Skelementals are like zombies if zombies weren’t pathetic.
Though they were similarly mindless, they were much tougher sons of bitches than the decaying undead. Their bones weren’t brittle and rotting, they were sturdy and reinforced; practically indestructible. No ordinary sword, hammer, or bullet could break through their protective shelling. And even if one were to somehow manage to break through, the skelementals could reassemble themselves with ease.
The fiends were also very malleable in their composition. While the average skelemental was similar in build to a human skeleton, the species came in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and could even reconfigure themselves should the need arise. The citizens of Port Rysa learned this firsthand as the skelementals laid siege to their town.
The assault was led by the usual human-like skelementals who pursued the citizenry from all directions, attempting to drag them underground. At first, the concrete ground the town had been built upon seemed to deter the fiends’ usual plans of burial, but that good fortune was soon swiped away as the next wave of skelementals appeared — quadrupedal beasts with drill-like horns and claws that pierced through the concrete with little to no trouble whatsoever.
The skelementals had come from all directions, too, including the sea. The boats that had been docked on the pier were made aware of this first as skelemental sharks and orcas battered against the hulls of their ships, preventing them from setting sail and fleeing.
The entrances to the town were no better off, either, with hulking, ten-foot-tall ape-like fiends forming a blockade as they slowly trudged into town.
Sariah, Lance, and Mela exited the church, taking in the disaster Port Rysa had found itself in. Lance wheeled around to Sariah, panic clear in his eyes and voice alike. “What do we do?!”
Sariah’s first instinct was to look to the right towards the main entrance of the town, but she was immediately made aware that leaving that way was not an option for the time being. She then turned to the nun accompanying them. “Mela, is there another way out of town?”
The nun had to be shaken from her wide-eyed panic before she could provide an answer. “Y-yes! On the northeast side of town, near the coast! There’s a trail that wraps around the cliffs!”
“Lance. Clear that trail, and keep it clear. Direct civilians towards it and give them cover.”
The rookie shook his head. “But I can’t hurt those things! Last night-!”
Sariah reached across Lance to take hold of Mela’s hand. “Do you have Blessing training, Mela?”
“Some, yes….”
Nodding, Sariah then said, “Go with him, please. He’ll keep you safe, but you’ll need to provide him with Blessings.”
“Blessings?” Lance asked. “What’s that?”
“Ecclesian arts,” said Sariah, gently pushing Lance towards Mela. “I don’t think they’ll be enough to kill the fiends, but they should help you fight them. Go!”
Despite still being quite confused, Lance nodded and raced off towards the northeast trail alongside Mela.
Sariah, meanwhile, turned her attention back towards the entrance of the town. More and more skelementals had come flooding in, and the town’s miniscule guard force clearly wasn’t up to the task of handling them.
She reached her hand into the top of her shirt, taking hold of a necklace she kept hidden underneath it.
GOSPEL!
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
“U-KNIGHT!”
The knight descended seemingly from the skies, massive claymore in hand. The silver-white blade easily cleaved through the top of the ape skelemental’s skull, slicing smoothly down through the entirety of the fiend’s height, until it hit the ground with a massive boom.
The monster fell apart into two halves, both of which reconfigured into smaller, human-like skelementals.
The knight swung the heavy claymore out, catching the first of the skelementals across the jaw, shattering the skull into pieces. The knight then elected to ignore the second one, instead choosing to rush towards Port Rysa.
As he stormed through the field towards the entrance of the town, he swung the claymore left and right in alternating slashes, each one finding a target. Though not all of them slew the skelemental they had struck, they at the very least managed to break them into pieces, slowing them down for the time being.
Just before the knight could make it to the entrance, however, a squadron of hands erupted from the earth below, grabbing hold of the knight’s legs, immobilizing him.
The knight retaliated with a flurry of slashes and thrusts to the skulls, although some of the fiends remained underground, keeping themselves safe from the mighty blade.
The instant he recognized the fiends’ strategy, the knight threw the sword aside, planting it into the grass a few feet away. His hands made their way to his chest, forming an invisible ball shape between them. A mighty voice exploded from within his chest:
EARTH!
The knight slammed both of his palms into the ground beneath him, ignoring the swipes from the claws of the skelementals. A brown wave of light coursed through his body, riding along his armor down over his arms and hands, before vanishing into the grass and dirt.
