Another shockwave of essence emanated from Noah's body, rippling across the lower slopes of the mountain range. The embattled man did not look well; blood continued to trickle from his nose, his face was pale and clammy, and his breathing was shallow.

Claws, perched atop a large rock formation overlooking a great distance, noticed movement from below. It appeared to be a bipedal, fur-covered monster. Though its movements were somewhat cumbersome, accompanied by twitchy head tics. Behind the strange creature, more monsters followed, most from different species, yet sharing a similar, strange movement pattern, and they appeared to be heading right towards the group's location.

The skeletal reptile jumped down from the rock formation, landing with barely a sound. Quickly charting a route, Claws proceeded to leap from cover to cover, ensuring it remained in the shadows before lying in wait, completely still.

The furry monster approached with awkward, cumbersome steps. Its gray fur was patchy and mangy, its body covered in pus-ridden wounds. Foam formed at the sides of the creature's maw, and its yellow eyes were not those of a predator on the prowl but of a being that had given up.

Claws lunged from the shadows at the monster, slashing its throat. Ignoring the fetid blood streaming from its wound, the furry creature raised its arm to strike at the undead reptile, but was too slow. Claws struck again, severing the monster's arm at the elbow. Turning its back to the monster, Claws whipped its skeletal tail, snapping the tortured creature's spine, before making its escape.

The rest of the monsters continued advancing with similar pained movements, seemingly unbothered by the death of the furry creature, as they stomped over its corpse on their march towards Noah's location. It was only when another shockwave of essence was released, rippling through the monsters, that they let out an assortment of growls and guttural sounds.

Standing guard, skeletal shoulder to skeletal shoulder with the other minions, forming a tight circle around Noah, Harold observed Claws' hunt, fighting a delaying battle and picking off the advancing monsters one by one.

However, the pack of monsters the undead lizard was engaging was merely one of many. They were coming from all directions, all heading towards the same target: Noah.

Harold turned its skull, glancing back at Noah, slumped over the rock, and Steve, poised to cut down their master. Reluctantly, the undead ape turned its focus forward. The command had been to protect their master from external threats, like the horde of monsters now drawing near them.

The ragtag groups of monsters continued to swarm the area from all directions, advancing in a grotesque, tortured unison, surrounding the circle of skeletons.

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Dozer was the first to strike. The armored giant swung his massive war hammer upward, utterly obliterating the head of an insectoid creature and sending its body flying backward from the force of the impact, crashing into the advancing horde.

After that, all hell broke loose. Harold slammed its skeletal fists repeatedly into a monster with a thick carapace. The cave dweller at Harold's side plunged its bone spear into a joint in the carapace, charged forward, pushing the monster back, only to be engulfed by the sea of advancing monsters.

It was pure carnage, and with every slain monster, clouds of shimmering essence formed, all converging toward the center and absorbing into Noah.

The skeletal minions were making the advancing monsters pay in blood, especially Dozer. Whenever the armored giant swung his war hammer or slammed his shield, a monster died. However, it was a losing battle; there were too many monsters and not nearly enough minions.

A hoofed bestial creature kicked Harold, cracking the skeletal ape's ribs and pushing it back into the circle of minions. Harold looked around; they were getting pushed back. An ogre-like monster grabbed one of the four-armed devils and tossed it like a ragdoll into the sea of monsters. At that moment, Harold broke rank and ran to the center of the circle.

Clutching Steve's shredded and dented plate armor, Harold shook the undead warrior, then pointed frantically at the monsters surrounding them. However, Steve did not budge one bit and instead remained singularly focused on Noah.

***

While the battle raged all around him, Noah remained locked in a deathmatch with Silas. It was a losing fight, and it took everything out of Noah just to survive. For that reason, although he noticed at some point that both he and Silas were being infused with essence, Noah was in no position to investigate the how or why. One wrong move and Silas would finish him.

Silas' ethereal avatar—a form that Noah could only assume was in his foe's image, protruding from his essence core up to the waist—was simply far too powerful compared to the tendrils Noah could mold from his own core. Silas' mastery over essence was leagues above Noah's.

By forming tendrils and striking Silas with them, Noah forced his opponent to focus on destroying the appendages instead of devouring Noah's essence. However, this act alone was draining his essence and exhausting him mentally.

'Gahhhh!'

Every time Silas obliterated one of Noah's tendrils, horrific waves of pain surged to his very core.

'I have to think of something or I'm a goner...'

It was then, right as Noah was molding another tendril from his essence core to replace the one Silas had destroyed, that Noah sensed someone or something shaking his body. However, even a split-second of distraction could spell Noah's doom, so he ignored it, remaining focused on his duel.

"Kid, let's call it a truce for now."

Silas, however, seemingly did not find Noah threatening enough to avoid splitting his focus outwards, which added insult to injury, quite literally.

"Why? What's going on?"

At the very least, Silas ceased his attacks, for now.

"Your little skeletons are being overrun by a buttload of critters, and both of us are done for if we ignore it."

Quite reluctantly, Noah opened his eyes, only to be met with Harold's face right in front of him. The undead ape was clutching his ragged shirt and desperately shaking Noah.

"Ok, ok... I'm up." Harold let go and pointed his skeletal finger all around, as Noah took in the dire situation.

"Silas, how do I know you won't finish me off while I'm fighting?"

"You don't."