Chapter 652: Skeleton Arm II

None of them needed to be told twice.

Mayumi and Yaana moved together at the front, one intercepting weapons while the other used the reach of her scythe to tear apart the bodies behind them.

Cole covered the gaps, stepping in whenever one of them needed to withdraw, while Uta’s writhing limbs kept anything from slipping around their sides.

Behind them, Nora used her remaining mana sparingly, slowing ten lunging skeletons at exactly the moment Mayumi needed to turn, or strengthening Yaana’s arms just before a heavy sweep.

Maya pressed a small recovery potion into her hand between spells, and Nora drank it without argument before returning her attention to the battle.

In this fashion, their formation held.

At the far end of the hall, Elion’s blade struck another barrier hard enough to break it.

CRACK!

Instead of following with the same downward swing, he turned his wrist and stepped through the opening from an angle.

Kurogoroshi flashed beneath the mage’s raised arm, slicing through the condensed substance of its shoulder before tearing across its chest.

The creature recoiled.

A ragged wound opened beneath its cloak, exposing a glimpse of the dark orb suspended inside.

Elion arrested the movement of his sword before the edge could touch it, then brought the blade around for another strike.

The bone staff pulsed.

Black, wispy miasma poured from its surface, smothering the wound in a thick, writhing cloud.

The severed substance drew together before Elion’s eyes, restoring the shoulder and closing the torn chest until there was no sign that his blade had ever passed through it.

"Oh, come on," he muttered, already throwing himself backward as a ring of fire expanded around the throne.

The flames struck the floor and spread outward with a deafening roar, rolling over the steps of the platform.

Elion raised the ground beneath his feet, carrying himself above the burning wave before jumping toward an intact column.

He landed against its side, pushed off and changed direction just as a curse struck the place he had been a moment earlier.

The column withered into nothingness.

Carved leaves collapsed into dust, and a long strip of polished stone peeled away as though centuries of decay had passed in an instant.

Elion caught a glimpse of the damage while he fell, then struck the ground and immediately accelerated toward the mage again.

’Definitely worthy of its rank,’ he thought, tightening his grip on Kurogoroshi.

The creature had barely stopped casting since he reached it, yet the mana gathering around its staff seemed no weaker than before.

He aimed for the staff this time.

The undead jerked its arm back, raising two barriers in quick succession, and Elion’s sword crashed against them with a ringing impact.

Before the first layer had fully broken, a third formed beneath it, while several fireballs swelled into existence above the creature’s opposite shoulder.

It was protecting that thing carefully.

Elion abandoned the direct approach and moved along the curve of the barrier, his blade striking repeatedly as he searched for an opening.

Sparks of mana streamed from every impact, illuminating his face in harsh flashes while the undead turned to keep him in front of it.

Then one fireball shot past its own barrier.

Elion ducked beneath it and drove his sword into the momentary gap left by the spell’s passage.

Kurogoroshi pierced the creature’s side.

He twisted, tearing the blade outward through its lower ribs, and followed with a rising cut that almost separated its upper body from the rest. The mage released a shrill, breathless cry, its cloak billowing as the wound opened around the edge of its core.

For the second time, the staff disgorged a flood of dark miasma.

The ruined body reformed within it.

Elion landed a short distance away, staring at the creature as its shape returned to its former state.

He had cut it deeply enough that a living opponent would have been lying in pieces, but the undead merely raised its restored arm and began preparing another spell.

’Fine. Let’s see how long you can keep paying for that.’

He didn’t believe it could keep wantonly casting so many spells without at least exhausting its seemingly endless reserves of mana.

Sooner or later, it had to run out.

With that in mind, he rushed in again.

The ensuing exchange shook the ancient hall with a relentless succession of impacts.

Elion moved around the throne in sharp, sudden bursts, his sword tracing silver-black arcs through the torchlight, while the undead answered every approach with barriers, explosions, and coils of malignant mist.

A spear of fire missed his chest and obliterated the upper half of a statue behind him. A curse brushed the floor beside his boot, spreading across the stone in a web of black veins, and he leapt clear before it could reach his leg.

He stopped trying to force every opening into a killing blow.

Instead, he struck hard enough to demand a barrier, shifted his angle before it fully formed, and attacked somewhere else.

When the undead mage gathered a larger spell, he pressed closer, forcing it to spend more mana defending itself while the unfinished attack still burned around its staff.

The creature wheezed furiously.

Its free hand clawed at the air, and a dozen narrow streams of fire converged upon him from different directions.

Elion dropped low, raised a slanted wall behind his shoulder, and let the first barrage hammer into it while he cut through the only clear space left beside the platform.

KABOOM!

The wall burst apart, and the shock wave struck his back, pushing him into a sliding landing near the throne.

He used the momentum to turn, his sword ripping across another hastily raised barrier before the mage could move away.

Farther behind him, the floor had become a graveyard of broken bones.

Yaana brought her scythe through the knees of an armoured skeleton, then reversed the swing to split its skull as it fell.

Mayumi stepped past her, parried a thrust aimed at her throat and struck the wielder’s wrist, sending its hand and weapon spinning through the air.

Cole finished it with a thrust through the face.

They had already destroyed nearly half the force that had first risen to meet them.

The space in front of their formation should have been clearing, and for a brief moment, Maya thought they were finally gaining room.

That is, until another section of the wet floor broke apart.

Fresh hands pushed through the gaps, dragging more skeletons into the cavern while green light pulsed from the staff above the throne.

Some wore armour, others carried only cracked bones fashioned into crude weapons, but all of them turned toward the group the moment they emerged.

Maya’s expression soured as she clicked her tongue in annoyance.

The horde wasn’t getting smaller anymore.

Every time they cleared a stretch of ground, more undead climbed into it, filling the gaps before the others could advance.

Their teamwork was keeping them safe, but it was becoming increasingly clear that they could be there for a very long time if the summoning continued.

’I hope Elion manages to finish that undead mage soon,’ she thought, sending a blade of light through a skeleton trying to crawl beneath Yaana’s scythe.

Her gaze briefly shifted toward the far end of the hall, where fire and shattered barriers flashed around the throne.

Elion was still moving.

He slipped beneath a scything stream of flame, vaulted over the broken armrest, and cut downward toward the mage’s head.

A barrier intercepted the strike, but he withdrew before committing his full weight, landed beside the throne, and immediately thrust toward the staff.