The Executed Sage Reincarnates as a Lich and Begins a War of Aggression

That night.

I was sitting in the audience room, alone with my thoughts.

“……”

I could hear the tapping of footsteps on the floor at regular intervals.

But when I investigated their source, I discovered that they were my own feet.

I seemed to have been unconsciously moving them all this while.

I stopped it and folded my arms.

They’re late. What’s taking them so long?

I was aware of the frustration building up in my heart.

I knew its cause.

I was concerned that Grom and the others hadn't returned yet.

I'm sure they're fighting the Holy Sceptre Kingdom right now.

It had already been half a day since they left.

Even if it were a hard-fought battle, with my top to leaders in the fraay, it wouldn’t be strange for them to have wrapped up by this time.

I had arranged for a tepepathic communication from Grom as soon as the battle ended.

Yet there was not a word from the intercepting army.

Are they struggling? No, there is hardly a chance for a hero that rivals them to exist.

The more I thought about it, the more I felt uneasy.

Perhaps something had really happened to the Demon Lord’s Army that had gone to intercept them.

Taking into account the present situation, that was the most probable conclusion.

I shouldn’t brush off my sixth sense at times like this.

It's always better to assume the worst.

This time, the Holy Sceptre Army had taken a rather bold move.

No matter how just their cause was, the fact remained that they had begun to slaughter large numbers of people.

Don’t they think it’ll not only cause criticism from other countries, but also incur the wrath of the Demon Lord?

Even if they had a hatred for the undead, they had clearly gone too far.

They are not stupid either.

They very well knew the amount of power the current Demon Lord possessed.

If they really were foolish beyond saving, they would have been destroyed during the era of the previous Demon Lord.

I had a feeling that they had a plan for this massacre as well.

The Holy Sceptre Kingdom does not send its people to their deaths for nothing.

Defeat in the battlefield and losing face was their greatest fear.1

After all, glory and victory are the honour of the Holy Sceptre Kingdom.

Maybe the Holy Scepter Kingdom has something to hide.

Or perhaps they had found something that made them deem that they could oppose the Demon Lord’s Army.

Usually, all problems could be solved with Grom and Henry’s strength.

The two of them alone had reached a level of strength that would allow them to take on a normal army.

But this time, I can't brush off that feeling of unease.

It was too unnatural that they had not sent any news and have not returned.

During the day I was too busy with other work to pay attention to it, but I should have noticed it a little earlier.

Shall I go and see just in case?

After thinking about it for a while, I made a decision.

It's not a lot of effort.

It's just a matter of using transfer magic to see what's going on.

If the battle is going on without problems, then my fears were unfounded.

I'm sure Luciana and the others will tease me for worrying, but that's okay.

I used my perception magic.

I spread my consciousness to the eastern part of the territory.

On the way, I felt a sense of resistance.

A concealment technique was being used, obscuring the information within the area.

It was designed to make it impossible to detect anything out of the ordinary at first glance.

From here, it was difficult to see what was going on within the area.

It was the middle of the city.

This was the zone where the intercepting army had been dispatched.

I searched the surrounding areas, but could not detect any reaction from them.

It seems that Grom and his men are inside the city.

“……”

I stood up from my throne in silence.

I took a look at the crystal on the pedestal next to me.

Her ashes were floating inside.

I knelt in front of the crystal and said to her, “—I’ll be borrowing it for a bit.”.

I took the keepsake sword on the pedestal in my hands.

It was the weapon that had killed both the previous generation’s Demon Lord and the current generation’s Hero.

I had a complex intertwined fate with this sword.

It was just a famous sword with no special powers, a memento propped up on a pedestal, but I could feel it.

Surely I should take this sword with me.

Although it was a vague hunch, I felt so.

It would assert the Demon Lord’s way of being.

It was not a bad choice.

At any rate, I had to go where the intercepting army was.

I activated my transfer magic to investigate the situation at my destination.

In the process, I broke the obstructions and traps and flew to the city in question.

As soon as my vision switched to the city, I felt a strong numbness overwhelm me.

“Urk…”

I groaned and fell to my knees on the ground..

It felt as if a hot knife was scraping the surface of my body, weakening it.

It was so difficult to move that I thought my arms and legs had been hardened with lead.

It was holy magic.

It had been deployed all around the place.

It was not like the holy air of the Forest of Yggdrasil.

Although it had an output that would normally be classified as great magic, it was spread over a wide area.

At this rate, it could cover the whole city.

In any case, at this rate, we will make no progress.

I used magic to protect my body.

As soon as I activated my magic, the effect of the holy magic wavered.

However this doesn't mean that the damage has stopped completely, it only means that the rate of purification has been reduced.

My body will eventually decay and disappear down to the bone marrow at this rate.

No, that's all I need.

With the power from the Valley of the Dead, I can use another undead being to come back to life.

But this holy magic was too powerful.

If I was unlucky, it could damage my soul.

In the worst case, I might be unable to revive.

Anyway, it's holy magic of unbelievable power.

It's definitely the work of the Holy Sceptre Kingdom.

I don't know anyone else who can use this kind of advanced magic.

Is it a ceremonial magic performed by more than one mage?

Clearly, this is beyond the capacity of the individual.

I just don't think you can prepare this much magic in such a short time…

It would have been understandable if I had jumped into an enemy camp that they had taken time to build. But this was a city in the Demon Lord’s territory.

The Holy Sceptre Kingdom’s stay would have lasted for half a day at most.

This is by far not enough time to exercise ceremonial magic.

“De…mon… Lo…rd…”

I heard a muffled voice behind me.

It was Grom who crawled out of the shadows.

His whole body had been damaged, and even his lower body had no semblance of his original form.

Of his eight arms, six were already rotting away.

It was the effect of purification.

“Please… run… away—”

Grom tried to warn me.

At that moment, a chain of light stretching from beyond caught him in the torso.

It’s edges, sharp like a spear, suddenly pierced through and sewed Grom to the ground.

Grom lay on the ground motionless, emitting white smoke.

“Huh? Looks like there are more weird things. Well, that’s fine. I’ll just pulverise them.”

I heard a strangely cheerful girl's voice.

At about the same time, a chain of light flew towards me.

I flicked it off with my keepsake sword and looked at the owner of the voice.

There is a line of people at the end of the street in the city.

There were probably hundreds of them as far as the eye can see.

If you include those who lay in wait in various places, there will be no less than 10,000.

My perception magic caught signs of humans lurking everywhere.

They are dressed in white military uniforms and equipped with magical decorations.

The emblem on their flag, which resembled a cross, indicated that they belonged to the Holy Sceptre Kingdom.

At the head of the group, there was one person with a different appearance.

She wore a pure white cloak and held a magnificent staff in her hand.

A girl with blonde hair was standing with a smile on her face.