Chapter 267 Weakness

Jay was lying on a mound of roots, hiding among them as he stared at the patrolling knights, trying to find patterns as they marched around the outer settlement below the grand castle.

Blue lay next to him, also taking in the sight and receiving a lesson while Jay whispered to himself; its privilege as an aspiring commander of Jays future army.

“Hmm… there’s no way to sneak in, not with these roots covering and flattening everything, but luring them out would give away our presence. Plus, after killing a few, the intelligent ones will probably catch on quickly and only send larger forces out. There has to be a better way than to use the skeletons to bait them out.”

Blue glanced at Jay, perhaps not happy that it may be pathetically used as bait, though as a commander it would probably use such a strategy at some point.

As Jay looked across the empty, root-covered land, his eyes caught a glimpse of something, and with the gaze of a predator, his lips curled into a smile.

“Why make a new plan...” Jay thought as his eyes locked onto another pulsating root in the distance.

Looking around, he soon spotted another one too.

“Leaving these roots everywhere, they have kind of fucked themselves. Surely they won’t be surprised if I take advantage of that?” he grinned.

Jay first retreated further away, out of sight of the castle before marching towards the next root, while pondering about what happened the last time he cut one.

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“I wonder if they send seventeen knights next time… was it simply random chance that they were split into manageable groups of ten and seven?” Jay wondered.

For now he could only hope; if the enemy was a group of seventeen, Jay would have no choice but to retreat.

There was a chance they would send more this time - or perhaps none at all, as two of their roots being cut may be too suspicious.

Jay and the skeletons arrived at the pulsing root, but instead of cutting it, Jay decided to follow it, heading back into the forest.

“Cutting it now wouldn’t lure the knights far enough.” He shrugged.

If the knights found the cut part of the root this close to the castle, there would of course be no need to go further, and slaying them so close to the castle would only be foolish.

“Plus, at the end of the root there will likely be a small group of knights to kill. Easy exp.” He nodded.

It was a safer strategy with some benefits, but would take more time - however if a riskier strategy failed then Jay’s time spent in this dungeon would skyrocket.

Sometimes the safer way would be the fastest.

Jay made it to the flesh-root; it was pulsing slowly, a disgusting squelching sound as it pumped human fluids within.

Lamp, again, was sent ahead as the party marched along. This root was much longer than the other one, as an hour passed before Jay sensed that Lamp stopped again, finding the end of the flesh-root.

The sun was already starting to go down on the second day spent in this barren dungeon, yet there was no stopping - Jay could no stop. There would be no time for rest tonight.

Since the first root Jay had cut will not be fixed anytime soon, and the knights would soon catch on, it was just a matter of time before he lost the element of surprise.

From the moment he cut it, he had to act as fast and decisively as possible.

Jay pressed on and persevered, soon coming to another tower, standing tall over another pit.

Three knights were outside; two around the pit and another at the tower’s entrance.

The tower itself seemed to be in a much better condition than the other one Jay had seen, and oddly, there were barricades around its broken entrance.

A few suits of rusted armor lay at the base, stripped off the corpses which had undoubtedly been thrown into the pit.

Jay looked over the remains, “A fight had happened here, probably a long time ago by the looks of it, but it seems that the parasite-infested knights won in the end…”

While there were only three knights, Jay had his skeletons move into position to assassinate them as covertly as possible, though Red had a special mission.

Red’s mission? To ignore the knight near the tower and stand its ground at the tower entrance, bolstering itself with its new shield and bracing against whatever may rush out; it was a timeless tactic Jay often employed.

Lamp was the quietest skeleton of them all, not having any armor, while its bone clicks were muffled by its skin suit, so it was tasked with silencing the knight standing by the tower.

As for the other two knights at the pit, Blue and Sweeper handled one knight, while Handy handled the other.

Jay loved watching how the skeletons signaled to begin an ambush, as they did it without a sound. No one shouting ‘attack’, it simply happened.

The enemy would perhaps hear the clink of a bone or the piercing ring of a sword, but it would always be too late.

[115 Exp][115 Exp]

Two enemies dropped without a fight, the skeletons offering no hesitation.

Of all the skeletons, Handy’s strategy seemed the most intriguing, and Jay was wanting to see its new sword in action - yet it didn’t make use of it at all.

“Perhaps it’s too honorable to use its sword for assassination?” he guessed with a smile, “just champion things…”

Instead of sullying its sword, Handy had simply ran at the knight and spear-kicked it into the pit.

Jay couldn’t hear it’s struggle and neither could he see what was happening in the pit, and Handy remained at the edge to make sure its victim died.

Blue, Lamp and Sweeper rushed behind Red after loud clangs and thumps were coming from its shield.

There were enemies inside the tower - but how many?

Each hit sent Red backwards slightly, its bone feet scraping against the stone, but it had successfully blocked the entrance. The enemies outside were dead, the enemies inside the trapped, sealed into their final resting place - of course they fought back with all the strength they had.

With the other skeletons at Red’s back, it was now braced and no longer inched backwards - instead together they all pushed together, forwards into the tower.

A fight broke out inside, and Jay couldn’t see what was happening - but unless a skeleton fell, Jay wasn’t worried in the slightest.

“The odds are in their favor anyway. The knights won’t make good fighters in such a tight area… plus, they can’t make it past Red”

Red remained at the entrance while the other skeletons caused havoc inside the tower. Rings of swords, thuds of steel and falling armor soon sounded while Jay confidently emerged from the cover of the forest, the perpetrator of all this death.

Jay walked to Handy’s side and watched from the edge of the pit. The soldier it kicked in had been consumed, swallowed whole by one of the flesh-like flowers, so it was just a matter of time before it died.

Jay glanced at the tower next, and its sounds of fighting grew quieter as the enemies within were slain.

[115 Exp][115 Exp][115 Exp]

The skeletons were ascending the stairs now, but Jay decided to wait outside and simply see what they would bring back.