In the dark of night, Raul walked along the wilderness path, leading the aberrant skeleton.
Anbaixiu's castle was far from any town, and tonight there was not even starlight. Raul had to rely entirely on the ghostly fire in the aberrant skeleton's eyes to find his way.
He walked slowly along the road, not only because he could barely see, but even more so because of the hesitation in his heart.
He did not want to help a lich capture living people as experimental fodder, especially not the fleeing townsfolk. The lord's sudden tax hike had already ruined their families; Raul himself was one of those refugees, so he naturally felt for them. How could he have the heart to lay a hand on them?
Yet if he refused, what would happen to his sister, Isabel?
As he wavered, the sound of horse hooves came from the road ahead, accompanied by the flickering light of torches.
Raul immediately ducked to the roadside. Without even getting closer, he was certain this was a force sent out by the lord to round up people.
Sure enough, a knight in supple leather armor approached with several armed retainers. Raul could see them clearly by the torchlight—ten men in total, accompanied by hounds.
Raul crouched low in the grass beside the road, hardly daring to breathe. There were ten of them, and one was a mounted knight. Although the knight wore no heavy plate, an unarmored knight was still far beyond what a commoner like Raul could handle. All he could do now was pray that the hounds had not caught his scent.
The wilderness was full of competing scents; perhaps they would miss him.
Yet things went against his hopes. The hounds seemed locked onto Raul's position, veering slightly off the main road to head straight toward him, letting out low, rumbling growls.
Raul knew the lord's dogs well. He knew the beasts had already sensed his presence and would soon come charging with the men behind them. At that point, an unarmed Raul would surely be captured, if not slaughtered on the spot.
Wait—he was not entirely unarmed.
Raul tightened his grip on the gem-inlaid bone in his hand. When the vicious dogs were still a dozen yards away, he pressed down on the attack gem.
In the darkness, two glimmers of green light flared to life. The hound that had just been growling stopped dead in its tracks, as if confronting something terrifying. Before the houndmaster could make out what was lurking in the dark, the green-glowing thing lunged onto one of the hounds with astonishing speed.
In the flickering firelight, a bizarre, demon-like creature was seen pinned atop the hound, the scythes on its arms carving frantically, disemboweling the beast in the blink of an eye.
Just as the houndmaster was about to cry out, he saw the monster leaping at him, moving as fast as his own hounds. The houndmaster threw himself aside, but the creature was cleverer than a dog—missing its initial pounce, it darted straight past him toward the men behind.
The darkness offered little light, and a few torches were hardly enough to track the creature's movements. Soon, an unlucky retainer was overtaken. Scythes slashed upward in a flurry from his trouser leg to his chest and belly; flimsy cloth could not stop the piercing blades. Small though the monster was, its strength surpassed a man's, and a single thrust could punch straight through ribs.
What was worse, the monster was cunning. It never lingered in combat, pouncing on someone to stab them a few times before immediately moving on. Once it closed the distance, it scrambled upward from their ankles, its sharp scythes digging into flesh like ice axes biting into ice, serving as footholds to climb.
Such simple, repetitive movements inflicted devastating harm. If someone fell in panic, they died even faster, as the monster swiftly found their throat and cut it in a single strike.
The knight mounted on his tall steed tried to give chase, only to find that the longsword in his hand could not reach a creature smaller than a hound.
Before he could even dismount, three of his retainers lay dead. Dropped torches quickly sputtered out, plunging the surroundings into deeper gloom.
In the darkness, the twin points of green light seemed like the gaze of death itself, stripping the knight of any courage to dismount and fight. He wheeled his horse around and fled. Yet the slaughter went on. The knight could escape on horseback, but two-legged men could never outrun an aberrant skeleton swift as a hound. Humans panicked and lost their way in the dark, but the skeleton did not; the senses of its soul fire were entirely unaffected by light.
After a chorus of screams, the seemingly formidable party was utterly destroyed.
Raul rose from the grass, gazing at the corpses strewn across the ground, his hands shaking violently.
Having lost its targets, the aberrant skeleton automatically reverted to follow mode, ambling back toward Raul. The sight terrified him so much that he stumbled back several paces, nearly tumbling to the ground.
Staring at the aberrant skeleton drenched in fresh blood, Raul shuddered from head to toe.
Undead could be this powerful? What kind of terrifying existence was the lich who had created such a monster?
Just what sort of creature had he provoked?
Regret washed over Raul. He never should have climbed that damned railing. His sister Isabel had tried to stop him back then, but he had refused to listen.
It was too late for regrets now. If he wanted his sister to live, he had to carry out the lich's orders. Yet looking at the bodies on the ground, another thought struck him. If the lich only needed corpses as experimental materials, these lapdogs of the lord ought to work just as well—there was no need to hunt down other refugees.
Still, only six had died here, falling short of the lich's quota.
Raul looked down at the aberrant skeleton, now stained a deep, dark red, and gritted his teeth. "Isabel, wait for me. I will come back and save you."
***
Inside the ancient castle, the young woman named Isabel was intently concocting alchemical potions. Anbaixiu watched her for a time and confirmed that she was indeed a genuine apprentice alchemist who was not squandering his materials. Reassured, he turned his attention to studying the imagery he had just received.
The controller in Raul's hands did more than issue commands to the aberrant skeleton; it also functioned as a memory crystal, transmitting footage to Anbaixiu in real time.
This was a genuine field trial, and its results proved that this aberrant skeleton possessed far greater combat prowess than an ordinary skeleton. Winning so decisively had involved a bit of luck, of course. For one, visibility was poor at night, leaving humans without darkvision at an inherent disadvantage. Furthermore, the mounted knight had lost his nerve; otherwise, a few swift passes on horseback would have packed enough force in the hooves to crush the aberrant skeleton, and the creature might never have found a chance to leap onto the horse's back.
Regardless, a victory was a victory.
"Combat testing proves that eliminating unnecessary skeletal structures significantly reduces the consumption of soul energy, achieving superior results with fewer joints. While this aberrant skeleton lacks the evolutionary potential of a normal skeleton and cannot slowly develop into a powerful entity like a skeleton knight, undead evolution is an exceedingly rare miracle to begin with. Above all, the key to my design is affordability.
"You have all witnessed the entire experiment. Using a low-grade soul of identical strength and saving more than half the skeletal materials yields a creature with far superior combat power. In today's climate of inflated prices for magical ingredients, this aberrant skeleton should have very broad market prospects..."
Anbaixiu re-recorded his presentation, then opened the Necrotic Codex and uploaded the visual recordings to the chat group behind it.
[Ultraman Tiga: Custom orders accepted, favorable prices.]
Chapter 5