The sound of bone splintering against compressed wind filled the air as Sam gritted his teeth, holding the modified Gust spell that formed a spiraling dome around them.
"Left!" Deacon barked out, and the two veered together as a fresh volley of bone-sharpened arrows clattered off the right flank of the barrier. Sam didn't flinch as the volley landed exactly in front of where his head was – he trusted his abilities to be able to deflect such dense arrows, but as he felt his mana reserves dip to 30% sweat began to bead down his brow.
Dust and bone fragments slammed into the barrier and scattered like sparks off a forge, deflected harmlessly, but maintaining the spell was steadily draining his mana reserves. Sam briefly licked his dried lips as he swiftly reached into his Spatial Satchel with one hand, pulled out a Mana Crystal, and crushed it to refill his reserves.
[Reanimated Skeleton Lv 10]
***
[Reanimated Skeleton Lv 11]
Deacon cursed under his breath as he saw three more reanimated skeletons rise a couple meters in front of the ten original reanimated skeletons that stood fifteen meters in front of them. "They're growing in number. If this keeps up– Ah, fuck this, Sam, cover my ass, okay?"
"Bet," Sam said. The air around them trembled as he both reinforced the barrier and also created a gap within it for Deacon to rush through, drawing deeper on his reserves. "You clear the ones up front, and I'll handle keeping the barrier up to deal with the ones behind us."
Deacon didn't need further instruction as his form blurred forward, exiting the spiraling wind dome not a second later, and with a flick of his wrist, Echoform Reliquary shimmered into its broadsword form – perfect for cleaving through bone.
The first reanimated skeleton to step into his range didn't even have time to lift its bow as Deacon cleaved straight through the ribcage, angling his strike at the exposed bright yellow core just beneath its collarbone. The sharp blade of Echoform Reliquary passed through like butter, scattering bone fragments behind him in a wide arc.
Two reanimated skeletons, a couple meters to his right, snapped to attention and notched their arrows at Deacon's head.
Deacon pivoted with the Echoform Reliquary in hand, letting the first arrow glance off its edge before twisting again to splinter the second mid-flight. Then he lunged, one clean, horizontal slash, and both reanimated skeletons' cores shattered before they could even reach for another rib to rip out and transform into an arrow.
A blur of motion coming at him from his periphery made Deacon duck instinctively, just in time for a massive bone arrow to whistle over his head and slam into the battlement behind him, creating spider web-like cracks all around its impact zone.
He didn't stop to look at the damage the massive arrow created, instead, he focused on pumping his mana into his feet to increase his speed to be able to redirect himself and shoot towards yet another reanimated skeleton. His blade was slashing upwards – cleaving straight through another reanimated skeleton's midsection as its bright yellow core was visible through the gaps of its ribcage.
Behind him, the howling wind of Sam's barrier deepened in pitch. The gust dome pulsed outward suddenly, a shockwave rippling from it as Sam crouched lower, bracing one hand against the stone and holding his staff with the other.
Sam's voice echoed sharply through the chaos. "We're thinning them, but we're still ways away from reaching that tornado-like dome!"
Deacon risked a glance toward the east end of the wall where the swirling tornado dome twisted with impossible energy, a sickly yellow shimmer distorting its core. Inside, he swore he could make out the faint glint of a banner pole and a bright pink banner – That had to be it.
"I think I see the banner inside it! It's pink! I don't see anything else pink here," Deacon shouted, switching Echoform Reliquary into its dual short sword form mid-run. The blades flickered with a bright blue glow as they were still covered in Spectral Grease, catching the clouded beams of moonlight as he dashed toward the densest cluster of skeletons.
Casting a Manabolt with his free hand, Sam pierced through the core of a reanimated skeleton just about to take a shot at Deacon's unguarded left side. "Then we keep pushing!"
Three more skeletons stood directly in Deacon's path; bright yellow cores, faint but visible through their ribcages. He didn't break stride. One blade snapped low, taking out a femur and dropping the first into a heap before his second sword buried itself in the chest of the second. The third let loose a desperate arrow aimed at his thigh, only to have Sam deflect it with a twist of wind that veered the projectile away from Deacon and made it embed into the stone floor.
Another bone arrow nicked past Deacon's shoulder – close enough that he felt the tip scrape against the steel plate guarding his right side, throwing a few sparks that danced up and tickled the underside of his jaw.
