31 Chapter 31: Match with the manticore (1/2)
As the immense beast burst out of the ground, sending broken shards of bone flying in all direction, I instinctively dove for cover. Landing hard amongst the mountains of skeletons, I scrambled to find my footing before I found myself buried along with the fleshless dead.
Above me, the manticore bellowed, a bestial sound that reverberated fearsomely across the confined space of the valley. I risked a glance upward and for a moment froze at the terrifying visage of the gigantic beast that now loomed before me.
Like I suspected, the monstrosity was about ten meters in height and three times that length. A lion's head turned to glare at me, its majestic mane swaying as it framed a feline snout lined with teeth the size of long daggers. Wings sprouted out from its back, resembling bats – except that there were no bats ever that big. At the end, a gargantuan scorpion tail rose and arched above the monstrous creature, venom dripping from its cruelly curved tip.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to be stung by that that. I doubted it would feel like a sting.
The manticore growled, scanning the area before fixing its gaze upon me. It was only natural that I would stand out among the white skeletons, given my black and red jacket, dark pants and black hair. Plus I was the only thing in the valley besides the manticore who still had his skin on.
The manticore lunged at me without hesitation, its incredible speed belying its immense size. I barely managed to draw my staff and let loose a Doombolt that smacked against its ugly face, sending it sprawling back with a roar of pain.
”?”
I had half-expected it, but I was still dismayed to see that my Doombolt had scarcely managed to scratch the gargantuan beast. Snarling, it turned toward me before swiping a claw that sent a shower of bones raining down on my position.
Scrambling through the uneven terrain and struggling to find a foothold, I managed to evade its paw, which was tipped with huge claws the size of an adult. Crashing through the skeletons, I dove away in time to avoid the enormous scorpion stinger that buried itself past the shattered skeletons and deeply into the mountainside.
”Gosh, if I get hit by that thing, it's going to sting.”
I gulped as I stared at the gigantic stinger for a second before I swung my staff vengefully to capitalize on the manticore's momentary immobilization. Unleashing a powerful Shadow Lunar Fang, I sent the manticore toppling to the side, yelping in agony. Black smoke billowed from its scorched flank as the manticore crashed into a bed of bones.
”Gr…”
However, in less than ten seconds, the immense beast had rose to its feet again, lashing out with its paws in fury.
”I don't believe it,” I muttered as I dodged the manticore's vengeful strikes. Staring at its superficial wounds, I shook my head in disbelief. ”I hit that thing with two Shadow Lunar Fangs and I only scratched it a little?”
The manticore was less surprised. Growling, it charged at me with open jaws. I hit the ground, allowing the massive thing to fly above me and smack right into the mountain. Even as tremors reverberated throughout the mountain, I was already scrambling back up and dashing away from the massive beast.
”Whoa!”
It was my instincts that saved me. Sensing danger, I threw myself at the messy ground in reflex. That action saved my life as something massive flew above me. The stinger, curled and poised to punch a hole through me, stabbed into thin air before arcing down into the ground. I looked up and stared at the black, barbed stinger that was piercing the dirt, then scrambled away in fear. Even if I was an undead, I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about suffering such immense damage.
Twisting around, I sent another black arc of Shadow Lunar Fang at the manticore's face, bruising it, and then leaped away to widen the distance between us as much as possible. Slipping on the uneven ground of the boneyard, I righted myself and turned back.
The manticore was slowly getting back to its feet with a feral snarl, shaking its head after the smarting it received from my Shadow Lunar Fang. With my most powerful attack doing little more than uh, stinging it, I felt helpless.
Fortunately, I wasn't restricted to spamming energy blasts. I was a necromancer, after all. Not a Shinigami wannabe.
”Rise from your graves, skeletal ones,” I murmured as black energy spread out from my staff. The black fog unfurled across the valley, suffusing the skeletons that had been lying dormant since their brutal deaths. With the shrieks ad laments of hundreds…no, thousands, the skeletons jerkily stood up, their bones clattering wildly with vengeance.
As one, they turned to glare at the manticore, red light blazing in their otherwise empty sockets. Their jaws clacking, the skeletons rushed at the monstrosity like an unstoppable tide of bones. The sea of white washed over the stunned manticore, clawing and scrabbling at its thick hide, seeking to bring their killer down with sheer numbers.
”Grr…!”
The manticore howled as it flung the skeletons off, but the broken bones merely regenerated and pieced themselves back together again before they lunged at the behemoth again. Even as the gargantuan scorpion tail whipped out sending scores of skeletons hurtling against the mountainside, even as the corrosive venom dripping from the stinger disintegrated the bones of vengeful dead with its sheer acidity, the dead continued to come.
