A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 239: Undead night attack (3)

[Skeleton (Humanoid)]

[Tier 3 (Weaker Undead); Level 16]

[HP: 180/368]

[Attack: 24.7]

[Agility: 185]

[A creature controlled by blind hate. The latter stage of certain zombies, but mostly created with forethought and aim for all its flesh to be destroyed through the passage of time. The original being's soul has been infused into certain bones. Rendering it immortal as long as the key bones with the infused soul remain unbroken. It kills simply to kill, not needing to feed or anything. It hates all living, for it is dead; kept from going to the afterlife. With each soul taken from life, it feels slightly better about itself.]

Crap, that makes it quite hard to kill. Doesn't it... Eldrian thought upon reading the description, still not knowing why he now was gaining more information. It also didn't seem to matter what Tier the enemy was, though he had yet to use Observe on someone at or above Tier 5.

Eldrian also realized that again souls were mentioned, causing him to wonder if this was the game world making a joke at his expense. He felt certain that was what he needed to learn about and use to grow, and now he faced a bunch of undead where manipulating souls were the basic.

Eldrian also wondered what souls actually were, seeing as they were most certainly real and manipulable in this world. Most importantly he wondered if they were limited to just the game or not. He naturally couldn't continue on this train of thought, quickly changing his thoughts to a more appropriate area.

It's fast, faster than me. Eldrian mumbled, quickly realizing that the demi-human soldier was struggling to keep up. Unlike the demi-humans Eldrian had seen and met so far, this one seemed much more like an animal. Fur covered nearly all his skin, though Eldrian couldn't see much more due to the lack of light.

The demi-human was fighting with a longsword, doing his best to keep up with the skeleton's nimble actions. Luckily the skeleton seemed to lack skills and technique, allowing the soldier o survive the constant onslaught by the skin of his teeth.

Before doing anything Eldrian made sure that there were no other dangers nearby, setting Maria down against a nearby building and then moving closer to the fight. Instead of just jumping in he shouted out, "I don't know who you are, but I can help! What should I do?"

The soldier was quite surprised by the shout, with his focus on the skeleton, and the darkness of night, he hadn't been able to see anyone come nearby. He was glad that the voice was on his side, "Do you know magic?" The soldiers shouted back as he blocked a strong overhead strike, forced to his knees by the attack.

Luckily the skeleton didn't seem to know how to take advantage of the soldier's terrible position. This allowed the soldier to use a strengthening skill to hit the skeleton's sword away and give himself the time he needed to recover to his feet.

Even with this, the soldier was clearly struggling. He wasn't able to really hit the skeleton, and when he did his attacks did little damage. At most he managed to cause bones to crack, but they would heal within seconds.

Truly the soldier hoped that Eldrian was capable of divine magic, as that would end the fight with but one spell.

"Yes, but I am only Tier 1 and I know only elemental spells. Fire is the strongest I know." Eldrian shouted back, having moved closed with his spear now in hand. If he found the chance he would strike. He believed that he could dismember the skeleton at the very least.

"Why don't you give us some light first, focusing only on its silhouette in the dark is quite hard." The soldier replied, disappointed that the person coming to his aid was not a priest. Doubly disappointed hearing that the person was Tier 1, he quickly felt that the person would quickly become a liability. Deciding that he would use this person's sacrifice to escape if worst came to worst.

Eldrian naturally didn't know the thoughts of the soldier, instead, he kept focusing on the skeleton. Trying to figure out what bones were different, were special. As he did this he cast Fos and sent the ball of light to hover over the skeleton. High enough to not bother his or the soldier's sight, and giving them a clear sight of the skeleton.

It took some focus to keep the spell well positioned, but thanks to his nightly practice with Fos Eldrian had become quite adept at doing just that. His focus often on reading while he would let the ball of light fly through his room.

With the light embracing the skeleton's frame, Eldrian firstly noticed how damaged it actually was. Quite a few bones that one would expect to see were missing, the clearest of these being; half a hand's fingers, a tibia and fibula of different legs, ten ribs, and one scapula.

