Chapter 50: Legion

Tobias had come to expect the gate-like door to lead to outside of a castle to yet another courtyard-like structure.

But what he didn’t expect was seeing an even grander, more decorated hallway. There were banners of red, tattered fabric hung about the sides of the hallway. There were a lot of stone pillars which extended to the ceiling of the hallway, which seemed around... seven meters tall, from his perspective.

The ceiling was pure, unadulterated glass, laced with foundations of iron and steel works. The moonlight brightly trickled down to serve as illumination in the hallway, and yet, the last time Tobias had checked, it was still noon when they reached and entered the Magical Dungeon.

... Was it an illusion, or were they transported in another place entirely? It didn’t matter much, so he just summed it up to magic.

Looking down, he saw that there was a red lining carpet, extending from the entrance of the hallway, all until the stairs, before finally ending at the foot of the massive throne of steel. It was squarish and grand, decorated with protruding spikes, and at the peak of the throne was a skull forged of silver.

And sitting at the throne... was another gigantic, knight-like entity, about the height of two or three adults stacked atop each other.

But unlike the Stone Knight, this one was far more... regal in appearance, and carried about an air of superiority about itself.

Its polished, decorated silver armor covered every inch of its body, and atop its two-horned great helmet was a golden ring-like accessory... A crown.

Something about the air it conducted itself, combined with his too polished, regal armor reminded Tobias of a King of some sort...

And between the great, narrow slit which served as its opening to see outside of its helmet were two dangerous, ominously glowing red eyes.

This Dungeon Boss... no, Dungeon King was definitely much more intelligent, and it reflected in its eyes, as it seemed to finally take notice of them and gazed over them.

With that, it finally stood up from its throne, and its arm reached to the side – where an overly decorated greatsword had rested.

Its pommel was golden, and encrusted with a red jewel of sorts, while its hilt was wrapped with white leather wrapping. Its silvery blade was about the width of a person’s palm, and its length was the height of a person.

And the Dungeon King... wielded it with only one arm, as it seemed to give a few practice swings in the air, before returning its attention back at them.

Its strength, and its weapon of choice... Even Tobias wasn’t sure if he would be able to block such a strike from it.

... No. That would depend on his weapon. If it was strong enough to block a strike, then he would be able to block it. But if it shatters...

He didn’t want to find out. So his plan of choice was to evade the Boss’s strikes. He didn’t know how fast it moved, but because it was gigantic...

He would be able to read its moves ahead of time.

“Bastille.” Jacques called out, as he carefully examined the Boss, as his right eye glowed white. His eyes of dark and light seemed to move and twitch about – and Tobias knew that their Leader were reading those panels of light only visible to him. “Do you think you can kill it in one shot?”

“Impossible.” Bastille replied, and he opened his grimoire. The pages fluttered wildly, as if a strong, chaotic wind flipped its pages, before the Sorcerer closed it with a thud. “But it is possible for me to melt off its armor... But I can only do it after constant barrages, not a single condensed strike.”

Tobias blinked. Their Sorcerer definitely had firepower, but... If he couldn’t do it in one powerful spell, then he would be exposing the front line fighters to danger.

Because Fire didn’t choose its victims, after all. A single mistake might cost them their lives.

“That’s fine, go all out.” Jacques nodded, then turned towards their Archer. “Clara, you practiced your Artifact’s functions yet?”

“Yeah.” She nocked an arrow, and after a short while, a black-colored light enveloped the arrow, and made it magical. “I’ll be able to help, even just a bit.”

Tobias forgot to mention that her Artifact/Relic bow... made her arrows armor piercing, at the very least. But she could tell that it was only one of its functions, and she resolved to figure out what else it could do.

... Artifacts and Relics really were amazing.

“Alright then.” Then their Leader faced Tobias. “You ready?”

“Don’t need to ask me that.” Tobias replied, and with mutual nods to each other, they sprinted forwards – towards the Dungeon Boss.

The distance should have been significant, around two or three dozens of walking steps, yet they only cleared it in a few moments with a few, quick strides.

