It was tall and bulky. The white bones that it wore like an exoskeleton made it an intimidating existence. Its hollow sockets made darker by the bone that spared no area. Even its head was protected by bone.
It looked like a complete juggernaut, kitted out with bone-like armor.
"Prepare yourselves!" Kiano shouted not sure what else he could say. The team composition he created was not something he was accustomed to and most of them were from different squads to boot.
"Got it!" The magician shouted as he prepared to cast some buffs. These buffs were why he was chosen for Kiano's team as well as why he was able to keep up earlier.
The next person to react was the knight specialized in speed, she darted out like an arrow from a bowstring.
"Hey that's reckless!" The defense-centered one shouted. If anyone had to be ahead it was him. He was the only one that could try to tank the power of these… bone brutes.
While charging out in front of the tank was reckless, it was also not completely without reason. There were actually five of these new skeletons in the room ahead, and there were six of them. Even if someone tanked the first who would tank the second, third, and fourth?
No one would. So since they had the numbers advantage, though by only one, it might be good to take the initiative.
As for the five bone brutes in question... they had only now noticed the approaching threats. That was because the female knight came whizzing out of a nearby corridor. Unexpectedly, these brutes did not try to attack her right away. Rather…
"RAAWWR!!!!" The closest brute let out a deafening screech.
Ed had learned from lofty that adding multiple consciousnesses together without wiping their memories could result in magnified hatred for the living. This hatred seemed to innately turn into an intimidation skill that these brutes were now using.
The female knight flinched, her ears ringing slightly. This wasn't a mere killing intent-filled scream, it was more like a high pitch scream. That was because Ed had also extracted the screech from the centicrawlers and branded it into the brutes.
The mix of fear brought by the hatred and the disorientation of the screech resulted in a magnified effect. It wasn't just intimidation, it was direct suppression that caused the knight to become petrified on the spot.
Her face spoke of fear. But it was hidden behind a helmet. Nonetheless, the sudden flinching coupled with quivering was able to convey the message of fear all the same.
All the knights behind her also flinched but perhaps due to distance they were less affected by the deathly shriek.
""""RAAAAWRR""" Though that didn't really help when the remaining brutes strained their nonexistent vocal cords to let out some more ear-piercing screeches.
Suffering from four screams at once, all the knights present had practically gone deaf. Only the magician on the back remained somewhat unaffected as well as the archer.
One knight stumbled forward and others were seeing blurry. This meant that none of them noticed what was coming until they felt the vibrations coming from the ground.
"LEA!!!" The attack knight yelled for no one to hear after seeing the knight, Lea, suddenly get bodied by a hulking bone creature. The brute was like a bull crashing into a rag doll since Lea was launched backward.
"Aaah!" She screamed out of mere surprise. Fortunately, Kiano did not choose a bunch of pushovers. She quickly regained her wits and reinforced her body before crashing onto the ground. This resulted in her skidding back into the hallway right behind the defensive knight.
"Sh*t!" Kiano exclaimed having regained everything but his hearing. He was able to see two brutes line up next to each other neatly before charging forward with arms crossed.
Kiano had to charge forward and smack the defensive knight Mons right on the back of his head to snap him out of his daze.
"BRACE!" Kiano shouted knowing quite well no one could hear him. It was instinctual. He reinforced his lower body and protected his arm for the incoming collision. Upon contact, Kiano felt as if he got run over by a frenzied horse.
But having the strength of a horse was nothing when paired up against two B-class knights. The force which was sent into their bodies only pushed them back a couple of steps nothing more.
That was also when the attacking knight, Glaive, came from the side and jumped up. He slashed down at one of the brutes from above with his broadsword.
The attack pierced right into its thick skull causing some cracks to spread but not much more.
"These things have at least B-level defense!" Mons shouted now that most of them had regained their hearing. He tried attacking the brute with his sword while bracing with his shield but it turned out to be almost completely ineffective.
The reason was quite obvious too. Although bone was not that strong when compared to magic, it was different when layered on so thickly. Glaive's previous attack would have normally killed a skeleton with ease but for these bone brutes… the situation was not that easy.