The next thing Eldrian noticed was how they all stayed together. They were bound by some type of dark mass, similar to how cartilage was normally found at joints.

It is magic, so there must be a pattern and reason. I assume this is its weak point. Eldrian quickly told himself, trying to find where the darkness originated from. It took a couple of seconds, where Eldrian cut out all things but this darkness. Soon, thanks to hours upon hours of practice, he managed to find that it didn't come from just one place. But rather four.

The back of its head, where most of the darkness was generated. Then to a slightly lesser degree the chest bone, also known as the sternum. Then the sacrum between the hipbones. Finally, the right leg's patella. Eldrian didn't know the names of the bones, but he could clearly see that somehow they were supplying the black mass with energy.

"I'm going to join in!" Eldrian shouted after finishing his analysis, having missed that the soldier was being pushed back even further. He now sported a deep cut over his face as well as a gaping hole in his side. Hearing Eldrian's shout the only thought in his head was to run.

As Eldrian shouted he also moved, using Drive to increase his strength for the attack. Along with this he also used Double Strike, having had ample time to get into position as the skeleton was fully focused on the soldier.

Eldrian aimed his attack at the pelvic region of the skeleton with a wide massive swing of his spear. It smashed right through it, shattering half the bones in the first attack and the rest upon the follow up from Double Strike.

Eldrian expected the skeleton to crumble upon having its middle bones shattered. According to logic, it should at the minimum fall into two pieces, cut in half. This did not happen, instead, the mass of darkness quickly thinned out to grab as many pieces of falling bones. Forming a weird-looking white and black web that kept the two parts together.

This did not mean the attack had failed or anything like that. This attack caused the skeleton's other movements to come to a stop. With Observe still, active Eldrian could see that the attack had done 45 damage. The black mass also reminded Eldrian of the Night Terror he and Vivian had fought, he quickly told himself to explore that later and focus on the fight first.

The soldier was shocked seeing the skeleton suddenly coming to a stop. Having been in the middle of a block and dodge. He had planned to follow this dodge with running away, but now his mind turned blank as he realized that somehow the newbie had actually done significant damage to the skeleton.

"Strike the chest!" Eldrian shouted after only half a second of his thoughts wandering. As he shouted that he turned his spear to the right knee. Again doing a wild swing he shattered the knee, but not the patella. The bone had moved upon the impact.

Realizing this Eldrian quickly used Mifotia to destroy it, the black mass giving up on supporting it as soon as the flames reached it. The previous impact having already formed cracks on it, and now with the fireball exploding on it, it turned to ashes.

Again the mass of darkness quickly spread to the knee, stopping the skeleton from falling as it lost a leg. This caused it to stagger for even longer, allowing the soldier to finish attacking the sternum and finally cutting it in half.

At this point, the skeleton was seemingly on its last legs. It gave up on its lower half, quickly falling to the ground. Eldrian didn't show mercy, quickly bringing his spear down on the back of its head. With this attack he also received a system notification.

[6300XP]

Oh, that is quite a bit, and seems skeletons are actually some of the easiest to kill. Eldrian thought, not knowing that normally only people above Tier 5, or capable of divine magic, are capable of finding its weak points.

"Thanks for the help." The soldiers said, quickly falling onto his knees. He was only barely managing to not pass out from the loss of blood and pain assaulting him. Added onto this, he was extremely tired. Having been fighting the skeleton for over ten minutes. He couldn't understand how it had now ended in seconds.

The only reason he had managed to hold out for so long was due to him being Tier 4 and level 22. He could not understand how a Tier 1 had brought such a change to the fight.

"No problem, I actually saved someone else and wanted to ask where to take her. I am new to the fort and have no idea where people would go in case of an emergency." Eldrian replied, casting Thera and Anthizo on the soldier after using Observe and seeing that the soldier only had a 66HP left out of 376.

Eldrian knew from healing Maria that this wouldn't do much for the soldier, but it should give him more time to communicate and heal him properly.