The battle had started, but the skeletons’ ruler still had preparations to do. Wearing only a purple hooded cloak, she stood barefoot on the hard soil. Her bones were centuries old and had long since turned snow white. The deep crevice across her forehead was a souvenir from the Second War.

The Bone Mother's hollow eyes turned to the large altar before her. At the bottom of the hill, in the center of a dandelion field, ten blue cloak wizards raised their arms, and a blue mana glow emerged.

Each standing at the foot of a tall rock, their mana rays connected and concentrated on the red altar at the center. Two men and one woman were lying on their backs, struggling to get up.

However, the chains tied them down and before long, as the blue, cursed mana circulated their veins and caused their eyes to emit blue light, the three sacrifices began gasping for air.

They couldn't breathe as their body functions disappeared one by one. Their organs were turning to blood.

The chains broke off. The three bodies suddenly levitated. The smell of rotten flesh roamed the air as their bodies melted away. All that was left were bones. The process was almost over as the skeletons collapsed on the altar. The cloaked wizards let down their arms and glanced at the Bone Mother.

She nodded.

Three of them approached the altar with flasks. They carried a rich, burning, crimson liquid. It was red mana.

Hands trembling, they poured the three flasks while ensuring the mana went over each and every bone on the rock altar.

Done, they turned around and paced towards the tall rocks. However, the three skeletons had already woken up behind them.

A red mist diffused from them as they stood up, their limbs cracking loudly. The three blue wizards took their last steps.

A first skeleton jumped on his prey and, clutching his skeleton hands together, hammered down on the wizard’s thick skull. The red skeleton’s hands had grown twice their size as, from head to toe, they ground the wizard into bonemeal.

The second skeleton was also in a furry. She kicked the ground abruptly, and a line of red magic spikes suddenly surged out. The blue wizard before her stubbled over his cloak and took a spike in the head.

The third cloaked wizard was almost at his rock when he caught a glimpse of the arm behind him. A hand dug into his shoulder. He looked back. The red wizard was over three metres away, yet his arm had stretched beyond anatomical limits.

The slender arm pulled him back to the altar, brought him four metres into the air, and smashed him against the stone until half his skull split open. The skeleton then opened his mouth. His lower jaw stretched like a shark as he swallowed the corpse. With the new bone material, his body grew a metre taller.

“Perfect.” The Bone Mother smiled.

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Without teeth, the matriarch’s smile was horrible. The other cloaked wizard looked at their feet. They were frightened that if they made any sudden move, they would be next to die.

There were distant sounds of battle at the gate.

As she lowered her purple hood, the cursed skeleton gazed upon her three new creations and let out a cry. The screech resounded in every skeleton’s ears and deafened them.

Every skeleton within her reach fell to its knees. Isaac looked on top of a moving tower as the giant white crowd ceased moving. Below, Aaron and Anne took this opportunity to kill another cursed wizard. Further away, Gabriella and many vampires were fighting enemy vampires from the inner layer. Seth, Christopher, the werewolves and the rest of the army were killing as many skeletons as possible.

The three red skeletons finally fell to their knees.

Their mother’s smile widened. She didn’t care about all the skeletons that had died. She had just gained control of three deadly killing machines. “Attack.”

The skeletons stood up, and the battle continued above the flower fields.

As the Bone Mother turned toward the gate, Zephyr arrived next to her with a broad smile, two hundred reptoids with him and a few skeleton wizards.

He was still wearing his silver armour but had lost his helmet and rifle. His smile was fluttering. His eyes were wet. His heart had shattered. Zephyr Dragos clenched his fists.

He wasn’t fighting for himself anymore. He couldn’t care less about preserving order in the Obscure Guild. No, he fought for his wife, for the ice wizard who had saved him and who was flying near him, for the reptoids who had died and for those who were still alive.

“I will leave this place to you, Bone Mother.” Zephyr walked towards Sanguine, the city with a red glow.

…

Commander Rack was fighting skeletons at the edge of the city. The buildings were a few metres behind him and his mages.

His metal armour, made of magic, protected James Rack from almost any attack as he fired at skeletons with his gigantic laser rifle.

Reptoids suddenly arrived, and the battle escalated. An ice spike grazed his shoulder and landed in a mage’s eye. He turned to help him, but the soldier had already died.

He tried finding the wizard that had attacked them, but a second ice spike arrived and travelled into his laser rifle’s cannon. He aimed at the cloaked wizard and pulled the trigger, yet nothing happened.

The ice had melted and broken the rifle’s laser functionality. Rack had to let go of his weapon. “Few water mages have enough control to change the water temperature, much less can fire ice!”

He ran towards a building and found a metal pipe. He touched it, intending to use the metal for an attack, but the pipe had water inside it. “This won’t do!”

He rushed to another building a few metres away while the wizard’s ice spikes broke on his armour. He found a dry drainpipe and ripped it off the wall.

The pipe transformed into a ball, then grew into a very long pole as he jumped straight to the ice wizard. The wizard tried to stop him in mid-air by making a wall of ice.

He broke through it with his fist, and just as he was about to make a steel spike to stick into the wizard’s head, the woman grew ice out of her arm, sending him crashing back to the ground.

He fell on top of a skeleton and realized he had strayed too far from the other mages. Just as he got up, something fell on him and pushed him back down.

He looked up. It was Zephyr!

“Hey.” The Second Seat crouched to his level. “So you are attacking from the back? I knew you might try something like this. I really want to murder Snoid for hiding these secret passages from us.”