A second later, the circle of ground around him erupted in an explosive burst. Dirt, grass, rock, and skelemental bone soared in all directions like shrapnel, with only the knight and his claymore withstanding the force of the blast and retaining their positioning.
The Earth Install proved effective at freeing the knight, as no skelementals remained below him to impede his progress. Satisfied, he took hold of his claymore once more, and raced into Port Rysa.
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
The northeastern path that Mela had informed Sariah and Lance about was a bit out-of-the-way, and didn’t seem to be too crowded with skelementals, thankfully. Only one small one was in the way — a legless, human-sized fiend slowly crawling its way towards the rest of its brethren as they laid siege to the town.
Lance turned to Mela. “So, uh, what’s this ‘Blessing’ stuff about?”
Deciding it was better to show him rather than sit around explaining it, Mela brought her hands to chest level, holding one above the other.
BLESSING!
Golden light began to swirl around the nun’s hands in rhythmic waves. She placed one of her hands around the handle of Lance’s sword, and the other against his chest.
“Whoa….” Lance let out as the golden light washed over his body. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m giving you a healing Blessing,” Mela answered. “And I’m imbuing your sword with an empowerment Blessing.”
She took her hands back, and the golden light faded away from them both. “They should last about ten minutes or so. I don’t know how helpful they’ll be, but if Lady Sariah thinks they-”
The crawling skelemental suddenly flung itself towards the pair, completely betraying its former slow movement pace. Mela screamed as the monster lunged at her specifically, but Lance’s quick reflexes compelled him to step forward and draw his blade, slashing the fiend right across the chest.
Lance was surprised and relieved to find that the attack seemed to work, cutting the skelemental in half and sending its pieces flying back into the sand. “Hey, I actually got it!”
“Th-thank you!”
“Ten minutes, huh?” he asked, feeling his fighting confidence return. When Mela nodded, he turned back towards the town, scanning over the skelementals closest to the trail. There were dozens of them, and none looked as remotely weak as the one he had just slain. Fighting them all would be a tough task, especially since he would also be multitasking escorting civilians to safety.
But he was ready to do just that.
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
A barrage of silver-white spears rained down from above, aimed directly at the horde of skelementals terrorizing the front entrance of the town. Many of the holy weapons found their marks, piercing through skulls, jaws, spines, and hands alike.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
But the crowded entrance was not composed entirely of skelementals. Many of the civilians were still in that area; some were trying to run to the exit, some had just left the nearby buildings, and others were in the midst of being swallowed by the earth, dragged into the depths by the skelementals.
Strangely, the spears did not seem to make contact with the civilians. Indeed, as each one came to a civilian, rather than pierce through and explode in a burst of light, it simply disintegrated, fluttering away into particles.
As a dozen skelementals fell to pieces from the barrage of spears, Sariah rushed into the crowd, kneeling down to help pull the civilians up from the ground and back to the surface. “Head to the northeast trail by the coast!” she told all within hearing distance.
Thankfully, the civilians by-and-large followed her directions without hesitation. Up ahead, in what appeared to be the residential corner of town, she could hear civilians still in danger. She ran over to help them, calling forth more silver-white spears from the skies, directing them towards any skelementals she could see.
“Head to the coast!” she stated to the remaining civilians once the area was clear. “There’s a trail by the cliffs on the northeast side!”
With another portion of the town cleared off, she started to jog back to the central square, weighing her options. She wasn’t sure if she’d have enough firepower to take down the massive monsters at the entrance, so she was probably better off clearing a path through the main part of town and heading in Lance and Mela’s direction inst-
“Aaaaahhhh!”
The shrill cry of a young girl cut through Sariah’s thought process, arresting her attention. Up ahead, underneath an overpass, a child had been grabbed by skelementals awakening from underground.
The angle at which the fiends had burst through the ground was enough to shake the foundation of one side of the tunnel. From the way the structure shook, it definitely looked about ready to cave in entirely. And if the skelementals didn’t kill the girl, the collapsing tunnel definitely would.
Sariah summoned a rain of spears down as she kicked off into a mad sprint towards the tunnel. She only had a very short window of time to work with, and wasn’t able to aim the attack with very much precision. She didn’t have to worry about harming the girl with the spears, but what she did have to worry about was the possibility of the spears missing their mark, and not breaking the hold all of the skelementals had on the girl’s body. Sariah knew she wasn’t strong enough to pry the girl from the fiends’ hands on her own, so if even a single one of them was able to maintain its grip, the girl was done for.
