The giant bonfire burned aggressively and painted the whole village in harrowing green. From every corner, the skeleton warriors were running toward the center with powerful steps.
Suddenly, one of them collapsed as its head rolled to the ground. At the same time, a red dagger showed itself briefly before disappearing again. Next, it appeared 50 yards away and became the end of another skeleton. One by one, the skeletons started to die without even reacting, and from the original three dozen, only a little more than half managed to reach the center with their heads intact.
‘’So fun, yet so mana consuming.’’ Ethan emerged nearby the remaining undead. Looking at his already halved mana pool, he pursed his lips. ‘’Come on, bud! Let’s end this quickly.’’
The skeletons were already running toward him, but before they got any close, he teleported at their back and engaged in close combat. A purple blur dived from the sky next to him and four wendigo shades left Beet’s small shadow before solidifying and attacking different skeletons at once.
Ethan dodged the incoming attacks as he watched the shades getting torn apart and fixed back rapidly. For the past month, these skeletons were always an easy hunt for the duo, but as he saw their swords stabbing and slashing the shades with considerable power, he was pleased with his decision to not fight them in a swarm. If this small group was already this dangerous, fighting hundreds of them would be devastating.
Ethan used [Overcharge] to kick a skeleton and threw it backward, making it crash against the others. He teleported behind another and swung his dagger toward its neck, but another one blocked him with its shield. With his other dagger, he made a stabbing motion toward the shield, just before the hit, a [Fabric Tear] appeared and the dagger passed through it, appearing behind the shield and penetrating the creature’s skull.
With another [Blink], he blocked the sword that was going for the shade and parried it before slashing the owner’s head. The ones who fell to the ground were up once again, but the shades left everything else and attacked them without giving them any chance to get in position.
Ethan also joined them and butchered the skeletons along with the shades. Then, all of the shades turned toward the two closest enemies and jumped on them. Two of the shades held the shields and the other two grabbed the swords, pinning the enemy for a short time.
Two [Fabric Tear]s appeared in front of their necks, and two daggers exited them simultaneously, swiftly severing the heads.
Ethan laughed loudly. ‘’Good one!’’
A sword slashed toward his head, and he ducked low immediately, losing a bunch of hair in the process. His expression changed as cold sweat flowed down from his forehead. Fucking undead. They don’t even flinch no matter what and fight like machines without a pause.
With an [Overcharge], he jumped sideways and smashed his shoulder into the skeleton's chest. They both fell back in the collision. Ethan immediately planted his foot on its wrist to avoid the sword and switched Devi to a reverse grip before stabbing it to its forehead with both hands.
Noticing another sword coming from behind, he rolled over and evaded closely. With a kick to its leg, he made the skeleton fall over onto its back and jumped on it with both his daggers aimed at its head. When the daggers pierced through its eye sockets, Ethan forcefully pushed them away from each other and shattered the creature’s skull.
The messy battle got even more heated toward the end, but the duo managed to kill every single skeleton despite their injuries. When the last died under the claws of Beet’s shades, all of the bonfires started to shine brightly. Ethan got alert and looked around with tension.
The radiance of the fires became so intense, he had to narrow his eyes, until he felt a familiar feeling. Something grabbed him from the space dimension and pulled him. Just like it’d happened in Wish Well before, he was forcefully teleported to someplace else, and only after noticing that Beet was next to him, he relaxed and inspected the place.
They were inside an enormous palace. The floor was a single piece of giant circle-shaped marble, and the ceiling was hundreds of yards high, painted in royal blue, giving an impression that they were standing outside. The towering walls covered the place all around, and there were spiral stairs, leading toward the rooms on the upper floor.
In the middle of this giant closed courtyard, stood two thrones with three stone tablets in front of them. All of them were covered with a dome-shaped transparent barrier, and around this barrier, there was a massive fossil.
I-Is that a dragon? When he looked at the giant skull, the eye sockets of the fossil started burning with ghastly green fire, and Ethan’s grip over his daggers tightened. Of course, there is another test. There is always another test.
The creature slowly raised its head and straightened its back, looking down at them with an awe-inspiring pose. It was at least double the size of the wyverns he’d killed before, and thanks to his [Mana Sense], which was once again available, he knew that this creature was at mid tier-6.
