The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 59 (Patreon)

You knew this was going to end badly for someone, right?

Chapter 59 – Retaliation

Three targets. The Army base the team staged out of, the headquarters of the Committee for State Security, and the name of the man in charge of it all. That is what my quick interrogation of the Captain got me.

Oh, I let him and his men live, and I promised to not go after their families, as well. There was no mercy in it, of course, but simple pragmatism. Word would get out, and when it did, people would know that, if their bosses sent them against me, betrayal would be rewarded. No, the only command I gave the Captain and his men was that they wait for the police, and confess to all their crimes on US soil, or the deal was off. They were happy to accept.

I decided that I would hit all three targets in quick succession, to send a message. Naturally, I couldn’t be there in person for each attack, but I had plenty of trusted lieutenants that I could use for this. I quickly teleported to Moscow, where two of the targets lay, and gave my orders, before heading to where the main slaughter would be.

Twenty miles to the east of Moscow, there was a military base. That is where the team that attacked my sister staged out of. My plan was to make an example of it, and show the militaries of this world, without a shadow of a doubt, how outclassed they were.

It was a little after four in the morning, local time, when my disciples and I arrived at the outskirts of the military base. A scant two hours after my sister had been abducted. Of course, this world did not have the protections needed to keep a powerful mage from teleporting where they wished, so that was understandable. It took more power to teleport freely than to just activate a teleporter CAD with preset destinations.

“Mistress, what are we going to do here?”

I looked at Dai, and smiled. “My disciples. You have both shown much promise, in the way you handled yourselves in the field. Now, you shall watch, and learn, as you see what a magical army can do.

“This place shall be made example of. Not just because this is where the team staged out of, but because I hope to not need to make such displays in the future. What happens this day will be punishment, and a threat to all who try and attack me or mine.”

“I understand, Mistress.”

I opened the portal to my pocket dimension wide, and called forth my army. Oh, not the full army. This single base was not worth a display of the full might of my legions. No, only one legion, out of the fifty at my command, would be enough for this.

Undead soldiers marched out in perfect unison, their weapons and armor pristine and glinting in the moonlight, as the cold fire of their eyes shone like candles. Easily, they formed up in ranks, five thousand infantry in all, along with three hundred Death Knights upon undead steeds to serve as cavalry.

Looking upon them as I shut the portal, I said, “Soldiers of Risen Athelia! Your Queen calls you to war! This land has attacked Our kin, in an attempt to steal secrets they have not earned!

“You will be my response. Fall like the hammer of the gods upon this military base before you! Burn their buildings to the ground. Corrupt the earth so that no grass will grow there in one hundred years or more. Seek out all life in the base, and snuff it out. When you are done, the only living beings for as far as the eye can see shall be my two Disciples, who you see with me.

“Now, FIGHT, MY WARRIORS! SHOW THESE MORTALS WHAT TERROR AND DREAD TRULY MEAN! LET NONE ESCAPE! SLAUGHTER THEM ALL IN THE NAME OF THE LICH QUEEN!”

With a roar, the army surged forward, eager to be about their work. They were like a tide of death, rushing to crash down upon the base. I nodded in approval, and turned my steed to follow, at a more sedate pace, my disciples following with me.

“Remember, my disciples. If you show your enemies that you have both the will and the ability to strike back against them, and will repay any injury tenfold, then it will be only the very foolish, or the ones who think that they are entirely too clever for their own good, who will dare attack you. And the number of each who can get into any real position of power is, thankfully, small, as their schemes tend to get them caught, sooner or later.”

“But Mistress, what of the innocents caught in between?” Aeko sounded a bit queasy as she spoke. Poor girl had never killed before this night, but she’d done well, all the same.

“Unfortunately, Aeko, that is part of the calculus of war. And, in truth, this is nowhere near the level of what I could do. The army is here, attacking a military base, after all. It would be so easy for me to, instead, unleash my legions upon Moscow itself, and slaughter the entire city, only to raise the fallen as undead to join my army. If I wished to be the conqueror, there is no country on the face of this planet that could stop me.”

“Even the nuclear states, Mistress?” Dai asked, questioningly.

“Ah, yes, nuclear weapons. In truth, those could harm much of my army, if they were unprotected. But you have not seen what an entire army channeling all their magic into a single spell can do when that magic is geared towards shrugging off a single blast. And I have mages who are specialized in divinations always looking for signs that a nuclear launch is about to target my forces.

“They would have time to raise the shield, and, so, would survive the initial blast wave just fine. As undead, the radiation would not affect them. They would not sicken, and no cancer would touch them, as they are creatures of Death, and cancer is a product of Life. The only thing that would happen is that they would be even more deadly to mortals, until the radiation faded.

“Know this, and be sure to tell your countries about it. Any undead which survives the initial blast from a nuclear weapon will only grow stronger, as the dying mortals in the area release their magic as Death magic. In fact, so much death in one spot may create a power site, aspected towards Death magic, which would further empower the undead.”

I shook my head, and turned back towards the slaughter. “But enough of this, for now. Observe how well a modern military fares against a foe steeped in magic.”

(Headquarters, Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Moscow)

When the New Soviet regime came to power, following the Awakening, one of the first things they did was return the Federal Security Service to its older name, the Committee for State Security. That was the English translation, of course. Russians knew it by the old initials they had gone by before, the KGB.

Even at 04:30 in the morning, the Headquarters of the KGB was manned. In the global world of international espionage and intrigue, threats to the State did not wait for Moscow to wake up and have breakfast before rearing their heads. As such, the different departments were always manned, even if their directors were not always in.

In this case, however, one of the high-ranking directors was in, despite the hour. Given the nature of the operation currently ongoing, that much was obvious. They needed to institute information control measures immediately, to keep things from getting worse.

