Cade was awoken when he heard a ding, like a small bell, followed by a voice, neither male nor female, an almost robotic sound.

[Hero blessing activated. Nullifying curse. Mentality restored.]

'What was that? Where am I?'

"I'm telling you, its eyes just lit up." A female spoke with a shaky voice. She was afraid of something.

"There's no way. I just smashed its body to bits." A male responded with a deep voice.

"It doesn't matter, we got what we came for, so let's get out of here." A different male spoke.

'What are they talking about? Who are they?' As soon as he thought those words, he felt his body heat up, as if his core temperature was rapidly rising.

What the hell? Why is it glowing?" The same female asked.

As the heat increased, Cade felt pulling tension at the ends of all his joints. That feeling disappeared when he heard the sound of bones hitting against each other, almost rhythmically.

"Holy fuck. It just came back together. How is that possible?" The first male yelled out.

He heard feet shuffling and metal hitting against rock. He couldn't bear not being able to see what was happening. The heat that was heating up his body began moving to his eyes. He didn't feel his eyes open, simply everything coming into focus.

His eyes landed on the male between the others. A large bodybuilder of a man. He was wearing silver armor on his chest and the rest of his body was covered with what looked like leather weaved with fur. He had a large, double-sided ax in his hands. He couldn't tell what his facial features were due to the absence of sufficient light, but he could tell he wasn't happy about this predicament, as his jaw was clenched.

The male on his right was a few paces behind him and had on dark green clothes. They were connected and draped past his waist like a tunique. A wooden bow had an arrow already perched and a sack of arrows occupied his back. His long hair was tucked behind his ears, which came to a sharp point. Something Cade found very odd, but peculiar.

The female on the left wore a lavish red dress that came down to her ankles. Her neckline came down in a V-shape, stopping slightly above her chest, filling out the dress a bit. Her hair was a mix between blue and purple, a strange combination with the dress. She was holding a wooden staff that had a glowing, red gem imbued within the tip of the staff, the light casting a red glow over her face, the light flickering in her eyes.

They were all staring at him, as if he was a ghost. Which reminded him of the only thing that should matter. He looked down and his heart skipped a beat. Well, his non-existent heart because he was staring right through his rib cage. He could see everything. Rather, through everything.

He was a skeleton.

Bare, naked and exposed.

No wonder they were staring at him like that. He would too. He looked back up and good thing he did.

The ax wielder was swinging the giant weapon down at him. How did he not hear him approach? He lunged out of the way and flew further than he wanted. His body was extremely light.

"It's faster than before for some reason." the male in the middle said. "Slone, use your arrows."

Clearly the leader.

The pointy-eared person, Slone, drew back the arrow and released it. It landed at his feet, creating a crack in the stone ground.

Cade looked up at him. His jaw made the movements one would make to talk, but nothing came out.

'No vocal cords. Fuck.'

"Is it trying to talk?" the female asked.

"Freeze." As soon as Slone spoke that word, ice erupted from the arrow and wrapped itself around his left ankle. Cade did not feel the chill of the ice like he would normally. With the nerves gone, he probably wouldn't feel anything. He hit the ice with his bare knuckles, but only managed to create small fractures in the ice.

"Buff me, Mary." the ax wielder spoke.

"Okay, Marx." Mary replied. She began whispering to herself and the gem on the staff glowed brighter.

As Marx advanced, his body was engulfed in the same red light. He swung his ax, faster this time.

Cade had a feeling he could dodge the ax, but not without receiving damage. As the ax reached his head, he leaned back and the ax slammed into the ice, sending him flying backwards from the shockwave.

As he shook his head, he heard that bell sound again and a red screen appeared before him. It was see-through and didn't disturb what he was supposed to be looking at, like in the darkness with Silian. He stared at it, reading the white words displayed.

[Durability has decreased to 94%]

'Durability?' He thought. He tried to get back up and fell on a bony ankle instead. His left foot was gone.

A shadow fell over him.

Cade dove out of the way as the ax swung down at him again, barely dodging the huge blade. It sent chunks of rock flying as it split the floor where it landed.

He looked about and located the female. That girl, Mary, was troublesome. Whatever she was doing with that weird staff was making Marx stronger and Cade didn't like that.

He got on his hands and began hobbling towards her. He needed a weapon, bare handed fights will probably not work, as he is nothing but a skeleton and there's no protection. He did not like attacking females, but he didn't really have a choice right now.

