Most people would have been writhing in pain. Maybe struck dumb by the surprise attack. A least they’d be shocked to see their body pierced by two weapons. You, on the other hand, being an Undead Skeleton had a different reaction. Mainly one of irritation.

Ah, Gods are damned. Another one. Welp, dyeing is an inconvenience. Time to let ‘er rip.

Eliminate whatever obstacles lay before you.

Yeah, yeah, you’re getting to it.

Food?

You might.

Several ribs fall off as your would-be killer pulls their twin blades out of you.

Oh, scratch that. You definitely will now. Making you look weak in front of The Master.

Whatever your would-be assassin was expecting, it probably wasn’t you being able to retaliate. Your flurry of claw attacks was mostly parried, with only one managing to get through. Enough to elicit a feminine grunt. Not enough to knock them down.

Being ready this time, you doge one swing and managed to turn the other attack into a glancing blow. While it didn’t hurt or damage you to any significant degree, it was enough to leave you distracted for a split second. An opportunity your assailant expertly used to get some breathing room.

You gave chase, managing to get one final clawed strike before they retaliated. Enough to draw blood. Speaking of blood, you were still healing using your mystical type. Not as fast as you’d like, but hopefully enough to outlast the enemy.

Considering the fights' current circumstances, losing the surprise advantage put the winner in your favor. As far as you could tell, shortswords were ill-equipped to sufficiently hurt you. As long as they didn’t pull any other tricks out of their ass.

“Sonic Blade!”

The shortsword gets past your guard and pierces your skull. It doesn’t do that much damage. Not as much as it could, from the look on the assassin’s face. You’d smile if you had lips, positive you have her on the ropes.

And then you hear a high pitch ringing. It gets louder and louder. Loud enough to hurt your nonexistent ears. It isn’t until your head begins to crack that you realize it’s coming from the shortsword.

You are too slow to stop your skull from shattering, disabling you instantly. The last thing you saw before you fell unconscious was the self-satisfaction on the human’s lips as she struck you down.

Fucking. Mages.

The fighting stopped.

Isha for her part was paralyzed, having been unable to move since her room became a death battle. If it weren’t for her mother deciding to wake up at that exact moment, who knew when she would have broken out of such a state.

“Mom!”

Isha hugged her mother tightly, grateful to see her alive if injured. Zaiyola just laid there in agony, her scratches and bruises radiating pain across her body. Being squeezed didn’t help the matter either. Pushing past that, she became cognizant enough to recognize she was in her daughter’s arms.

“Isha..? Where did you... come from?”

Whatever words she would have managed to say were interrupted by a high pitched yell from Jerald.

“Zaiyola!?”

Mother and daughter looked up to see the hellspawn shaking. Isha for her part was relieved to see her one friend has arrived. There was also an underlying feeling of indignation as he had locked her in her room without her permission. Her incapability to respond seeing as she and been unresponsive to her didn’t matter in her opinion.

“Jerald...? What are you doing here?”

Zaiyola on the other hand was less than pleased to see him. For one, Jerald had absolutely no reason to be in this part of the dungeon. Neither a guard nor logistics personnel, there were very few reasons he would be in the storage area. One of which is the fact that he knew where her daughter had been this whole time.

“I-. How-. Why are-?”

Stumbling over his own words, Jerald found it hard to properly answer her questions. Whether because the cult leader had found Isha or because said leader looked to have been roughed up to an inch of their life, he couldn’t say. One may be on the grounds of an executable defense. The other meant someone was running around who was lieges stronger than a Level 60 Mage.

And the hooded figure came into visual range, it only added a chaotic situation. Immediately, several things occurred. Zaiyola stood up, a spell glyph roaring to life in her hands. Isha was once again paralyzed by the return to battle. Jerald squawked and dived out of the way of friendly fire. The twin shortsword woman bared her fangs, ready for a fight.

One was on guard because they just beat an exceedingly powerful Skeleton that had activated her alarm spell. The other because she just recovered from a fight with an Undead, who she had lost too, in the arms of her missing daughter no less. It would be safe to say they were both on edge at the moment.

Now imagine, in between all this tension and on edge feeling all present, a skull drops into Isha’s lap and has a Golden Duck engraved in its forehead.

Evening Master.