[Amatsu Mikaboshi has his eyes on you]

Ah, my least favorite stalker. What brings you here? Some need to feel better about yourself? Entertainment, perhaps? I'm not sure I can do much other than run for my life!

Whatever dememted wall I had awoken was perhaps the worst choice I could have made as it's unnaturally long arms continued to drag the vertical wall at me with unreal speed. I mean, how and why could a wall be that fast?! This is literally the opposite of a wall!

Something brushed past my back, and I hurriedly pumped Life Energy into my legs, shooting forwards as what felt like an explosion happened behind me. The walls and ceiling shook, trails of dust and gravel falling all around me and a buckshot of pebbles scattered against my back. They stung, but definitely felt better than being flattened into paste. I will tell you now, David paste is banned in… everywhere.

Then, as if my luck couldn't get worse, I caught sight of two familiar figures in the distance. Two skeletons had apparently heard the commotion and decided to charge straight at the giant, murderous wall with long ass arms. I needed a better name, but still! Skeletons, why are you dumb enough to run at me like this?!

Warmth flooded my arms and legs as I pumped them full of Life Energy. I drew away from the wall rapidly dragging itself towards me and shot forwards. One of the skeletons readied its sword, but I was long ready for it.

I felt my entire leg flex as I put my weight into, and my waist twisted to put my sheathed sword through its own weapon and skull. Bits of skull and rusted metal flew everywhere, but I charged through them without a care.

Behind me, I felt the other skeleton swing. However, a loud bang echoed through the corridor a second later, sending sharp shards of bone and stone to crash against my escaping calves. I glanced back briefly to see a large, black, three fingered hand taking the place of the skeleton. It didn't take a genius to figure out what happened, and I was already running long before my mind put the pieces together.

In the distance, the same thing I felt earlier appeared again. It was a slowly building dread that was triggered by how far I went and how many enemies I beat. And I felt it trigger when the wall killed that skeleton.

A lightbulb went off in my head. It was a stupid and probably exhausting plan, but it was currently one of my only options available. I put it in the worst case scenario pile.

My hand went to the pocket holding Minamoto's get-out-of-shit stick. Personally, I wanted to use it immediately, but on the off chance it failed or I might need it later, I hesitated.

The situation wasn't as bad as it could be. Sure, the wall of death could probably kill me with one hit, but I had been running for awhile and it couldn't catch up. It wasn't as if the situation was hopeless yet.

Looking back over my shoulder, I found the wall continuing to pull itself through the corridor. It was fast, but that was relative to how large it was. My eyes zeroed in on the two unblinking eyes that stood out from the fine, polished stone. They were a weakness. If only I figured out how to get to them.

My musing was cut off as I caught another bunch of skeletons in front of me. Three whole ones this time. Great…

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I made a decision instantly, pumping my arms and legs with my normal, weaker self. Life Energy was a precious resource in this situation, and blowing it on enemies I didn't need to actively fight was just dumb.

The skeletons dumbly charged at me with their swords raised up high. I ran at an angle to put the far right skeleton between me and its buddies. Easily, I ducked under an overhead swing, shoulder checking it in the side and shoving it to the floor.

Another skeleton stabbed at me, but I quickly brought Matsumura's sword up and knocked it away. It was awkward, and the rusty weapon cut into my white shirt, tearing a large hole in it and scoring my side on the jagged edge.

"Shit!" I kicked the skeleton's ribs and it tumbled into the other one. All of them were sprawled out on the floor, trying to get up while I ran away.

My side burned, and my fingers came back red when I dabbed my side. The corridor continued to shake, and I took grim enjoyment when two loud bangs echoed out behind me. I glanced back in time to see a skeleton, that was crawling on the floor, be dragged underneath the smooth wall as its body continued unimpeded by the enemy below it. The sounds of bone being ground against stone rang in my ears as I ran faster.

My legs began to feel a burn after the next run in with a pack of skeletons. And I found that they were definitely growing in quality. These ones were not human skeletons, but had larger statures and skulls that looked like a fusion of two human skulls. Another pair of arms protruded from their shoulders, gripping more rusted swords in their hands. They towered over the original skeletons by a head and a half. On top of that, there were three of them.

I sucked a deep breath of air, filling my lungs to try to stymie the building anxiety within me. The odd looking skeletons noticed me the instant I did, and luckily, they charged me like the normal skeletons.

This time, I didn't take the risk and drew out more Life Energy to meet them. The corridor continued to shake as tremors caused by the wall chasing me. One of the skeletons tripped as the ground shifted from the wall demon's actions, and I took that opening the instant I saw it.

My foot planted itself on the skeleton's fused and misshapen skull, and I was rather concerned when the skull only cracked from the impact. I was forced to focus on the four arms, all wielding swords, stabbed towards me while its body tilted into a fall. Life Energy warmed up my arms as I shattered the rusty swords by swinging Matsumura's sword in a circle. The next second, I put more weight on my leg as we hit the ground, crushing its skull against the floor. I was already running before the other two skeletons were on me, and they couldn't get to me before being killed by the wall demon.

A frown marred my face as I continued on. The skeletons were getting stronger at a much more rapid pace than I considered. That meant my plan B would soon become plan A if I did nothing.

I had snatched one of the broken hilts from the four-armed skeleton, and turned to the murderous wall. It's eyes were still glaring at me, so I threw the hilt towards them. The improvised weapon missed. Obviously, running and aiming were not easy, but those eyes were such big targets that I hadn't expected to miss.

With an aggrieved sigh, I faced forwards and nearly tripped as I saw what was ahead. It was a skeleton; if skeleton was an abstract concept for all things bones.

The creature was almost as large as the wall demon behind me. It's spine traced along the extruding rocks of the ceiling, causing debris to fall through its massive ribcage. Two massive arms made of many skeletons stacked on top of each other dragged its body down the corridor.

Where it's legs should be, I found clusters of skeletons fused together in what looked like the rough, skeletal approximation of a slug. However, whatever had fused them together had left the majority of the skeletons intact, letting their upper bodies move around on their own. Their arms seemed small compared to the size of the creature, but they grabbed aimlessly, clutching anything that came nearby.

Apparently, I had misjudged how quickly this corridor scaled to threats. And I felt a bit annoyed when I realized just how far apart the wall and I were.

"Plan B it is." I mused, standing between the monstrous pile of bones and the wall demon. Both of whom looked equally murderous for me and each other. I was definitely putting a complaint in for whoever managed this place.