“Exactly,” Nyx chuckled.
“What do we do?” Freya asked.
“Keep it simple,” I said. “Just go in, strike, fall back, and repeat.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
By now the skeletons were close enough for me to use my Analyze skill and so I did, casting it on ten of the closest ones.
DING!
Race
Skeletons
Level
422
Not too bad. Their level was definitely higher than what I’d seen before. But that didn’t mean this would be a problem. Overall, they were still hell of a lot weaker than we were. Numbers-wise though there seemed to be plenty of them—upwards of four thousand for sure—meaning there were more skeletons than elves at the moment.
“Well, we might have had enough elves if you hadn’t gone ahead and killed so many of them,” Nyx said.
I did what was necessary.
“Then do what’s necessary here as well.”
I held Dawnbreaker up, and with my free hand pointed to the enemy, to the skeletons now only half-a-hundred yards away. Heslia stood before us, yelling in a tongue I didn’t understand. The elves opened fire, launching a plethora of arrows at the enemy.
I couldn’t tell how many ballistics flew into the skies, but there were a lot. Enough to block a part of the clouds from my vision. I, however, still didn’t attack, and scanned the enemy. They were weak, they were large in numbers, but the thing that bothered me most was the attack they had launched before, the attack that had ripped through the carriage and pushed me back.
If that happens again we might be in trouble. And I was yet to understand where it had even come from. Or even how it had been summoned.
From a quick glance, and a few uses of my Analyze skill, I could tell there were no mages up at the closer ranks of the skeletons.
That’s expected, I sighed. Long range magic users wouldn’t be leading an attack. That certainly wasn’t a normal, or a smart thing to do.
But these were skeletons, so I’d hoped the smart part fell through to give me a chance here.
“Ouch,” Nyx chuckled.
The Skeletons were within striking range now, and so I let go of my concerns and just went for it, putting my all into battle. Freya yelled a war cry and shot forward, with her massive sword throwing up multiple bones into the air as she crushed through the enemy.
Time to go long. I followed her in and thrust my hand up. “Tritus Oceanus, Uher, Oskis, Peona, Osulier, Qeteria!” I yelled, overloading my Chain Casting skill with as many attacking spells as I could.
A blast of water shot out of me, crushing through two hundred skeletons as the creatures just fell apart from the force of the strike. A dark phoenix instantly rose from the ground before the water blast cut off, and a blast of fire shot alongside it. The two attacks hadn’t even landed into the army before a twister of wind rose up from the ground to the right, eating up a ton of skeletons in a flash.
I couldn’t really see the ‘Osulier: Shadow Capture’ spell at work, but I didn’t really bother finding it. For when my last spell activated, the ground between the skeletons split apart and many went sinking in, some because of the tremors in the floor, and others pushed in because of the multiple arrows the dark elves sent their way.
In just a few seconds a thousand of the skeletons were gone, and nearly half of my mana was gone as well, which was honestly a record for me. I never depleted myself so fast before.
“You also never tried casting seven strong spells at once,” Nyx said.
Six, I grinned.
The roar of a Dragon broke through my thoughts. Acnologia flew over the enemy ranks, breathing red, glowing fire onto their forces. I couldn’t tell exactly how many skeletons he took out, but I knew it wasn’t a small amount by any measure. We were massacring those things here.
A glint of a light pink shone from the back of the enemy ranks, illuminating for just a second.
My shoulders tensed. What was that?
I peered into the region the glow had come from, but before I could, the enemy suddenly dropped to the ground, thousands of them collapsing at once.
I frowned. Did we get them all already? And then I froze.
A line of skeletons stood at the end of the ranks, and each one was dressed in cloaks of dirty gray. Mages. I grit my teeth. A blast of white surged out from them, and shot right toward us.
I thrust my hand into the air. “Uher!” I yelled, summoning my Dark Phoenix and launching a counterattack against the one beam.
The phoenix surged through the attack and took out the set of mages on the attacking end of it. But the rest of the skeletons were still hard at work, pummeling through the forces, crashing into them all. Elves went flying into the cliff behind us, and many of them were unconscious on the ground.
Dammit. I turned ahead. Acnologia, can you take them down?
“It is best you gauge how strong they are first,” the Dragon said. “These ones seem different from those in the first wave.”
I nodded and tried using my Analyze skill on then. Even though they were far away, they still seemed within my skill’s range.
DING!
Warning!
Unable to use skill! Subject out of range!
Or not, I muttered.
“They seem to be close to Level 600 from what I can gauge,” Acnologia said. “Very likely above it as well.”
What? I blinked. That’s waaay too strong for a bunch of skeletons.
“Creatures of darkness thrive here, Eternal.”
Skeletons are not creatures of darkness.
“You get the point,” Nyx said.
The skeletons stood up once more, and their weapons swung in the air as they charged at us, with vigor flowing within them.
I turned more serious as well. When I first saw this skeleton army, with most of the soldiers at level 400, I had not been tense in the least. It was alarming, but not disturbing. They were a set of beings I could take on by myself for certain. I knew so because I had done something eerily similar before.
