The Genesis Game

The few points he had added into strength had a noticeable change in his physique, added some muscle to his overall skinny frame.  It had only been a few days since his rebirth, but the progress Seraph had made in that time was amazing to him, he never would have thought a cripple to accomplish what he had accomplished, especially without a legendary class unlocked from the beginning.  

As he flexed his arms to warm his muscles he knew it would be enough.  Twelve skeletons he counted, though not all were as close as others, if he acted quickly, they would not be able to swarm him with as slow and c.u.mbersome their movement was. Seraph had long been a solitary fighter, never depending in battle on allies or friends.  When he was alone, he was in his element.

One of the Skeletons broke away from the others in a kind of half jog that was neither walking or running.  The giant sword it was dragging behind it drawing the attention of the rest of the skeletons which followed after.  As Seraph moved into its guard, the skeleton raised the sword casually raised and swung the great sword with an ease that many would be jealous of.  But it was no match for Seraph as he swung the Cats Claw with the precision of a surgeon and severed the skeletons skull from the rest of the body.

When the body did not immediately collapse into a heap of bones and continued to fight, Seraph knew he had a problem. Severing the head from the neck had always been an instant killing move against most undead, even skeletons.  Which meant the rules had changed, or these were different monsters all together. In his anger he kicked the severed skull away from him and as it crashed into a wooden crate, parts of the skull caved in. With the destruction of the skull, the body could not stay together and crumbled.

"So the head has to be destroyed." Seraph thought. "That's a bit more difficult and time consuming.  I'm not sure I can take out the remaining eleven like that." 

As the skeletons approached, they were not scattered but walking in tandem of each other, and Seraph tried to give them a wide berth and not let himself get cornered, making sure to dodge the spray from the abyssal ocean as he moved, which he found to his dismay had no effect on the skeletons.  Scanning his surroundings for anything he could use, he said a silent prayer to the spirit of the dungeon that none of the undead were armed with a bow and arrows. 

They were still fundamentally low level creatures that would offer him few benefits for their destruction, but the amount of danger he was in complicated things.  He would not be able to avoid them forever and he did not see a way to move past them as they blocked the path leading off the pier. He admitted to himself he had made a judgement error for assuming the skeletons would have been less of a threat. 

From further down the pier walkway in the distance, Seraph could see another skeleton forming, though this one was compiled from multiple bones and forger itself into a Skeletal Lord and began running straight towards him.

It was at least three meeters tall and ran with a measured even olympic pace. This was not a simple undead.  In it's right hand it held a thick iron blade, and in it's left hand a bukly crossbow. Seraph knew the dungeon was testing him at this point and actively watching what he was doing.

"Let him watch then." Thought Seraph in a burst of inspiration as he summoned his ethereal arms and covered himself with them as he activated his cold hands ability and froze the moisture thick air around him by leaching its energy and using that stolen energy to fuel the spell.  

A thick sheet of ice spread around him like a shield.   It was not a perfect or absolute defense but it would have to do and that worked similarly through the same way he had once used his feathers of black iron.  

Protect and for a moment he thrust his open hands onto the ground he continued to siphon energy from the wooden planks beneath him. spoil. his real hands pressed into the wood below him.  

Within seconds ice began to form on the ends of his hair and his breath began visible.

"There's no other way to get through this." Seraph thought, his teeth chattering as he dug deep in himself in, hardening his will.

Inside his protective bubble, Seraph could see chunks of ice vibrate and fall inwards as the Skeletons on the outside attacked his defensive barrier with their swords and axes.  Seraph had already known the ice barrier would not last for long but it didn't need to all he needed was a few extra moments to freeze the area.  

 A few extra moments he might not have, releasing he was almost out of time when something hit the ice shield with a thud as large cracks spiderwebbed across the sheet and the head of a crossbolt appeared above his face embedded deeply into the ice. 

 There was no way for him to repair the damage to his shelter.  A few more attacks from the skeletons or one more attack from the crossbill and his defense would be completely shattered and he would be vulnerable.  Alternatively if the skeletal Lord reached him before he was ready the thing would easily dispatch him. All it would take was one swing of its great ax to cleave the ice in half and Seraph with it. 

As his lips began to turn blue and ice started to form on portions of his face, Seraph realized if he kept this up, he would freeze himself to death, the spell was in every sense of the meaning a double edged sword.   A double-edge that worsened as he realized both of his hands were beginning to completely freeze through. He removed his dominant hand hoping the damage was not permanent and kept his non dominant hand activating the spell.  All he needed was a few more Seconds and already he could see and feel his hand completely freeze From its contacts with a from its contact with the pier.

 What I could not disengage the spell now when he was so close even now ethereal arms maintained his defense.   He channeled more and more power through his hand even as his fingers splintered and broke like porcelain.  

Seraph inored the damage to his body even as he thrust the Palm of his ruin hand into the pier to keep the spell going.  He listened for the sound of cracking below him, as the frozen wood planks began to crumble, warped from energy loss, breaking into small pieces as they tumbled into the ocean below.  

A domino effect had been started, were one plank fell into the ocean, another broke off and followed.  He was mostly satisfied with the result as he watched the Skeletons around him tumble into the ocean below.

As Seraph released the spell,  a horrible reality came to him as he found he could not dislodge his hand from the rapidly deteriorating pier floor.   He didn't have time to 2nd guess himself or of struggle with alternate solutions and used the Cat's Caw to cut his arm off at the wrist.

 Filled with pain he was still forced to try and keep his wits about him as the Skeletal Lord had not been destroyed by the attack. But he was not without a weapon. 

Seraph was left with the remaining residual energy he had stolen from the environment around him.  He looked at the towering skeleton still heading his way, A skeleton that easily cleared the holes appeared in the floor of the pier. He let go of the energy he had been holding and as fast as a bolt of lightning, it struck the colossal skeleton, scattering the bones into pieces but not destroying it, evident by the glowing ambient aura around it.  

Before the Skeleton Lord could reassemble itself, Seraph picked up one of the rocks that was scattered around near him that hadn't fallen into the angrily churning water below him. He stared at the oversized skull, and willed some of the remaining mana in his body to form a path through the air heading directly towards the skull and with all the force he could put behind it, he threw the rock as hard as he could, and the sound it made as it hit the skull was sickening as the skull fractured into multiple parts and went flying through the air landing in various parts of the water below it.    With the destruction of the skull, the aura surrounding the bones disappeared.

The result was immediate.  On both sides of the pier the black waters churned and exploded upward, the water itself spreading out in long tendrils probing and searching for the cause of the noise.  When the tendrils found both the gate and the rock they stopped probing the area.