I became a legion lich

104 World pillage

“Maybe so, maybe not. I engraved dozens of enchantments all over the willow, so if you try to corrupt it like you did with the swords, the willow is more likely to be destroyed. But there might be another way.” Treevor spoke and lay down on the ground a few inches from the tree, his avatar leaving his body.

His amber eye was low on energy, because he spent most of it fighting Athos, but Treevor purposely avoided smearing his avatar with corrupted energy, remaining as pure as possible. As his mind was not yet tainted with corruption, he had no trouble possessing it and the overflowing light element did not affect him.

The glowing willow reverted to its tree form, before the amber gem separated and flowed back into the amber eye. She was quickly corrupted, before being returned to the willow.

“Now comes the hard part.” The wooden face appeared in the trunk tree and spoke. The enchantment that spread amber energy through the body was made of pure mana and was the first to be corrupted. Treevor could sense where each rune pattern was and focused primarily on the feats of pure mana, corrupting them one by one.

Treevor couldn’t allow the corrupted energy to spread and cause a light enchantment to explode by accident, so he focused the corrupted energy on one point until there were no more pure mana enchantments.

When he was finally finished, Treevor slowly began to release the tainted corrupted energy, being careful not to overdo it. The glowing willow began to darken and twist in a spiral, the runes of light glowing across its surface.

“Wow.” Athos exclaimed without realizing it, watching the glowing willow transform. It was similar to the tree he corrupted, but on a much larger scale. Using death vision, he saw that as the leaves and roots darkened, they began to attract darkness instead of light, while the roots absorbed corrupted environment energy.

Treevor was extremely careful, increasing the amount of corruption around the runes, slowly undoing them. It took nearly an hour to corrupt everything, but Treevor did it. Most of the corrupted energy was consumed, but the corrupted willow was already recovering. In a matter of minutes he would be back at his peak.

As for the corrupted amber energy, he had spent most of what he had just received, but at least he had regained the willow.

.....

“Phew. I’m done boss. I still have to enchant everything again, but it’s good to be back.” The wooden mask laughed, absorbing his body again and leaving him safely in the center of the tree.

“Do you really need that many enchantments? That body looks incredibly powerful all by itself.” Athos asked curiously, looking him up and down.

“Do you remember that light cannon, the holy field, the shockwaves I used when we fought? They were all willow enchantments. Enchantments don’t have a cast time, so it’s much more convenient to use them to fight while storing your spells for the right moment.” Treevor spoke.

“Well, if I had a titan like that to fight, I would also find it more convenient to use it. But changing the subject, how are your racial abilities? You can still expand your senses through the forest, absorb energy from the environment, or transform world energy. in nutrients?” Athos showered questions about Treevor, the latter immediately began to investigate.

“I can’t spread my senses even though I feel the trees. It’s like the trees are rejecting me. I could probably use force to spread myself out, but the trees would die in the process.” Treevor spoke dejectedly, a racial skill becoming unusable was a great loss to him.

“Maybe you haven’t lost the skill, it’s just not compatible with the trees around you. Let me try something.” Athos jumped out of the hole and corrupted a random tree, before sending Treevor to try again.

“It worked! I can feel the surroundings of the tree as well as I can in life. How did you know this was going to work?” Treevor asked excitedly.

“You seem to have forgotten about it, or you purposely ignore it, but you are now an undead. Your racial abilities have changed, some good, some bad, but you will have to adapt. Continuing to think like a living being is a mistake that can come to cost dearly in the future.” Athos scolded him seriously.

“And what did you expect? You killed me less than a day ago and expect me to become a murderous psychopath like you overnight? You’ve been an undead for less than a week, but you seem totally used to it the condition itself. How is this possible?” Treevor asked irritably.

“I was already dead inside, long before they killed me.” Athos replied with a shrug, before deciding to return to the subject. “Anyway, how are your other skills?”

