After the skeleton shouted, all the mana inside the dome came to a halt, everything was still, it was only for a split second but it was enough to feel it.

Raynold: a light mage, follower of the Holy Lord's order, sensed it.

He had already fought against numerous monsters, and enemies casting spells or controlling the surrounding mana were not uncommon nor surprising, but this one was different, it used chants like every other living beings but made sounds that did not exist among the known magic words: the chants were far quicker and shorter, and while some of the words sounded similar to the ones he knew, they had more sounds added to them by what seemed like multiple other voices.

And now it managed to manipulate all the mana inside an anti-magic dome, by using magic words.

There were no doubts that this was a highly powerful entity and being an undead, it definetly had ill intentions, if left unchecked it would search for lives to kill and that had to be stopped.

"Finish it, now!" [Raynhold]

The knight attacked, but the sword never ended its swing for another impact hit him square in the chest sending him flying and leaving a translucent oversized fist in his previous location.

The skeleton managed to use magic inside the light dome, an impossible feat to accomplish was done in front of his eyes, and it wasn't all: the previously still mana started moving, it began circling around itself gaining speed, and then it shot towards the barrier's wall.

The sound of a heavy impact echoed across the battlefield, soon after, another one resounded, and another one, and another one, again and again, getting stronger and heavier after each hit.

Noticing this, Raynold concentrated himself and began fortifying the spell, but before that, the sound of shattering glass revealed a crack on the barrier, the mage was shocked by the event, he heard stories: only high ranking monsters and spells had the ability to damage or break the [Light Sanctum] dome.

But that didn't make any sense: if their enemy was that strong, then how did they manage to reduce it to such a state?

They managed to get the skeleton to a near death state, and yet it had enough power to damage and go against the effects of a light spell empowered by the sun...

That was when he noticed: there was no sunlight, the only visible light in the surroundings was being emanated by his magic, the last light had already gone and the sun had already set.

And with a loud shattering noise, the dome broke into rapidly fading particles, and as those faded away, darkness now held domain.

The atmosphere was tense, the air around the undead was clearly warping, it was enough to be seen even by those who couldn't perceive mana and worst of all, now that it broke out, it seemed to be influencing all of the magic in the area, this was dangerous, the enemy was now using all of its potential, the next round would be far harder than the first one.

Grabbed by its telekinetic hand, the skeleton rose up and stared the mage down, mana flowing inside it slowly regenerating its lost body.

"•¤⊙■●◇°○□▪》¤"

Raynold prepared himself as the skeleton started chanting, nothing came at him as the created circle imploded behind the enemy summoning a rock spike that deflected his companion's sword.

"Hou... You saw that, not ba-!?" [Knight]

The undead never stopped chanting, in an instant, another magic formation appeared in front of him spawning a spear made of ice that the knight barely dodged.

Raynhold started chanting, his friend was not enough anymore, he had to act.

While preparing his spell he noticed the skeleton's chant change, while the magic circle it started was still being finished, another one appeared in front of it aimed at him, the voices now clearly overlapped each other speaking in different speeds: it was activating two spells at the same time and the one aimed at him completed first, resulting in the creation of a fireball flying towards him forcing him to stop his chant in order to dodge.

"I-it can make multiple chants at the same time!" [Raynhold]

"What!? How is that possible!?" [Knight]

"I don't know and I don't care, stop playing and get serious right now, he's far more dangerous than anticipated." [Raynhold]

"Roger that." [Knight]

The knight's eyes changed and his movements grew sharper, his enemy could attack from any direction, but there was always a cue preceding any of them: before any attack, a magic circle would appear and while unlike Raynhold, he couldn't read nor understand what kind of spell it would be, he could predict from where it would hit.

Thanks to that he was able to control the damage to himself, but only defending was useless if he couldn't damage the enemy: no matter how many times he attacked nor how he did it, none of his hits ever connected, the undead always dodged them by floating away using its telekinetic hand or by parrying them with magic.

Some distance away was Raynhold casting any spell he could while dodging magic himself, the skeleton was very obviously being more aggressive toward him than it was being to his companion: all the chants aimed at him were done quicker and shot more often.