When he got a few feet from her, he pushed off of his good foot and crashed into her, a yelp escaping her lips. The pair tumbled back, but he had a plan already in mind. He sprung up and crawled towards the staff. Grabbing it, he began bending it over his knee and it broke in half with a crisp snap, red light flickering where it had broken. Was it supposed to be this feeble?

"No! Do you know how expensive that was?" Mary reached for her ankle and pulled out a dagger, raising it high. As she swung down, his combat instincts kicked in. He grabbed her wrist, squeezed and twisted the wrist upwards, a loud pop followed. She yelled and dropped the knife, which fell into his bony hand. As soon as he had it, he thrust into her stomach, and she let out a forced grunt. He sliced to the side, and she fell over with a thud.

A blue screen popped up.

[117 EXP collected]

"Mary!" Marx yelled out. "You damn skeleton! I'll destroy you for that!" Marx heaved the ax over his head and lunged at him. Cade began crawling back as fast as three limbs would allow, dagger scraping against the floor.

He heard a whistling sound and looked to his right. An arrow was flying towards him. Was it his imagination or was the arrow moving slower than what it should be? He swung the hand with the dagger in it, and the arrow bounced off the blade. Changing directions, it impaled itself in Marx's left eye and he yelled out in pain, causing him to drop his ax as he reached for his face. Now was his chance. Cade reached for the ax and tried to lift it, but it wouldn't budge at all.

A red screen popped up.

[Insufficient strength. You are unable to use this weapon.]

He kept yanking at it, but nothing happened, except the same message popping up again and again.

[Insufficient strength. You are unable to use this weapon.]

[Insufficient strength. You are unable to use this weapon.]

[Insufficient strength. You are unable to use this weapon.]

Not seeing any results, he gave up and made his way towards Marx. The dagger will have to do. Marx was trying to pull the arrow out, but Cade advanced first and began stabbing Marx in the neck over and over and over, not stopping until he received the strange message again.

[258 EXP collected]

He stopped stabbing and stared at the message. He couldn't make sense of it. He received EXP by taking a life? What even was EXP? Even though he had spent a majority of his life in the military, he wasn't sure how he felt about how remorselessly he had just killed two people, but he had never gone against his instincts and training, since that's how he had stayed alive until that point. That's all that should matter. Plus, they had attacked him first, this was self-defense.

His thoughts were interrupted when an arrow passed through his ribcage, scrapping a rib bone and knocking it off. It skidded to a halt a few feet away as the arrow flew into the dark void beyond his vision.

[Durability has decreased to 89%]

Even though Slone froze for a few seconds after watching his comrades being massacred, he was still a threat with his ranged attacks. He couldn't use the ax and the dagger already had chips in it. It'll probably break after another hit or two.

When Cade gave Slone a quick look-down, he didn't see any weapons that could be used in the case he lost his bow. As Mary had stated before, he was faster than the original skeletal host and this gave him the edge needed to knock the opponents off their senses, since it looked like they were expecting an easy fight.

With a plan in mind, Cade threw the dagger as soon as Slone reached for another arrow. As the dagger impaled him in the left shoulder, he dropped the bow with a yell. Cade charged Slone and leaped at him, throwing a right fist at his chin, knocking him back. Slone hit the wall behind him and slid down. Slone either had an insane glass jaw or Cade was stronger than he anticipated. He yanked the dagger out of his shoulder and thrust the dagger into his neck. After a few seconds, that same message popped up again.

[171 EXP collected]

He hobbled back towards the ice patch, which had melted as soon as Slone stopped struggling. Picking up his foot, a message popped up.

[Would you like to activate auto-reassembly? Yes/No]

'Auto-reassembly? Interesting. Yes,' he replied.

At those words, the foot slipped out of his hand and merged back with the base of the ankle, the cracks mending seamlessly. He also felt a slight shove from behind as the missing rib flew back into place.

[Durability has reached 100%]

He balanced on his now repaired leg. Good as new.

Since there were no more visible threats, he simply set on the ground with an invisible sigh. Everything had happened so fast, he wasn't sure what to make of them. He came from one battlefield to another and has not had a single chance to get himself together and the chance that he gets is done with some sort of magic trick? He shook his head and looked about at the damage that he had done. Three dead bodies in a cave with a walking, talking skeleton. If others showed up and saw this, they wouldn't hesitate to attack, just as did this group of unfortunate souls.

He needed to clean this up.