Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

was like his torso was slipping down the bark. Two wooden shields protected him from the arrows, spears, and magic attacks being hurled at him.

Hair stood up on end for everyone watching in the room. The lich was using magic regardless of the negator, and even half of his body was still just as alive as ever. He remained cool and calm as he took hit after hit that would have killed any ordinary player.

Down on the ground, the body leaped into the crack, merged with the trunk, and cut loose ten bodies at once.

“What is that?!”

Merlen again spoke what everyone else was thinking. It couldn’t be. That was impossible without magic!

Actually, it was impossible even with magic!

The close-combat fighters went after what climbed out of the tree. Their normal PVP and teamwork didn’t have any effect—the lich masterfully dodged them, ripped the swords and shields out of their hands, and started going to town on the warriors who dared come too close. It was only then that they saw the kind of swordsmen the liches were. The warriors from the close-combat squads weren’t just killed; they tripped over roots poking up, and two of the liches tore the shirts off some of the poor guys and started drawing runes on them using their own blood. The other eight undead covered them.

One of the operators noticed wood appearing where an arm had been torn off.

He’s made out of wood? Oh, go–…no, that’s impossible. An ent? No, impossible.

Two groups of fighters tried to take the undead in a pincer movement to stop the blood ritual.

The mages had to pause, realizing that the negator didn’t have any effect on blood magic, as it was based on life, rather than magic forces.

All eight of the liches were fighting, but even in this situation, their precision and coordination were incredible. It was like there was a single consciousness governing them all.

Two orcs armed with two-handed swords jumped in to attack the unwary pair of undead who were just about to wrap up the ritual.

Just when one of them was about to land a blow, an eye belonging to one of the liches slipped around to the back of its head. The second lich, which was on the left, moved his eye around to see the second attacker.

A second later, and the first lich thrust a branch into his orc’s eye.

Both liches worked in complete synchrony, though the second who was attacked was able to dodge the blow sent his way and lop off one of the liches’ arms. Again, wood appeared to replace human flesh.

The second lich rotted away, and his wounded friend grew another pair of eyes and arms.

“Damn monster! How…how is that possible?”

The orc’s second strike was interrupted by three palms, the fourth hand burying itself in his eye. The lich grabbed the two-handed sword, moved two eyes around to the back of his head, inverted his joints, and headed over to the terrified victims prepared for the ritual. The four-armed creature finished the seal on the tenth warrior and started the sacrifice. The silence in Leon’s headquarters grew thicker with each kill.

The tenth lich fell from the tree, attacking a group of mages who were preparing a powerful fire spell. The squad assigned to protect them had just fallen back, leaving them to become easy pickings.

Nobody thought of Sagie as just a mage anymore—they’d seen his skills as a swordsman and master of close combat.

The ritual drew to a close, and the blood from all ten of the victims collected in a single point. A bloodhound appeared at the four-armed lich’s feet to dash off toward the operator.

“Cover the negator! That thing is going to kill the operator!”

The beast’s path was blocked by an entire squad, and spell after spell smacked into it. When the distance between it and the fighters closed to ten meters, roots reached out of the ground to pull down all the squad standing in the hound’s way. It bowled its way to the operator and detonated, killing the mage and destroying the negator.

The liches all howled at the same time. Sagie could have ordered the roots to kill all the fighters at once, but he needed victims for a new bloodhound. And he had them.

Magic was newly returned to his arsenal.

The liches went into attack mode. A couple of minutes later, not a single building was left in the vicinity. The usual fireballs Sagie fired could each kill his enemies with a single shot or take out any fortification. The buildings were ablaze, flames of blood licking at them.

The saints from other gods finally arrived, and a couple of Leon’s saints were scheduled to get there in ten minutes. They were accompanied by regular Darin Empire troops. What Sagie was doing ran afoul of empire law, something Leon was exploiting.

Four saints created a triple-sided strengthening seal and started firing magic off from range. After their first three attacks and the loss of two of his liches, Sagie realized they were trying to pick them off one at a time.

The liches all rotted away instantly, and an unknown creature followed that by crawling out of the wood. It looked something like a six-legged bone creature, only far nastier. It had five pairs of arms and legs that shuffled along the ground to hold it up. Three pairs of eyes in its head gave it vision in every direction. And, as the cherry on top, the thing had two pairs of arms with three joints each. The nightmare was incredibly fast, dodged everything fired at it from long range, and shredded warriors who got too close.

All of that happened in blood tones, rendering the picture even crazier. Not five minutes had gone by, and more than thirty warriors were dead and sacrificed. There were souls flying up to