But he did notice something: everytime the undead double casted, the casting time was slightly longer than when it was activating only one magic, while the difference was small, it was enough to make it reactable, and thanks to that he was able to somewhat retaliate.

The fight truly was far different from the previous one as the skeleton was now almost untouchable, unlike before, it was casting magic over and over again leaving no time for respite: the knight slashed sideways, the blade getting stuck on a rock formation that had just been summoned by his enemy, at the same time Raynhold shot a fireball that got deflected half way to its target by a reflecting magic circle forcing him to throw himself on the ground to dodge it.

A skeletal hand thrusted forward missing the knight's head by inches, while an earth spike simultaneously rose from the ground just behind him, an attack that he managed to barely parry with his two hander.

Parallel to this fight, the mage managed to finish another [Light Sanctum] and, again, a light sphere started expanding close to the undead, but this time the outcome was different: the moment his magic circle completed, an incredible amount of mana started moving just like before, and as the dome started growing, the mana hit it and blocked its expansion before once again shattering it with a barrage of mana hits.

Raynhold was shocked by this event, the skeleton only fought it once and it already knew how to counter it.

The undead was growing tired of this fight, once again it started chanting in the mage's directon, but this one was different: dread filled the surroundings for every word being spoken as a magic circle made of black light began forming; the mage grew restless as he deciphered the formation and recognized the spell:

"[Last Word], it's a death spell, at the distance you're in right now you won't be able to dodge it, be careful!" [Raynhold]

"Nice, then what do I do?" [Knight]

"Prepare your magic sword, I have a plan." [Raynhold]

"Can't dodge so fight harder, is it?" [Knight]

"You're not its target, just do as I say." [Raynhold]

"Roger that." [Knight]

That was an insta-kill magic and as all dark spells could, it was one of the only spells that could pass through a light barrier, so that wasn't an option; luckily for them, [Last Word]'s chant was very lenghty and even though it was being chanted at an inhuman speed, they still had a lot of time before the death magic would activate, and so, he as well started chanting another [Light Sanctum].

The pressure the undead was putting on him was gone, it probably couldn't triple chant and it was using its "secondary spells" to fight off his companion, this was good for the mage as he now only needed to concentrate on his magic without the worry of dodging.

Meanwhile the knight was putting pressure on the skeleton, hitting harder and more frequently, even taking head on some of the less lethal hits, leaving the defensive job to his armor, he started connecting some of his hits, they were just grazes but they were enough for him to gauge its reactions in order to prepare for the final attack: his sword was a special weapon that could absorb light mana and use it to either enhance its sharpness or shot out as a wave of magic.

It was a powerful ability that couldn't be used multiple times in a row as it had to reabsorb the energy afterwards and he couldn't use it right now as there was no light mana to take, so he had to wait for the signal and use it to end the fight.

One last word was left before the spell's completion: the next moment would be decisive.

"Now!" [Raynhold]

The next instant another light sphere expanded close to the undead and once again a huge wall of mana stopped it in its tracks just before reaching its body, but that wasn't the spell's purpose: the dome managed to envelop the knight, providing him with a shield toward any magic aimed at him and charging up his sword for the final hit.

One last ice spear shattered in front of his eyes, inches from his face, protected by the light wall between them.

The skeleton quickly chanted one last spell, but it was useless, no magic could pass through and according to his observations the skeleton's speed in its impaired form was too slow to be able to dodge the next hit: the enemy's chant ended and as expected nothing happened, with one last step forward, the knight channeled the light in his sword and unleashed a powerful two handed downward slash.

A large fissure opened on the ground followed the sound of metal sliding on metal as a wave of light flew away into the distance.

Shock filled the humans' faces as the last moments replayed in their minds: the last spell it activated was a telekinetic spell that it used to bring itself a sword, in an instant, the skeleton held the sword sideward pointing down, and using the same telekinetic hand as a support it slid off the impact deflecting the hit to the side.

What was even more scary than the fact that their last hit had missed was the stance it used: it was the stance drilled into every knight of the Holy Lord's order, the fighting style he used during the whole fight and the undead managed to reproduce it movement by movement while missing limbs, using magic replacements.

