From the hollow carved into a tree long stripped of its leaves, two gnarled ivory fingers slowly curled over the blackened rim. The bark around them was brittle, streaked with veins of rot. A skull followed, rising into view as hollow sockets fixed upon the approaching golem. Vertebrae scraped faintly as Bones pulled himself free, the rest of his body emerging from the hollow with visible strain.

  A heavy, almost painful groan escaped him as he straightened. He crossed his arms across his chest and remained still, gaze locked on Skully.

  The golem’s state was… dire.

  Hairline fractures webbed across his skeletal frame, some old, some freshly reinforced, others beyond proper repair. Mana channels ran unevenly through the bone, distorted and partially collapsed, their flow no longer smooth but jittering, stuttering in places where the damage had cut too deep. The injuries from the last bout had not merely chipped away at Skully’s exterior — they had compromised the very integrity of his structure.

  Bones didn’t need to analyze further to know the truth.

  This damage was permanent.

  Silence stretched as Bones considered his options. They were painfully limited.

  He could attempt to repair Skully as best he could and then dismiss him, storing what remained of the golem away before further harm could be done. Or he could leave Skully active, standing guard outside — exposed to the elements, to hostile encounters, and to the slow accumulation of further damage.

  Neither option was appealing.

  There was another concern pressing heavily on his thoughts. If he dismissed Skully now, there was no guarantee he would have enough mana to summon him again anytime soon. His reserves were dangerously low. As long as Harmony and Murdok remained intact, he could afford one emergency summoning at most.

  But if something were to happen to either of them…

  Bones would find himself in a truly unfavorable position.

  “Skully,” he finally said, voice steady despite the tension beneath it. “Remove your equipment. Come closer.”

  The decision could wait. First, he would assess what could still be salvaged.

  Skully complied without hesitation, carefully removing his gear and stepping forward. Bones worked in silence, reinforcing cracked bone where possible, redirecting mana flow around collapsed channels, stabilizing what he could. Some damage resisted all attempts at proper restoration — the best he could do was prevent further deterioration.

  Roughly two hours later, Harmony’s slip lit up.

  Her match didn’t take long.

  The opponent was stronger than those she had faced before — sharper, more disciplined, clearly experienced — but Harmony prevailed regardless. The lightning coursing through her body granted her bursts of speed few combatants at her level could match, even at fifty-five. Her movements were crisp, decisive, and increasingly independent.

  Once Skully’s immediate repairs were complete, Bones stationed him beside the tree and retreated back into the hollow. Harmony remained below the arena, waiting.

  Two days later came the fifth match.

  It was the first time Bones felt genuine unease.

  Harmony wasn’t lacking in skill — her opponent simply happened to counter lightning.

  Gervais, a metal mage, stood with a thick, hardbound book in one hand and three heavy metal plates hovering above him. Each lightning arrow Harmony loosed was intercepted — bent, dispersed, or redirected before it could land.

  Bones immediately recognized the spellbook, but it differed from the scroll-bound tomes he had seen before. This was no simple collection of spells. Each page was personally inscribed, metal magic etched directly into the parchment by its owner.

  As Gervais traced a finger across one such page, one of the plates twisted and reshaped, unraveling into dozens of needle-like projectiles. They screamed through the air, homing unerringly toward Harmony.

  For the first time, her speed wasn’t enough.

  The needles struck, piercing her frame and disrupting the lightning coursing through her body. Her movements faltered for a fraction of a second — enough. Another plate slammed into her side, knocking her off balance, while the last struck from the opposite angle, sending her tumbling backward.

  The wounds weren’t crippling, but they painted a clear picture.

  Harmony’s offense was being suppressed. Her options were narrowing.

  The match progressed exactly as Bones feared it would. Before the overseer could intervene, Bones issued the command.

  Reluctantly, Harmony raised both hands.

  The bout ended with Gervais’ undisputed victory.

  Bones summoned her back immediately and conducted a full inspection. Unlike Skully, her injuries were superficial — disrupted mana flow, damaged plating, nothing that would linger.

  Still, doubt crept in.

