The skeletons didn't stop. Even after the first wave fell, more rose, dozens then more. From the sides of the chamber, bones clicked and rolled into shape. Skulls snapped into jaws. Hands dragged torsos across the floor until they reassembled. Some wielded chipped swords, others rusted spears. One carried a massive hammer, taller than Vaylan. The entire throne room was alive with death.
"They're not retreating!" Lato hissed.
"No," Pierre said, panting. "They never do."
Vaylan spun, blocking a wild strike with his saber, the impact rattling his arms. He slashed back, severing a femur. The skeleton collapsed, but two more took its place. Zara dropped to a crouch as a halberd passed over her head, rolling forward, her dagger slicing through a ribcage. The bones cracked, but the skeleton didn't fall. It grabbed her shoulder with a hand that felt more like steel than bone. She snarled and plunged her other blade through its spine. The thing fell.
She turned—another raised its axe. She ducked, but too slow. The blade grazed her side, pain exploding through her ribs. She cried out and staggered, blood spraying from the gash, her vision blurring as she stumbled back, barely dodging the follow-up swing. Lato was on her in an instant, golden light wrapping around her.
[Healing Light]
But the pain didn't fade. Her breathing was shallow, fast. She held one blade now, the other slipped from her hand when the axe hit; she couldn't even feel her fingers.
Across the room, Vaylan was covered in cuts, blood streaking his face, his robe torn at the shoulder and waist. But he didn't stop moving.
[Fleet Foot]
He disappeared, reappearing beside a skeleton mid-swing. His saber stabbed through its spine, then pivoted and cleaved another skull. Pierre stood in the center, Gáe Assail spinning in slow circles, electricity crackling from its tip as he slashed through four skeletons in one smooth motion. He grunted, blood dripping from his chin.
"I can't keep this up," he muttered. A skeleton lunged from behind. Pierre ducked and drove his spear backward into its chest, then kicked the bones away and turned as another wave came. Twenty more. They surrounded him.
Benithar hovered above, arms stretched like a conductor leading a symphony of screams. "This Tauros," he said, "such a fine creation." None of them answered; they were too busy fighting, too busy bleeding. "I defeated the real one on Floor 9, you know," he continued. "Took his mana core. Thought the Tree wouldn't respawn him without it. Turns out, it doesn't care."
The undead Tauros lumbered forward, its body bloated with rot, veins like tree roots bulging from its arms, flesh peeling from its back. Its axe still gleamed. "I used that core," Benithar said softly, "to make this version. An avatar. Then I let him loose here. To do what Tauros does best."
Zara tried to stand, but her legs buckled, and she dropped to her knees. She wasn't crying, but her hands were shaking. A skeleton raised its blade above her head.
[Fleet Foot]
Vaylan appeared between them. His saber parried the strike, then slashed across the skeleton's chest. It fell in two. Zara looked up at him. He didn't speak, just nodded, then turned and kept moving.
Pierre's voice rang out over the clatter of bone. "Vaylan!"
Vaylan looked back. "Yeah?"
"I'm using Ibar. One last time."
"But—"
Pierre didn't let him finish. "I'll aim for the head. That's where the core should be." He was already charging mana, his legs shaking, arms trembling, his eyes burning.
Benithar kept talking. "As you can see... the circle beneath you draws in the blood spilled. The mana lost. It's all mine now." Vaylan squinted at the floor. The faint lines of the circle glowed red now, pulsing, drawing energy like roots sucking marrow from the earth. "You're probably starting to feel it. That tug in your chest?" Benithar smiled. "That's your mana being devoured."
Zara coughed, blood spraying her sleeve. Lato hissed, his paws glowing brighter as he poured healing into her shoulder.
Pierre didn't wait. He hurled the spear.
[Ibar]
The world blinked. The spear vanished, then reappeared as a golden streak of light, moving faster than the eye could track. Benithar smiled. Tauros jumped in the last second as the spear struck him—not in the head, but in the neck. The impact was massive. The spear burned straight through, piercing muscle, cracking bone, exploding through the other side. Tauros didn't fall. He roared and took a step forward.
Benithar laughed. "Ibar never misses... but it only has to hit. Not where you want. Just... somewhere."
Pierre's legs gave out. He collapsed, breathing ragged, eyes wide. "No..." He fainted.
Tauros roared again, lifting his axe. Vaylan stood in its path. Zara was still trying to sit up. Lato was panting now, low on mana. Benithar raised a hand, and another wave of skeletons began to rise. Not dozens. Hundreds.
Vaylan clenched his jaw. Lato stepped forward. "Tch." He didn't look back. "Vaylan. Use it."
Vaylan's heart thudded. The battlefield was chaos. Zara was down, barely breathing, her arm bent wrong, blood pooling beneath her shoulder. Pierre wasn't moving. Lato stood between them and the beast, his tail low, his mana moving faintly.
Vaylan looked at him. "I don't— I can't. I don't know how."
Lato didn't turn around, his voice low. "You do. You asked him."
Vaylan blinked. "I...?"
Lato's eyes narrowed. "You asked how Ibar worked. And you understood."
Vaylan remembered. "Sync your mana's pulse with the weapon's natural frequency. Then, push one final burst of mana as it leaves the hand for maximum acceleration... like a double-stage propulsion." He had repeated it, broken it down like instinct.
"I did understand it," he whispered. He looked at the spear, still buried in the undead Tauros' neck. He could see the vibrations, the mana still swirling around the shaft, the burnt tissue, the tension where the throw had been just barely off.
He raised his hand.