Sariah dived forward as the spears phased through the collapsing tunnel and rained down into the skelementals. She held her arms out and wrapped them tightly around the girl’s body, angling herself as she dived across the length of the tunnel so as to cushion the fall and keep the girl safe from hitting the ground directly.
Fortunately, the arrows successfully hit the right targets.
Sariah skidded along the concrete on the other side of the tunnel just as it collapsed onto the skelementals. She kept the girl held tightly against her, keeping her from taking the hit directly.
When she came to a stop, Sariah relaxed her grip and looked down at the girl. “Are you okay, sweetie?”
The little girl needed a moment to process what had just happened, but once she did, she gave a nod in response.
Sariah got back up to her feet while taking a look down at the girl’s legs. She could see a few thin cuts, likely from where the skelementals had grabbed her, but they didn’t appear to be too serious, and thankfully she couldn’t identify any sprained or broken bones, either.
The girl was probably physically able to walk just fine, but from how she nervously clinged onto Sariah, and from the tears welling up in her eyes, Sariah decided against forcing her to do that. “Let’s head to safety, okay, sweetheart? What’s your name?”
“Lily….”
“Hi, Lily. My name is Sariah.”
While the calming conversation definitely seemed to be working at soothing the little girl’s fears, it was never destined to last long. Port Rysa was still a battlefield, and the two of them were on the opposite side of the northeastern trail. And with Lily in her arms, Sariah didn’t exactly have much flexibility in terms of combat maneuvers.
Sariah took the clearest path through the town that she could piece together, retracing her steps towards the church, throwing out a few spears whenever a skelemental came too close. For the most part, the trek to the exit was fairly smooth sailing.
As she arrived outside of the church, however, she hit a roadblock, as a massive ape-like skelemental crash-landed just a few feet away from her. The ground trembled underneath her, threatening to throw her off balance. The fiend didn’t seem to be targeting her specifically, as there were a number of civilians in the area, but the thing was effectively cutting off her path towards the coast.
Lily buried her face into Sariah’s shoulder and screamed out in fear, prompting Sariah to give her a quick pat on the head before aiming her hand towards the space above the skelemental. She called forth as big a flurry of spears as she could muster. Because the target was so huge, every single one was able to find its mark, lodging itself deep within the skelemental’s body.
Unfortunately, unlike the much smaller fiends she had fought up until this point, the spears didn’t kill it.
She hadn’t expected them to, so it didn’t surprise her to see, but it was still a worrying sight, as that meant something bigger was going to be needed to take the fiend down, and she wasn’t exactly sure what that something was. And with how drained she was beginning to feel, she wasn’t sure she was even capable of conjuring that something herself.
The ape skelemental let out a hideous roar and flailed its arms around in a wide circle, managing to catch two civilians as they tried to flee. Sariah ducked underneath the arm, then tried to make a break towards the coast, but the fiend immediately adjusted its attack, spinning around in an alternate angle to try and catch even more civilians, and Sariah couldn’t see the second arm coming in from behind.
But the arm never struck. Instead, the fiend howled out into the sky in pain. As Sariah continued her sprint, she looked back over her shoulder to catch a glimpse at what happened.
The knight’s claymore had pierced through the chest of the skelemental, cracking through the metal bone and leaving a massive hole through the center of its body. The fiend thrashed around in pain, stumbling a bit as it tried to claw at the sword to remove it from its body.
The knight moved around to the side and grabbed hold of one of the fiend’s flailing arms, tugging on it for a second before snapping it off completely. The skelemental stumbled backward, crashing into one of the nearby buildings.
Sariah, after realizing she had stopped running to watch the fight, shook her head and turned back to continue towards the northeast trail.
* * * *
ULTRA KNIGHT
* * * *
“Duck down!”
The civilians obliged, throwing their heads down or outright diving to the dirt as Lance ran towards them, glowing sword at the ready. He spun and swung in unison, cutting a wide-angle arc that managed to catch three leaping skelementals before their jaws and claws could sink into the civilians.
“It’s clear now! Keep going!” he encouraged, helping the civilians to their feet and directing them towards the exit.
Once that was done, he turned back around and called out towards Mela. “Mela! How much longer do I got?”
“A-about five minutes!” came the nun’s response, after a moment of hesitation. She didn’t seem very comfortable yelling out loud.
Lance looked back towards the main part of town. It was still a mess and littered with skelementals, but more worrying was the fact that he couldn’t see Sariah anywhere in sight.