  For a brief moment, Bones questioned whether allowing his golems into the arena had been a mistake. Skully’s injuries alone were enough to make him reconsider. But he had already gone this far.

  Two days later came the next match.

  Harmony faced Shiloh — rank thirty-eight — a fully armored warrior carrying a round shield.

  From the opening exchange, Bones knew this would be worse.

  Harmony fired a lightning arrow the instant the match began. Shiloh already had his shield raised.

  There was no explosion. No crackling burst of electricity.

  Only a dull, dampened sound as the lightning vanished into the shield.

  The second arrow met the same fate. Then the third.

  Shiloh didn’t move an inch.

  Bones stared, genuinely bewildered. “How… what kind of shield is that?”

  Harmony halted ten meters away. For a brief moment, both combatants observed each other.

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  Then they advanced.

  Shiloh moved steadily, shield raised. Harmony charged, bolts of electricity lashing out as distractions rather than attacks. When she closed the distance, she swung her bow hard, aiming to knock the shield aside and create an opening.

  The impact rang out.

  The shield didn’t budge.

  Instead, part of the bow dispersed — then the entire weapon dissolved into smoke.

  Harmony didn’t hesitate.

  Lightning surged through her frame. She vanished in a blur and reappeared behind Shiloh, a dagger of crackling energy forming in her grip.

  The strike landed — and stopped.

  An invisible barrier shimmered into existence, blocking the blow.

  Shiloh hadn’t even turned around.

  Shield in front. Barrier behind.

  An unbroken defense.

  He made no move to counterattack. His expression remained calm, focused — content to let her exhaust herself.

  Bones saw it clearly.

  And so did Harmony.

  A second later, she reappeared several meters away and raised her hand.

  Surrender.

  Bones’ grip tightened violently. Bark cracked beneath his fingers, and for an instant he nearly burst from the hollow.

  Then he stopped.

  Harmony had made the decision herself.

  The tension slowly drained from him, replaced by reluctant understanding. As he relaxed, the bark beneath his hands groaned. Cracks spread along the trunk, widening rapidly.

  “Hm?”

  Bones leapt free just as the tree split apart, both halves collapsing outward with a dry, brittle crack. The ground around already decayed, nearby vegetation pale and withered.

  His condition had stabilized over the past two weeks — enough that he could suppress the worst of his aura — but the decay never truly stopped.

  “There’s no other way then,” he said at last. “I’ll have to continue toward the Nether Realm as I am. Hopefully, I won’t encounter many people — it would be best if I didn’t meet any at all.”

  His gaze swept over the clearing before lingering on Skully and Murdok. For a brief moment, his thoughts remained with them.

  Harmony, at least, had been making surprising progress. Her independence unsettled him and the flash of irritation he felt when she acted without his instructions hadn’t fully faded — but beneath the irritation was something far more valuable.

  Potential.

  Would Skully and Murdok ever progress beyond rigid obedience and preprogrammed responses? Harmony already showed signs of something more — adaptation, judgment, initiative. But those two…

  Bones’ thoughts churned. Replaying Skully’s matches in the arena and comparing them to the fighters he had observed, the answer became painfully clear.

  It wasn’t just a matter of levels or attributes.

  Nearly every serious contender possessed expert-tier skills. Not all of them were exceptional talents — many were relics of older generations, individuals who had remained in the second tier for decades. Some had reached their limits due to talent or resources, others because they chose stability, families, or responsibilities over advancement. Their levels stagnated, but their skills did not.

  Over decades — sometimes centuries — those skills were refined, polished, pushed to the brink of mastery.

  Against such opponents, Skully wasn’t merely outmatched.

  He was unprepared.

  During his time at the arena, Bones hadn’t limited himself to eavesdropping on conversations around his golems. He had observed the battles closely, studied classes and skill interactions, noted patterns and synergies. One combatant in particular lingered in his mind — a conjurer-summoner who had called forth a stone golem, then conjured armor and a greatsword for it while erecting layered barriers around himself, eerily similar to the arena’s own protective field.

  The contrast was stark.

  “It seems we are all lacking,” Bones murmured, finally voicing the conclusion he had reached.

