As the Life Draining Mist continued to spread, Clayton remained flat on his back with a smile on his face.
The screams of the enemy died down over time. He figured that some survived the life draining massacre, but he wasn't worried about it. He knew that the following situation was going to play out in one or two ways.
What remained of the brigade would either flee, or have already fled, regardless of what rank they bore. Or, he'd have to fight them, and officially finish the battle. He wasn't bothered by them, and was more than ready to follow through with either option.
What did get him worried, however, was the fact that he could feel himself getting weaker. He had suspected this to happen eventually, but the math wasn't making sense in his head, because he figured he had plenty of Life Essence to spend.
Unsure of what was going on, he looked at another small number that the system was flashing at the corner of his eye, and got a hint of what was going on.
This particular number was next to a name, and as he saw the number go down quickly, he figured out that the Life Draining Mist he was spreading across the brigade, was what made him feel weaker! The reducing number spooked him, got him to focus, and inevitably, ruined the little picnic he was having here.
[Life Essence Points = 120]
[Life Essence Points = 110]
[Life Essence Points = 95]
[Life Essence Points = 60]
The number kept going down, and if it went to zero, not only would he be vulnerable to any and all attacks, but he feared that he'd also risk losing all the Life Essence that the mist was reaping on his behalf!
"Darn!" He exclaimed.
Fearing that he'd lose the advantage he had built up, he stood up in the blink of an eye, and clenched his fists. As he did so, the red mist stopped spreading, and therefore, stopped spending what remained of his Life Essence Points.
It retracted, and floated towards him at ten times the speed in comparison to its expansion rate. For a moment, Clayton looked like a Black Hole, as the mist spiraled in a circle as he absorbed it, taking in the Life Essence of tens of men every second, and likely a few hundred in total!
With that much essence absorbed, he started feeling infinitely better. He felt rather young, and as the number at the corner of his eye kept going up, he had a pretty good sense of why he felt young!
[Life Essence Points = 314]
[Life Essence Points = 520]
[Life Essence Points = 871]
[Life Essence Points = 1,220]
[Life Essence Points = 1,999]
[Life Essence Points = 3,500]
The number stopped at thirty-five hundred, it didn't go past that point. There was no threshold to what he could absorb, he simply sucked in all the Life Essence that the mist had drained from the enemy.
The Life Draining Mist was gone. He felt young, he felt powerful, he felt forty-one again, and there was so much Life Essence in his body, in his veins, that he couldn't help but shout in response. He shouted, laughed, and even jumped around, like an over-excited light weight Boxer!
"Fuck yes!" He shouted, and had grown an erection as strong as a boulder. "Come on, bastards! Fight me, use your swords, I won't use mine! Hahaha!"
The enemy did not approach him. They stared at him from a safe distance, and then got busy as Clayton's remaining slaves chased after them, craving violence. He was surprised that what remained of the brigade hadn't fled yet, they were more brave than he had anticipated.
"Doesn't matter," He chuckled.
Anyway, what was even greater about the Life Essence he drained, was that it didn't go down, even though his body had visibly changed. He felt younger, he looked younger, and yet the Life Essence Points statistic was frozen at a crisp thirty-five hundred. He felt immortal, he felt like a God!
[Be careful with your Life Draining Mist next time. You almost ran out of Life Essence Points a moment ago.]
"Don't worry," He took a deep breath, and calmed down a little bit. "I know how it works now, so forget about it. How many slaves can you make for me now? I just killed five hundred men, at least! Shouldn't that get me five hundred slaves?"
[It doesn't work like that.]
[Total Soul Points = 5,100]
[Assess the situation, and tell me how many slaves you need. I recommend that you don't overshoot your assessment, because you finally managed to rack up a lot of points, and as for the slaves, and or clones, they don't live forever. Or better said, they'll wither away in seven days.]
"Hmm…" He stroked the beard stub on his chin, itching his fingers on it. "For once, you told me something important to me in time, lass. I wanted hundreds of slaves, but now I believe that one hundred should do just fine. I'm counting at least three hundred of those bastards, I think, so my plan is… I'll waste my slaves away on the frontline, and then hit the enemy from behind."
[Sounds good.]
Moments later, the system granted his request. She was mindful to not spend a lot of his points, so she did the math on his behalf, and only resurrected eleven formerly dead men and women. Then, she multiplied them.
What was eleven, turned to thirty three in a blink! Twenty two of which were clones, indistinguishable from the original, resurrected heroes, and they quite likely had the same lifespan too.
What was thirty three, turned to ninety nine.
Considering that the math to clone a hundred slaves from eleven of the resurrected was impossible, the system then resurrected one more skeleton for him. A woman, with enough attire on her that it would make one think she was a princess who convinced her father to train as a Battle Mage, a Hero. Her rank barely mattered now, as she was as dead as her friends.
[-720 Soul Points]
[Remaining points = 4,380]
[I hope you are satisfied. This was the best I could do without tanking your accumulated points too much.]
"Good job," He nodded, as he looked at his slaves.
"Heh… they look like Heroes…" He then said, "How funny is it that they died by my hand? Heroes that the people lust and holler over only have seven more days to live… less if they don't put up a good fight. Let's see how useful these tin-cans are."