Chapter 738 738 Familiar Face
”You’re going down to talk to that Lich, aren’t you? Take me down with you. I think that I might be able to do something about the Undead Horde with your help and some cleansing magic.
Remember what that Lumix butler spell told us? The spell wasn’t supposed to be used to kill, and a powerful enough Witch could cleanse the spell even if it did, so it wasn’t a big deal. Well, I might be powerful enough now. Or, at least as long as I have your help, I should be.” She decided.
“Alright then. Pilot, make a slow landing, and we will exit out the side door.” Wolfe instructed.
It would take some air magic or serious muscles to get the door closed again at even the massive aircraft’s minimum speed, but that shouldn’t be a problem, even while he was holding Ella.
So, Wolfe stepped out the door, then slid it closed behind him and flew over the massed undead, headed for their leader.
The Lich looked up as it sensed Wolfe coming his way, and Wolfe noticed that it wasn’t massing mana for a spell. It didn’t see him as a threat, as if it just assumed he wouldn’t attack, that they were on the same team.
“Wait while I talk to him.” Wolfe whispered to Ella as they approached.
“Noble Lich, what brings you all the way out here to the western edge of the continent?” Wolfe called down to the leader of the undead.
[There is another, like you. Not as strong as you were the last time we met, but he has potential. Perhaps that one is the successor we have been looking for.] An ancient and hollow voice replied in Wolfe’s mind.
“Can you tell me where? Or even how to find him? If there is another Magi who has recovered his powers, he will need guidance, and you can help with that without fighting the witches” Wolfe suggested.
[It is impossible to move about the continent without fighting the witches.] The undead replied simply, and Wolfe laughed.
“Alright, I will agree with you there. You can’t move an undead army around the continent without fighting the witches, that really is impossible. But if it was just you, and we cleansed the [Necrosis] spell from you, perhaps you could?” He suggested.
The undead seemed to consider that for a while.
[No, that will not work. Among the living or the truly dead, I will not be around long enough to complete my work.]
Wolfe could tell that it was not a malicious intent, but some sort of embedded need, an imperative that was implanted when the Lich was created that made it need to find the surviving heirs to the Magi and try to awaken their powers to return them to their birthright.
“Can you wait while I look for the child? If I find them, I will bring them here.” Wolfe offered.
[We can wait, we are good at waiting.]
“I will go inform the others then so that they don’t attack as long as your force stays here, or further back into the mountains.” Wolfe suggested.
[I will retreat.] The Lich agreed, but Wolfe noticed that only the Rank Four minions, a thousand among the entire horde, followed him away. The rest were still advancing toward the Coven.
“Are they not with you?” He asked.
[They are undead, they don’t have the mind to be with anyone. I followed them because they were going in the correct direction.]
Ella poked Wolfe in the side to get the other half of the conversation, and he sighed.
“The Lich says that only his minions are with them, he just tagged along with the undead horde because they were going toward a Magi child with potential. His goal is to see the Magi reawaken and begin to repopulate.
Unfortunately, he can’t, or doesn’t care to, control the entire undead horde.”
Ella nodded. “Then there is still some chance that we can purify a portion of the Undead, but the greatest threat has already turned around. Even if it takes too much mana to cleanse them, at the very least we have saved countless lives by not having that Lich and his minions along.
But how did he get so many powerful undead under him? Does he just create them on his own and empower them with his magic? Or does he mind control existing undead?”
Neither of them had an answer for that, but they did have a plane on the ground with supplies for the leader of this region, who was already approaching. Wolfe could feel his presence, a shining beacon of power among the troops, and the assistants that they brought would be expecting Wolfe and Ella to return to talk to their boss about what was being delivered and what the plan was.
“Let’s go join the welcoming party. The undead will still be a few hours before they’re in range of the defenders.” Wolfe sighed as he turned to fly toward the city’s airport, or at least the chunk of road that was currently being used as one.
The Free Covens weren’t particularly high-tech, but with the new alliances between the Fae and Demons that had come to keep the balance of mana in the world, an effort which supposedly had failed before the balance was restored by the arrival of the Demons and Fae.
What exactly that would lead to was anyone’s guess, but if they started getting new arrivals from other worlds, Wolfe hoped that they were more cute Bunnies, or maybe cat girls. Not more monsters or some species that nobody could get along with.
The Royals had mentioned when he first got back that the boundaries had broken by the imbalance, but so far, Wolfe hadn’t seen any signs of a problem, other than the ones caused by the influx of mana. If there were already side effects of the imbalance briefly becoming too severe, they must be on the other continents, which meant that at least for now they were someone else’s problem.
Wolfe had enough issues of his own, and he didn’t even know ninety percent of the nation’s leaders or protectors on this continent, much less any other continents.