  He paused, then added quietly, “Or perhaps this is because I haven’t advanced yet.”

  His gaze hardened.

  “Regardless, I’ll need new bodies for both Skully and Murdok first. As for improving their nuclei…” He shook his head slightly. “That can wait.”

  Like Skully before her, Harmony collected her earnings prior to leaving the arena. It did not take long before her slender figure appeared in the distance, striding toward him.

  With his hands clasped behind his back, Bones greeted her with composed approval.

  “Your actions gave me quite the surprise,” he began evenly. “However, I cannot refute that surrendering was the correct decision. You did well.”

  He paused, studying her silently for a heartbeat before continuing.

  “The overall risk was not worth it. Your and Skully’s participation in the arena was never part of a long-term strategy — it was a whim, an opportunity taken in the moment. I held no lofty expectations. And remaining here any longer would only complicate matters.”

  His gaze shifted briefly toward the distant city walls.

  “It is time we depart. We leave immediately.”

  From his inventory, Bones retrieved a thin strand of thread. He wrapped it tightly around the core artifact, fashioning a crude necklace, then placed it around his neck. The transformation was immediate.

  A gelatinous substance spilled outward from the artifact, expanding across his skull and down his torso. It spread like living tar, smoothing and reshaping, forming skin, flesh, and features. Robes concealed the rest. In moments, the skeletal undead was replaced by the stooped figure of an elderly man with a full head of white hair and a long white beard — the very image he had worn in life.

  Without another word, Bones turned and began trudging through the forest, carefully circling the city’s perimeter before merging onto the road he had once arrived by.

  The golems followed in a triangular formation: Bones at the center, Murdok leading at the front, Skully and Harmony guarding the flanks. Their movements were precise, deliberate. Every shadow, every shift in the undergrowth was monitored. The memory of previous ambushes lingered heavily.

  It wasn’t long before they encountered the aftermath of one.

  The stench reached them first.

  Then the sight.

  Meshed body parts lay scattered across the road — half-eaten limbs, entrails glistening in the dirt, armor torn open like parchment. Bloody drag marks carved deep lines from the road into the forest. A few corpses remained intact, their expressions frozen in terror. Among the dead lay two massive werewolf bodies, each cleanly severed in half.

  Even for a seasoned adventurer, the scene would have been enough to unsettle the stomach.

  “Must be the remnants of the latest party heading toward Wolford,” Bones muttered. “They suffered heavy losses this time.”

  He remembered his own ambush months prior. They had taken losses as well — but not to this extent.

  The formation widened as they maneuvered carefully around the carnage. This was the ambush site. The forest around them felt too still.

  There was a strong chance the pack remained nearby.

  the more intelligent breed capable of strategy and speech. The creatures responsible here were the lesser kind, driven more by instinct than reason.

  And yet…

  Several corpses remained largely intact.

  That was what troubled him.

  Creatures of pure predatory instinct would not leave fresh prey untouched without cause. The presence of intact bodies suggested restraint — or direction.

  Which meant leadership.

  “An alpha is likely present,” Bones concluded quietly.

  The forest answered with subtle sounds — the snap of twigs under heavy weight, the faint rustle of leaves shifting where no wind blew. Large shadowed shapes moved between trunks, keeping pace at a distance.

  They were being escorted.

  An oppressive tension settled over the road as they advanced. Bones’ disguised head turned left and right in small, controlled movements, though beneath the illusion his senses were fully extended. In his current condition, an ambush would force retreat. Direct confrontation would be unwise.

  He calculated escape paths even as he walked.

  But the attack never came.

  No beast burst from the trees. No howl split the air.

  They followed.

  And watched.

  After several long minutes, Bones understood the reason.

  Though suppressed, the tainted aura he exuded still lingered faintly around him — subtle to ordinary senses, but unmistakable to predators. Werewolves relied heavily on scent and instinct. To them, Bones’ presence must have felt like a constant prickle beneath the skin — a warning too persistent to ignore.

  Predators preferred certainty.

  Not decay walking upright.

  Thus, under silent observation from the treeline, the party reached the familiar wooden border walls without incident.

  Only then did the forest’s pressure begin to recede.