Without breaking the stance, the skeleton shoved him to the side with a handle strike and completed its [Last word].

One last mana impact shattered the light dome and black mist shot toward the mage.

It was the end for him, the attack was too fast to dodge and no magic could be casted quickly enough to save him, but he still tried and with as much force as he could muster, he threw himself to the ground and hoped for the best.

Death never came, did he dodge it? No, looking up he saw the form of his companion reeling and gasping for air, their eyes met and one last sentence was spoken by the dying man.

"...Run... You have... to warn the..." [Knight]

His eyes lost their shine and his lifeless body fell on the ground, after having recovered from the last strike he had jumped between the two and took the damage, resulting in his death.

A wind blade cut through the mage's arm separating it from his body and snapping him back to reality, the skeleton wasn't done and it was still chanting, this time all of its attention focused on him.

Ignoring the pain, Raynhold sprinted, running as fast as his legs allowed him and never looking back, he ran.

He should've noticed, he thought, it was an undead that was capable of using magic under daylight and it could keep its form inside a [Light Sanctum] spell empowered by the sun, if they had fought it seriously during the first fight, they would've probably won, but they didn't, thinking it was just a low ranking monster that just woke up.

Spell after spell flew at him, grazing him as he tried to dodge the unseen attacks, this enemy was dangerously powerful, he had to warn the order, they had been lucky to have caught it unprepared and surprised but they wasted the opportunity and now it was stronger than when they started.

An explosion appeared under his legs as a fireball hit the spot he was standing in, he was sent flying and violently landed a few meters to the side, he tried to get up but to no avail: he couldn't feel his legs anymore, looking down he found burnt stumpts in the place they were supposed to be, spewing blood everywhere and releasing the sickening smell of burnt flesh.

One last magic circle was close to completion: it was the same death spell from before, and this time he could not retaliate in any way.

Crying, he asked himself how could this have happened, it was supposed to be a simple recon mission to investigate the inexplicable death of over sixteen thousand people, the place had already been scouted before and no threaths were ever found, he didn't even know his companion's name for how hastily and lazily the mission was put together.

"Why... why do you monster want to kill life so much, what did we ever do to you!?" [Raynhold]

Black mist flew at him, this time enveloping him with its cold embrace: he felt no pain, but instead a lethargic sensation assailed him, controlling his action was getting increasingly more difficult and his vision started to darken.

He felt his memories leaving and his worries fading as darkness grew more and more prominent, in the distance a small figure could be seen getting larger, he was getting closer to the creature, but it wasn't out of his free will.

Fear sprouted and rapidly took control of his emotions as he gradually approached the being, an enormous mass of flesh and offals fused together, squirming and writhing as infinite eyes stared him and countless limbs began waltzing through the endless dark space: a being so hideous and horrifying that it could not be described in its entirety by just mere words.

One of his innumerable mouths opened, revealing billions of faceless, human like shapes in the place of its teeth, ready to devour him.

"Çømə hEřë, łəT u§ bƏ wHøłę aĞąïN..." [???]

Terror was all he could feel as the being prepared to devour him, it was the first time he saw the demon, but it was familiar and he could feel them both being similar, no, being the same creature, but that was impossible, he was human and the other Thing was definetly not.

He desperately tried escaping without success, deep down he knew that it was impossible, he had the certainty that nothing could do anything against such a monster, as countless of hands began grabbing and tearing him apart, he screamed and screamed, until he could feel his throat bleeding.

But nobody could hear him as no sound could escape his soulless, mutilated body that laid on the ground...

Dead.

"...that was self-defense."

Said the skeleton letting himself drop on the ground as he canceled his telekinetic hands.

The fight had been terrifying, if the sun hadn't set in that moment it would've probably died.

...I didn't know I could manipulate pure mana like that, also now I know I can survive inside an empowered light magic barrier but it use too much concentration denying me the use of magic... I might need to learn a bit of swordplay for that.

The undead chuckled as it looked up the night sky.

I learn something new every day.