Chapter 258 Living Armory

Jay decided to leave with his skeletons, marching towards Handy who was still following the other three knights.

As they traveled, Jay placed Blue in command of the formation. Immediately, the skeletons began to move, as Blue kept Sweeper at the rear, Red as Jay’s body guard, and Lamp was sent forward as a scout.

Blue itself marched at Jay’s other side, which was fitting of the second in command.

A few hours later, Jay sensed that Handy had finally stopped.

“Good,” Jay thought, “not long now.”

It was nice for Jay, having his skeletons handle everything while he walked. He was still trying to figure out what the quest to save the innocent meant, and how it connected to the [Needle of the Starved], but couldn’t figure it out, thinking he would probably discover more clues in the knight’s territory.

The party crept through the forest towards Handy - yet as they got closer, Jay sensed Handy moving again, going somewhere to the right of where the party was heading.

“Hmm?”

As the forward scout Lamp was further ahead, and moved to the right too. This was when Blue did something strange.

Blue turned to face Jay and stood in front of him. Raising its sword, it pointed to the forest.

“Hm?” Jay grinned, interested in the skeleton - yet he decided to play along.

Of all the things Jay expected to happen, getting a direction from one of his skeletons was the last of them.

Something about it made him feel both pride and safety, and there was something comforting knowing his minions could possess such foresight and judgment.

Yes, slowly, they were getting smarter, which in turn would make them all the more dangerous - and protective.

Jay kept walking, as did his skeletons. He already guessed what was happening - and what he soon saw confirmed it.

The three knights were coming back, yet with four more following behind.

“Probably more gatherers to collect the cannibals. I guess Blue decided to avoid them.” Jay nodded approvingly, giving a proud glance to Blue.

Of course, Jay had other plans, and he wanted the exp.

(Slay them all) Jay ordered.

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The four skeletons gathered, creeping through the forest and sneaking ever closer to the four knights from the back.

Then, without a sound, they all dashed forwards in sync.

Jay was impressed how they had no verbal signal to attack, no one to yell ‘now!’. It seemed like a small thing, but the enemy had no warning at all, no time to prepare.

None of the knights even turned around as the blades each slipped through their armor.

The first four knights dropped to their knees and fell forwards, dead as soon as their spines were severed.

All four skeletons killed them in one swift movement.

Their practice of stabbing through the armor had paid off as they died without realizing.

The three knights leading them turned around as they heard the crash of the armors fall behind them, drawing their swords.

Each of them lurched at the skeletons with a slash, but the skeletons simply toyed with them, falling back.

It was four versus three, so they simply had to play defensively while the fourth skeleton made attacks of opportunity.

The fight didn’t last long, and each strike or slash only served to make the skeletons better fighters; their battle knowledge grew as did their minds.

Red even managed to kill a knight without any help, driving its sword deep enough into the knight’s stomach to sever its spine, destroying the worm dwelling inside.

[805 Exp]

Seven easy kills.

“Damn, pretty good exp for such easy kills,” Jay smiled.

He nearly received one thousand exp in the space of a few minutes; It was unimaginable to other adventurers at his level.

Not to mention that in the real world, only as much as thirty seconds would have passed.

This would have been a hard fight for normal people too, who would have to contend with the risk of getting their guts filled with eggs, only to then be consumed by parasites.

Yet it was not a threat to the undead.

The skeletons took the initiative to sever the knight’s heads, and then rattled their swords inside their bodies, killing most of the eggs residing in the lungs, then stepping on anything which wriggled out through the green blood.

Jay waited a moment for the skeletons to finish before he left his hiding place between some trees, moving in to loot the bodies.

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Waving his hand over them, he gained a few new armor pieces.

<[Squire’s Chestplate]>

[Common]

[22 Armor]

<[Squire’s Gauntlet]>

[Common]

[10 Armor]

“Nice, a chest piece.” Jay nodded.

He had some difficulty crafting just one basic chest piece for Heavy, while the intricacies of gauntlets were also too hard to make from bone, so the loot were welcome additions to his living armory.

Jay brought it out of his inventory, and to his surprise, it wasn’t rusted like the knight's armor was.

It had a silver-gray luster, with additional pauldrons for extra shoulder protection - each of them having guards to block the neck from decapitation.

“Hmm, the only downside is that their armor won’t regenerate since it isn’t made from bone, but I’m not complaining. It’s a welcome addition.”

Jay decided to equip Red some more.

Red was his bodyguard so it was better to make it a little more armored, allowing it to hold off enemies while its master summoned reinforcements.

So far, Red had two silver-gray gauntlets, spectral vambraces covering its lower arms, silver-gray shoulder pauldrons connected to its chest piece, a barbute bone helmet, and two spectral greaves.

Jay looked over it, noting what it still needed.

“Just need some boots, pants, upper arm and upper leg armor.” he scratched his chin, analyzing the skeleton.

“Maybe something to cover the arm joints and knees would be good too, as well as the neck area.”

p Jay didn’t know the specific names of some of the armor pieces, but to him it really didn’t matter. As long as they worked, it was good enough.

“Hopefully we can get more of you equipped before leaving this dungeon.” he said, moving towards Handy who was deeper into the knight’s territory.

Handy had ceased moving, indicating that it was near an inhabited area.

“Seems like we’ll get plenty more chances to get armored up.” Jay thought, anticipating the coming battle.