However, this situation had quickly flipped around, for the enemy seemed highly organized, and that was something I had certainly not expected in a bunch of skeletons. Organization was not their thing. They were more of the ‘attack and never think about it’ types, which was understandable since they had no brains.
But if they were striking with strategic prowess this time then that could only mean one thing.
“Someone is leading them,” Nyx said, finishing my thought.
Hey, I was saving up for the dramatic reveal.
“Yes, let’s sit here and complain about who got to reveal that skeletal army which is—by the way—about ten yards from you right now.”
I know. I sighed and put my hand up. “Tritus Oceanus!’ I yelled, summoning a blast of water and swinging my hand around, getting every skeleton in a forty-five-degree arc. I couldn’t tell how many fell, but more were filling their places already, giving us an around-the-clock job to do protecting ourselves.
My fingers itched as I held Dawnbreaker. I wanted to use the sword, I wanted to slash and hack like I normally did. This urge had built up now, to land physical attacks rather than long range ones.
It was almost like I wanted to feel the death.
I frowned at the thought. That doesn’t like a healthy thing to want.
“That’s because it isn’t.”
Either way, now wasn’t the time to ponder and so I didn’t.
I shot forward, blade in hand, and surged into the first row of skeletal warriors, crashing through them like they were made of wood. Is bone even stronger than wood? I cut through ten of them at once, and sent a pile of rattling white to the floor. Dust coughed up into the air, and flew away in the tailwind I caused. I surged around the battlefield, taking out every skeleton in reach, and striking harder with every consecutive slash.
“Zoran, the mages are trying something once again,” Acnologia said.
&
nbsp; There were more? I sighed. I thought I got them all the last time.
I jumped high into the air, not turning to the end of the enemy ranks, but instead glancing back at the elven forces that were supporting me. There were quite a few of them left, most of them archers, but still quite a few swordsmen as well.
Drat. No elven mages.
I dropped back to the ground, and slashed into the skeletons around me as I did. We’ll have to figure something out. Protecting the dark elves is not something I can do while simultaneously taking all these guys down.
It wasn’t that the elves themselves weren’t doing a good job. The dark elves, in conjunction with Freya and Ijyela—who I hadn’t noticed till now—were taking down quite a few enemy soldiers. It just wasn’t happening fast enough relative to me, which was expected, given how strong I was compared to them.
I glanced at my blade, and a smile curled onto my face at the sight of the bloodless black, something I had not seen in quite a while. Usually at this point my weapons and clothes were all soaked in the blood of the enemy, and the stench would have surrounded me completely. But skeletons had no blood. There was none to be spilt here.
I almost felt like I missed the blood streams I let flow during my battles. It was like a clean tunic and a clean set of weaponry unsettled me.
I frowned. Okay that was REALLY dark.
“We probably need to talk about this later,” Nyx said. “But for now pay attention to the incoming attack.”
I glanced up, and caught sight of the enemy warrior rushing to me.
“Bladestorm!” I yelled, smashing into maybe fifty skeletons in about two seconds and taking them all down in one hit K.O.s.
“Diablo, move!” Acnologia said.
Eh? I blinked.
A blast of white surged out of the end of the enemy ranks, a single one this time as well.
Only it was a really, really big one.
I pushed from the floor, and surged into the air. But even I wasn’t fast enough to get away from the attack. The surge of white struck me hard, and the next thing I knew I was backed up against the cliff, with my body pressed to its surface and my lungs emptied of all the air within them.
I gasped as I collapsed back to the ground, breathing heavy as I tried to refill my vacated chest.
I glanced at my health bar. Sixty percent remained. That single attack had taken down forty percent of my health in one strike. My fingers trembled. What the bloody hell was that?
And then it got even weirder.
The skeletons were no longer just white, but had a dark aura around them, as though the darkness had blessed them.
Huh? I froze.
Their speeds rose, their attacks were dealt harder, and their bodies moved with greater vigor. It was almost as if they had increased a hundred levels more.
I heard the cries of fallen elves as the skeletons pushed forward in one smooth motion. It was a perfect battle plan. Push the big enemy guy back, rank up their own soldiers and push forward to the weaker elves.
I could lessen the damage. But it seemed impossible to completely cut off the attack.
Well, challenge accepted. I lifted my blade.
A scream came from ahead of me.
Freya laid collapsed on the ground, with her skin now returning back to its milky-white complexion. Her longsword laid under the feet of an enemy a few yards away. Cuts and blood coated her body, dripping like streams from a mountain.
Ijyela and a hundred other elves laid on the ground as well, with rivers of blood connecting their bodies, and their hands and legs shaking, sending ripples through the liquid.
I grit my teeth and shot forward, but the scene before me moved faster than I could ever hope. Blades moved downwards, and the sharp edges sunk toward innocent skin. My eyes shot between Freya and Ijyela. I had to save both of them, and I didn’t have the time to save either.
“DAMN YOU!” I yelled.