"You are right, their attack isn't up to standard though" Kiano said before dodging a burly fist. He coated his blade with fire and slashed at the outstretched arm.
The brute without enough intelligence or battle experience took the attack without being able to do anything. A deep wedge was formed on its arm.
In conclusion, their speed was bottom of the barrel, their defense was B tier, and their attack depended on quite a variety of things. Their screech was deadly at first but if one was expecting it things might be different. They could just reinforce their ears in advance in that case.
The main reason it worked in the first place was that non-ghostly undead did not commonly use screams to stun opponents. The brutish appearance certainly didn't give anyone such an impression.
Outside of that, the bash could probably kill a C-class adventurer or at least immobilize them. C-class adventurers could not reinforce their bodies with mana after all. The impressive ones might be able to nail the landing after being sent flying, but there was no way they wouldn't break any bones.
Lea for example was only fine because their magician had cast a couple of buffs on her first. He had expected her to be the first to encounter the enemies and he had been right.
From then on, the battle was easy. Too easy almost. These things could not land a hit on them and whenever it screeched they were prepared. If someone wasn't, they were quickly protected.
This was an unusual composition, and they were unfamiliar with one another but they were still trained knights. Apart from the archer who really had no way to deal with these brutes everyone played their part.
"I really should have paid more attention in mana application class…" Muttered the archer while keeping a wary eye on the surroundings. He was delegated to watching for dangers as they whittled away at the brutes.
Their victory came quickly since these brutes made the mistake of charging after them into the hallway. But that left them with a feeling of uncertainty.
"Is this it?" Glaive asked not willing to believe that was all they had to face. But that was indeed it.
Ed who was peering in from another hallway was calculating what he needed to improve and what worked.
'They are perfect for their role' They had a powerful defense, well annoying defense, and were horrible at practically anything else.
These things would probably fall at top of the C-class. A B-class could break its joints with their mana-coated blades or powerful spells. But that was fine.
'For undead raids, they can be placed at the front to charge out' These bone brutes could serve no other purpose.
'Did you learn anything Hulk?' Ed had created multiple of these guys. Zephyr and friends had brought more enough bones for at least 8 brutes. Yet, Ed did not go ahead with that idea. He instead made a brute champion of sorts.
[Bone Shell]
{ A tough shell of bone. Can be used to make bone armor }
This brute champion had at least two layers of extra bone protection. That meant it was a head taller than himself and the brutes. Ed even gave Hulk a drop item that only had faint spirituality. Hulk had not been giving the opportunity to imprint his uniqueness into his body just yet.
But Hulk was not just tougher armor, that was an irrational change. The so-called champion would otherwise be hardly able to move. This was lessened by giving it a greater consciousness, but its speed would still be slower.
That was why Ed did not go all out with the armor and instead bestowed some good skills onto it.
'Blitz, tough exoskeleton, and metal body' The Blitz skill was an upgrade to the charge skill which Ed managed to pass on from the Millicrawler's <Thousand Legs> skill.
Tough exoskeleton unsurprisingly did not need to be changed when passing it onto a bone brute. Ed thought it was likely that even a regular skeleton might be able to acquire it.
As for metal body… Ed had to say he was simply amazed by the versatility of the skill. He was passing it onto practically everything. He could tell that the skill's effectiveness varied from each of these things but the active skill was still being passed on.
'Might be a difference between active and passive skills' It for example didn't make sense for someone to acquire a passive photosynthesis skill. If they got something like a solar beam skill though maybe when activated, the light of the sun gathered around naturally to form a beam.
In the case of metal body, the contextual difference was not that drastic but exaggeration often helped put things into perspective.
"Hey, what the hell is that?!" A voice suddenly exclaimed pointing towards Ed's direction. Hulk was pretty hard to hide even in an opposite corridor.
'Time to go…' Ed thought quickly storing the Bone Brute Champion. Everything had a time and place, Hulk would debut another day.
As Ed turned tail to tactically retreat, he was a bit surprised to find that the dungeon didn't give him a warning. Another thing that surprised him was the direction these would be adventurers came from.
'Did I not kill them all?' Ed was worried but he continued to run.