The giant tackled the doll just as it was about to attack Alan again. He came from its side with a roar, each of his steps making the ground shake. The two went rolling on the ground exchanging punches that made the surroundings tremble. Alan wondered how the giant was taking all the beatings. His armor was probably something amazing in itself.

Alan dusted himself off and felt the mana leaving his pool to stitch up the shadows around him. There were very few left, sans those still rising from his skin and orifices. They had thankfully taken the brunt of the damage along with his arm. The forearm felt a bit weird, nothing a large gulp of vitality wouldn’t fix.

He reached for the connection with the parasite, thanking the System for the curse when a sudden feeling of nausea made him stop.

What’s that? Have I overused it, or is something else the matter? Have I poisoned myself? The darkness that had been compressed inside of his enchanted bones swam to the surface of his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to get upset at all. At this point, it was only natural that fixing his old issues would lead to fucking other things up.

Alan gritted his teeth and tried again, drawing the tiniest possible amount of life energy from the connection to the parasite. The process was smooth, if a bit uncomfortable, like a bad car ride. Something inside of him intercepted the energy before it reached him though. Another unwelcome surprise. He tried again, ignoring the desire to puke.

An explosion sounded nearby and a large rock barely missed him. Alan crouched down and assessed the situation. He wasn’t being very helpful to his new giant friend and it was time for that to change.

It was moments later that the shadows around him stirred, unprompted. The vitality he had stolen seemed to have been used to fuel them further, rather than to heal whatever damage he had suffered. He didn’t know if this was good or bad. There was not much time to think things through.

The doll sent the giant to the ground and was upon him in the next second. Alan cursed and got his staff out again, before doing the same thing as before with [Mana Zap]. This time though he changed things a bit. Rather than applying his own twisted version of [Shadow Creation] by overloading the simple skill with shadow mana, he cast [Mana Zap], and kept the skill going, thinking of the void holes the parasites created. However, he aimed to create something more permanent. A piece of solid shadows he could then mold and make stronger.

It was a small dark blemish upon the world – a swirling misshapen blob of translucent shadows, rather than the gaping void the parasites had. He kept it going, feeding it mana and not allowing the skill to end with the tiny explosion it usually did.

He cast it again while keeping the first going, and then again. The expenditure of having three was draining but bearable. He wasn’t doing anything fancy. The more mana he put in and the more he willed his new control over the shadow mana to strengthen, the heavier the feeling in his mind became. However, he didn’t worry. The next step was more crucial for molding the skill to his desires. It seemed that as long as he didn’t accept the prompts from the System he could keep experimenting with new results, which was a great tiny loophole, or maybe a design to allow for creative freedom.

He put a sliver of will inside of each blob and tried to leave simple instructions. After all, that’s what skills were, right – mana following a certain set of instructions, nothing more. Well, maybe a lot more, but the devil was in the details.

He tried to center them around the places where mana flowed better and even tried to make the blobs absorb mana on their own. The aim was to create a self-sustaining mass he could mold to his desire. It took him a few intense moments of concentration until he decided that his mind was not at the necessary level yet. Still, there was some success in his attempt. It was not enough to allow the blobs to exist without him supplying around ninety-five percent of the mana, but it was a success.

They were centered around the fight between the doll and the giant, creating a triangle of sorts. The shadows shot out, once again copying the effect of [Shadow Creation]. Solid but thin tendril-like ropes shot out from each. They wrapped around the doll with greater speed than before and once again Alan felt a system message come.

Had he advanced [Mana Zap] twice? Granted, there was absolutely no relation between what he had created and the initial skill. However, he had used its range and simplicity as a blue-print to build upon. That had to count.

I’ll read it later.

The tendrils this time held on for longer as he knew what he was doing. The strain was there, of course. The doll was anything but weak and it unraveled the ropes one by one, but more kept coming. Alan used that time to optimize his control over the skill, to sense each turn his mana took.

It gave the giant some breathing room and he stood up from where the doll had pummeled him, giving Alan a thumbs up and a large grin. The man touched his fist closed fist to his open palm with the thumb facing the palm and separated them. The jagged sword Alan had seen the first time he had noticed the giant appeared in a smooth motion.

It was a grotesque thing that looked rusty, broken, and fearsome as all hell. He rushed at the doll that was still struggling with Alan’s newly created bindings.

Alan felt his skill start to give out and canceled the shadow blobs. The burden of maintaining them was like a weight off his shoulders. And there were still bindings around the doll, although the monster was ripping them apart fast.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

It gave enough time for the giant to unleash his attack, which was nothing more than a sideways sweep that sent wooden flesh and dirt flying everywhere. Alan felt his ears pop from the pressure unleashed by that one attack.

What insane strength.

Surprisingly the creature stood up almost immediately. It had been sent flying quite far and had scars from the bindings all over its body. Its right side was all but gone, but the wiggling flesh was quickly regenerating.

Scratch that. What insane vitality.

The giant roared and rushed forward again, swinging his sword. Alan moved too, following behind. His best bet was to use his new skill to slow down the strange doll and give the giant enough time.

In the next moment, however, [First Pathfinder] and [Mortal Peril] sang as one.