A bolt of lightning struck the ground, and dark shadows instantly rose from the surface, snatching the skeletons like hungry shark would a flailing fish.
My feet hit the ground hard and I slid to a stop, watching as the remaining five hundred skeletons around us fell to the darkness in the blink of an eye. The ones around Freya, the ones around Ijyela, the ones around the Dark elves. All gone, and in a second.
I stared at my hand. What the hell was that?
I felt a presence behind me, and I immediately turned around, only to come face to face with the cliffside. My eyes traced the surface, scanning it all the way to the top.
And then I froze.
A pair of eyes, a shade of violet, glared down at me from the edge of the cliff.
Dark winds rushed up from the ground around me, rising up the cliffside and swirling around the being in some kind of black twister. It dissipated a second later.
And nothing but darkness remained.
***
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The wind stood still as the dark elves gathered their forces together. Empty bodies piled up by the cliffside, with their half-open eyes gazing at me, as if in a silent plea even in death.
The skeletons had all been completely taken out, and not a single sign of their presence remained on the battlefield. Whatever those shadows from the ground things were, they’d swallowed them up completely.
“That attack,” Nyx said. “It felt a lot like Osulier, didn’t it?”
I nodded.
The attack definitely was from the Dark Arts, and it most certainly did hold the common trope of summoning shadows to suck things from the surface. The only thing that was different was that Shadow Capture only worked on one target, while this move obviously took on multiple beings at once.
Well, a whole army basically.
But I still can’t tell what that move the Skeletons used at the end was.
“I do not know either.” Acnologia glided down to the ground beside me and folded his wings.
Did you find anything?
“Nothing,” he said. “It is just like we expected. There is not a trace of the skeletons left on the battlefield.”
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated:
Skeleton Army (Level 522)!
Uhhh. So, you just took out an army of Skeletons single-handedly. How strong are you again? Reward: 16,800,000 XP. Reward: Bones of the Skeletal Warrior (x455). Reward: Spear of the Skeletal Warrior (x321). Reward: Sword of the Skeletal Warrior (x501).
Yeah. Like I was the one who actually defeated them in the end.
I closed the screen and walked forward, stepping to where the skeletons had managed to push up to. Fresh footprints sat on the mud, with traces of red coated within them. The rivers of blood had now ceased, and had sunk into the ground, reducing the surface’s content small puddles and wet streaks.
I touched the footprint, smearing the red onto my hand and rubbing it within my fingers. A calm came over me from the wet sensation between my skin.
My chest tightened. What the hell am I doing? I jerked my head back and flicked the blood off my hand. I looked at the drops of red that still stuck to my palm. A feeling of disgust came over me, just from the sight. My whole body quivered. Something is wrong with me.
I turned away, trying to distract myself. The elves were still healing themselves and didn’t seem like they would be done for now. Freya was getting treatment from Ijyela, who herself seemed to have been quite injured. This battle had not turned out well, even though we were on the winning side.
“We might have lost if it weren’t for the violet-eyed thing,” Nyx said.
I looked back up at the cliffside, gazing at the edge, hoping the dark winds would return and bring the being back. I had so many questions to ask it, but I knew they were all going to have to stick to the back of my mind for now.
Well, for a long time.
“I would rather be worried about why this person helped us,” Acnologia said. “I do not recall us having any allies or even ‘possible’ allies in th
ese regions.”
“And based on the Dark Elves’ reaction to us, I doubt the creatures that live here look at us in any sort of charitable sense,” Nyx said.
Wait. I frowned. That must just be it.
“Eh?”
The person must have been an ally of the Dark Elves. That would make sense, given we don’t know his identity, and yet received help.
“So, this person helped us simply because the Dark Elves were also involved in this fight?”
“The disappearing act they put on contradicts the thought,” Acnologia said. “Why would one disappear in such a way if they were an ally of the Dark Elves?”
We’ve seen enough mysterious people now to know they don’t need a reason to be eccentric.
“We’re calling this person eccentric now?” the spirit asked. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”
“Hey.” Someone tapped my shoulder.
I turned around and saw Freya before me, smiling. I smiled back. “Hello.”
“How do you feel?”
“Asks the person who almost died.”
“Hey! I could have taken those things out, okay? You don’t know that.”
“You reverted back from your Demon-elf form,” I chuckled. “Of course you’d have taken them out.”
“Anyway, listen.” She leaned in, putting her hand on my shoulder, and her eyes looked straight into mine.
“Uh oh,” Nyx said, and I echoed the thought.
“What happened back there?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The skeletons,” she sighed. “The way they went down was…odd. I’ve never seen you use a move like that before.”
“Oh. Well…”
“Phantom Lord!” Heslia ran to me, with his blue hair plastered to his forehead with blood. The dark elf bowed down to me.
“Uhhh…hello?” I frowned.
He rose back up. “Thank you for helping us, Phantom Lord,” he said. “I and my cohort are indebted to you.”
The Eternal: A Boxed Set (World of Ga'em Book 6) Page 85
