Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

Chapter 1746 1746: A Choice

”This canʼt be… can it?” Matthew asked, shocked to see the corpses before him that hadnʼt rotten yet. The leather and metal armor on its body was all decayed, and many of the clearly dead corpses were turned into Skeletons as well.

However, the corpses that were still undead were not dead. They hadnʼt decayed and nothing in particular had happened to them at all.

”Are they really the lost legion?” Romus asked. ”That would make these corpses 400 years old.”

”They must be,” Ning said. ”Didnʼt Mari mention that the emperor lost the first time around because a majority of his soldiers were suddenly gone? They must have been sent down here.”

”How?” Romus asked.

”Teleportation,” Ning said. ”Thatʼs one way to do it. Lay an ambush for the incoming soldiers and send them all down here. Even when the necromancer calls for them, they canʼt go out because everything is closed off.”

Romus nodded. ”Now that he is hundreds of years dead, they have remained immobile, with nothing to…”

He quickly moved forward, touching just one of the corpses.

Ning was about to tell him not to touch the corpses because of how dirty they were, but it didnʼt look like the man was going to listen to him.

”Rise!” the man said and the corpse suddenly moved. It slowly stirred, moving up from the pile of corpses that surrounded it, pulling itself out.

The soldier stood a head taller than everyone else, looking down at the four.

Romus took a step back, almost as though he was scared by the corpse he himself had made to rise up. ”Oh… dear lord…”

”What? Whatʼs wrong?” Matthew quickly asked, fearing for the worst.

”Its… itʼs incredible,” Romus said.

”What? What is?”

”The power,” Romus said. ”The spirit within this undead. There is so much power here.”

Ning looked at the undead and slowly understood what was going on.

When a soul was made to become a spirit that was put into its original body, the body was put into a state of near-dead. It was the line between living and death, where it wouldnʼt begin rotting, and it was the line where it couldnʼt think.

As the undead did what was asked of them, they continuously lost this energy. When they stopped moving, they gained back this energy slowly again.

Romus had been using this very energy to slowly refresh his powers to get something good over the course of the past few months. Every few days, the corpses would gather enough energy that he wouldnʼt feel bad taking from them just enough to get himself power.

Now, before him were hundreds of such undead soldiers, all of whom had been gathering this very energy for the past 350 years. The fact that these were the best of the best the old emperor had in his army was the second most important thing here. The energy these soldiers had was the very first one.

”I could… I could get so much stronger,” Romus slowly said.

Ning grabbed Romus and pulled him back. Romus turned around, confused. That was when Ning gestured to them all to leave.

Everyone was confused but the place was so congested with the stinking air that they actually did want to breathe the fresh air again.

They arrived back outside where the group of soldiers were waiting for them.

”Are the bandits in there?” Mari asked from the side. She had been nervous this whole time.

”Bandits?” Romus asked, only now realizing that it was what they had gone in there for. Instead, they had found the lost legion of the emperor. ”No, we found something much better.”

Ning placed his hands on Romus before he could speak. He pulled him aside and Matthew as well. ”We need to discuss a few things.”

Mari wanted to join the conversation, but Ning stopped her. ”Sorry, itʼs just between us for now.”

They moved far away enough that the sound of the flood drowned out any other sound so they could not be heard by others.

”What?” Matthew asked. ”Youʼre acting weird.”

”The situation has changed,” Ning said. ”So I have to act weird.”

Matthew looked confused. ”What is it? You seem troubled.”

Ning looked at Matthew with a serious look on his face. ”There are thousands of new soldiers waiting to be put into your rank in there,” he said. ”We need to decide who gets to use them.”

”What do you mean who?” Romus asked. ”I am the only one here that can make use of them anyway.”

”I know,” Ning said. ”So I need to know what you plan on doing with them.”

”Take them with me of course,” Romus said.

”What then?” Ning asked.

”What then?” Romus asked back in confusion.

Matthew frowned. ”You want to know what we will do with these soldiers. Whether we save our soldiers our people or not.”

Ning nodded. ”If you take these soldiers and join the battle, you can delay the end of the war by another 10 to 15 years no doubt. Maybe you can even win it, although I doubt that. But if you do end up using them on the battlefield, it will only be troublesome for me and Shara. I need to make her the Empress.”

Matthew frowned. ”What do you want exactly? I know you want something.”

”I want Romus to vow to use the undead as soldiers in Sharaʼs name,” Ning said. ”I know this sounds harsh, but this will mean that you need to give up on your republic and leave its future to fate.”

”I do not like that,” Matthew said. ”Giving up on my land and my people just to do what we fought so hard for these many years not to do.”

”I am aware,” Ning said. ”So I will give you some time to think. Your republic has a very low chance of winning anyway. When it does lose in the end, would you not want an empress that wonʼt take advantage of you like your old Emperor did? Think about it and let me know.”

Ning left the two, walking back toward the group who were waiting for them to return.