The Field of Skulls did not resemble a battlefield so much as it resembled the aftermath of a place of neverending carnage.

Bone lay everywhere.

Bones scattered and buried beneath the bonedust, not even partially contained. It was simply present, spread across the ground in layers that had been degraded and washed away by the wind and elements, suggesting centuries of accumulation rather than any single event. Some pieces were small enough to grind into powder beneath a boot. Others were long, curved fragments that jutted upward like broken pillars, half-buried and half-exposed, as if whatever once owned them had been too large for death to fully erase.

The air itself was tainted.

Every breath drawn into the lungs carried a dry, metallic bitterness that clung to the back of the throat. It was not just dust. It was older than mere dust.

It was weighty, like some strange thing broken down so completely, it had stopped being matter in any familiar sense and become a condition of the place itself.

Chaos bred in this land if bone and death.

Arthur moved at the front of the formation.

Behind him stretched more than a thousand survivors, though even that number no longer felt certain. The initial shock of the trial had already reduced them. Hundreds had fallen in the first chaotic minutes, their remains scattered across the bone field, some already half-buried under shifting dust and trampling feet. The survivors that remained were still moving, because stopping had already proven itself to be fatal.

The Wraiths came again.

There was no warning beyond the subtle change in pressure, the way the fog ahead seemed to thicken and then break outward as pale shapes forced their way through.

Arthur raised his blade with a grim chuckle falling from his lips.

The sword he carried was not ordinary steel. Its surface carried a silver sheen, but the true nature of it lay in the faint runic inscriptions along the fuller.

A Wraith broke through the fog at the front edge of the survivors.

Arthur did not hesitate.

He swung once.

A crescent of compressed blue energy tore forward from the arc of the strike, expanding rapidly as it traveled. It passed through the incoming Wraith without resistance, and then through the ones behind it, carving a clean path through the density of bodies that had just begun to form.

Dozens of Wraiths were erased in a single motion, their bodies split and scattered, collapsing into the bone dust below without sound.

The survivors behind Arthur surged forward instinctively, filling the gap before it could close.

Jacob moved beside them.

His waraxe was heavier than anything carried by the others. The metal was dark, almost burned in tone, and along its surface were embedded amber runes that pulsed faintly with each movement, as if responding to the violence of his swings.

A Wraith lunged toward the left flank of the formation.

Jacob stepped into it without turning his head.

The axe came down in a single motion.

The impact did not merely sever the creature. However, it did obliterated the structure of it. Bone and its strange fleshy covering collapsed inward under the force, scattering into fragments that skidded across the bone field like broken debris.

He stepped forward immediately into the space created by his strike, maintaining pressure so the formation did not stall.

Arthur's blade lifted again.

Another arc of blue energy tore forward, cutting through the fog and revealing, for a fraction of a second, the scale of what they were advancing through.

The Wraiths were not few.

Then the fog closed again.

Jacob's axe rose and fell once more. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Arthur exhaled through controlled breath.

The survivors behind them continued to move, stepping over bone, over remains, raising their blades to puncture through the undead in a wave of slaughter as well.

There was no ceremony to the dead.

There was only more death.

And more.

More.

More.

More blood.

Glassy eyes staring soulessly into the bleak heavens.

The field stretched endlessly in every direction, the only deviation in the landscape coming from the distant formations rising through the fog; massive bone ridges that curved upward like the remains of something impossibly large. They did not belong to any known creature, Arthur hoped.

Some believed them to be the very bones of gods and demons.

However,n that could no be known for certain.

Arthur's gaze drifted toward them briefly between strikes.

That direction remained consistent.

Jacob noticed it as well, though he said nothing about it.

The formation advanced, leaving behind a trail of blood.

The Wraiths seemed to adapt, shifting their approach, no longer rushing directly into the front line. Instead, they moved along angles, probing for weak points, testing the edges of the survivor cluster, attempting to fracture the cohesion of movement.

The Templar Candidates adjusted immediately. Spears and longswords shifted as they struck the hard bones of their enemies, grounding them to dust.

Arthur grunted as he charged ahead, his next strike slightly wider, covering more lateral space.

Blue energy expanded outward again, cutting off a flanking movement before it could fully develop.

Jacob rotated his stance and met a second wave head-on, axe splitting the incoming pressure with brutal efficiency.

The survivors pressed forward through the openings.

Those who could not fight stayed close to the center while those with weapons formed irregular edges that shifted constantly depending on where pressure appeared.

Arthur spoke without turning.

"This might be more difficult than I expected."

His tone remained controlled.

He glanced briefly toward Jacob.

"Are you up to the task?"

Jacob did not slow his movement.

Another strike. A Wraith dove over the defensive line. It's rotting jaw but into the neck of a man who screamed in agony and despair as the life was sucked right out of him, even as the Candidates beat the Wraith off.

Many more scenes like that continued to play out across their numbers even as they fled.

Jacob huffed,

"Let's hope we'll meet the others there," he said. "If not, then we continue on without them."

Arthur's expression tightened slightly, but he did not respond immediately.

The rhythm of combat continued uninterrupted.

Then Arthur asked the second question.

L