Time seemed to have come to a slow as Ezekiel witnessed it all. The gargantuan blade came crashing down like a waterfall, embedding itself deep into the metal floor. What’s more, the floor became stained with red immediately after.

Blood. There was a large splatter of crimson red blood that splashed onto all nearby surfaces, including Ezekiel himself. The familiar rusty scent of blood invaded his nostrils, and he was helpless to do anything to stop it.

Then came the screams. Alice’s screams of pain rang out as she clutched her right arm, or at least, what was left of it. Her upper limb was severed completely, leaving a bleeding stump where her arm used to be. The blood poured down her sides and seeped into her brown robes, presenting an utterly gruesome sight.

Ezekiel was utterly shocked to his core. Everything had been going pretty decently until this very moment. Just why did this happen?

‘This… is all my fault. I’m not strong enough to protect anyone. Even back in my homeland, I’ve never been of much help once the demons arrive. No, if I had been more cautious in the first place, I would never have told the party to come here.’

Ezekiel balled his fists tightly as he stared ahead in horror, too stunned to move. Not far from him, Alice’s severed arm lay limply on the ground, a pool of blood beginning to form around it. He shut his eyes tight and clenched his teeth.

‘It’s all my f—'

“Ezekiel! What are doing…!? Get out of there!”

Alice’s voice snapped him out of his trance. Despite her severed arm, she was unexpectedly still standing. Ezekiel was surprised once again.

“Alice… your arm…”

“Hah! Do you think this small pain can stop me? Uurgh… I’m a genius! Just keep on with the fight!”

She then slammed her metallic staff onto the ground using her left hand. Fire began to devour her from her feet up, reaching all the way to the tip of her hat.

“Inferno passage!”

With a pained shout, the flames died down in an instant, and she was nowhere to be seen. Halfway across the room, another fire sprung into life, and Alice tumbled out of it and collapsed to the ground, prompting Ezekiel to sigh in relief. He didn’t know she could do that.

“Alice!” Cathy began running towards the injured mage. However, the giant skeleton hadn’t been sitting around doing anything this whole time. It finally managed to get its blade unstuck, and swung it at the annoyance that kept disabling his black flames.

Louis swooped in and crossed swords with the skeleton, successfully deflecting the attack. Although he managed it, the force of the collision still sent him flying across the room.

Jets of water spouted from his back, pushing him upright just before he crashed onto the ground. He managed to land on his two feet, and luckily, sustained no serious injuries.

Ezekiel took a deep breath and calmed himself. Indeed, this was no time to panic. They hadn’t completely lost yet, and Cathy was capable of restoring lost limbs. As long as they can hold out long enough for Kayden to finish his job, victory can be considered theirs.

The large blade came swinging at him this time, but he easily jumped out of the way. At the same time, he fired another arrow into its eyes, distracting it momentarily.

With quick steps, he ran until the distance between them was relatively safe again and fired another shot. Although they were largely ineffective, it was all he could do.

Over by Alice’s side, Cathy was trying her best to stop the bleeding.

“S-sorry, Alice. There’s nothing to transfer the damage to…” she began tearing strips of cloth from the bottom of her robes to use as makeshift bandages. “It’s impossible for me to touch that skeleton without dying, so you’ll have to make do with this…”

“It’s fine. It’s just—” Alice winced as a sudden pain shot up her arm. “Oof… Just... I don’t see how Louis and Ezekiel can distract that thing alone…”

Right as she said that, Louis came flying out of nowhere and crashed right beside them. He landed square on his back, and his sword flew out of his grasp, clattering on the ground. Groaning, he pushed himself back on his feet.

“Man… I think I severely underestimated the undead… I always thought that a reanimated corpse could barely do a thing, but I was very wrong. Even the great me cannot handle it…”

He wiped off the blood from the corner of his mouth and picked his blade up off the ground. Just as he was about to charge back in, Ezekiel came crashing right beside them. Cursing, Ezekiel pushed himself back to his feet.

“Damn… I didn’t expect it to use its feet… The sword is deadly, but the kicks aren’t to be underestimated either. There’s no mistaking it… that thing is intelligent.”

“Wait…” Alice began to speak up. “If both of you are here… Won’t that thing come straight to us? Quick! Scram!”

Both Ezekiel and Louis ran in opposite directions, but it didn’t take them long before they slowed to a stop. They stared at the skeleton in the distance, who laughed mockingly at them before completely ignoring them and changing directions.

Ezekiel’s eyes widened.

“It’s going for Kayden! Stop it!”

The giant skeleton raised its blade high above its skull while running at full speed towards the oblivious Kayden, presenting to them an utterly terrifying sight. It was clear to them now that Kayden’s illusion spell was completely useless against it.

“Cathy! Warn that idiot! I don’t think he’s noticed,” he aimed an arrow at the giant skeleton. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The arrow was released, and just like the other times, it struck exactly where he needed it to. A small explosion messed up the skeleton’s wrist, causing it to drop the sword behind it. The large blade crashed to the ground with a resounding boom. It would be great if the skeleton tried picking up its sword, which would give Kayden ample time to escape. But Ezekiel knew it wouldn’t be easy.

The skeleton barely looked back and didn’t stop in its tracks. Right before it reached the platform, it raised its left foot.

