Chapter 204 Rear Vanguard 2

After another command, the skeletons retrieved their original weapons again and Jay had them perform another duty. A new one – one they may someday become familiar with.

Blue stood idly by as the other skeletons stretched the lizard carcass across a rock.

Blue didn’t do the dirty work itself, but had Dark do the dirty work in cutting off the creature’s head.

Such was Blue’s nature to delegate tasks to others, and perhaps it would be Dark’s nature to perform executions.

Contrary to Jay’s expectation, Dark’s daggers were quickly inserted, piercing its skin with ease. A small splash of blood splattered some of the mountain rocks, and with a circular twisting motion the head was separated.

A headless tailless lizard body sat on the rock, blood streaming down, making it seem like a cultic ritual.

With the head chopped off, Dark also carried out the next phase of the plan: Use the head to go and pick off some of the red mushroom fruits.

Jay stood up and walked closer to the sand, watching closely. He was counting on this working to cross the desert – otherwise he would have to backtrack or keep walking along the endless mountain range, living off lizard meat and sending skeletons up the cliffs for ice.

As the jaws of the dead lizard-like creature were clamped onto the red fruit, it coincidentally didn’t explode in an unnatural burst of growth – something in the lizards saliva made the fruit harmlessly pop off.

Jay nodded with a smile, seeing his plan come to fruition, and glad that he found a way across.

Dark easily pulled the fruit off, using the lizards jaws as a sort of clamp.

“Good.” Jay smiled.

With that done, Dark dropped the fruit harmlessly onto the ground.

“Now…” Jay gazed closely at it, wondering what it tasted like… tempted for just a moment.

… “No, resist the forbidden fruit.”

Jay decided to have Lamp come and grab the fruit to see if it was still active. He probably wouldn’t eat it, but was simply curious. Mostly.

Perhaps he may change his mind depending on what the fruit did.

Lamp was here to serve its master, so without hesitation it grabbed the fruit.

Suddenly, the fruit burst with juices, and like before, it had unnatural growth as it covered the skeleton’s hand in a red growing mold which quickly became solid.

“Eugh…” Jay grimaced a little, imagining that happening in his throat or mouth.

Needless to say being suffocated by a fruit would be a pretty pathetic way to die, especially after all the powerful monsters he had slain.

Jay pursed his lips with a shrug, “Oh well.” His desire to eat it quickly died. Mostly.

He then had another skeleton chop off Lamp’s hand and gave it some extra bones to consume, then tried to extract the bones out of the solid red mold – to no avail.

It seems the fruit somehow grew right into the bones and melded with them.

The mold-covered bones were as good as trash now, so Jay simply tossed it into the desert.

“Looks like we’ll need more fruit cutters.” Jay said as he had the skeletons begin to gather another two heads of the strange lizards and repeat the process – the other lizards they killed previously couldn’t be found, but thankfully there were plenty of these creatures around as they were still shifting the sands, so getting more wasn’t a problem.

It only took a few moments, and two more headless lizard bodies were covering the rocks with more blood, forming an eerie display.

Finding a mauled corpse in the wilderness was one thing but finding three headless bodies was something else – it was either a sign of a dark ritual, or a message, and in both cases it meant one thing: Beware. Do not go this way.

In the dry mountain air the blood dried quickly after the headless creatures were drained.

Jay carried on happily however, oblivious to the greusome message he left behind.

With three of these heads in total, he was ready to start cutting a way across the desert, but he still had one concern: were there enemies waiting for him on the other side, lurking in the forest?

Feeling a little paranoid as he usually was, Jay decided to send his skeletons across the desert by themselves first while he waited on his throne which was set up on the side of the mountain.

Of course, he didn’t send Red either as he needed his guard. He also decided not to send Heavy across either as it would have a hard time dodging the red fruits in its thick armour, not to mention trudging through the sand where it would sink more deeply.

The skeletons entered the desert, and before cutting they made it about thirty percent of the way across, weaving between mushrooms before they had to start cutting away the fruits. The mushrooms were more dense in the middle of the desert, and almost overlapped each other. They formed a curtain of hanging tendrils, each with a red fruit on the end.

Unlike the mushrooms on the outside, near the forest and the mountain, the ones at the centre were also much taller, about thrice the size of the smallest ones, so Jay couldn’t simply walk on top of them.

He wouldn’t have trusted them anyway. If they decided to fold up and he touched a fruit, it would either result in a painful amputation or death.

The hidden carnivorous nature of the mushrooms couldn’t be understated. In the depths of the sands were an untold number of skeletons, and more were added to their number each day. They had claimed a multitude of souls, luring creatures in with their succulent-looking fruit, and had covered the desert for as far as Jay could see.

