Chapter 90: The Beast vs. Kevin McSkeleton

Chapter 90: The Beast vs. Kevin McSkeleton

As they went outside, Karl’s voice cut through the chaos. "Rook! Tell the men to scatter and rally south of the structure. I’ll need them to help with phase 2 of the plan. Since they won’t be able to do anything useful directly, I’ll have to give them a task of cutting down trees and sharpen the logs. I’ll let the Corpse King be the distraction."

Rook, realizing the genius of the plan, nodded. Dullahan, never one to stand idle, stepped forward. "My lord, I’ll help with the soldiers. We can use dark mana to speed things up."

"Alright" Karl said, "and you, Libera," he gestured to the rogue, "work with Leo and take its eyes out while the Corpse King distracts it." Libera and Leo nodded, their faces grim but determined.

Schalezusk then said, "What about me?"

Karl’s smirk returned. "You’ll assist with cutting the trees. Phase two of our plan is this: as long as the beast is blind, we’ll lead it to our traps and use its momentum to stab itself on the spike logs. The Corpse King’s role is crucial to this. He will aggro the beast to lead it toward the spike traps, and he will finish it by using the spike logs as a weapon and impale its core." The orc’s smirk grew wider. This wasn’t just a strategy; it was a deadly, methodical dance of misdirection and leverage. They were turning the beast’s immense power against itself.

Schalezusk smirked. "Sounds like a plan." The group, now renewed by Karl’s decisive strategy, smiled, their earlier fear replaced by a cold, tactical focus. This was no longer a desperate flight; it was a calculated ambush.

"Let’s go," Karl said. Leo and Libera vanished in an instant, their forms a blur, moving with a silent efficiency that only trained assassins possessed. Rook went to relay the orders to the soldiers. Karl, Schalezusk, Dullahan, and Libera went to the other side of the forest to prepare their elaborate trap.

I may not be a fighter, Karl thought, a mischievous glint in his eye sockets, but I watched a lot of ’Home Alone’ movies. I know a thing or two about trapping and setting defenses. He was relying not on brute force, but on the principles of leveraging environmental weaknesses and enemy momentum—lessons learned from hours of old-world cinema.

Later, Rook arrived to find the soldiers still being chased by the beast. "Men! Scatter further and rally toward the south, behind the alien structure." The soldiers didn’t waste time and scattered, each to his own, their discipline a testament to Karl’s leadership.

Rook then rushed toward the beast, hopping from tree branch to tree branch and leaping toward the beast’s back, which was still unaware of his presence, its focus fixed on the fleeing soldiers. He then dashed through it’s back toward its head, a silent projectile seeking its mark.

Arriving, he held his sword, trying to remember how the Dullahan manifested the dark mana during their fight. If their fight with the Dullahan hadn’t taken things to a turn, he and Leo’s plan would have been to absorb and analyze how the Dullahan infused dark mana into his sword and surprise it using his own technique. But that plan died when the Dullahan showed the Moon Tide technique’s insane destructiveness. Hadn’t it been for their lord, they would have ceased to exist.

But Rook had absorbed some data on their clash, the raw energy signature of the Dullahan’s mana now a blueprint in his mind.

According to Dullahan, dark mana usually comes from the core, but I have no core, he thought. Which means my bones carry the dark mana within. In Lord Karl’s memories, mana in fiction stories is controlled through thought and imagery. The will to command and the vision to shape. It is not an external force, but an extension of the self.

According to other information, natural mana is compressed as small as possible to become dark mana. Stabilization will be crucial during this step and according to the latest memory of Lord Karl, his own core is designed like a vortex pattern swirling inwardly to create an infinite, stable flow of mana while slowly compressing it. It’s a closed-loop system, an elegant solution to a chaotic problem.

He paused and thought, If I want to be more useful to my lord, I need to improve myself. If I want to be his sword, I need to be able to be ready and sacrifice myself even if it meant risking my own existence. This is not just about survival; it’s about proving my worth, becoming an indispensable asset to his cause. Rook then exhaled, and time seemed to slow down as he envisioned the dark mana within him converging onto his chest.

Karl stopped in his tracks; the others also stopped. Karl turned back to Rook’s location, sensing the immense shift in mana. He smiled, a rare expression of pride on his skeletal face. The Dullahan also sensed it and said, "My lord! We should stop Rook! What he’s doing right now is dangerous. He has no proper knowledge of forming his own core yet; he will explode and destroy himself. The raw, uncontrolled power could tear his form apart."

Karl said, "No, don’t. We should respect his decisions. Sometimes you have to take a gamble. He knows this. He might die, but knowing the beast will die with him, or at least damaged from his own explosion, is enough for him to show his dedication. Or he might be able to succeed and leap bounds in improvement."

Dullahan said, "If he truly succeeds... he’ll become a warrior no one has ever seen. He might be even stronger than me at my peak."

Karl then said, "Come on, let’s go, we don’t have time," as they started running again.

