Chapter 169: Chapter 169 - Giant Skeleton King
Logan watched in horror as the skeleton creature grew from its initial 12 feet all the way to 20 feet, and a large golden crown appeared on top of its head.
’This... this can’t be...’ he thought, mind flashing back to the dream he’d had right after awakening the undead element. ’... Is this... that skeleton king?’
He was panicking and conflicted. If he did anything, the entire experiment might fail and he wouldn’t know what the consequences would be for his body, but if he didn’t act, his heart would rupture at any time.
"Silas!" he shouted, glancing back in desperation.
Silas immediately sprung into action, pushing himself off the ground with his thin sword made of ice.
The green flame in the skeleton’s eyes flickered, its head turning towards Silas.
It spread out its hand, creating a greatsword from the remaining bones on the ground.
As Silas reached him, he swung his sword down, a clean wave of sharp wind mana slicing through the air towards the skeleton.
The skeleton didn’t hesitate, raising its sword to release a sword slash of its own.
It gathered the mana from the surroundings and from within its body, gathering the sickly green mana around its greatsword.
Then, it swung down.
The room turned dark as a wave of green mana soared towards the wind slash from Silas.
As they collided, the room shook. Loud shrieking echoed through the room as if souls were being cut in half.
Silas’s eyes widened as the wave of green mana obliterated his wind strike. "What kind of monster is this?" he muttered.
Sure, it hadn’t been his full power since it would rip the building apart and kill many innocent people... but this... this was a creature summoned and created by a Silver Core.
As he was about to release another more powerful wave of mana towards the creature, Logan’s voice suddenly interrupted him.
"Wait!" he shouted, immediately making Silas turn back.
"What?!" Silas responded.
"I can handle it now!" Logan shouted back, gripping his chest tightly with one hand.
’Silas made it use some of its mana,’ he thought, eyes locking onto the skeleton. ’I got some more time now.’
The skeleton turned to stare at Logan and Silas, raising its arms beside it.
The final mana from the S-rank resources all around it gathered near its body.
However, instead of absorbing it inside its body, it pulled up its greatsword and engraved strange symbols into it.
"This is too dangerous!" Silas shouted, getting a bad feeling. "Whatever it is, it’s best I end it now!"
Logan’s gaze remained locked on the skeleton.
"No," he said back firmly, clenching his fist.
As the creature finished scratching the engravings into its sword, the room lit up.
All the excess mana was pulled towards the sword like some kind of black hole, disappearing into the engravings as if it was nothing.
Logan held his heart, prepared to receive the feedback from the mana, but to his surprise, nothing happened.
The skeleton king’s greatsword lit up in a sickly green color, attracting both Silas and Logan’s attention.
Silas immediately stood prepared as the skeleton held the sword and reached its hand out.
Bone fragments appeared above its hand, slowly forming into a large bone sheath.
It engraved more lines into the sheath before finally pushing the sword into it.
The dangerous pressure released from the sword completely vanished, as the skeleton put the sword on its back.
It landed on the floor softly, its eyes locked on Silas and Logan.
The mana circle on the ground slowly extinguished as everything in the room settled down, leaving just the three of them in pure silence.
Silas gripped his sword tightly, his eyes darting between the skeleton and Logan.
’Why can’t I detect anything about this creature?’ he thought, clenching his jaw. ’What the hell did Logan bring here?’
The skeleton no longer paid any attention to Silas. Instead, its eyes remained locked on Logan.
It didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t even twitch as its eyes remained on him... yet Logan felt a faint connection between the undead chamber in his heart and the creature in front of him.
’Is it the same creature from my dream?’ he thought, heartbeat racing.
Silas stepped slightly in front of him, sword raised. "Logan, this thing isn’t under your control. Say the word, and I’ll cut it down before it—"
"Don’t." Logan’s voice came out firm. He placed a hand on Silas’s shoulder, forcing him to lower the blade slightly. "I can feel it. It’s been bound to me successfully."