Cutting away the fruit was a slow process as the skeletons only had three lizard heads, and there were hundreds of the red fruit on each mushroom – though they would only need to remove the ones around the outside of each mushroom and slip by at least.

Jay would have made more skeletons cut the fruit away, but he wanted some to be lookouts and remain vigilant for threats.

As Jay watched, he began to remember when he first came to the desert, and when the sun rose, the mushrooms slowly rose too, revealing themselves from the sand. When he first saw them, they responded to his movement and hid themselves in the sand, but after they opened they seemed to not care.

“Maybe the tops are the weak point?” he scratched his chin, looking across the desert.

Testing his theory, he had a skeleton jump onto a mushroom to stab it. He had nothing else to do anyway.

Red stood next to a mushroom and helped Dark to stand up; a relatively easy process.

Once Dark was on top, it carried out its mission: stab the mushroom mercilessly.

*Clink!~*

After the first strike, all three of them realised it was poontless: the top was as hard as stone – perhaps even harder since the dagger helplessly bounce off.

“Damn. It was worth a try. I guess it solidified in the sunlight.” He shrugged.

Another thing Jay was curious about was where the underground lizards were taking all the mushroom fruits, and, what were they doing with them?

Seeing the large quantities of fruit being harvested, he began to doubt it was merely being stored as food.

Dark jumped off the mushroom and followed the lizard trails back to another rocky burrow.

The sand was filled with more pebbles here and it seemed that it made it harder to dig through, and once the creatures were inside the burrow, they walked on top of the earth, assuming they were safe.

Unfortunately, the burrow was too dark to see inside, but it was no problem for the eyes of the undead. Jay used the [Host] skill as Dark crawled onto its knees and peered inside.

As soon as Jay peered into the darkness he regretted his decision.

Immediately, Jay wished he hadn’t seen this greusome sight.

There was a larger creature inside, similar to the lizard-like ones except without any arms or legs. It seemed more like a slug. Pulsing along its body were puss-filled sacks of white and red, while it crunched on some vile secretion. This lizard had a tail though; it was pumping as it was in peristalsis, and finally a large egg was squeezed out of its fleshy tail.

Of course, it still had the side-ways jaws with multiple small noses on either side, so it was related to the lizards in some way.

Compared to the others though, it was many times larger. It probably wouldn’t even be able to leave this rocky burrow. The smaller lizards, if rolled into a ball, were about the size of human babies – though this thing was about the size of a plump cow.

It laid lazily on its bloated belly as its jaws slowly opened and closed with drool as it waited for its next snack.

But what was it waiting for? The red fruit?

If only it were that simple.

Eating the red fruit by themselves was impossible, even for these lizards.

Before it, as if it was some kind of show or spectacle, or even a barbaric ritual, a smaller lizard waited. Shivering before its maker.

Meanwhile, many other lizards were bringing the red fruits into the cave, however there was no stockpile here – only the shivering lizard in the middleand the fat queen slug.

One by one, a red fruit was brought to the smaller lizard, and placed on its body. The red fruits would burst and send a growth of red solid mould over its skin as the creature cooed and twitched helplessly from the pain.

The other lizards worked quickly as they added more fruit, and in no time, the creature slowly began to resemble a red rock as all of its body was covered.

The lizard died but the vile fruit was ready to consume, seasoned with blood.

Jay thought it seemed almost like an evil ritual or perhaps some witches spell, but as he watched on, he realised it was quite different, although just as wretched.

The large bloated lizard rolled forward, and after a few sniffs, it began to clamp its jaws onto the red rock and break off chunks.

This was the most grotesque part, as the red fruit rock had a soft inner core: lizard flesh. Sometimes the red rock would tear away chunks of flesh with it; as it shattered, so did the creature it encased.

While the queen was feeding, the other lizards would covertly crawl up to her with their mouths open – the puss filled sacks on the queen would grow and burst on their faces, their open jaws receiving a snack as well as a thick coating of the disgusting sticky liquid.

Jay had seen enough. He ended the host skill with a disgusted look on his face, holding back the urge to vomit.

He folded his arms and looked back at the skeletons in the desert, and said “I should have just sat here and watched the skeletons… some things cannot be unseen…” he shivered for a moment as he instantly recalled it.

“I just had to have a damn look…” He shook his head.

Shortly after, his eyes drifted back to the skittering movements of sand going in and out of the burrows all along the desert; a shiver trailing up his spine.

“How many of these fucking things are there?