Sevrin was a lich from a bygone era who rarely left his research lab and only ever sent his undead minions out to gather more materials for him. He was currently angry and bored.
When the war began, he refused to heed the Lich King's call and remained inside of his lab, focusing on his research. That was the woefully wrong decision though as Lich King Mitas soon visited his lab personally and blew it up, with Sevrin inside.
As his body was reforming from his phylactery, his phylactery was captured by Mitas and he was threatened with true death if he didn't help with the war. Sevrin reluctantly agreed and Mitas even replaced many of the research materials that he had destroyed, but the rare ones could not be replaced so easily.
For the last 10 years Sevrin grumbled day and night while sending his army of undead out to massacre as he slowly but surely replaced his lost journals from memory one by one. Sometimes, he had trouble remembering the exact contents or results of an experiment, so journals would have blank spaces, and this put him into an even worse mood.
Thousands of years of research, gone just like that. All so that he would be forced into a child's game with the goal of controlling more useless land in this stupid world. What was the point of ruling ants when better research materials and unimaginable knowledge awaited them?
Sevrin couldn't understand the thinking of the Lich King, or even the monster from Carnet. Both could have started their ascension tribulations whenever they wanted, yet they both remained behind to rule over what he considered nothing but trash.
No, he didn't know all there was to know about this world, nor had he researched everything possible, but he knew for certain that things would be easier and far better once he ascended.
During the course of the war, he replaced and recruited more fighters into his ranks of undead, but it didn't change the fact that many of his army were abominations, pieced together by Sevrin himself in order to better serve his needs at finding materials.
These beings weren't the best fighters and would quickly be killed if he sent them off into combat, so he had to make new members to join his army, ones who were fit to fight and kill. With the plethora of materials that he had access to once the fighting began, his army quickly reached the hundreds of thousands.
Each number of his army was an amalgamation of beast and humanoid species. These creatures were built to kill and only to kill. However, only a few of his number had a consciousness of their own and these were the ones who had been with him for centuries now.
Thankfully, most of his reliable commanders were not in the research lab when Mitas blew it up, but they were definitely surprised when they were recalled to the lab only to see it in ruins. After hearing the situation from their Master, they went to work, slaughtering all who stood in the way of their master and his desire to return to his research.
Now, Sevrin and his four commanders were sitting, or standing if they were too large, around a table within a tent set up in barren field. The undead army was spread around them in a large perimeter standing still on standby for their next orders.
"I don't understand why that damn Mitas doesn't just personally go in and end this bullshit of a war already. The longer I'm kept away from my lab, the more unpleasant I'm finding myself. Now, he has us sitting out here in this desolate field doing absolutely nothing! This is driving me insane!
"The only thing that has happened in the last 2 years has been that damned spear woman popping in to attack. She even killed my favorite one of you all! Poor Raccrow. He talked back a bit too much, but he was the best special material finder I've ever created! How am I supposed to find a Golden Nose Raccoon and a Jade Eye Crow again?!? They don't even exist anymore!
"She even destroyed my body once! Fuck! Just thinking about that damn bitch pisses me off. Almost as much as Mitas himself! If he didn't force me into this bullshit, Raccrow would still be alive, and I wouldn't have had to replace the materials to reform a body in my phylactery. Damnit, when can I go home?"
Sevrin slammed his fist down onto the table which broke into several pieces. His commanders remained silent as they had been with him long enough to know when to and when not to talk. Only the former Raccrow would speak his mind no matter the situation, which was quite entertaining.
These four were also secretly satisfied with this war. None of them enjoyed going out to collect materials endlessly unless it allowed them to fight. They would never tell their master that though, nor could they disobey his commands.
The first of the commanders was named Elvira. She was a banshee that Sevrin raised after she jumped off a cliff to commit suicide while leaving a note asking those who found it to get revenge on her husband for her. Rather than doing it himself, Sevrin brought her back from the dead and to his pleasant surprise she came back as a more powerful undead than a typical zombie.
The second commander was Jova, a draugr. He was once a mercenary leader who led his forces to slay countless of the unliving. Sevrin happened upon his burial site and thought it would be quite ironic if he raised up the man who fought the undead his whole life.
As Jova was mummified after his death, his current form was boney with skin taught around his thin muscles, glowing orbs of yellow replaced his eyes. He wielded a massive two-handed greatsword during battle, but currently had it strapped to his back.