"Bound?" Silas repeated, his frown deepening. "Are you certain? Because what I see is a monster wearing a crown, one that managed to nullify my attack."
Logan raised his hand to silence Silas, taking a few steps towards the skeleton king.
Silas gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his weapon tightly.
His full attention remained on Logan and the skeleton, mana coursing through his body, ready to respond at the highest speed anytime.
As Logan closed the distance between him and the skeleton, he noticed it turning its head to keep its gaze on him.
’So it’s responsive at least,’ he thought, the nervousness really setting in now.
He stopped a few feet in front of it, staring up at the creature that was nearly four times his height.
The skeleton king opened its mouth, its bones cracking.
"Hu...man..." a deep voice filled the room, sending shivers down both Logan and Silas’s spine.
Logan froze, mouth falling open slightly. "You... can speak?"
"Hum...an..." it said again. "Spawn... of the... Abyss."
Hearing that, another shiver rolled down Logan’s spine as his theory was confirmed. ’Those are the exact same words it said inside the dream.’
The green flames in the skeleton’s eyes flickered wildly, as if the act of speaking had stirred something inside its body. Logan clutched his chest as a searing pain raced through his undead chamber, his vision blurring.
For a moment, he wasn’t standing in his training room.
He saw a familiar landscape, but this time, he saw armies of tens of thousands, maybe even millions, of armored dead creatures kneeling in front of a massive skeleton wearing a golden crown with its massive greatsword leaning against a throne made of some gigantic creature.
That’s when the environment suddenly changed. The armies vanished as Logan appeared at an even more familiar location, one he had seen in his dream.
The towering skeleton no longer stood tall as a ginormous black raven hung in the sky above it, releasing waves of deep black mana towards it.
"Spawn... of the... Abyss," echoed through his mind again, as his eyes locked onto the raven.
’I understand now,’ Logan thought, eyes widening. ’Since I have some sort of Abyssal Raven Undead affinity, it must think I’m a spawn of the abyss, just like the raven itself.’
While he didn’t really understand what it meant with Abyss, he was sure it was linked to the Abyssal Raven... and that it wouldn’t take super long before he figured out what it was.
Finally, Logan’s eyes snapped open again. He gasped for breath as the familiar surroundings of his training room appeared around him again.
"Everything alright?" Silas asked from behind him.
Logan nodded, still breathing heavily as he stood tall in front of the skeleton king.
"Strange... human," its deep voice echoed through the room.
Suddenly, it lifted its hand towards Logan.
Before either of them could respond, mana started pouring out from the skeleton king’s hand, flowing towards Logan’s body.
Logan felt the mana enter his body, slowly flowing towards the undead chamber.
He raised his hand beside him, telling Silas everything was alright.
After a few seconds, the large skeleton king’s body turned transparent. As its final bit of mana was absorbed by Logan, it completely vanished, leaving just Silas and him in the room.
Logan staggered back for a moment, feeling his heart beating rapidly as an ice-cold sensation spread through his body.
His knees felt weak, but he managed to stand upright as he felt mana from his core start flowing through his heart normally again.
Silas lowered his sword only slightly, his expression a mix of awe and alarm. "It... went inside you?" he asked, his voice low.
Logan pressed a trembling hand to his chest. "Technically, yes," he muttered. "But it’s slightly different from that..."
Silas shook his head, walking towards him.
He put a hand on Logan’s shoulder, a deep frown on his face. "Regardless of that," he started, "that thing wasn’t a puppet or a casual summoned creature. That thing was alive, or something close to it."
Logan exhaled deeply, calming down. "Don’t worry," he said, his voice steadying. "It’s bound to me now. I can control it."
Silas studied him for a long moment before finally nodding, lowering his sword completely.
Logan shook his head slightly, but he felt nervous himself.
Now inside a chamber in his heart, sat a creature that had been far more powerful at its peak than anything he’d seen in the human world before.