The Dungeon King met them by raising its greatsword to its side, parallel to the ground, and it sent a sidewards slash intended to decapitate their heads off.

But Tobias quickly rolled forwards to dodge it by a narrow margin.

Jacques leapt to dodge the strike, and used the greatsword as a leaping pad. He leapt towards its helmet, raising his saber to quickly slice the narrow gap in its helmet.

And yet... No blood was drawn. The Dungeon King’s red, glowing eyes were still intact, and gazed at them like they were insignificant beings.

When Jacques landed on the ground, he only stared back at the Dungeon King with an annoyed expression.

“Stupid System...” Jacques muttered to himself, as his right eye glowed white again. “I can’t really see what exactly it is. Tobias, get rid of its helmet. Clara, set it up for him!”

“Got it!” She yelled back, and Tobias could see her nock an arrow, drew it, and held it steady.

Jacques quickly sprinted behind the Dungeon King’s back, and it turned around to face him. Tobias could see the polished rear of its armor, and he idly wondered if it was even possible to climb it.

And right when he thought about it, an arrow quickly sailed over his head, and planted itself at the King’s back. Another one came in, planting itself diagonally upward to the right of the previous arrow, and another one came in...

Tobias understood now. Clara literally was making a ladder of arrows for him.

Her arrows didn’t seem to make the Dungeon Boss turn around to face her – that, or it just didn’t care about some arrows which only stuck out its armor.

But that would be its downfall.

When there were eight arrows, arranged in a zigzagging manner, Clara had stopped firing. Tobias let out a thankful nod to her direction, before leaping into action.

His left hand firmly grasped the arrow whose black-colored light only covered its tip. Reaching out with his right arm, he pulled himself upwards again.

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Rinse... repeat... And the Dungeon King still didn’t care about him, even though he was literally behind its head. Well, no matter.

Tobias peered over the Dungeon King’s shoulder, and only found Jacques dodging each strike by a wide margin, his left eye burning with a black-colored flame. When he noticed Tobias perched there, he only gave a small nod towards him.

Here it goes, then.

Tobias planted his right foot solidly on its right shoulder, and his left foot to its left shoulder, before he firmly grasped the two horned great helmet and pulled upwards...!

But then – he felt a hand wrap around his torso, before trying to pry him away.

He only held on to the helmet’s horns with vice-like grip, before he felt himself getting pulled up in the air and tossed away.

But in his hands... were the Dungeon King’s helmet which came along with him, before he threw it away while in mid air, and rolled to reduce the momentum of his land.

And he looked up. The Dungeon King’s head was exposed, revealing a skull. Its facial structure was unlike a human’s normal skull...

Its lower fangs were too protrusive, and curved upwards. In combination with its great size and strength... Tobias had quickly figured out that this Dungeon King was the corpse of an Orc King.

But now... It was no more than a Skeleton King – a remnant of its old self.

“Bastille!” Jacques shouted. “Looks like you need to melt its armor off, after all!”

“Affirmative!” Their Sorcerer yelled out in reply, as his grimoire opened itself, and its pages fluttered about wildly.

After a few seconds, a small circle of inscriptions wrote itself in the air, before a beam of scorching orange flames struck the Skeleton King’s chest plate – a hole of red-hot metal piercing through its armor, and revealing its ribs, which had been scorched and charred black.

But it didn’t do anything, because the Skeleton King was still moving at full speed, swinging its greatsword about with ease, which was only dodged by Jacques with some minor effort.

Jacques’ eye which saw the future... He already mastered it, didn’t he?

That’s the reason why he was able to do such stunts to begin with.

So for the first time, Tobias found himself lost at what he was supposed to do.

Jacques is capable of singlehandedly distracting it and dodging its strikes to buy time, while Bastille melted off its armor, and Clara provided some pot shots here there.

His party was able to handle it without his help, obviously... So what now?

Bastille had fired another high intensity beam of flame, burning away another part of the Dungeon King’s armor. This time, the high-precision beam pierced through the rivets holding the shoulder plate in place as it fell towards the ground with a great clang, exposing its charred shoulder bone.