‘’Didn’t they say there were no dragons in the lower realms?’’ he murmured grumpily. ‘’How am I supposed to kill a damn bone dragon?’’
The coiling dragon opened its wings and something like a black miasma started to gather around it, wrapping all its bones. In a few seconds, it donned itself with a hazy black matter and flapped its wings to fly. Without rising too high, it immediately dived toward them.
‘’Stay away for now!’’ Ethan yelled. ‘’Let me test it first.’’
Beet hastily distanced himself, while Ethan waited until the bone dragon was close enough and [Blink]ed away before its claw reached him. The creature landed harshly on the ground, but couldn’t manage to damage the floor. He used [Overcharge] and stabbed Devi forward with a [Fabric Tear]. It barely left a dent on the bone, and the recoil was strong enough to numb his arm. What was worse, the miasma had entered from the [Fabric Tear] and touched his hand, slowly deteriorating his skin.
Ethan removed his dagger instantly and stepped back. ‘’Are you kidding me!?’’ he exclaimed and turned toward the empty throne, gritting his teeth. ‘’Why not collapse the building and kill the ones who try to get your damn skills!?’’
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The creature swung his tail toward him which he avoided with another [Blink]. There was some pain in his hand but it didn’t seem so bad. However, he couldn’t tell if the damage was too much. He had a few hundred mana when they came here while his health was missing about a third, and it didn’t seem to have changed much. ‘Ani, how much health did I lose after the contact with that miasma?’
‘20 per second. 38 in total.’
That’s crazy! Not only are its bones ridiculously tough, but I can’t even fight it for more than a minute. Looking at the terrifying creature that took flight again, he knew that they didn’t stand a chance, and he had to find something else to kill it.
Ethan noticed that Beet went to the upper floor and was watching him from above. About 50 yards away, where the stairs ended, there was a narrow but long mezzanine balcony. He was able to see all the rooms on that floor had small doors placed on the balcony.
In two [Blink]s, he arrived next to him. ‘’Come, let's see if it could enter this place.’’ He picked a room close by and entered as Beet followed closely. The creature was still locked on him, but the moment he entered the room, it lost its interest and turned back next to the throne.
‘’Good. At least we have a place to rest,’’ he said and sighed, watching the bone dragon from the door. ‘’It wasn’t even able to damage the floor the slightest. This whole building must be extremely tough. We should be able to fight this thing and come back here to rest. Though, I don’t think we can do shit in under a minute.’’ Chuckling wryly, he turned to look at the room. ‘’Maybe we can find something helpful in the rooms. I still have a few months' worths of food with me, so there is nothing to worry about yet.’’
The room was fairly large, but the furniture inside only consisted of tables and chairs. They were in good shape, but it wasn’t anything that would help them. In the end, they decided to split up and explore every room before reuniting here.
The crescent-shaped long balcony covered half of the walls and there were more than a hundred doors on it, leading to similar type rooms. All of them were facing the thrones, and there was nothing behind the thrones.
One by one, Ethan started to investigate the rooms. Thankfully, even when he was on the balcony, the bone dragon stayed motionless like the first time they found it.
All the rooms had the same design, some of them also had sofas, empty plates, and glasses, but nothing useful. It was clear that these places were for the audience of the king and likely had been used when there were important announcements or big events alike. The bizarre thing was the absence of an entrance or an exit. Did these people also get teleported here? Then, how did they leave?
He had no idea how they did, but in his case, it was most likely connected to killing the bone dragon. Once they got the skills in the middle, the leaving option should've presented itself. That’s why, he desperately looked for something that could be used, but after more than an hour, he still returned empty-handed.
Beet was waiting for him in the room on top of a table, next to an old book.
‘’A book!’’ Ethan’s eyes lit up and he moved to grab it hastily. ‘’Did you get anything else? More books maybe?’’
Much to his disappointment, Beet shook his head. So, he carefully opened their only possible clue. Thankfully, it was written in Azoran. He saved the information in Ani and turned over the page, but it was empty. A quick survey showed that the book only had words on its first page.
