Only Ed could ascertain victory against the unknown, or at least against these unknown adventurers. Overwhelming strength could part even the harshest seas.
"dutinð sehti!" And with those final 'words', Ed's speech concluded. The dazed anti-skeletons snapped out of it and for some reason even showed hints of renowned vigor as the ones with experience in melee combat all charged out with little regard for their own safety.
As for Ed, he was a bit awestruck following the end of his chant.
'What the hell was that?!' He was actually in fact frightened. The gibberish that had entered his mind from seemingly nowhere and forced him to chant an eerie tune could not be described as anything other than frightening.
Only after reanimating the bodies of the dead adventurers did the clarity of both mind and body return to him.
[Requiem lvl. 0]
Mass of the dead calls the dead to gather. Existing undead are pacified before receiving a short boost in strength.
Suddenly a volley of fire arrows rained down on his anti-skeletons as they charged forward prompting Ed to quickly snap out of his inquisitive state. He could explore the significance of the event later.
He called upon the earth to protect each individual anti-skeleton as they charged forwards. This resulted in some of them running into a wall but what mattered the most was that they were protected. The heat from the arrows was a much greater concern.
Plus, since Ed was basically guaranteed victory at that point it was a good idea to minimize damages.
"Aaargh! Let me go, you-!" An adventurer was fumbling around while fighting one of their party members returning as a zombie. This inevitably resulted in them receiving a bite.
An axe then dug into the zombie's neck as just as it was sinking its teeth into what used to be their party member. The hack nearly lopped the head right off but the adventurer had held themselves back as to not injure an ally.
The party member then finally mustered the strength to push the zombie off of their neck causing them to fall on their butt. Their ex-party member now had an egregious wound on its neck that spurted out blood like a fountain.
Their head which had been nearly lopped off fell off its location thanks to the push but it still held on by a thread. It was now dangling lifelessly to the side still making creepy moans and groans.
A second swing finally disconnected it though and after a couple of seconds, the zombie collapsed.
"Focus! They are nothing but filthy creatures now!" The adventurer who had saved them yelled to the adventurer sitting on their butt. They were frozen in place with fear etched into every pore of their face. Even as the hideous and painful bite mark bled incessantly the adventurer could not get over their shock.
"Gurgh…!" They were then stabbed in the chin, the earthen stake reaching even as far as through their brain and skull. One of the earth element anti-skeletons just so happened to have made them their target.
"Tsk, you'll pay for that!" The ax-wielding adventurer said and glared in the direction of the anti-skeletons before lunging at another zombie. Although he had threatened the anti-skeleton it was actually out of reach. Too many charging anti-skeletons and dead comrades, now zombies, were stopping him.
He was also not the only one suffering from this trouble, similar scenes played out in many areas each with different people or circumstances. No matter how different however they all had one thing in common. Despair.
"Nooo! Brother!!!" Adventuring was a dangerous business. One where the person needed to be willing to risk their lives for riches. But for many, this lesson doesn't settle in until they are face to face with danger. It was important to learn from one's mistakes but it was also important to learn from those of others. Failure to do so meant… death. Pointless death.
The battle which was initially in favor of the adventurers had a change in momentum. The anti-skeletons now held the upper hand after the adventurer's tight formation was broken from the inside by the zombies. This lead to them being slowly overwhelmed.
[Requiem has leveled up]
To make matters worse, Ed had found the situation to be ideal for leveling up the newly acquired requiem skill. That was to say… the zombies just kept on coming! The more of their own were killed the harder things would get for them.
Realistically that shouldn't have been too large a threat but as they were nothing more than an unruly mob of adventurers that came together due to greed they couldn't settle on a way to diminish their casualties while backing up one another.
'This skill is rather handy' Following the level up, Ed could tell it could be used for more than just reviving the dead.
'This must have been how the lich communicated' Requiem was listed as a skill rather than a spell. That meant it was rather versatile and all-encompassing. If one improved sufficiently it was very much possible to speak something other than gibberish even if coarsely.
Of course, that was only Ed's conjecture. It wasn't a definitive fact but he definitely felt it held some weight to it.
'I'd be hard-pressed to teach this skill to all my skeletons though' It took him so long to acquire it and he didn't even know what exactly were its requirements.
As he casually pondered on this the number of adventurers started to dwindle until Ed at last finished off the remaining overwhelmed B-rankers with the power of the earth.