It was some sort of minor miracle that the beam of flame didn’t destroy its shoulder joint. Fire really wasn’t too good against magical Skeletons, much less a Dungeon Boss, after all...

Jacques still showed no signs of fatigue. He was, after all, incredibly efficient with his movements.

And Clara did her own things. She would be more useful if their opponent had flesh and could feel pain to begin with. While arrows were good weapons against bone, it really wasn’t any good when their opponent is massive, and could shrug off literally anything...

But that was alright. In comparison to him, who only stared and watched because he literally had nothing to do right now.

And finally – when the Skeleton King’s other metal shoulder plate’s rivets were removed, and the armor dropped to the ground, the Skeleton King held its ornate greatsword with two hands, before planting it to the ground with a solid thrust as it dug deeply within the stone.

And with that; It spoke.

“Arise, my servants.”

And with that; the clattering of bones answered their King, and in front of the great, iron doors they pushed open earlier, purple-black circles of inscriptions materialized out of nowhere, and bones were spewed out of those circles, quickly forming a pile of random bones.

And from those pile of bones... Formed a legion of skeleton soldiers, armed with different weapons.

Tobias stared at the Skeleton King, before staring at the still-forming legion of soldiers, and with that, he moved, quickly slipping past Bastille and Clara.

“Get away from here, and keep focusing on your job.” Tobias ordered, his voice perfectly leveled towards the Sorcerer and the Archer. “I’ll handle it.”

“Fucking hell...” Bastille muttered, when he saw the amount of skeletons which were being made from the bone pile. “Yeah, looks like you’re about to go all out.”

“Yeah.” Tobias confirmed with a nod, and he felt his lips curve upwards ever so slightly.

With that, Bastille sprinted closer towards the Skeleton King.

Clara only quickly shifted her gaze towards the Skeleton King, and to the Legion of Skeletons, before fixing her gaze at him.

“I won’t let you fight alone.” She said, with such resolve and resolution in her voice that inspired even him. Then she flashed a smile towards him. “And besides, I’m still your Keeper. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“Thank you.” He let out a soft smile at her dedication to him. If only there was a way to pay it back...

But this wasn’t the time to think of such thoughts.

For the first time, he drew his dagger, holding it with his left hand. He raised the longsword with his right to point at the Legion to challenge them.

Let it be known... Where Tobias was currently standing, a line was already drawn. And he swore that as long as he was standing, then nothing would be able to pass it.

***

Tobias parried the reanimated skeleton’s sword, and in the same move, his longsword looped around to slash the joint in its sword arm elbow.

And with that, the skeleton’s arm, along with its sword was dropped to the ground – effectively making it a non-threat for the next moment or two.

But he had no time to celebrate.

He quickly raised his left arm, and deflected a sword strike from another skeleton with his dagger. In that same instance, his sword cleaved through the skeleton’s spine.

While his sword wasn’t sharp enough to cleanly cut through bone, the sheer impact of lengthened, reinforced steel, and his strength was more than enough to break through its spine.

His instincts flashed to warn him, and he instantly took a step backwards. Right in front of him was an outstretched battle axe – which would have split his head in two if he didn’t dodge quickly enough.

His sword rose upwards, and broke through the joints between the skeleton’s arms. Just like that, both of its arms holding the axe rattled to the ground useless, severed from the main skeletal body.

In the span of three... no, maybe four seconds, he managed to effectively neutralize three skeletons. And now, it was only time to make them effectively dead by dismembering their limbs from their bodies.

He raised his sword, and with swift, yet strong cleaves, he managed to separate a skeleton’s arms and legs. And he moved again, and again, and again.

In front of him were three skeletons which were reduced to five, maybe six divided parts composed of severed limbs, spines, and skulls which still rattled about, but couldn’t do anything else drastic.

They didn’t die unless he was meticulous enough to crush each bone, was it? But they weren’t trolls – they couldn’t regenerate themselves once each limb was severed already.

So this was a good enough solution.

