Mitre still sat on the Crystal Throne. Blissfully unaware. However, the Throne itself was different. It was gigantic. Much larger than its normal size. On the back, a distorted crack vacuumed in the Anima Caligo. The crack widened. An icy chill ran down the back of his spine.

His mother and Master Laag stood at the entrance of the hall with their eyes closed. The Empress right behind. From what he could make out, a magical barrier blocked their ability to enter the room. His father—

He heard bones clack behind him. One of the skeletons on the ground hadn't...died? Skeletons were already dead. Well, in the correct terms, skeletons themselves had no state of living, but the creature they belonged to was dead. And since magic animated them past death, they became undead. So if they died again, would they be unundead? The two uns should cancel each other out, which would just make them dead, again. That means the skeleton that had just stood up was ununundead...or just undead. Aleister shook his head and focused his mind. It didn't matter what state of deadness they were at, all he knew was that there was still one in front of him that still possessed some level of threat. But it crawled towards him at a snail's pace, had no weapon, nor did it have any purple aura surrounding it. Ok, maybe it wasn't a threat.

He ignored the creature for now and looked back over. Gilmore engaged in combat with, from what he could tell, a pale-blue humanlike creature. The slicked back hair and body composition made it look almost identical to one, but even though they were difficult to make out, there were some key differences. Across its body, miniscule webbed spikes on top of several darker blue patches. It fought with its hands and black claws, which were disproportionately large. He caught a glimpse of its yellow eyes and grin. Its mouth full of triangular teeth. Similar to a shark. His father appeared to be on the defensive end. Aleister assumed that his purpose was to stall for as long as possible until the barrier broke. Then they could capture the creature and interrogate it. But why wouldn't he just capture it right now? He wasn't sure, but that's more than likely what he would do with his limited knowledge.

The rest of the hall was eerily empty. The only exceptions were the broken bones of all shapes and sizes that littered the ground. And two other guards, who he didn't recognize. They helped make quick work of a few remaining skeletons.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Aleister turned his head back to the skeleton next to him and kicked his bag. He wriggled his foot in his boot. He didn't expect the jars to hurt so much. Fortunately, two of the fish jars rolled towards the skeleton...until the boney feet stopped them. Not the result Aleister hoped for. The skeleton slouched down and picked the jars up. Then, without warning, threw the jars at him. He stopped applying pressure to his wound and used both hands to catch the jars. Luckily, the skeleton was still weak or else the entire situation could have ended in a disaster.

He put both of the jars back into the bag and tied a knot with the split straps before slinging it around his shoulder. During this time, the purple aura that surrounded him dissipated, and he noticed that his cut stopped bleeding. He turned around. The skeleton stopped moving. Is it dead now? Aleister wasn't sure, but he was not about to take any chances and picked up a bone off the ground. This time, he threw it at the skeleton. The bone hit it square in the chest, but the skeleton didn't react.

The situation he found himself in was quite odd. Most of knowledge on monsters and creatures faded away from not needing it. The stuff that remained either lay dormant in the back of his head, or did not deal with creatures of the undead variety, as they were quite rare. So it was purely his intuition telling him that something didn't seem quite right. He backed off towards the guards while monitoring the skeleton.

"What happened?"

Both of the guards shrugged, but one of them stood up and answered. "When Lord Gilmore shouted for help, we were the two closest guards to the Throne Room. The rest that showed up arrived after some creature erected that blue barrier."

"Some creature? You mean the one dad is fighting right now?"

The guard paused for a second. "No, it was a different creature, Sir Aleister."

"Where did it go?"

"I do not know. When I arrived I started to destroy the skeletons so they wouldn't harm Lord Mitre."

"I arrived a few moments later," the other guard spoke up, "so I noticed Lord Gilmore make a single attack at the creature, but it vanished into thin air."

Aleister nodded. There was another creature that appeared to be the one in charge. He didn't know what to do with this information, but at least he had it. This led him to wonder who was attacking, why did they attack, and how did they get into the Throne Room? Well, for that last question, he had an inkling that it had to do with the crack on the back of the Crystal Throne. But that only led to more questions.

"Get back!" Gilmore shouted.