Chapter 14
Lilith pressed [Confirm] without hesitation.
A new Structure materialized inside the vast Barracks hall.
"Now that's more like it."
The auxiliary Barracks looked nothing like the main Structure.
It was far smaller—barely Lilith's height—and its design was so strange that it looked less like a building than a heap of bones.
In Lilith's opinion, that made it a far better fit for the undead.
She approached the new Structure and opened its panel.
[Auxiliary Barracks Crystal: Skeletal Undead]
[Rank: None]
[Description: Automatically summons 20 first-advancement Skeletal soldiers each day. Available Units include Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Spearmen, and Skeleton Archers. Unit type is randomized.]
[Habitat Trait: When not assigned to a task, Skeletal Undead may merge with others of their race to form a Bone Heap. Maximum capacity: 1,000 Units.]
[Bone Heap: Skeletal Undead within the Bone Heap passively gain 1 EXP every 10 minutes while idle.
The Bone Heap also functions as an early-warning system.
Its detection radius increases with the number of merged Skeletons, up to a maximum of 0.
6 miles. When an enemy approaches, the Skeletons will automatically separate and engage. ]
[Maximum-Capacity Evolution: Once a Bone Heap reaches its limit of 1,000 Skeletons, you may choose to shatter and fuse every Unit within it, creating a new Skeletal creature: Bone Titan. Its strength will be determined by the combined power of the 1,000 Skeletons used in the fusion.]
[Bone Titan: A colossal Skeletal creature with immense combat power and destructive force. Duration: 24 hours. When the duration ends, Bone Titan will revert to a Bone Heap based on its remaining time and current condition. Skeleton losses are doubled according to damage sustained.]
Lilith stared at the panel, her satisfaction growing line by line.
I knew it. This is what a max-level Barracks reward should look like.
The auxiliary Barracks did not disappoint.
Its effects went beyond everything she had hoped for.
She reread every line with care.
In essence, the auxiliary Structure had carved the entire Skeletal race out of the main Barracks and given it an independent summoning system.
It produced Units automatically every day and required no resources to upgrade.
Future specializations would presumably create separate Barracks for Spectral Undead, Corporeal Undead, and the other races she had unlocked.
The [Bone Heap] trait was practically a mobile Barracks in its own right.
No—that wasn't quite right.
It was closer to a Barracks and Training Grounds rolled into one.
Lilith immediately began revising her defensive plans.
Still, the new feature threw one problem into sharp relief.
I need more Units. I haven't even hit the point where my Territory is too crowded to hold them.
Lilith had considered that possibility before.
As more undead were summoned, the Territory would eventually run out of room.
Bone Heaps solved that problem for an entire race.
From now on, the Skeletons wouldn't need to take up space in the Training Grounds. They could merge into Bone Heaps and stay stationed around the Territory.
If war broke out, each heap could release a wave of soldiers within seconds.
While idle, they doubled as sentries.
And as long as no enemies show up, every Skeleton inside keeps earning EXP.
There was just one problem.
Lilith didn't have a thousand Skeletons to spare, so a maximum-capacity Bone Heap was out of reach.
Even if she'd had them, she wouldn't commit every Skeleton at once. Doing so would gut the Territory's workforce.
Lilith closed the panel and walked to the edge of her Territory.
She called over several nearby Skeletons to test the new ability.
Their appearance hadn't changed.
The specialization had enhanced the Bone Heap itself, not the individual Units.
The merging process turned out to be far simpler than Lilith expected.
Blue soul fire rose from the Skeletons' rib cages and eye sockets. The separate flames drifted together, gathering into a single larger blaze.
Deprived of the soul fire that sustained them, the Skeletons collapsed.
Bones scattered across the ground with a dry clatter.
Then an invisible force dragged them toward the combined flame.
Within seconds, the remains had settled into an unremarkable mound of bones.
The more Skeletons a Bone Heap held, the larger it grew.
This one, formed from only a handful of Units, didn't even reach Lilith's height.
Too bad I can't see what Bone Titan looks like yet.
Bone Titan was the Bone Heap's ultimate weapon—a colossal creature fused from one thousand Skeletons.
Even without exact stats, Lilith could tell that anything built from that many Units would be terrifyingly powerful.
But the transformation came with strings attached.
Bone Titan could exist for only a single day, and any damage it took would multiply the Skeletons lost when it reverted.
The fusion was nothing to use casually.
Lilith would have to wait for a major war to see Bone Titan with her own eyes.
Even so, she was satisfied.
The arrival of Bone Heaps let her build an entirely new defensive network.
The Goblin territories lay to the southwest, so Lilith placed two Bone Heaps in that direction, each holding two hundred Skeletons.
She set several more along the northern approach facing the Frostlands.
None of the heaps held many Units, but all of them lay hidden along the outer perimeter.
Come the next invasion, Lilith would no longer be limited to Specters as her rapid-response force. Even her slow-moving Skeletons could now reinforce a battlefield almost instantly.
After a battle, any newly raised Skeletons could be merged into the nearest heap as well.
Two problems solved at once.
"Sometimes having a huge Territory is a pain."
Lilith sighed and turned back toward the settlement.
Before she could leave, a Specter returning from the north drifted up to her.
"My Lord..."
The Specter delivered the intelligence it had gathered from the Frostlands.
By the time it finished, disbelief had spread across Lilith's face.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I haven't even dealt with the Goblins, and now you're telling me something even stronger has moved into the Frostlands?"