[The One Who Learns All]
The moment the skill activated, his vision tunneled. He could feel the spear: its balance, its ability, the pull of the mana inside it. He knew it, like it had always been a part of him. Mana surged through his arm. A blueprint formed in his mind, not just of the skill, but of the throw, the recovery, the rhythm, the backlash of mana, the recoil in Pierre's joints. Every piece fell into place.
"Sync your mana's pulse with the weapon's natural frequency. Then, push one final burst of mana as it leaves the hand… Like a double-stage propulsion." The words echoed in Vaylan's mind, over and over. He inhaled.
Suddenly, Vaylan was in a completely dark space. There was nothing except himself, and opposite to him, a reflection, only that his other version had black hair and black eyes. The Vaylan-lookalike smiled.
"Hello, child."
"Hi, Mimir."
"Payment?"
"Confusion."
"Payment accepted."
The air in the mindspace felt thicker than before, drenched in blood, smoke, and mana. But he could still feel it: the flow of energy around him, whispering, moving. He opened his palm in the real world. He could feel the spear, and he called to it.
[Anthibar]
The air snapped. The spear yanked itself free from the monster's neck with a sickening tear, bits of blackened meat flying from the wound. The shaft spun, humming with pent-up energy, as it arced toward him. Vaylan reached out, his hand not shaking. He caught it. Clean. The glow in his eyes dimmed, white fading to blue, but not the same blue. This one pulsed, like a flame trying to spread. He took one step forward, the floor cracking beneath his boot. His grip tightened. A small grin.
"Time to kill this son of a bitch."
Mana began to swirl in his open palm. Like water drawn to a drain, it flowed inward, toward the core inside his chest. A faint blue glow pulsed beneath his skin. He didn't rush it. Instead, he focused, letting it build naturally.
The spear in his right hand began to react. It trembled. He adjusted his grip. Mana surged into his arm, pouring down into the spear, through the hilt, into the shaft. He modulated it carefully; the flow aligned with the weapon's natural sound, like tuning an instrument.
The vibrations matched. There was a sharp click in his mind, and the lightning around the spear roared to life. The golden weapon glowed brighter, and brighter, until it felt almost alive in his hands.
On his left, he raised his weaker hand. Focused again. Mana pooled into his palm. The heat started to build: first as a pulse, then as a vibration, then a burn. The air shimmered. Dust around his fingers floated up. His fingers trembled, but he held steady. The Fire Ball was almost ready.
Above him, Benithar narrowed his eyes. "I could have sworn he already used Anthibar," he murmured. "How could this be?"
Vaylan's eyes were calm. Bright blue. Focused.
[Fleet Foot]
He shot forward, a blur of motion. In one instant, he was sprinting. In the next, he was gone, his boots touching the ground only once before he launched skyward. He soared over Tauros. Midair. He turned his body in one smooth spin and hurled the Fire Ball. The glowing sphere flew, not toward Tauros, but straight at Benithar. The necromancer didn't flinch. The fireball hit a barrier of darkness and exploded in a harmless flash, smoke billowing out, covering the upper half of the throne room.
Benithar scoffed. "You know, I don't know if you're an idiot or just desperate, but no attacks work against me—"
[Ibar]
He stopped. Because through the clearing smoke, he saw Tauros fall. Gáe Assail was buried deep in the skull, right between the eyes. Black ichor gushed out. The massive corpse stood frozen, like it didn't know it was dead.
Then—the head cracked. Splintered. Shattered. The beast collapsed backward, the mana core inside the skull shattering with it.
Benithar's eyes widened. "…No." He floated lower, silent for the first time. His puppet was gone. Destroyed. "You…" his voice dropped. "You copied it…"
Vaylan landed in a crouch, then stood tall, the spear making a sound in his hand. The glow slowly faded. He exhaled. And then the bones began to move again.
Dozens of skeletons still filled the outer edges of the chamber. With Tauros gone, they snapped toward Vaylan like insects without a queen. Weapons raised. Eyes hollow. The air filled with dry rattling. And then they charged.
Lato leapt onto Vaylan's shoulder. "Go wild," the cat said, eyes glowing. "I'll cover you."
Vaylan didn't speak. He just ran.
[Fleet Foot]
The first skeleton's blade came down—blocked. Vaylan parried and kicked the thing's spine in half. It shattered. Another swung at his side. He ducked. Rolled. Slashed upward, cleaving through its ribs.
[Fire Ball]
He spun and launched it into a cluster of four skeletons. The blast tore through their brittle bodies, scattering bone and flame. A sword nearly caught his leg—Lato's golden Healing Light surged through his limbs, dulling the pain and speeding up his reflexes. Another group of skeletons flanked from the left. Vaylan backstepped. Too slow. Lato leapt from his shoulder and slashed through the side of one, then cast Shared Vision mid-air. Vaylan's field of vision doubled. He saw everything.
Another two skeletons—Step. Parry. Sweep the leg. Stab. He fought like a storm. Sweat mixed with blood. His saber glowed red from heat. Lato darted between the bones, slashing, clawing, casting. They were down to five enemies. Then three. Then—the last one lunged, its dagger aimed for Vaylan's throat. He sidestepped, grabbed its wrist, and drove his saber straight through its skull. The skeleton collapsed. Still. Silence.
Vaylan dropped to one knee, breathing hard. Blood ran down his side. The spear clattered beside him. He reached for it, but stopped.
Above him, Benithar hovered, no longer smiling. "…You really did it," he said softly. "You broke my creation." His voice was low, dangerous. "Copied my brother's skill. Used it better than he ever did. Better than his brat kid, even." He clenched his skeletal staff.
"Shut up, bitch." Vaylan lifted his hand and pointed at Benithar. "You're next."