos ordered as soon as he crossed the skeletons line.

The skeletons still hadn’t recovered from the wind blades, but they attacked the hive hawks anyway. A new barrage of aura blades rained down on the hive hawks, but they just ignored it and pursued Athos.

‘I think that should be enough.’ Athos thought, before twisting the paralyzed queen’s neck. He avoided killing her immediately for fear the hawks would scatter, but their numbers had already dwindled enough and with the skeleton mage raising more skeletons every second, the ratio of skeletons to living was 2:1, more than enough to chase them.

Fortunately for him, without the queen to issue new orders, the males followed the last orders received and continued to pursue Athos. He simply crouched down and conjured a barrier of corrupted mana around him, the hive hawks hitting the barrier harmlessly as the skeletons sliced them to death.

As soon as the last male hive hawk was killed, Athos undid the barrier and stood up. He looked around and ordered the mage skeleton to approach.

“Heal all the skeletons and then turn all the corpses in the forest into skeletons and tell me their exact number.” Athos ordered.

“As order...my lord.” The skeleton mage nodded in agreement.

“My lord! What happened, are you okay?!” Sevenus appeared as soon as the fight was over, hearing the noise of the fight and running to check.

“Did you really not see the flock of monster birds all over the forest?” Athos asked in disbelief, internally reassessing Sevenus’ competence.

“Of course I detected them, my lord. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave the city with enough firepower, so I ordered a skeleton to go around the forest and inform the city about the monster birds, but it seems you’ve missed each other. ” Sevenus answered hastily, feeling Athos’s cold gaze pierce him like knives.

“Tch! Well, whatever. How was the search? Did you find anything?” Athos asked irritably.

“The search went very well, my lord. I searched the spot where Treevor was killed first and found these two there.” Sevenus took two crystals from inside his cloak and showed them to Athos. The first he had seen before, the crystal that Emilia had given him. It was a small purple crystal that fit in the palm of your hand.

The second was nearly twice the size and much lighter in color. Even a layman could clearly tell which one is more valuable.

“The first crystal was on the ground near the giant helmet, while the other was inside.” Sevenus explained.

“I wonder why Treevor didn’t use this to escape? Maybe it’s the high cost of energy?” Athos wondered aloud.

Was he right. Without a dimensional storage item, it was impossible to keep a crystal nearly full without the energy dispersing. To make matters worse, the crystal was much more potent and required much more energy to activate.

“Sir, I also found an underground base under the hole where we fought.” Sevenus continued reporting.

“A base? Why would Treevor build something like this?” Athos asked.

“I found it strange that Treevor had been in possession of the willow for years and his body was not atrophied from lack of exercise, so I dug up its roots and found an underground base. The place is a real treasure, my lord. Weapons enchanted made of wood are scattered around. I don’t know if Treevor created them to train his skills or just to alleviate boredom, but we could build a small platoon with that much.” Sevenus arched his back in triumph, awaiting the praise he was sure he deserved.

“Good job. I ignored most of his story so I missed details like that.” Athos patted him on the shoulder and ordered him to lead the way.