I continuously kept absorbing the mana in the air to fill what was being consumed by the walls.

Right now, it was manageable. My mana reserves were at full, but in the long term, it wouldn’t be wise to keep them on.

I closed the entrance to the walls I had just created, and then a dark pillar rose below me and lifted me up until I could see the other side clearly.

"Yawn~, you sure you don’t need help?" Ezio asked as he yawned inside his futon.

He had decided to sleep since I would be the one fighting alone.

"No. If I fail to keep them at bay, I’ll just run away." I said as I looked over to the other side. There was still no sight of the undead skeletons.

"Alright then, wake me up if anything comes up." Ezio didn’t speak to me after that.

When I looked behind, the man was already asleep.

Is that how nonchalant someone gets when they know that they are strong?

I wondered.

I turned around and looked up—the sun was already setting, and soon, night would be here.

So I waited patiently until night came.

After a bit of a long while, the night had arrived.

The cave was not as dark as I had expected because the moon was right above the hole in the ceiling, so the moonlight lit up the cave.

The moment night came, my strength and senses were boosted. If before my senses could expand 30 meters, now my senses could expand to 60 meters, which went past the bridge since it was 40 meters in length.

My eyes never left the tunnels from where the undead monsters would come—there were two of them, and they had used both to leave earlier.

The cave was quiet as the night—

"Snore~snore~"

—not quiet anymore because Ezio was snoring like a pig.

I just shook my head and kept my attention ahead.

At my will, five spears rose from the pillar below me, ready for me to throw them.

My plan was simple: try to kill as much as I could tonight before they break through my defense, and then I run away.

I wasn’t a fool. I knew I couldn’t face all of them at once—that was suicide.

It’s not like I hadn’t thought of pushing them off down to the abyss, but I couldn’t. That would be a waste of story fragments because they would take too long to reach the bottom, and most likely they would die unless they landed in a position that could break their core.

I was greedy, so what?

I needed those story fragments.

The undead skeletons still didn’t make their appearance, so I kept waiting patiently.

I pulled out a pocket watch from my pocket and checked the time.

[20:55]

"They should be coming at any time..." I murmured.

After a few minutes, I checked the watch again.

[21:00]

Once nine o’clock hit, my ears—which were very sensitive at the moment—picked up sounds coming from far away, from the tunnels.

It was the loud sound of bone rattling and clattering—they were coming.

I took a deep breath and locked in.

I grabbed a spear to my right and removed it from the pillar.

I pinned the spear in my hand just because, and then I aimed it towards the left tunnel, which was where the sounds were coming from.

The sound kept getting louder and louder while my grip on the spear tightened, ready to throw it at any time.

Come on bastards, show me your faces!

The first skeleton stepped out of the darkness of the tunnel and came into view—a spear was already tearing through the air with speed and headed towards the skeleton.

The undead monster didn’t have any time to react or try to move away, when a spear was already in front of its face.

The creature was sent flying back into the tunnel when the spear pierced its skull on impact.

Crack!

A loud crack sound echoed in the cave.

"I need to improve my aim."

I picked another spear.

The army of skeletons finally came out of the tunnel—at the front they had a row of seven tall skeletons holding shields made of both metal and wood, with spears in their other hands. In the middle, they had those that looked like warriors since they carried swords, and at the rear were skeletons with bows made of bones.

I pulled my hand back and threw another spear, leaving a streak of black. The spear was aimed at one of the skeletons carrying a bow, but one of the shield skeletons raised its shield and blocked the spear.

"Tsk." I clicked my tongue, and two more spears made of darkness rose from the pillar.

I had to take out the archers first because it would be a pain to try to block incoming arrows when I’m fighting the other skeletons.

Five black tentacles made of darkness came out of my back. I grabbed each spear and gave each tentacle one.

This was a more effective way to attack multiple enemies at the same time.

Then a bow made of darkness formed in my hand—a black arrow was already on it, so I pulled the string.

I infused a bit more mana into the spears and then commanded the tentacles to throw them.

The spears tore through the air with hissing sounds and descended upon the skeletons.

The skeletons raised their shields to block. The spears descended like meteorites, and when they came into contact with the shields, the skeletons were forced onto their knees from the impact that shook the ground.

Some of the shields were broken to pieces and pierced some of the skeletons. However, I didn’t receive any message confirming a kill, meaning that the skeletons had managed to protect their cores from getting destroyed.

It was fine—this was the opening I needed.

With that said, I aimed my bow up, pulled the string even harder, and then I let go.

The arrow shot up through the air and then fell down like a whisper, hitting one of the archers in the ribcage—the arrow pierced through the red crystal, which was its core.

A cracking sound came afterwards, and then the archer skeleton’s body turned to dust.

[You have slain a Low Greater Monster, Undead skeleton]

I had killed another one, but I didn’t get time to rejoice when the skeleton archers raised their bows and launched dozens of arrows towards me—each arrow with the power to kill an Ascendant with one hit to the heart.

Three arrows of darkness formed on the string of my bow. I pulled the string and then released it. The three arrows collided with three other arrows—destroying each other upon contact—while the rest came raining down on me.

My tentacles rose on my command and launched up, parrying and blocking each arrow.

However, some of them had pierced my tentacles, and I felt a weird energy spreading inside my tentacles and heading towards my body at a fast speed.

It was a curse of energy.

Before it could spread further, my katana came flashing down and sliced the tentacle off.

"Phew, that was close." I sighed in relief.

When I looked back to the front, about ten skeletons separated from the army and instead of walking started running like living people towards me.

The real assault was about to begin now.