Rook, however, was able to draw the dark mana from within him to his chest and envision a swirling vortex, inspired by Karl’s core containment and compression technique. The beast was still rampaging, but he was calm and steady at the beast’s back, the dark mana within him swirling, converging into a single point. The dark mana suddenly became unstable, cracking his bones.

Too fast, Rook thought. Make the flow spin longer to stabilize it further. The dark mana then changed and swirled longer, going around three times before arriving at the center and converging. This time it was stable. Three seconds later, the core crystallized, and his bones began to slowly heal.

Rook then muttered, "Now that containment is complete, I am halfway there. I still need to form of a gathering and compression system within the core, in which the natural mana will be gathered and compressed." He then envisioned blue motes around him, gathered by a vortex, sucking the mana around him toward his core. the mana around him started to draw into him. His core now lit up in blue.

Rook then said, "Now that the gathering system is complete, it’s time for the riskiest part."

He then envisioned the mana swirling around inside his core. He then envisioned slowly compressing the mana inside, but to his surprise, the mana was actually harder to compress than the dark mana itself.

He said, "Patience is the key." Then, slowly but surely, he began compressing the mana, which was stabilized by the never-ending spinning flow.

Meanwhile, the beast was still ravaging, chasing a group of soldiers, when suddenly, the Flesh Golem dashed from the side of its face and punched it. The force of that punch and the hardness of the beast’s metallic skin destroyed the golem’s fist, but it regenerated. Though the punch didn’t do much damage, it was enough to turn its aggression toward the golem. The beast then ran away from the soldiers, chasing the golem.

Then, Leo and Libera dashed from each side of the beast, as they intercepted, aiming for its eyes. Leo’s spear hand was at the ready; Libera readied his twin daggers. They dashed toward the beast’s eyes, using their momentum to thrust. As soon as they got near, the beast’s eyelid closed, rendering their attacks useless. Leo’s hand was destroyed by the hard metallic skin, and one of Libera’s daggers also broke. The beast roared. Its attention now turned onto Leo.

"Oh, boy," Leo said as he started to sprint away, leaving Libera and the Corpse Golem behind.

The beast then chased Leo, and despite his speed, it seemed to be slowly catching up. Leo, having connected to the Lich Uplink with Karl’s memories, started to search for tactics on how to handle such a massive machine. Flipping through memory after memory, he came across a memory of a video of a matador dodging bulls.

The only difference was that the beast chasing him was 60 feet tall, fast, had two outward-facing horns, large fangs, and was a machine. His mind was racing, but then he spotted the alien structure. A grin spread across his face, and he dashed toward the alien structure’s wall. He knew this was a massive risk, but it was the only way to get the monster to slow down.

Rook, however, on the beast’s back, was trying hard to stabilize the compression. The compression was still at 80% of the core’s size, but was already destabilizing, a cascade of hairline cracks spiderwebbing across his bones. The mana is trying to explode due to the massive pressure, Rook thought, the pain a secondary concern to the looming threat of self-destruction.

Ahhh, I get it. The mana is converted through extreme pressures. Failure to stabilize the containment will result in a massive explosion. Lord Karl’s containment design is actually smart; by using angular momentum, the design distributes the pressure evenly.

Rook knew that if he could get this right, he could be more useful. So my problem is now, is trying to find the right spin velocity. Too slow will make it unstable, and too fast will make the centrifugal force rip the mana apart. It needs to be just the right tone. Also, as I try to compress, the mana becomes unstable but, the velocity of my spin hasn’t changed. Which leads me to the only answer. It means the smaller I go, the faster I should spin the core. Then, let’s that theory. Let’s slowly increase the spin velocity as I go.

Rook then envisioned a faster velocity spin for his core. The mana now slowly changed hue from blue to a vibrant blue-green, the color of raw, contained power. The cracks in his bones began to seal themselves, a testament to the mana’s new stability.

Leo, now near the alien structure wall, stopped and turned. Seeing Rook at the top, steady, he realized that Rook losing focus would spell disaster. Leo cursed silently. That bastard, why pick the beast’s back of all places? He knew the beast was an unstoppable force, but if he could trick it into a collision, it would buy them precious seconds.

He waited for the beast to rush at him. The beast, now seeing Leo as a clear target, aimed its horns directly at him and sped up even further. Then, at the last moment, Leo leaped toward Rook, blurring his form. The beast crashed into the wall, its horns stuck deep in the metallic surface, a loud grinding sound echoing through the forest. Leo’s skeletal arm seemed to go right through Rook’s body as it faded. It was just a mirage. The beast, now stuck, thrashed violently, its roar now a frustrated snarl.

Rook was now behind Leo, right above the beast’s head. He raised his sword, swirling with blue-green energy, and with a quick horizontal slash, the metallic horns were sliced right through. They fell to the ground with a heavy thud. It was a calculated risk, but a smart one. He didn’t know if he could kill the beast in one go, since it was a machine. The Corpse King would be the only one capable of taking this thing down and taking one of it’s weapons was the safe bet for the corpse king to safely engage with this beast.