He didn’t have much time to scan the area for her, however, as a loud, shrill scream suddenly erupted from the docks.
“Ack! What in the seven salty hells are these things?! Me bullets’re bouncin’ right offa them!”
One of the nearby ships had been swarmed with skelementals, and not just the human-like ones. In particular, there was a massive shark-like beast chomping at the wood, taking out large chunks of it with each bite.
Cap’n Nadia’s hatted head suddenly poked out over the edge of the ship to look down at the fiend. “Oi! What’re ya doin’?! How dare ya eat the Gunthorn!” She reached her hand over the edge of the ship, an archaic handgun held at the ready. She pulled on the trigger, but no bullet shot out. The pirate let out a shrill scream. “Ack! Blasted thing jammed on me!”
“Cap’n Nadia!” Jrayk called out, accompanied by Lolo and Ed. “We gotta leave, now! We can’t fight these things!”
“Ya coward lot!” Nadia cried out as she started slamming her fist and hook against Jrayk’s chest like a child throwing a tantrum. “What kinda pirate runs from a fight, eh?! Ya think we’re just gonna abandon the Gunthorn?!”
Suddenly, an ape-like skelemental rushed into the scene, barreling its shoulder directly against the Gunthorn, wobbling the ship a great deal.
Nadia screamed. “Ack! What’re you lot waitin’ for?! Let’s get the blazes outta here!”
The pirates scrambled to get off the ship as fast as they could. As soon as their boots hit the dock, the skelementals roared out and lunged at them, eliciting terrified screams from each of their throats.
“This way!” Lance called out as he began to hack his way through the wave of skelementals lining the dock. He wasn’t too worried about any of the fiends near his feet, but he was doing his best to cut through them as quickly as possible, keeping an eye on the brutish ape one that had appeared. “Head to the trail on the northe-!”
The four pirates ran right through him, not even listening to him. For a moment, he considered tripping whichever one he could in retaliation, but he fought the urge, and instead followed after them to put distance between himself and the giant skelemental.
As he followed after the pirates back towards Mela and the trail, he was relieved to see Sariah appear alongside a crowd of civilians. “Sariah! There you are!”
“Is the trail clear?” she asked. When he nodded, she ran past him towards it.
As she approached Mela, the nun rushed forward, arms extended. “Lily! Oh, there you are! Thank the Mother Dragon!”
“You know her?” Sariah asked as she handed Lily off to the nun.
Mela nodded. “Yes, I look after her sometimes when her father goes sailing. He passed by here not too long ago helping some of the wounded.”
“Okay. Go bring Lily to him, please.”
“Of course!”
Mela then took off down the trail, carrying Lily in her arms. Sariah turned back to face Lance, looking down at the glowing sword in his hand, as well as the pieces of skelemental bodies littering the area around.
She offered him a slight smile and a pat on the back. “Not bad, rookie.”
“Thanks.”
He turned his attention back to Port Rysa, which was still teeming with skelementals. While Sariah’s presence had helped wash away a lot of his anxiety, he wasn’t ready to fully commit to a fully calm state of mind. “What’re we gonna do? Can you kill these things? Like you did the other night?”
Lance felt his words trail off for a bit as he asked that last question, as he still wasn’t sure if that was a touchy subject or not. But it didn’t seem to have any effect on Sariah. In fact, he was surprised to see that she didn’t appear very worried about the situation in town at all. Doubly so when she gave him her answer. “Rysa will be fine.”
When she nodded her head past him, Lance turned around. He found his eyes immediately drawn to the tall, shining silver-white knight standing in the center of town, surrounded on all sides by a horde of skelementals. “Wh-whoa….! The knight!”
The knight held his claymore in both hands in front of his chest, aiming the tip skyward. A bright purple light suddenly echoed out from his body, bathing the area around him in it for a brief moment. This came in sync with the booming voice that radiated from within him:
PULSE!
The knight raised his sword into the sky. From it, a purple wave of energy burst outward in all directions. The wave sliced through each and every skelemental it came across, disintegrating them entirely, whether they were small or gargantuan.
Lance and Sariah had to cover their eyes with their arms as the light radiated around Port Rysa, but they otherwise weren’t affected by its energy. Behind them, they could hear the skelementals in the ocean explode into dust.
When the light died down, Sariah dropped her arm from her eyes, which were fully locked onto the knight, brow furrowed.
“That’s not him.”