Chapter 267 – Obsidian soldiers.

Summoning existed in this world, it was a separate field from elemental magic that was considered extremely strong in the right hands. Like any other school of magic, there were variations in the techniques used. One subsection utilized ritualistic ceremonies with offerings to the being it wanted to procure. Other ones were dedicated by simple class skills, contracts, and occult sacrifices.

One thing united all of those types of summoning practices: the creature that appeared always required something for their services. It could be something simple as the magic caster’s mana or something darker like a part of their soul. This was one of the reasons why demonic magicians were so feared as they could offer up other people as sacrifices to gain a fast boost to their power.

Demons weren’t very particular about who they were getting their part of the deal from. If a demon summoner rounded up a village of people and performed the desired ritual the monster would oblige. A contract between the summoned creature and the summoner would be formed. After the contractor just needed their mana to jolt their contracted being over to this world.

A lot of things depended on the type of contract. The summoned creature could constantly siphon mana from its user while it was on this side or just take a bulk cut at the beginning. The first type could potentially put the contracted being into an almost permanent summoning. The caster just needed to have enough mana regeneration to offset the amount being used. It was somewhat similar to the buffing runes that Roland used in his armor which took a fixed amount of mana.

Thus he asked himself this question, what was the type of summoning that the Lich was using? Did it offer up the flesh of the monsters and people it killed to get it here or was it just offering it mana? Did the black-boned skeletons have a time limit or did the Lich need to spend his own magic to prolong the stay here?

‘There are always rare summoning skills that don’t cost anything and are on a timer…’

That one was the worst-case scenario. A person could just use a timed skill to summon monsters with almost no penalties. Most of the time such skills had a limit on the creatures that were summoned. The high-tier undead summon had flown away with its master but it wasn’t the only one there. Just as those two vanished into the horizon another one appeared before them.

“Hey Wayland, stop spacing out, think we might need some of that magic over here…”

Roland had to turn his head towards Armand that was shouting. While the injured Lich made his escape another problem arose. The army of lower level tier 2 skeletons continued to attack but they were getting dispatched by the adventurers and guards that made it safely from the other side. Normally this would be a great chance to set up a barrier while the miners fled.

To everyone’s surprise, not one but two strange-looking undead appeared before them. The one in the front was a lot larger than the rest. Just like the obsidian gargoyle that escaped with the Lich the two had charred black bones.

He could see their names and levels, it seemed that their levels were all uniform. This was probably the limit of the skill their master was using. The Beast Soldier’s body was around four meters tall. It had long limbs and claw-like hands with a skeletal structure similar to that of a gorilla. The head looked similar to that of a stag with sharper teeth than usual.

The other one wasn’t much bigger than the other regular blazing skeletons. Its face was similar to the other one as the antlers were poking out of the pitch black robe it was wearing. In its right hand, it was holding a staff that radiated green flames just like the ones its master flung around.

It was clear that the larger one was the close-quarters combatant while the mage would be delivering support spells from the back. With the addition of so many foot soldiers, it would be quite a hard nut to crack. Without giving anyone any time to prepare a strange wail escaped from the larger skeleton.

“Shit…”

His ears were on fire as he was hit with the sound attack. It was a wide-range disabling attack that caught all the adventurers off guard. Even Armand and Wedamir that were high-level tier 2 warriors, could not resist it. They went down to their knees while clutching their ears. Luckily for them, they had a member in their party that had prepared for this type of occasion.

Roland’s armor initiated an automated defense spell that canceled out the sound from reaching his ears. He needed to work fast as the Skeleton Beast Soldier continued to howl while his ally pointed his staff made of bones up. The skull at the end of it started to give up a green glow through its empty eye sockets. This concluded with a large sphere of green fire forming above the spot it was pointing at.

This forced Roland to quickly abandon the smoking cannon that he used to injure the Lich. Instead, he grabbed his own elongated kite shield. It had the length of a regular tower shield but was narrower at the bottom. With it in his hand, he jumped towards his allies that were holding their heads together. Even when trying they were not able to shake off the stunning effect.

When he arrived before them there was not much time. The only reason he was able to activate the shield’s defensive spells was due to it being a runic item. The skeletal mage was still forced to chant out the spell that looked like a giant ball of green flames. Without help from others, mages like these could not utilize grand spells to their full potential. Yet during times of war, there was no greater weapon than a battalion of mages flinging powerful destructive spells.

Finally, the ball of green flames was flung forward by the monster. It collided with multiple layers of shields that Roland set up in a hurry. The first one shattered almost instantly and the second one took only half a second to burst as well. Only when the spell arrived at the last one did it stop in its tracks before exploding.

Even when his spells managed to block most of the damage he could feel his health dropping. Armand and Wedamir that were behind him tumbled away but were mostly fine but this was not the end. The skeletal mage raised his staff up again and was already preparing to cast another spell. His ally on the other hand was luckily out of breath and the stunning effect of his shout wore off.

“We need to retreat!”

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“You don’t have to tell me twice!”

“Aye…”

The three men were of the same mind. There was no way of them winning this and the miners had been evacuating for a while. After dropping their tools earlier they had made some space between the main skeletal forces. Only a few adventurers had stayed behind as they thought that handling the lower tier 2 skeleton soldiers wouldn’t be that hard. No one expected two tier 3 monsters to quickly appear out of the blue.

‘The monster is clearly a tier 3 but the spell it used was somewhat on the weaker side…’

Roland came to this conclusion after standing up. Normally he shouldn’t be able to take something like that with this little prep. He expected the last magical spell to burst before activating his armor’s defensive mechanism to ride the shockwave. Instead, his shield was able to last through it by just burning copious amounts of mana instead.