Crash!

The illusion faded, and Ezekiel could see that Kayden was perfectly fine. It seemed that Cathy’s message had done the trick. Two jabs and an uppercut strike were sent at full force at Kayden, yet not a single one hit him.

“Judging by how he never left until the very end. We can probably assume that he didn’t manage to succeed. I’m making the call, we pull him out of there and we escape. I don’t think there’s a chance for us to win here…”

Ezekiel said this in a slightly disappointed tone, and the rest of the party felt the same way too. However, their strength simply wasn’t enough, and they couldn’t change that fact as of this moment. Furthermore, they even had a casualty. The smartest thing they could do right now is to flee.

Though of course, that itself wasn’t going to be easy. It would have to take their full power and even more to make it out alive, much less safe. Ezekiel was determined to make it happen no matter what.

“Louis! Go back up Kayden.”

“Aye.”

With a loud battle cry and water forming at his feet, he charged into battle.

***

“Appraise.”

Name:

???

Title:

Skeleton Champion

Level:

41

Health:

829/933

Mana:

279/334

“That has to be the highest stat values I've seen yet… That’s so unfair!”

The numbers spoke for themselves. With such absurd values, Kayden doubt that they could defeat the giant skeleton, which meant abandoning the treasure, something he wasn’t really happy to do.

The skeleton raised its foot and launched a front kick which Kayden promptly dodged. He then swung his knife as hard as he could, managing to chip off a bone fragment from the limb.

[-4!]

‘Damn it! Has this all been for nothing? This is why we should never have split up!’

He leaped off the platform and rolled just below landing on the ground, after which he broke off into a sprint. Naturally, the giant skeleton chased after him.

Halfway across the room, Kayden spotted the remaining members of his party, including Louis, who was hot on the heels of the skeleton. But by far the most eye-catching thing was Alice, who sat on the ground with an arm that was very clearly missing.

‘What happened while I was doing my lock picking? All this happened in such a short time too…’

As badly as he wanted to go check up on Alice, he figured that bringing the skeleton directly to them would be a terrible idea, so he decided to fight it head-on. Running would only exhaust himself, and he doubt skeletons could feel exhausted anyway.

Louis was on the opposite side of the skeleton, which meant that they had it surrounded on both sides. Not that it gave them much of an advantage.

The skeleton decided to punch Kayden again, which he dodged by jumping upwards. Landing on top of the skeleton’s knuckles, Kayden suddenly had an idea.

With his superior speed and control of his body, he maintained his balance as he ran straight up the skeleton’s arm. Any attempts to shake or knock him off were easily thwarted, and Louis slashing at the skeleton’s feet helped distract it somewhat.

Kayden reached the top of its shoulder in no time at all, and the skeleton’s head swerved to stare eerily at him. Before another fist would come swinging at him, Kayden grabbed several orbs from his pouch.

“I was hoping to sell this later for some gold. But there’s no other choice. Eat this!”

He jammed a whole bunch of spell orbs right into the eye of the skeleton with the hopes of it being effective enough to buy them time. These were spell orbs containing magic spells from both Alice and Aisha, all of which he got during the planning phase for their infiltration.

Putting as much strength as he could muster to his legs, he kicked off the skull and quickly got out of there, lest he got caught in the range of the explosion. Blinding light began to shine from within the skull, and what looked like bright lasers began to shoot out from the eyes and mouth of the skeleton. A thunderous boom resounded, causing those nearby to go temporarily deaf.

[User is using spell orb: Dazzling inferno x3]

[User is using spell orb: Fiery Spirit x2]

[User is using spell orb: Aura of inferno x 2]

[Critical hit! x 7]

[-65!, -23!, -24!]

Kayden managed to get out in time and wasn’t caught in the blast. However, he still inwardly wept.

‘Crimson Menace spell orbs… if it were those rabid fans of hers, I might have been able to sell them for thirty gold each. Sigh, what a shame.’

As the skeleton fell over while clutching its head, Kayden made a perfect landing before dashing towards Alice and the others. He figured that if there was any better time to escape, it would be now.

“Ezekiel! I wasn’t able to get anything, so what’s the plan now?” he glanced to the left where Alice was before wincing at the sight. “That looks like it hurt.”

“...Don’t need you to point that out for me.”

“Cough.” Ezekiel swiftly cut in. “Save the banter for later. We’re getting out of here, but we don’t know how. Your illusion magic doesn’t seem to work on that thing, which means we have to take a different approach.”

“Do you have something in mind?”

“Frankly, it’s a terrible idea—”

“OI! WHY ARE YOU GUYS STANDING AROUND TALKING FOR? HELP ME!”

Louis was doing his best against the skeleton at the moment, deflecting blows left and right. Every few moments or so, he would fire off a water blade that dealt minimal damage to it, and it was clear that he couldn’t last that much longer.

[-7!, -5!, -8!]

The skeleton then sent a hefty side kick that blew Louis to the side before running off in another direction. Everyone could tell what it was trying to do, it was heading for the massive blade that lay flat in the middle of the room.

Kayden frowned. He figured out that the reason why Alice got so hurt was because of the massive blade it held, which meant that things were about to get incredibly dangerous.

“This is not going to be easy…”