There was a sole exception that was out of range but they were getting jumped by the remaining mob of anti-skeletons and zombies.
"Aaaah! Go to hell!" The B-class mage yelled as they blew up the fire crystal they carried. Unfortunately, as they had been using it in battle the explosion barely did anything. They were still ripped to shreds by swords and biting.
Only after their body stopped twitching did the anti-skeletons back off with blood-covered bodies. Some who had gone for bites with their sharp spiky black teeth were still dripping viscous scarlet blood. They left their handy work of exposed entrails and tossed around limbs and headed excitedly towards Ed, or so the brisk in their step suggested.
Finally, they all knelt. All of his skeletons knelt regardless of their location.
'Hm?' This caused Ed to finally notice an anomaly. In the distance, there was a fleeing white skeleton.
It headed into one of the merging corridors but the prospect seemed somewhat inane. The regular old piles of bones were incapable of thought and their movements were also sluggish making them rather impractical as far as spying went.
'Zephyr, go after it' But Ed still needed to make sure.
All of the skeletons maintained their reverent pose and only Zephyr, the green crystal skeleton, stood up to leave. With the power of the wind, it agilely left the premises.
It didn't take Ed long to wait for it to return either. Unexpectedly though, Zephyr returned with a pile of dusty white bones!
'What the-? Did Zephyr kill it?' Ed found that to be strange since transmission basically made it impossible for such misunderstandings to take place. His 'go after it' definitely expressed his intention of capturing the interloper rather than killing it.
'Then… it just died? By... itself?' To Ed that just seemed stupid. Why would it suddenly die?
Nonetheless, as Zephyr dropped many bones in front of him Ed had no option but to believe it was the case. When asked whether he killed it or not Zephyr would also shake its head. Ed didn't think Zephyr was capable of lying and even if it was it certainly had no reason to.
'W- was it the dungeon…?' Or could this instance be chalked up to some weird skeleton behavior? Ed didn't think so as he had never observed such behavior during his many expeditions around the dungeon.
'Looks like I'll have to put it aside for now though' Ed now needed to assess the damage his anti-skeletons had suffered as well as what he had gained from this.
[Sword of disappointment]
A disappointing sword crafted by the disciple of an expert craftsman. The result was less than exemplary…
[Wristbands]
Wristbands
[Spooky and Scary Skeleton Daggers]
Bone daggers made from plain old human bones.
A quick glance around told Ed that he actually didn't get much…
'Why were you all so poor???' Ed suspected that those adventurers must have had some weird delusions that they could finally break out of their impoverished situation if they entered the dungeon.
'Well, I should be closer to a new level up now though' Ed thus quickly shifted his sights towards his skeletons whose numbers were cut in half.
'That's a bit troublesome' Ed couldn't afford to linger in the crypts meaning that he wouldn't be able to recoup the lost numbers. It was also worth noting that any injured skeleton would also be left without healing.
'At least the major characters all held their own' Even Kenny Jr. who was known to be on the dumber side of things seemed rather energetic at the moment.
'All of you can return to your usual business' Ed didn't intend to stay around much longer so he decisively turned away from the kneeling skeletons and started to walk over to his earthen temple.
He was still curious about the various zombies he had summoned but unfortunately, any experimentation with them would have to wait for another time. Leaving his orc body exposed and so close to the settlement had left him on edge.
Ed sat on the throne and before he could beg the dungeon to recall him…
[Recalling Champion soul]
His wish was granted. His mind started to waver and his senses began to fade. It took him a couple of more seconds to finally recover and be met by the sight of a deep red, the color was nearly black.
'Wh- what?' That left Ed utterly confused. Why had the dungeon suddenly turned more dangerous? But those thoughts soon drew a halt, more accurately were forced to draw a halt.
[You've been dealt damage -300hp]
Ed's whole outlook turned blurry and dazed. His thoughts were thrown into random disarray.
'AAAAAAAAARGHHARARGFH!' He could only muster what would in a normal body sound like a high pitched scream of excruciating pain.
[Champion is advised to be careful from here on out]
A glowing message also appeared in front of Ed's consciousness but the pain had drawn him into a short fit of madness. The message never even registered in his mind as his body of light writhed and distorted itself from pain.
But if he had read the message there would only be one question in Ed's mind, be careful of what!?