Ignoring the sparks, Deacon pivoted mid-stride, let the momentum carry him into a rising slash that cleaved upward through a fresh skeleton's ribcage. The yellow core shattered in two, and both halves were sent flying in the air before arcing to the ground, and upon touching the stone floor, they shattered into hundreds of pieces.
Sam surged behind him, palm outstretched as a second Manabolt lanced from his fingers. It arced through two skeletons in quick succession, carving a clean line through both their cores. "We're almost there!" he called, the spell backlash making his hand twitch.
Deacon grunted, slashing through another skeleton before spinning low beneath a swinging arm coming at him from the side.
Suddenly, as Deacon quickly destroyed that reanimated skeleton's core, an elite reanimated skeleton landed ahead of him with a thud that cracked the already-worn battlement.
Compared to the reanimated skeletons they'd been killing, this one was bigger, broader, draped in robes, and did not carry a bow made of bone. Its left hand dragged a large and sharp cleaver made out of bone, and its right arm had been replaced entirely by sharpened bone needles that clicked together like insect legs.
[Reanimated Skeleton – Elite Lv 11]
Deacon skidded to a stop as he stared at the elite reanimated skeleton that stood at seven feet tall. "Uh oh. Sam! We got a big boy here!"
Sam cursed and flicked his staff up. "You deal with it, I'll focus on blocking the backshots we're taking from the archers behind us – I'll try and help when I can!"
Before Deacon could respond, the Boneflayer let out a bone-curdling shriek before it raised its right, spike-studded arm. A fan of bone javelins exploded from its palm, whistling through the air in a wide, deadly arc.
"Down!" Deacon shouted, tackling Sam sideways just in time. The javelins shredded the space they'd been in seconds before, impaling the stone walkway with enough force to leave craters – piercing through a couple of the reanimated skeletons behind them.
"Gods, lay off the fucking chicken and rice, Deke," Sam hissed, rolling out from under Deacon's weight and recasting his modified Gust barrier to block the impending barrage of arrows that followed them.
Deacon didn't respond as he was already moving, dashing left in a wide circle around the Boneflayer, dual short swords at the ready.
The Boneflayer's head snapped to follow him, the crown of fused vertebrae twitching with each shift in Deacon's pace. Its needle-arm jerked up in staccato motions, tracking Deacon's circling path.
…It has a reloading time, Deacon narrowed his eyes in realization as he saw the bone-needles in its arm beginning to bud out – mentally forming the next couple of steps he would need to take in order to take down the Boneflayer.
As Deacon feinted left, he flipped his grip on his dual short swords to have them be reversed in his grip. In response to his feint, as Deacon saw the Boneflayer inch its arm to the left, he darted towards it immediately.
The first strike came in high, only for it to get deflected off the Boneflayer's shoulder with a loud clang of steel-on-bone, to which the second strike followed low, carving a shallow gouge through its hip bone.
Seeing the bones in its skeletal frame shudder, Deacon kicked off the ground, leaping back just in time as the Boneflayer dropped to all fours and lunged at him like a spider. Its massive bone cleaver whistled through the air in a deadly sideways arc as it closed the distance.
"Shit–!"
Deacon kicked off the wall behind him, sending his body into the air as the cleaver roared past inches from where his head used to be. It smashed into the battlement's edge behind him with a thunderous crack.
He hit the ground in a roll, which he quickly got out of, and got back on both feet – seconds before noticing that the Boneflayer was lifting its needled arm in his direction.
"Fuck," Deacon muttered out loud, as he had to reformulate his next plan of action. This is what I get for not holding onto a shield.
However, before he could, a cluster of bone javelins exploded from the Boneflayer's arm and toward him.
Sam's voice ripped across the space. "Gust!"
A column of wind crashed down from above, splitting the air just in time, causing most of the javelins to veer wide – some shattered in midair, however, a few still made it through.
One sliced past Deacon's shoulder and embedded into the battlement wall with a chunk the size of a man's fist. The wind howled, then died down just as quickly, replaced by the patter of bone arrows slamming against Sam's still-active barrier.
"Can't keep blocking forever!" Sam barked out. "Come on, Deke!"
Deacon grunted something unintelligible, already springing forward. Both blades beginning to turn bright orange seconds before they erupted into flame as he cast Flame Armament atop them both.