Treevor wasn’t pleased with the sudden change of subject, but he agreed that investigating his abilities took priority. “As I’ve already proved, absorbing energy from the environment is possible, but it requires me to be in contact with the ground.”

“What about the ability to transform the world’s energy into nutrients?” Athos asked. That was the skill he couldn’t even imagine changes.

“Hum...this is weird. I can’t extract energy and turn it into nutrients, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong.” Treevor felt strange with the abilities he was used to using suddenly changing. He did some tests on his own body and finally understood what was wrong.

“That’s it!” Treevor exclaimed and its roots began to spread and sink into the earth. The moist, nutrient-rich land began to dry out, all its nutrients draining away, something Athos had never seen in this forest.

This region didn’t usually snow even during winter, the only indication of the change of season was the days getting shorter and the weather getting colder. Thanks to Treevor, the forest bloomed year-round ignoring the seasons, so seeing the land dry up was something new.

“What are you doing?” Athos asked curiously, using death vision to get some idea of what was going on. He didn’t understand how, but the roots were draining the soil and turning it into corrupt amber energy.

“My ability seems to have reversed. Instead of turning world energy into nutrients, I now turn nutrients into corrupted energy.” Treevor spoke, feeling both happy and sad for his new skill, world pillage.

The idea that he could gather vast amounts of amber energy quickly, overcoming one of the spirits’ greatest limitations was a source of endless joy. The idea that to do that he would have to destroy the forest he had spent years tending with his bare hands not so much.

“This is amazing. Is there any limit to how much amber energy you can muster? Or how concentrated the energy is?” Athos asked in amazement. He shuddered with emotion just to imagine how much power Treevor could muster if he drained all the nutrients from the forest, the villages, and the outskirts of the city.

“There is no discovered limit to how much energy a spirit can accumulate. And the energy concentration is at the same level as the nucleus. In my case, amber energy has the same concentration as a nucleus in the 5th layer.”

“How fast can you steal nutrients?” Athos asked, noticing that the wooden mask’s amber eye glowing even brighter.

“I’m just testing and getting used to my ability. I can do a lot better than that.” Treevor spoke confidently and the roots dug even deeper into the earth.

Athos could feel a slight vibration in the ground and the earth around him immediately dried up, causing him to take a shocked step back. A bolt of dead earth quickly began to spread around the corrupted willow.

Athos took a handful of earth in his hands, realizing that the earth was dry, almost like sand. The dead earth radius continued to increase, until it reached the roots that Treevor used to spread energy through the forest. It was the moment when death fell on the forest of Faltra.

Like a hungry beast, the willow dried up its roots, before using the root net to drain all the trees in the forest. The leaves of the trees withered, as their trunks shrank and their branches fell.

The destruction was not limited to the trees. The earth around the trees also dried up and died, spreading small circles of dead earth that only increased in size until it killed the entire forest.

“...” Athos could not believe what he was seeing. He had scattered the hive hawks through the air and followed the death of the entire forest in real time. It was an unbelievable sight.

“It’s a terrifying skill.” Treevor spoke in horror. He just tried to activate the skill to its fullest for a second, but was unable to stop once activated. Treevor struggled to stop it, but the world pillage stole all life within its reach, until only a wasteland remained.

The trees were drained to dust. Small monsters like horned rabbits and whip-tailed rats, the only monsters left in the forest began to desperately flee, but the hive hawks hunted them all down.

‘Extra life force is always welcome.’ Athos thought for a moment, but his mind was elsewhere. ‘This skill is good for gathering energy and making farmland infertile, but it has no effect on living beings,’

Athos began to analyze Treevor’s new ability as well as its possible uses, as the latter was too shocked to do so. The conclusion he came to was that the skill would be incredibly useful in the long run, but would be of little use in the near future.

From what Treevor explained, the demihuman empire was already a barren place, made up entirely of savannas and deserts. In addition, most breeds relied on hunting for food rather than agriculture.

...But it would be a different story when he returned.