What counts as truly eerie—the kind of chill that crawls up your spine like frost?

Back then, Ling couldn’t have named it; her heart was calm water with no ripples.

Now she knows; the feeling rises like night mist under her skin.

She fixes on Edmund, on that oil-dark substance veiling him, and the sensation clicks like a key in an old lock.

Yes.

That same familiar creep, a cold moth’s wing on the neck.

That black shroud is the source, a shadow that breathes like a damp cave.

What deserves the name of absolute crushing?

Hand Ling a mic and she’d mutter two words like rolling thunder—Magic Cannon.

But watch Edmund and the answer unfolds like a blade catching dawn.

The Skeletons Ban ordered forward surge like moths into flame, a white tide with empty eyes.

No armor; they don’t care, pain is a forgotten winter.

No weapons; they don’t care, bone fists are their dull stars.

Life? That candle burned out ages ago; only husks march in the dust.

All of them share that dead-man’s resolve and rush like a river breaking its banks.

Edmund cuts at the waist, simple and clean, like harvesting reeds along a black lake.

He plants his sword by his hip, becomes a pivot, and turns with both hands and both feet like a storm-drawn vane.

A perfect 120-degree arc whips out, purple-black flame carving the air like a sickle of night.

Fire and bone are sworn enemies; the flame brings a strange sharpness and pierces like a winter thorn.

Two-thirds of the Skeletons get cleaved, collapse, and scatter like brittle stalks in wind.

When the blaze ebbs, the remaining third step over their comrades, trudging forward on a road of ash like ants.

“Snap!”

Edmund’s fingers can’t snap; thick joints and hard calluses make clay where glass is needed.

The black substance snaps for him; two shadowy tendrils uncoil from his navel like snakes.

The snap drops like a pebble in a dark pond, and fire rises like dry grass catching.

The earlier cuts had left embers; with fuel stacked, the blaze blooms like a red flower in winter.

The unlucky Skeletons on their comrades’ backs don’t advance; they follow their kin into dust, literal dust trailing like smoke.

When the fire thins, only gray-black powder remains, and one slow Skeleton limps like a last leaf in wind.

“Not bad—cut down my Skeleton legion so easily. Truly not bad.”

Ah—right. There’s still the clown-masked Skeleton who calls himself Ban, standing like a scarecrow that laughs.

Ban lifts his flute, sets bone to bone, and breathes out a tune like fog drifting through graves, shameless as a stray dog.

♬＃♪♬Ⅹ♬＃♪□♪♪&♬

His audience rises; not life, only shapes recondensing like frost tracing old patterns.

Only now do they look like true Undead, a dead moon mirrored in a black well.

Edmund watches Ban, puzzlement pooling like cool ink; why waste breath on a hollow show?

He thinks and lands on a simple truth like a stone at the bottom—he’s strong, Ban’s scared, so Ban plays coward and stalls.

Coward’s play means grinding endurance, wearing him down drop by drop like dripping eaves.

“Rest easy. My power won’t drain over trifles. A plain slash is water to me.”

His sword’s voice rings clear, a wellspring under rock.

Fine.

Edmund trusts the blade; steel doesn’t lie when it sings like a taut string.

But while his thoughts drift like smoke, a Skeleton darts in, a pale blur with five dull claws.

Those bone fingers clamp his thigh; the touch is cold rain on a summer back.

Startled, he springs backward, and his grip tightens; the stab comes down like lightning on a dead tree.

Purple-black fire blooms, and a fresh heap of ash sighs like breath.

He doesn’t stop; one Skeleton at his feet means others close by, shadows moving like reeds.

He wrenches the sword free from the floor and swings forward without looking, a river stroke cutting dark water.

No need to charge mana; the sword is smarter than expected, a fox under a steel coat.

It sips his scant mana and shapes a black-violet wave, rippling out like water under moon.

Skeletons fall without effort, cleared like chaff in a threshing wind.

He doesn’t hear their rattle anymore; quiet settles like snow, and he knows it’s over.

The speed feels unreal, dream-soft and thin as silk; it leaves a sour wonder.

Before, each Skeleton demanded weight and breath; now they go down like mowing grass after rain.

Too clean; the gap yawns like a canyon, and unreality hums in his bones.

Did this sword change him so much, like night turning into dawn?

Has he truly grown stronger, a tree adding rings in silence?

He lifts the blade above his head; candlelight smears gold along the steel like a sunset on water.

He stares, thoughts drifting like paper boats on a dim canal.

A cold draft sweeps in, twirling ash like gray snow, pricking his eyes like sand.

He shields his gaze, peeking through a narrow slit like a hunter through reeds, and sees Ban raise the flute again.

A new tune is about to spill, a dark river ready to run.