Chapter 263 Test Two

Jay began the autopsy of the intelligent two-handed swordsman knight.

Sweeper had already ripped its helmet off as it frantically stabbed its neck, and seeing what was underneath had made Jay curious.

The head did not have sunken eyes and the flesh was not gray and decaying. If anything, the enemy looked quite healthy, having plump cheeks - though they were not rosy, but a pale green color.

? His blood had since been replaced by whatever green fluid sustained these creatures.

Jay believed they could even speak and communicate to some degree, as these knights, apparently, had a deal with the cannibals.

During the fight, Jay had planned to use his analyze skill on one, though there was either no time or they were too far away.

“The head’s nearly removed anyway, so we might as well pop it off…”

Jay stepped back, out of the firing range of stray fluids.

N0 v el Next. CoM

(Remove the head.) He ordered, not interested in doing the dirty work himself - and why would he when he has underlings?

As the head came off, Jay noticed there was still a centipede-like parasite residing in the spine, but it appeared much thicker.

(Pull it out.)

Handy lightly grabbed the creature from the decapitated head of the knight and Jay’s interest was piqued.

“I see… unlike the other knights, the parasite is the right way up? That’s probably why there’s still blood flow to the human’s head… well, nutrient flow.” Jay scratched his chin.

“Probably why the knight was smarter too. The parasite must be able to use its brain somehow. I bet this one could speak too.”

Jay had noticed a few other details about this knight too: there was no wriggling parasites in its blood, and after further investigation he found there were no eggs in its lungs either.

While its body contained the same parasite, it was used for different purposes.

“The other knights must have been like egg storage or breeders; their spinal parasites are upside down so they can focus on and tend to the eggs in the abdomen before spreading them to others. This intelligent knight must be more of a protector or a fighter… or a thinker?” Jay pondered.

“I suppose that’s also why it could use two hands - it’s other arm hasn’t been morphed into a delicate egg-implanting tube.” Jay patted his stomach, reassuring himself that there was no broken skin.

“It’s probably not as smart as a human though. I mean, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that the source of the skeletons is me, so it’s no wonder it went for me. I just need to be more careful… maybe it’s time I put that mass summoning skill to use.”

The skill Jay was speaking about was the skill which allowed him to leave a physical pool of necrotic mana within a pile a bones; skeletons would endlessly raise from it as long as either the bones or mana didn’t run out.

He could simply set and forget it while hiding in another part of the forest.

Jay also had the option of simply having the skeletons run away from his location before rejoining the battle, but while an elegantly simple solution, Jay desired to test this new ability.

Looking around, Jay first decided to loot the corpses - however, Blue interrupted him again.

Blue stood infront of him and pointed deeper into the safety of the forest.

“Oh, not now?” Jay frowned.

Blue pointed further into the forest again, and in a few moments Jay heard the familiar sounds of clunking armor.

“Ah, I’ll loot them later…”

Jay quickly gathered the bones around and waved his hand over the intelligent knight’s corpse, looting it without looking at what he got as he walked deeper into the forest.

“So… this must be why Blue had the skeletons all attack as quickly as possible instead of getting into a sneak attack position - there were more coming. Dammit.”

At the start of the fight with the seven knights they had since slain, Blue had all the skeletons instantly attack, and Jay had been wondering why until now.

It turns out that Lamp had scouted the first batch of seven knights coming, but following them were a second group - and by the sounds of the armor, a larger one.

The skeletons lined up at the edge of the tree-line, this time preparing for an ambush - yet as Jay looked along the root they had been following he soon saw the group of enemies.

Ten knights, two of them intelligent.

“A bit too much to handle… at least without too much risk.” Jay thought.

Blue had prepared an ambush for them this time, but seeing how many there were, Jay decided to take command.

(Fall back. They’ll go on guard once they find their comrades dead bodies, and the sneak attack will fail. We’ll just have to wait and see what they do… plus, there are other tactics we can try.)

When giving the order Jay explained part of his reasoning, not sure if Blue had realized that the ambush wouldn’t be too successful.

Nove l B(in).C OM

Nevertheless, Blue accepted Jay’s orders without hesitation like it always did, and the skeletons all slipped deeper into the forest before the knights came too close.

Jay made sure to keep himself much deeper in the forest this time, only barely seeing the dead knights through the gaps between the trees.

As the knights entered the area, they suddenly stopped marching as they saw the corpses, and readied their weapons before assembling themselves into a semi-circle formation.

Two intelligent variants at the back moved to the front of the formation. First they inspected the surroundings, but seeing the quiet forest they began to check the corpses.

One was using another two-handed sword, while the other wielded a sword and shield.

The shield had symbols on it for the number two (II), and were faded to a light blue color - but other than that, Jay couldn’t make out much else because of its heavy rust.

While Jay had the option to run, it would have made things harder in the long term for a few reasons. If any of the knights made it back to their army, all of the knights would be alert and had their defenses ready - they would also realizing that seven knights were not enough to win - meaning that Jay would have to fight larger groups of enemies.

They had already sent two groups of knights, seventeen in total to investigate, but it was hard to determine how many were waiting deeper in the knight territory. Jay assumed that they were sent in two different groups as the first seven gathered much more quickly than the second group of ten - or perhaps it was merely a scouting or vanguard force. Maybe the group of ten were there to restore the underground corpse-eating plants, while the first seven were the guards?

Either way, Jay couldn’t be sure - and neither did it matter very much. All he was sure of was that they had to die, and he would not let them return to the knight headquarters.

Jay quickly sent Lamp to scout, seeing if there were more groups of knights coming or not, and he knew Blue would warm him if there was, if Lamp found any.

In the meantime, he positioned the rest of his skeletons on the other side of the knights, the opposite side of the forest. All skeletons left except Red who he kept as protection.

While waiting for them to get into position, he devised a new tactic for the skeletons to use.

(Blue, send Handy out of hiding and make sure the knights see before having Handy run back to you. Ambush the ones that come to investigate without the other knights seeing you slay them. If all the knights follow Handy, go deeper into the forest and remain hidden, then try again.)

It was a simple tactic, using Handy as bait to lure a handful of knights to their deaths, and Jay wasn’t sure if they would fall for it. Naturally, a commander would send a scout or two to investigate, or at least that was what Jay thought he would do if the situation was reversed.

Jay hid with Red on the opposite side of the knights as he waited for the plan to go into action.

Eight of the knights were in a semi-circle formation while the two intelligent ones were still investigating the corpses of their kin. They had not found the intelligent knight’s corpse yet, so perhaps they were hoping it would come back and report what had happened eventually.

After all, this group of ten knights were only marching about ten to twenty minutes behind - surely their brethren weren’t decimated that quickly? Surely some would still be alive?

Suddenly there was movement on the edge of the forest. Ashen white sticks all mixed and moving together as one with a large white dome - a skeleton had appeared.

Of course, the parasites had seen nothing like it.