Chapter 702: Even Skeletons Can Flirt ( Bonus )

The Apostate tried to move his sword toward the wolf.

But at that moment, another golden eye on the wolf’s head glowed.

[ Bone Mountain ]

Huge bone pillars rose from the damaged ground and stood between the knight and the wolf.

This time, Two did not intend to attack the Apostate’s body directly, he only wanted to limit the sword’s movement for a moment, and that was exactly what he did.

Good.

Lian raised his right hand.

[ Thunder Ashen Step ]

His movement changed direction toward the knight over a short distance.

The Apostate folded several gray wings around his body to defend himself, but just before Lian could strike, Three took action.

"This time, it’s my turn!"

[ Feast of Seven Maws ]

Seven huge jaws appeared around the knight.

Four jaws struck the wing defenses from the left, and the remaining three moved toward the damaged part of the armor from a lower angle.

The Apostate was forced to change the direction of his sword to stop them.

But the pressure of the attacks was so great that he could not destroy all the jaws with a single movement.

One of the jaws struck the lower part of the armor, and the sound of a layer of metal breaking was heard.

Dreadmaw laughed with satisfaction.

"That’s it! You’ve finally learned to retreat!"

At that moment, Four released his poisons, and this time, Corrosion Poison was combined with Mana Disruption Poison.

The purple flow passed through the gaps in the armor, and the Apostate was forced to use another part of his defense against it.

’My lord, now.’

Four’s voice echoed in Lian’s mind.

’The defense on his right shoulder has weakened for a moment.’

Young Vorhelm moved without answering, and the air around him became extremely cold.

[ Frost Dominion ]

Frost Dominion covered a large part of the broken stone ground.

Thick layers of ice formed between the cracks and limited the knight’s foot movements.

The Apostate tried to break the ice with his physical strength, but at that exact moment, Lian appeared in front of him.

[ Glacial Reaper Claw ]

The icy claws struck the damaged part of the right wing, and several gray feathers were torn away.

But this time, Lian did not stop with that attack, and dark energy gathered around his right hand.

Eclipse Energy.

Thin threads of End Energy also formed in his other hand.

Two different powers, each capable of causing damage in its own way.

Lian first directed Eclipse Energy toward the outer part of the knight’s defense.

The Apostate was forced to lower his upper wings to defend himself, but the threads of End approached the crack in the armor from another angle.

The knight turned his sword to defend himself, and this caused the defense on his left side to remain open for a moment.

Lian took another step forward.

[ Disaster Suppression Fist ]

His fist struck the exposed part of the Apostate’s chest.

The sound of a heavy impact echoed across the plateau, and one of the armor plates broke.

The knight took several steps backward to maintain his balance, but Lian continued advancing.

Not in a hurry and not with aimless attacks, every time the Apostate tried to open a wing for defense, one of the Colony members applied pressure from another direction.

One made the ground beneath his feet unstable.

Two limited his movement paths with his howl and bone obstacles.

Three pressured his close-range defense with huge jaws.

And Four used different poisons to prevent the knight from freely adjusting his armor and mana to defend himself.

At the center of all these attacks, Lian was moving.

Despite his huge power, the Forsaken Apostate could no longer control the battle as he had a few minutes earlier.

He was forced to hold his sword in front of his body for defense.

Then he took one step backward...and another.

Lian stopped for a moment, keeping his eyes on the knight.

"I think it’s time for you to move aside."

The Forsaken Apostate raised his head, traces of poison and broken armor could be seen through the gaps.

Several gray wings were also damaged, but he still held his sword tightly.

"As long as my master commands it, you shall not pass through this place."

Lian looked at him for a moment and then slowly nodded.

"Then you will die."

The knight raised his sword for a moment.

But before he could activate another rune, new pressure came toward him from different directions.

The Apostate was forced to defend himself again, and Lian took another step forward without taking his eyes off the enemy.

’It’s not over yet.’

’But now you can’t just do whatever you want.’

In the eastern part of the plateau, the Bone Minstrel was still playing his guitar.

But after seeing Rindo, Alicia, and Noah’s condition, he decided to move a little closer to them.

Rindo was still sitting on the ground and examining his injured arm.

Noah was also leaning against a rock with an injured shoulder.

Alicia was beside them.

The injuries on her forehead and arm were still painful, although the musician’s music had reduced some of the pain.

The skeleton looked at the three of them for a moment, and then his attention settled on Alicia.

He gave a completely dramatic bow.

"Beautiful lady, are you feeling well?"

Alicia looked at him for a moment.

"I think... I’m feeling better."

The musician placed his bony hand on his chest.

"Thank God! Seeing such a beautiful lady among all this destruction is comforting even for a heartless man like me."

The girl remained silent for several seconds.

Wait...

Her gaze moved from the musician’s skull to his bone guitar.

Is this skeleton flirting with me?

Noah, who was sitting beside her, pressed his lips tightly together, but his shoulders were shaking from holding back his laughter.

The musician continued in a polite tone.

"Would you allow this humble musician to ease some of your pain with his music?"

Alicia was still confused by his unexpected behavior.

"Oh... Yes. Thank you."

The skeleton lowered his head.

"It is my honor."

Then he played a few gentle notes, and a new melody formed around them, this time, the effect of the music was more focused on healing their injuries.

Alicia felt the pain in her arm decrease, her minor wounds slowly closed, and breathing became easier.

Noah also noticed that the pain in his shoulder had decreased, and Rindo carefully moved the fingers of his injured hand.

The old injury had not completely healed yet, but the pain from the new injury had been greatly reduced.

"You can really heal people too?" Alicia looked at her own hand in disbelief.