Tobias looked over to the side – there were piles upon piles of bones rattling uselessly there.

The Legion of Skeletons’ strength was their numbers. They would quickly overwhelm any party who didn’t have a Mage capable of using Holy Magic to smite them... But unfortunately, their numbers meant nothing to him.

Because Tobias specialized in slaying armies of monsters.

Well... to be fair, he did have support from Clara. And unlike the Skeleton King, her arrows were more than deadly when it came to shattering human-sized unarmored bones, and she greatly helped reduce the Legion’s numbers and helped defend the line.

So now... about the pile of clattering bones surrounding him...

He couldn’t finish them off without grinding each and every single one into dust... Yet at the same time, those skeletons wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, either.

The severed arms and legs just clattered around, as each one tried to lift their weapons – only for their elbows to uselessly flail around, because they had no more body attached to it. There were even a few bony hands which grasped at his feet and legs, but he only kicked them away, and stomped them whenever they got too close.

The skulls’ mouths moved and clattered about – as if singing a symphony of curses towards their incapability to do anything, and towards Tobias for his incapability to truly finish them off.

How pathetic.

So Tobias turned around, and observed the current state of the Dungeon Boss.

The Skeleton King’s armor was turned into molten slags which were stuck to its charred, blackened bones.

And by all accounts, the only reason why it was still standing was exactly because of that; it was a skeleton, and even if it was being burned and scorched, it couldn’t feel any pain or anything.

There was simply no flesh to injure and exploit, and the only way to immobilize such an undead creature was to chop off its limbs, or cast some sort of Holy Magic against it which they did not have, once more.

Tobias considered if he should join in the boss fight, before he heard even more rattling behind him. He quickly turned around, and let out a sigh.

It seemed like a new wave of Skeletons had just arrived, with those hollow eyes just staring at him with hostile, yet indifferent intent.

He raised his longsword with his right hand, and raised his dagger over his right arm, the dagger gripped in reverse, ready to parry and stab.

After all... He did take up the duty to defend his Party so that they might be able to slay the Skeleton King without being overwhelmed.

It was his job to slay lesser monsters such as these, and he was going to do it right.

And with that, Tobias burst forwards, his sword rising to cleave through a skeleton’s spine, while his dagger blocked a strike from an enemy from his left side.

In the next moment, he dashed to the right, as a sword was lowered where he was a few moments ago. His sword flashed out to clash against the stretched arm, and the sounds of severed bone and metal clanging against the ground rang out.

His instincts flared out, and he managed to twist his torso, just as a spear grazed through where his heart should be. And in that moment, his dagger soared upwards – disjointing the skeleton’s wrist with ruthless efficiency.

It was a cycle like that. A cycle that made Tobias’ heart pump faster and faster, and forced him to take deeper breaths each time.

The slightest hesitation... the slightest mistake... It could greatly injure Tobias at the very least, and most definitely take his life at worst.

But his blades were sharp, and his instincts sharper still. He only continued to dodge, weave, and counter their attacks in successive, rapid order to the point where it was almost euphoric.

In the battlefield, one had to be perfectly aware of their own limitations and their surroundings, or else they would die. And so... he danced.

It was his own dance – a dance of death that he had learned from Magnus, and a dance of death that he had honed with the numerous Magical Dungeons they had already completed.

And in the end, after no more than fifteen seconds of this deadly dance, what surrounded him was a pile of cleaved, broken, and smashed bones once more, as they only rattled about, uselessly gripping their weapons while their elbows flailed about.

Not a single skeleton had managed to pass him, much less reach his party.

And in that instant, Jacques’ gaze met with Tobias’. The Leader gave a subtle nod towards the Soldier, and he nodded in reply, understanding the intent.

“Bastille! You’re in charge of defending our rear side now. Tobias, you’re up!” Their leader barked their orders, and those words were met with subtle nods from both of his party members, as they both moved past another.

Tobias slipped past Bastille, and when they did, they gave each other nods, entrusting their duties to one another.

Now that Bastille had made it vulnerable to physical attacks... It was now Tobias’ job to finish it.