“Still no word from the team in Seattle?”

“No, Comrade Director,” the adjutant said. “Nothing since that last message, informing us that ‘three flaming horses were riding across the sky’ towards their position. If Captain Somov was not known for never drinking in the field, I would have said he was drunk. But social media and news reports from America confirm it.”

A lower-ranking aide knocked, and then entered. “Pardon the interruption, Comrade Director, but we have word from a source in the Seattle Police Department. Captain Somov and his team have been arrested by the police, and are currently being interrogated.”

“I see. You may go, Comrade.” The Director frowned, but dismissed the aide. Looking back to the adjutant, he said, “Thoughts?”

“This is bad, Comrade Director. Captain Somov would not let himself be taken by the police, much less his entire team, knowing that we would have to silence them, unless that was preferable to whatever this Podlyy threatened him with. Unfortunately, all we can do is kill them, and she is said to be able to trap the soul and deliver true eternal torment to her victims.”

“Very well. Start making the arrangements. In recognition for their service, make it something quick, and relatively painless. They must die, but they have not earned something like the umbrella trick, yes?”

“Understood, Comrade Director. I’ll—”

At that instant, the lights went out. A moment later, the emergency lights came on, along with the sounds of locks engaging throughout the building. The Director did not need to ask to know that the building was going into an emergency lockdown. The question was why.

“Find out what is going on! We have to organize a response! Start with restoring power. We will find whoever did this, and crush them!”

“No need to find us. We’re already here.”

A voice came from the shadows in the corner, where before there had been nothing. Now, however, there was a form, dressed all in black, with a rapier in one hand, and a dagger in the other. The Director barely had time to scream before the sword found his throat. The adjutant lasted barely a moment longer before the dagger slashed his belly, spilling his intestines to the floor.

In shock and pain, the adjutant collapsed to the floor, trying to gather up his guts in a futile effort to prolong his life. He never noticed the black-clad assailant step into another shadow, and disappear. He certainly did not notice the explosive talisman the man left behind. But then it went off, and he would never notice anything, ever again.

It took just minutes, from the start of the attack until it was finished. Every living creature in the building was dead, and the cursed explosion seals meant that they could never be revived, or their souls called back to be questioned, save by the gods. As the black clad forms moved from shadow to shadow, the building was engulfed in black light, and pure Death magic struck it, and everything inside.

The building shook, as the weight of a thousand years hit it. Reinforced concrete crumbled and broke and the beams became shards of rusted metal. Files rotted away into nothing. Even the plastic in the computers degraded, and rotted away.

But, as the light faded away, not all was still. Bodies of the dead began to move. Mindless zombies, with no connection to the souls that formerly inhabited those husks. They knew only one thing, the hunger for mortal flesh. Fortunately for the people of Moscow, they were trapped within the rubble. At least for now.

(The Kremlin, Moscow)

The Kremlin was still the official residence of the leader of Russia. Ever since the Tsars, the Kremlin had served as such. Even with the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation, it continued that role. And the New Soviet Union followed suit.

Yakushin Petr Borisovitch was tired. It was only five in the morning, after all. And yet, he was the Premier of the New Soviet Union, and he needed to look the part, especially in the midst of this crisis. So, he made his face like stone, and at least looked like he had not been hastily woken in the middle of the night as he entered the Threat Assessment Center in the bunker beneath the Kremlin.

“What is the situation, then?”

A general saluted. “Shortly after 03:00, Moscow time, a direct-action unit from the KGB attempted an extraction and abduction of Target Koroleva’s sister, to use as leverage. The initial attack was successful, but the team leader noticed a pulse of magic during the attack.

“Shortly thereafter, three undead horses with flames coming off of them were seen riding across the sky, one of them bearing Target Koroleva’s flag. We lost contact with the team, after reports that the riders were attacking the ship that they were to use to smuggle the sister out of the country. It was later confirmed that they were taken into custody by the Seattle Police.

“At 04:00, Moscow Time, an emergency alert was broadcast from Uladimov Base, twenty miles to the east of Moscow. This is the home base of the direct-action team. The alert said that they were being attacked by an army of the undead, before cutting off. A pair of close air support fighters were scrambled from a nearby air base, and they were able to confirm that Uladimov Base had been overrun, before spell attacks shot down one fighter, and forced the other to break off.”

The general looked to the KGB representative in the room, who continued, “At 04:30, Moscow Time, KGB Headquarters came under attack from forces unknown. Power was cut to the building, and all communications in or out were blocked. At 04:36, the building was engulfed in some kind of spell effect that aged the building to a crumbled ruin in moments. All staff in the building, including Director Lobov, are presumed dead.”

Yakushin was a bout to speak, when another voice cut him off.

“And at 04:45, everyone in the Threat Assessment Center died, except the Premier.”

A shadowy, wraith-like figure emerged from the floor, gliding through it like a ghost. With brutal efficiency, they assaulted the men and women in the room, killing them all, one by one. Until only the Premier was left.

As he watched, the bodies of the dead began to convulse, and then more shadowy forms emerged, smaller than the original, but still deathly shadows. The main shadow hovered in front of Yakushin, and said, in that same, cold voice, “This is a warning, from the Lich Queen of Risen Athelia. From now on, you will be watched, Yakushin Petr Borisovitch. There is nowhere that you are safe. Attack her, or those under her aegis again, and there will be no escape. You will die, and then be raised into her eternal service.

“Thus says the Lich Queen. Ware her warning well, or next time, she will not be so merciful. And you, and your family, will have eternity to regret your actions.”

And then, the shadows sank into the floor, leaving Yakushin alone in a room full of corpses.