He slid low beneath a wide swing of the Boneflayer's cleaver before then thrusting up hard with both blades, aiming for the exposed socket under the Boneflayer's armpit in an attempt to de-arm it.
The Boneflayer let out a grating shriek that sounded like dry wood being torn apart, as Deacon's blades carved up into its arm socket. One blade lodged deep. The other skidded free, catching on a tangle of fused ribs.
Unfortunately, neither strike was enough.
Deacon yanked hard.
His blade tore free with a spray of bone splinters just in time for him to twist sideways and catch the cleaver's edge along the flat of his other sword. The impact of the cleaver against his right short sword almost buckled his knees. He felt the pressure scream down his arm, threatening to snap his wrist, but he held it.
Quickly thinking, Deacon harshly jerked the hilt of his left short sword upwards and let the cleaver carry through its downwards strike so it wouldn't snap his sword and cleave him in two.
"Stubborn bastard," he hissed, ducking low again, shoulder rolling beneath another slash.
The Boneflayer pivoted, spitting more bone shards out of its damaged arm like a broken forge, sending a scatter of half-formed javelins clattering to the stone, which Deacon quickly dodged.
It lunged again, both low and freakishly fast for a creature of its size – its cleaver dragging behind it like a plow carving into dirt.
Deacon attempted to backpedal like before, but unfortunately for him, he was too slow this time. As such, the cleaver clipped his thigh, roughly cutting through the double-stitched hide that made up his Soldier's Leggings.
He hissed through clenched teeth as pain arced across his thigh, before flipping his grip on both still aflame short swords, and hurled one of them like a spear at the Boneflayer.
The flaming blade punched into the Boneflayer's throat, sinking halfway in with a sickening crunch.
It staggered back, clawing wildly at the embedded weapon, producing a stuttering shriek not unsimilar to claws going against and down a chalkboard. But in doing so, Deacon was able to see a bright yellow shimmer just a few inches below its neck and behind its sternum.
Deacon surged forward, gritting his teeth, he leaped up and drove his remaining blade up into the hollow where collarbone met sternum, flames licking out as steel met bone.
"There you are," he breathed.
He twisted the blade and ignited the flames of Flame Armament along the blade.
The Boneflayer immediately retaliated by striking him square in the ribs with the blunt edge of its cleaver to get Deacon off of it and away from its core, before he could finish the job.
The force of the Boneflayer's strike lifted Deacon off his feet and sent him crashing into the battlement wall.
His back slammed the stone hard, causing the merlons at the top of the wall to crack and tumble down into the muddy marsh below.
Deacon's vision blurred, and his ears rang from the blow, however, his fingers still gripped the remaining short sword in his hand.
At the same time, the Boneflayer staggered backwards, clutching at its chest where smoke now hissed between its ribs around its core.
Its movements grew twitchier and far more unstable as the reloading mechanism in its arm kept trying to force out javelins, but half of them shattered mid-formation.
Deacon pulled himself up with a grunt and spat out a wad of blood to the floor as he stared at the smoking Boneflayer.
With barely a thought, he reignited the dying Flame Armament across his right short sword in his hand just as he willed Echoform Reliquary back into its broadsword form – causing the second short sword, the one lodged in the Boneflayer's smoking throat, to vanish in a wisp of heat and merge seamlessly back into the weapon in his palm.
Deacon charged towards the twitching Boneflayer, and just as its cleaver was arcing horizontally towards him, he dropped low and slid, ducking beneath the final desperate swing to cleave him in two.
In one fluid motion, he twisted behind the Boneflayer, pushing off the blood-spattered ground as he rose. With a roar, he brought the flame-wreathed broadsword down with every ounce of strength in his body. The blade slammed into the Boneflayer's ribcage and tore through bone like wet parchment, tracing towards its bright yellow core, and in less than a heartbeat, it met it.
There was a sharp, deafening crack as his blade cleaved through its core, and still, Deacon didn't stop. He followed through the strike, letting the momentum carry the blade clean through the Boneflayer's torso.
The Boneflayer's cleaver fell from its grip as its upper body sailed through the air before crashing to the stone with a hollow thud.
Letting out a heavy exhale, Deacon turned to where Sam stood, blocking a hail of bone arrows from reaching the both of them and shouted, "It's dead, let's go!"