”Go forth. I'll allow you to claim your revenge on the creature that killed you.”
I stood alone at the back, and watched the handiwork of my army of undead. The skeletal warriors – both human and beasts – were crushing the manticore under the weight of their numbers. Jumping and grabbing onto the flailing manticore, they buried it under a ball of white, tangled bones, hacking, scratching and clawing at the shrieking behemoth.
”Regret killing so many now?” I mocked the manticore. ”This is the weight of your sin, the burden you've to bear for slaughtering so many. Now, they've come to demand their price, and you'll pay for their violent deaths in blood.”
The manticore didn't understand human language, presumably. It didn't have to, and in any case it was too occupied by the skirmishing skeletons to listen to a word I said. I shrugged and sat down at my corner, waiting for my army of undead to eventually subdue it.
It helped that the battlefield was to my advantage, a boneyard of countless skeletons and dead that I could turn into my minions. The moment the manticore left such a vast number of resources in its backyard for me to use, it had handed over the home advantage to me. And I wasn't going to squander this chance.
What irony. To be killed by the dead of the very prey you massacred in bulk. There wasn't anything sweeter for the dead than to enact this final revenge of theirs.
However, despite being a solitary hunter, the manticore was still a massive behemoth of a monster. There was no way it would go down that easily.
”…!”
A ball of skeletons flew past me and slammed into the mountainside, shattering from sheer force. Turning back, I watched as the manticore slowly but surely shook off the forces of the undead and trampled their bones underneath its mass. Even as more skeletons swarmed over to replace their destroyed brethren, the manticore lashed out with its tail and claws to smash them into oblivion. As much as the broken bones regenerated themselves, even my unholy magic couldn't completely restore the shattered shards of bones to their original state.
My endless numbers of skeletons were gradually declining.
”Well, that's fine.”
I had been waiting for this.
”Thousand Astral Graves.”
The thousand and eight graves rose from the slopes of the mountain, casting the sun-bleached valley in darkness. Golden light began crackling around the surviving skeletons and they grew. They didn't just expand – they consumed and devoured their fallen comrades, the broken bones and shattered shards rapidly flowing toward them and adding to their individual bulk.
This was the reason why I didn't use Thousand Astral Graves right from the start. It would be disadvantageous to my gargantuan skeletons, who wouldn't be able to make use of their sheer size and numbers when clustered tightly together in the confined spaces of the valley if there were too many of them. Furthermore, I had instinctively understood that my enhanced skeletons required to feed off the bones of their brethren to grow.
The manticore found itself surrounded by a dozen gaikotsu that actually towered over it. Snarling, it swiped at the nearest gaikotsu, actually shattering it, but the pieces seemed to flow seamlessly and regenerate much more fluidly than the unenhanced skeletons. The Thousand Astral Graves were certainly doing their job.
The twelve or so gaikotsu pounced on the hapless manticore and began tearing it apart limb from limb. The manticore struggled and managed to smash a brittle gaikotsu. As large as they were, they were still fragile. In exchange for enhanced regeneration, size and strength, they had traded away endurance and durability.
Not that it mattered. They were already dead. The gaikotsu didn't mind dying a few more times as long as they were able to bring the manticore down with them.
Yet, for all their numbers, the skeletal warriors' attacks weren't very effective. Even as they battered ineffectually against the manticore, the behemoth sent them flying in pieces with each strike. Its immense stinger jabbed out repeatedly, corroding bone with acidic venom at a damaging rate that surpassed their regeneration.
However, their enhanced strength was proving to be a problem for the manticore. One of the gaikotsu punched the roaring manticore, leaving a huge, gaping hole in its body where blood gushed out like a river. Another grabbed hold of the wildly swinging stinger and pinned it in place. The others began grabbing hold of the manticore's legs and holding them still. With brute strength, they ripped off the shrieking manticore's legs, leaving its hapless body to topple over.
The remaining gaikotsu closed in to finish the manticore off.
Before they could, the manticore swung its tail with such force that the gaikotsu clinging onto it was carried along. With a final surge of strength, the manticore sent that particular gaikotsu clattering into its brethren in an untidy heap of fallen bones. With a roar, it flailed about before going into spasms, its tail smacking more gaikotsu and sending them flying.
And then, something unexpected happened.
Blood sprouted out of the severed limbs with the force of a geyser, but unlike a random fountain, they began twisting in and intertwining, different shaded streams of fluids weaving together to form new bone, muscle and flesh.