Ethan frowned and read the page manually. It turned out, it was written by the owner of this place. Well, owner of many things, apparently. Emperor Anpu.
It said that this Anpu started as a commoner, became a necromancer at a young age, and shook the whole Elisium with his feats, conquering almost all of the Azora in a short time. After ruling the continent for a few decades, he left everything to his descendants and ascended to a higher realm. Except, he kept the three of his skills, which he was most proud of, for the one who was fated.
It didn’t mention a timeline, and there was nothing else but a wish of good luck. He wrote that since you came so far, completing the last test is only a matter of time.
Ethan finished the passage and closed the book before rubbing his forehead. But this one is much harder than the other tests. Only a matter of time… Did the bastard mean a few years? Maybe that thing doesn't have any regeneration, but even then, if I’ll cause small dents every time, it’d take months to kill it. Hell, I might even lose my hands if the deformation gets worse.
He explained everything to Beet and started cultivating to return to his top condition. For a few hours, he operated Void Manual and thought about solutions to their troubles. In the end, all he had was some adequate ideas.
Standing up, he called for Beet, ‘’Send your shades to attack that bone dragon. Tell them to climb on it and strike its neck, the smaller the area of their attack, the better.’’
Beet summoned his shades and sent them right away. They both walked behind them to the balcony and watched. The moment the shades got closer, the bone dragon stood up and attacked. Two of its claws annihilated half of the shades easily, but they reformed a second later. The other shades jumped on its body and started to climb upward.
When they passed through the miasma like walking in the park, Ethan’s eyes lit up and he turned to Beet. ‘’The miasma doesn’t hurt them, does it?’’ Seeing that Beet shook his head, he turned back to watch the fight with a smirk. ‘’I knew it. That’s something like mana with a dense death aspect. Anpu thinks we have our own undead army, or at least some measures against death mana.’’
The miasma wasn’t a problem for the shades, but the same couldn’t be said for the creature itself. Before they even managed to land on its neck, the bone dragon swatted them like flies. Every time it hit them, it was dissolving the shades completely, consuming Beet’s mana in large chunks.
Ethan took out a bone spear from his ring, one of the few he’d saved from the wyverns. ‘’Let me try this one.’’
He [Blink]ed at the 50 yards range of the creature and stabbed the spear through a [Fabric Tear] along with an [Overcharge]. When the point of the spear contacted the bone dragon, it crumbled into pieces. It wasn’t that surprising for Ethan, though. Even though it was a bone of tier-5 wyvern, it was barely two fingers wide. It had worked for piercing the flesh of wyverns, but it was useless against a bone dragon.
Biting his lip, he opened a new [Fabric Tear] and extended his newly healed hand, but only after coating himself with [Void Wrap]. The sting of pain almost made him pull his hand, but he noticed that the miasma wasn’t touching his skin.
‘What’s the damage, Ani?’
‘2 health points for a second.’
A big smile formed on Ethan’s face. If I could avoid getting any direct damage, I can go wild for almost 10 minutes. With the shades distracting that creature, that shouldn’t be a problem either.
It quickly became known that it was a problem because he wasn’t able to [Blink] when in contact with the miasma. Along with the creature’s fast and nimble body, Ethan was barely able to fight for 5 minutes before escaping to the room. Yet, since he couldn’t think of anything else, he kept doing the same thing over and over again. Every time he filled his health and mana, he rushed with the shades and madly attacked the neck bone of the creature, and returned with deformed skin, dizziness, and a terrible headache.
Even with [Void Wrap], it was such a nuisance to battle against this creature. After a week of what felt like fighting with water, he finally cracked the bone he was obsessed with and became even more enthusiastic. Slowly but surely, Beet learned more acrobatic moves for his shades to avoid the deadly attacks, while Ethan turned from an annoying fly into an incarnation of an evil spirit and haunted the undead dragon with a manic smile. At the end of their third week, after constant efforts and close calls, they finally cut the creature’s head, ending its life.
Between his panting, Ethan first drank three different kinds of potions in succession, then burst out a laugh. He looked up at Beet with a grin who was flying over excitedly. ‘’Come on, little dragon hunter. Let’s check your new skills!’’