“Dodge!” was all he could yell as he used everything available to him to avoid whatever was coming. The giant followed without hesitation.

A moment later a deep dark green gash opened where they had been standing – like a giant blinking eye that disappeared in the next moment. It was similar to the skill of the parasites, but very different too.

If I get caught in that…

He didn’t want to think about it.

The doll was upon them in the next moment. The scarring on its flesh remained, but its right side was mostly healed although it seemed a bit smaller.

Is it redistributing flesh to the hurt areas? So, it’s not regrowing.

If exhausting it until there was not enough wooden flesh to go around was the way to kill it, then things were going to hell.

Alan had no more time to think as he cursed and tried to run. The monstrous thing was going for him, rather than the giant it had fought until now. It was true that he was the easier target. Had the other dolls he met prioritized targets? He couldn’t remember, other than the ones who had ambushed them. He didn’t think this one was being controlled though. It was just in a grade of its own.

Alan’s speed was higher than ever, but the doll was also faster than ever and it quickly closed the distance. It dodged another swing by the giant with preternatural agility. The few shadow blades Alan managed to send the doll’s way did little in the way of slowing it down, and he didn’t have time to truly infuse them with his will as it took a few moments of concentration. He highly doubted that its effect was enough to bring the strange doll down though, unless he could repeat his first [Mana Zap] experiment.

It was upon him in a moment and in a last-ditch effort Alan poured as much mana as he could in front of him, forming a shield of darkness. He made it as thick and hard as possible, compressing the solid shadows. It would take time to truly create something capable of defense though, and Alan braced himself.

No [Mortal Peril] meant that it was no certain death, so he remained calm. All else he could heal.

The shield held only for a brief moment before it shattered into whisps of mana. The fist approached him in slow motion and Alan barely managed to raise his arms, coated in darkness before himself.

Something white appeared before the fist. A strange dull sound echoed from the impact and threw Alan further back, which he welcomed readily.

The doll stood rooted in place, uncaring about the giant roaring behind it and charging with his jagged sword raised.

The strange monster’s fist was stuck in what looked to be the hip bone of something not quite humanoid. There was nothing else attached to the bone. It floated on its own as if taken from a museum.

The fuck?

The giant man had also stopped his rush, frowning. Even he didn’t like or understand what was happening.

The jingle of small bones attached to a grimy old leather armor sounded everywhere around. More bones flew toward the hip bone, attaching itself to it. Small bones, large bones, strange bones. The doll tried to pull its hand free but to the surprise of everyone, it seemed to struggle.

“A joke? Hehe,” a familiar voice sounded making Alan shiver. “A creepy doll walks into the skeleton of an apex predator from times long past. What happens then? Anyone?”

The doll finally freed itself and jumped backward, taking in the new challenger before it. There was deathly silence for a few moments before it shot toward a nearby ruin.

A scream of pure terror sounded from a crack between two large fallen pieces of stone. The doll reached it with a raised fist but then there was a pop and it ground to a hall before something akin to a medieval morning star mace slammed into it.

Where the construct of bones had previously been born, now stood the sorry shape of Bonez. And where Bonez had apparently been hilding, was a monstrous thing that crushed through the rock stopping everyone from seeing its full glory.

It was like a velociraptor met a battle robot enthusiast’s wet dream. Four arms sprung from the skeleton that reminded Alan of the encyclopedias he had seen as a child. One was a mace, the other was a bone saw. He doubted it was a natural occurrence. The other two were long curving blades with hooks on the end. Its feet were large and wide, digging into the ground.

“Behold! My beloved, my deary. I call it Sawstash! It saws, it stabs, and it smashes! Hehe! My most fearsome creation! Other than my glorious self, hehe. Thank the Lord for that.”

Alan wondered if he should run away now or later.

“Thanks,” he said through grit teeth. It was only normal to thank someone who had helped him. Even if that someone was so creepy.

Bonez grinned at that and seemingly forgot the presence of the doll as he turned toward Alan with a happy smile. His earrings jingled happily as he walked closer.

“No worries, no worries. Say, you got time to talk about my Lord and Savior, the one and only Lord of all that is Bones? He’s been hounding me. I know you have a bad opinion of my humble self, but I assure you I’m but a dirt fleck beneath my Lord’s shoe. He is magnificent, if I may say so myself. May his glory be eternal like the bones of his buried enemies,” Bonez spoke. His manic grin only widened with each word and his eyes were threatening to pop out of his head.

The doll appeared next to Bonez in a flash of green and struck him right on the side of the face. Alan was sure the hit would have decapitated the creepy man, but he only fell backward with a yell. There was a pop and the monstrous velociraptor appeared in his place even before he reached the ground. It had a whip-like tail of bones now. It wrapped around the doll before all four arms started hacking at it.

“Feisty, feisty.” Bonez's voice sounded right behind Alan, making him jump up and turn. “It reminds me of a wife I had once. She left me for some wacko monk. Don’t blame her, that guy had marvelous hip bones. And that ass.”

The [Warlock] was rubbing his bloody cheek. Alan could see white beneath the wounds but it didn’t seem to bother Bonez in the slightest.

Alan briefly considered switching sides.