Chapter 91 - Skeleton King

“Lucius!” Vivi shouted. The spirit’s red translucent figure was dragged from the tail deeper into the castle. He flailed with his claws, but the captor didn’t seem to take damage. It was a jester of sorts, colorful hat jingling as it ran upstairs. 

Thoughts raced in Vivi’s head all at once. The portcullis wasn’t opening, and it was too tough to break through. The jester was too nimble to hit with a throwing weapon.

Her spirit was captured! What was she supposed to do?

Vivi’s body still had active ether idling in her muscles. Perhaps fifty wisps. She had her crystal mithril sword—without Lucius controlling the spatial storage, she couldn’t switch it for a better sword.

A desperate plan came to her. She ran to the right, where the portcullis connected to the wall. The weird black material was too hard to cut through. But what about the walls themselves?

She slashed with all her might, hitting the wall. Her sword was only halfway strengthened as no more wisps were flowing in.

Still, a crack formed on the wall. It could be cut. “Aang!” Vivi shouted.

Aang was already preparing a heavier swing. He attacked the wall with Skeleton Cutter. Ascension skill active, body filled to the brim with ether, his sword cut into the wall. Crush’s powers turned the wall to dust. A hole opened.

“Try to keep up,” Aang said. He rushed into the dark castle. Vivi ran after him without hesitation.

A wave of screeching screams echoed across the room. Waves of red-eyed monsters swept down a wide stairway. More attacked from the left and right. There must have been over twenty monsters total.

Lydi shot a discharge of ether, and the foyer was momentarily lit. The monsters were ghouls with sharp claws, running on four legs. Their faces were deformed and hideous, rotten grey ether oozing out of stretched-out blotches of skin. Their claws ripped carpets apart as they charged for their targets.

Aang ran forward, killing multiple ghouls with one swipe. Dozens more immediately pounced for him. Their high-pitched screeches sent shivers down Vivi’s spine. Sheer bloodthirst filled the ghouls’ drained and desperate faces.

Aang ran upstairs, after Lucius, slashing any ghouls that attempted to reach him. Vivi realized he wasn’t stopping to clear a safe path. She’d need to keep up. She and Lydi ran after Aang, following him through the assortment of ghouls. This caused the ghouls’ attention to spread. Five attacked Vivi and Lydi.

Lydi called the skeleton summons, which protected them from two ghouls. Her staff lit up in charged ether, illuminating their surroundings.

Three of the ghouls attacked Vivi.

The wisps in Vivi’s body were slowly dwindling. More wouldn’t be coming. Fifty ether was all she had to work with.

She added five wisps to her sword, strengthening it just enough for the runes to become effective. She moved a few to her eyes and ears, strengthening her perceptions. A few to her upper body. The rest strengthened her stance from the feet.

Most importantly, Vivi held onto those wisps. She didn’t let them dissipate to thin air. She had fifty wisps and she planned on making full use of them.

The first ghoul pounced for her. It was fast; Vivi could barely read where it was attacking.

Control it! Vivi told herself. She focused on the wisps in her body, making use of Alisa’s teachings. Her body felt calm, the total opposite of when Lucius pushed hundreds of ether into her body. But she wasn’t weak. Her muscles were still strengthened by ether, if only slightly.

She went into stance and firmly gripped her sword, exactly as practiced. She threw forth a swing Rohan would have been proud of.

The first ghoul was cut in half, dissipating to ether.

Two more came immediately after, their claws pointed fearlessly at her face. Vivi responded with something she usually avoided at all costs.

Defense. She held her sword sideways, blocking the ghouls' claws. The ghouls latched onto her sword, holding on to the blade.

Vivi placed all of her strength into the next swing. She crashed her sword at a nearby wall. The ghouls hit the wall before the sword cut them down.

The ghouls were dead. Vivi let out a heavy breath, focusing again on the wisps in her body. Five were fully dim. Forty five wisps remained. Lydi collected the ether from nearby ghouls.

An explosion sounded from upstairs. Aang was already fighting. Flashes of light came from above. Vivi and Lydi cautiously followed, guided by the light of Lydi’s staff.

The sight ahead forced them to pause at the stairs. The hall was a total battleground.

The ceiling was tall, adorned by red stained glass windows, depicting monsters. Ghouls, gnolls, horned animals. Rays of light cast through the windows, lighting the hall and all its monsters in red.

At the back of the room stood a large twenty-foot throne, built of bones. Skulls were embedded into the hand rest. A dead giant skeleton sat on the throne. Its bones were brittle, and its sword was cracked. It had a crown in its head, but it didn’t look like the King was getting up any time soon.

Indoor balconies stood on both sides of the hall. Mages in cultist robes stood atop, shooting balls of red ether at Aang below. The ground level was with horned skeleton warriors. Their bones were dark and concentrated with ether. Each skeleton wielded black three-runed swords, though the runes were disfigured, and the veins were crooked. The largest skeletons were nine feet tall. There were also assassins, moving faster than Vivi could see.

The sight made her want to let go of the last wisps still in her body. Her sixth sense was a total mess of chaotic ether all around. Each skeleton was strong enough that Vivi would have required her full attention, and Lucius, to defeat just one. There were tens.

Aang was in the middle of it all. He glowed with white ether, outshining the oppressive red. He didn’t stay still for a moment, weaving past enemies, dodging the mages’ attacks, all the while throwing swings at his opponents. Skeleton Cutter flowed in green flashes of light within the onslaught of monsters. Vivi focused ether into her eyes to keep up.

Most of Aang’s attacks were blocked. The skeletons were smart enough to use their numbers to their advantage, pushing Aang to unfavorable positions.

Yet, skeletons still dropped. One-by-one, Aang was making progress. A skeleton blocked one of Aang’s attacks from the front. Moments later, Aang moved around, cutting the skeleton from behind. The skeleton couldn’t react. Aang collected its ether, recharging what he’d exhausted.

I’m weak, Vivi thought, watching the fight. She’d thought she was making progress as a fighter. She was certainly stronger than before.

But Aang was still leagues stronger than her. Vivi and Lydi were useless in this battle. Without Lucius, she couldn’t do anything.

So she observed, watching Skeleton Cutter perform its job. The sword crushed the tough black bones of the skeleton warriors. Exchanging blades wasn’t a problem; Aang could overpower the skeletons’ weapons even if his swings were performed in a hurry.

Slowly, the number of enemies dwindled. The cultist mages watched the battle below with concerned looks. Vivi couldn’t believe they were ethereal monsters. Their mannerism looked so believable.

The mages stopped casting their balls of ether. Instead, war horns materialized out of thin air directly in their hands. They blew the horns all at once, wisps rising from the horns. The deafening sound prompted a response from the dead skeleton on the throne.

“Dear Ingfried…” Lydi whispered beside her, face pale, watching as the skeleton came to life, ether reanimating the brittle bones. “A Skeleton King!”

The skeleton was fifteen feet tall. A cracked crown sat on its head. The crown was golden, but the color was tainted a fiery red from the lighting. A cape was strapped to its back.

The Skeleton King’s greatsword was larger than Vivi in all measurements. The sword looked to be made of stone. The runic appearance remained, outside-veins lining its surface. There were enough veins for four or five runes, but the veins were carved unnaturally and in angles impossible for runesmithing. The runes were purely cosmetic.

That didn’t mean the sword wasn’t powerful. Immense amounts of ether was concentrated within. The greatsword was strong enough to crush a building in one blow.

The Skeleton King lifted its weapon and slammed it down at Aang.

From ahead, Vivi heard a faint voice. “Vivi… Help.”