The skeleton answered proudly.

"My lady, good music should please both the ears and the heart."

He paused for a moment and then continued thoughtfully.

"Of course, I personally have no heart, but I always try to make up for that with talent."

This time, Noah could not stop himself from laughing.

"Hahaha!"

Alicia also smiled despite the strange situation.

The musician immediately lowered his head slightly.

"Ah, what a beautiful smile! If I still had a heart, I believe it would have jumped out of my chest right now."

For a moment, she felt her cheeks becoming warm.

’Is he really trying to seduce me?’

Throughout her life, she had seen many people trying to attract her attention.

But she had never imagined that a skeleton holding a guitar would compliment her with such confidence in the middle of a deadly battle.

"I think you’ve found a new rival for your suitors!" Noah said with a laugh.

The musician turned his head toward him with dignity.

"Dear friend, music and love are both universal languages, even death has failed to stop me from mastering them."

Despite his remaining worries, Rindo gave a small smile, but that smile quickly disappeared.

His gaze returned to the distance, where he had previously seen that impossible scene.

Damn it.

For several minutes, because of the battle and their injuries, he had not had the chance to explain the situation to Lian.

But now he had to do it, and he slowly stood up.

"Noah, Alicia..."

Both turned toward him.

"We need to tell Lian."

Alicia immediately became serious.

She had not forgotten that strange scene either.

Noah looked toward the center of the battlefield.

Lian was still fighting the knight, but the situation was now better than it had been a few minutes earlier.

"Do you think he’ll be able to hear us?"

Rindo thought for a moment.

"We have to find a way."

But just as he was about to move toward a safer part of the battlefield, the Bone Minstrel spoke again.

"Ladies and gentlemen! I hope this short performance has made you feel—"

His sentence remained unfinished.

Because another voice was heard from a distance.

A familiar voice.

But strangely cold.

Calm.

And completely empty of any human emotion.

"What an interesting gathering."

Lian’s fingers stopped moving for a moment.

He was still standing in front of the Forsaken Apostate.

But the voice he had heard was so familiar that it immediately caught his attention.

That voice...

Young Vorhelm slowly turned his head, farther away, a man was walking toward the battlefield from among the broken stones.

His steps were calm and steady.

There was no sign of hurry in his behavior.

But when he came closer to the red light of sunset, his face became visible.

Familiar hair.

A face that Lian knew very well.

And a smile that, at first glance, looked like the smile of an ordinary human.

But the closer the man came, the more unnatural that smile became.

His eyes showed no clear emotion.

No anger, no happiness, and not even the slightest sign of anxiety, it was as if his facial muscles were only copying the shape of a smile without any emotion behind it.

Lian looked at him for several seconds.

Roderick?

Roderick Ashen.

The same young man he had personally killed.

The same person whose limbs he had cut off before throwing his body into the depths of a volcanic crack.

Lian knew very well that Roderick was dead, his corpse had been destroyed by the impact even before reaching the lava.

There was no possibility that he had survived, however, a man with the same face and an apparently healthy body was now walking in front of him.

Rindo, who was standing farther away, stopped breathing for a moment when he saw the newcomer.

The same scene he had seen from above the cliff.

The same impossible truth.

’So I really wasn’t seeing things...’

He wanted to say something.

But before a sound could leave his mouth, something else happened.

The Forsaken Apostate lowered his sword.

The knight, who had been fighting Lian and the Colony members with all his strength until a few moments ago, slowly moved out of the way.

His twelve gray wings folded behind his body.

Then.....he knelt before the newcomer and lowered his armored head, placing his huge sword on the ground in front of himself.

For several seconds, a heavy silence filled the battlefield.

Lian looked from the knight back to Roderick.

He knelt?

That was the first sign, but it was not the most important one.

At that moment, a familiar feeling appeared deep inside him.

Something that had nothing to do with ordinary skills or mana perception, but came from a special title he had obtained earlier after devouring Black Silence.

[ Title: Calamity Devourer ]

Apart from all its different effects, this title also allowed Lian to identify Anchors and Vessels connected to Calamities.

An Anchor was a connection that kept a Calamity’s presence attached to a certain world or structure.

A Vessel was a body through which a Calamity could reveal its presence.

And now, Lian could feel one of those signs coming from the man in front of him.

Vessel.

For a moment, all his attention focused on Roderick’s face, and the memory of his death returned to his mind.

The body without arms or legs, the fall into the depths of the crack, and a death he had no doubts about.

Roderick was truly dead, there was no doubt about that.

So the creature standing before him now could not be the same human.

Something had restored his body to its current form.

But the identity inside it no longer belonged to Roderick.

Lian narrowed his eyes.

’I understand.’

’So this is what Rindo saw.’

In front of him, the newcomer was still smiling.

But young Vorhelm no longer saw it as Roderick’s smile, that body was now the Vessel of a Calamity.

And the huge presence he could feel through his title was not simply scattered power or a remaining trace of an ancient creature.

The creature itself was present before him through this Vessel.

Lian looked at the Forsaken Apostate for a moment, the knight was still kneeling, and then he looked back at Roderick’s face.

’So you’ve finally shown yourself.’

The newcomer tilted his head slightly, and his lifeless smile did not change at all.

Then, in a calm, cold voice completely empty of any human emotion, he said.

"We finally meet."

The cold evening wind passed between the broken stones.

The Bone Minstrel was no longer saying anything.

Rindo, Alicia, and Noah also remained motionless.

And Lian, despite all the power he could feel in front of him, did not take even one step backward.

He no longer had the slightest doubt about the identity of the creature inside Roderick’s body.

White Oblivion.