The third commander, a man with elongated limbs, the skull of a deer, claws for fingers, fangs protruding from his skeleton jaws, and a twisted set of antlers adorning his head was known as Mo. During his life, he was a powerful, but drug addicted magic warrior. After a particularly bad hallucination experience, he discovered that he had eaten his own family.
Driven insane by his actions, he dove deeper into the rabbit hole of drugs and began to slaughter and eat humanoid beings on a regular basis. He loved the taste, but more than anything the power he felt after each victim he devoured. He quickly became what was known as a Devil on Talgonoth, but his description as an undead aligned him with the Wendigos of Earth.
He had technically become undead long before Sevrin found him and his one mistake was trying to eat a weird bird raccoon who shouted profanities at him after he attacked it. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't remember what happened after that and the next thing he knew, he was under the control of a lich named Sevrin and his name was now Mo, apparently named by the raccoon creature.
The last of the commanders was a hulking figure of flesh and bone, stitched together in a grotesque form which made it an unstoppable murder machine. Grog was neither man nor woman, it was just Grog. Formed from the flesh of multiple lesser intelligent races such as trolls, ogres, hobgoblins, and more, it retained all of their best abilities and none of their weaknesses.
Grog was Sevrin's response to a qilin he wanted to use as materials. The qilin was a special variant of the mythical beast known as a Destructive Flame Qilin. He had lost many battles to it previously, but once Grog was created and in the picture, his victory soon came after an arduous battle.
With Grog as the front-line tanking all of the damage, the other commanders and the army of undead fodder piled onto the qilin like ants climbing onto the legs of an elephant. Eventually they killed the massive beast, and Sevrin claimed the body and mana core for his research. It was this material that Mitas destroyed, and that Sevrin would never be able to claim again as he wasn't aware of where the Destructive Flame Qilin clan lived, if they were even in this world anymore.
The four commanders fighting as a single unit was terrifying. Each commander had the individual strength of a peak 5th stage if not bottom tier 6th stage. Due to their connection to Sevrin, they were able to communicate mentally and over the years had come to form a perfect team, working in perfect harmony. Their combined threat could equal a high tier 6th stage being while Sevrin himself was at the upper reaches of the middle of the 6th stage, and a lich.
With the five of them combined all attacking the same target, only monsters like the Lich King or Carnet Emperor could threaten him. They swept through armies of 3rd to 5th stage enemies as if they were bugs to be swatted. Even the occasional 6th stage who attacked them was swiftly dealt with, but most ended up running after losing the first few exchanges.
Sevrin and his commanders marched through the countryside of Mancea and eliminated anything and everything in their wake, converting all they killed into their army.
The only defeat they suffered was when a woman wielding light as illusions fooled their senses and penetrated the back lines, sneakily attacking Sevrin with several powerful attacks in quick succession, destroying his physical body.
The only one of them to see through the illusion and try to protect their master was Raccrow, but being the weakest of the bunch, he was no match for her. Raccrow was completely annihilated during her initial attack on Sevrin when he jumped in the way to try and defend his master.
Upon his resurrection, Sevrin learned of Raccrow's demise and the woman's subsequent escape and went into a rage induced fit where he would slaughter his own troops only to bring them back once again.
The four commanders vowed to never let something like that happen again. So, when the spear woman attacked again, they were ready. They could never kill her or even stop her from escaping, but she never once got close to attacking Sevrin again.
...
High in the sky, above the clouds and under the low light a crescent moon, a figure draped in shadows floated in the air, staring down at the army of undead far beneath him using Mana Sense.
He could sense the lich as well as four other powerful beings below. There were a few 5th stage beings among the army as well, but none could be compared to the main five enemies in the center of the camp.
With his All-Seeing Eyes, Kayn could clearly see the several formations set up around the center of the camp. He couldn't tell what they all did as he wasn't versed that well in formations yet, but from what he could understand, there were at least two defensive formations, one killing formation, a sealing formation, and a revealing formation.
Kayn looked over Yelena's notes once more and couldn't stop his eye from twitching. She stated that she had attacked exactly three times, successfully destroying his body and one of the more "powerful" undead on the first attack.
The two successive attacks that followed she was met with stronger and stronger resistance and clearly stated that a sneak attack would most likely not work anymore.
"Just how does she expect me to kill this guy alone again?" Kayn mumbled to himself.