ROAR—!!
He bellowed again, hoping the sound would shove back the creeping Skeletons like a storm wind.
It didn’t; the Undead stood like stones in a river, unmoved by noise or fear.
Frustration hit first, a thorn in the chest, before his stance slid back a half step.
Black smoke licked his thigh like cold flame, and pain crackled up his leg like burning ice.
—Tch… Master Alicia… Master Ling… where are you…
Regret flooded him like winter tide, heavy and bone-deep.
He had only walked into that room and shot his mouth off, and the Skeletons had turned like whetstones.
He meant to charge the front like a battering ram, a bright blade in the fray.
Then he saw the ones lurking behind, shadows with ribs, knives in the dark.
He wanted to warn Master Alicia and the others, but their focus gleamed like moonlit steel.
He swallowed his voice, and surged alone, a lone hound after a fleeing hare.
He chased, and the quarry scattered like ash in wind, leading him by the nose.
One blink later, he was inside their web, a trap spun by mindless bones and black mist.
—I overreached, didn’t I…
He shook his right leg; the pain thinned like smoke at dawn.
That roar had bought a breath, and he fed mana into the hurt, a quiet tide against the sting.
He had tried to purge the smoke entirely, a clean sweep like rain.
Instead, worse pain flooded him like molten iron, some cursed trait biting back.
—Best to save full healing for after I’m out…
He checked each corroded wound, steady as a field medic in moonlight.
The edges calmed, a soft hush before a storm, enough to move again.
He lifted his head and faced the crowd of black-smoke Skeletons, a forest of ribs.
Shame pricked him first, sharp as nettles; survival answered like a bell.
—I’ll have to run. It stings the pride, but my life is my masters’—I can’t throw it away.
All four limbs hugged the ground, a beast ready to spring like coiled bamboo.
His hind legs rose, braced against the wall, a mountain behind him he couldn’t climb.
He wasn’t Ling; he couldn’t go “straight through by force,” like thunder splitting a cliff.
Only the path ahead remained, narrow and dammed by enemies like a clogged ravine.
The smoke-wreathed Skeletons felt his shift and spread their mana like spilled ink.
They filled the alley with black mist, sealing his retreat with a low, choking tide.
Edmund didn’t flinch; smoke meant nothing if will burned bright.
His chest lit with violet glow, a small star drinking the room’s thin mana.
He layered that mana on his skin, a lacquered coat like night armor.
He packed it thick as he could, a shell of moon-purple light over flesh and bone.
Preparations set, only muscle and heart remained to carry him through.
Break one of them, break the wall; that was the thought, simple as fire.
His hind legs bent, bows drawn under the skin, force gathering like thunderheads.
His gaze locked on the smoke-wreathed Skeleton, eye sockets staring back like empty wells.
—Rua!!!!!!!!
He let out a sound only brutes owned, raw as cliff-surf.
His hind legs detonated; alien muscle bunched and burst like coiled steel.
Violet light skinned him like river-glass, veins thumping under it like drumlines.
His body became a streak, a comet across a small sky, distance crushed to none in a blink.
He’d weighed attacks like stones in a hand, choosing the least-worse blade.
Teeth? He didn’t chew meat; they were blunt like river pebbles.
Forelegs? Lift them and balance shatters like thin ice.
The bad choice that worked was the only choice left, a gambler’s card.
Head lowered, he drove with all fours, not to run but to ram like a boar.
THUNK—!!
His horn—more truthfully, the long horn on his brow—slid between ribs like a needle.
It was thicker than the gap; it lodged with a gravelly bite and held like a hook.
The rest wrote itself: the horn stuck, the Skeleton shoved, bone a plow in dirt.
Pain slapped first, a red flare; his hind wound screamed like torn cloth.
He hadn’t scrubbed the smoke clean; it only quieted like embers under ash.
The charge ripped the scab, and violet blood sprayed, staining soil deep as midnight wine.
—I still have to get back!
Resolve rose like sun over ridges; his hind legs hammered the ground again.
The Skeleton couldn’t resist; momentum dragged it faster, a sled over ice.
—Rua!!!!!!!!!
