MTLNOVEL Chapter 141: [141] You Do Not Know What You Are
The ancient structures disgorged their dead. From the crumbling temple, a new wave of skeletal warriors poured into the market square, still clad in chainmail gone green with verdigris.
Unlike the shambling dead, these moved with purpose. They formed a cohesive line, their corroded blades held at a ready angle, their attacks coordinated. This was not a mob; it was a ghost of an army.
"Second wave incoming!" Xavier called out, his voice cutting through the chaos as he deflected a corroded blade with his dagger. The rusty metal screamed against ironwinter steel before he pivoted into a perfect riposte, driving his weapon through the gap where the guard-skeleton's gorget had rotted away. Vertebrae exploded in a shower of bone dust as his technique found its mark.
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The plaza had become a charnel house. Steel rang on bone. Crossbow bolts whistled past. The shouts of the living were a desperate counterpoint to the hollow clatter of skeletal jaws.
The defensive circle they'd formed was holding, but barely. Each fallen enemy seemed to summon two more from the shadows, an endless tide of bone and spite.
Xavier fell into the rhythm of combat, the world narrowing to a dance of death.
Dodge, parry, strike.
Each exchange fed power into his growing meter, the pink energy building steadily as muscle memory took over.
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"We need to break for the main road!" Ashley's voice cracked with strain as she absorbed another blow meant for one of the survivors, golden fractures spreading like lightning across her exposed skin. "Fighting withdrawal before we're completely surrounded!"
"Negative!" Xavier barked back, spinning away from a skeleton's desperate lunge and answering with a backhand strike that took its skull clean off. "That's exactly what our oversized friend up there wants! We scatter, we give it the advantage of choosing the battlefield!"
Even as the words left his mouth, Xavier saw the truth. Their defensive perimeter was shrinking, a noose tightening with every exhausted gasp. The line was failing.
Henrik's left arm hung useless at his side, blood seeping through his fingers from a ragged gash. Marta's breathing had become labored, her crossbow shots wide of their marks more often than not.
And still the Bonemarch Knight remained motionless upon its throne of black ice, that terrible patience radiating from its armored form like winter itself. Xavier could feel those empty sockets focused on him, cataloging every move, every technique, every weakness displayed in their desperate struggle.
The realization hit him like a physical blow. This wasn't about slaughter—not yet. This was reconnaissance. The ancient Knight was conducting a field assessment, measuring their capabilities against some unknown standard, judging if they were worthy of its direct intervention.
"It's evaluating us," Xavier said, the words tumbling out as understanding crystallized with terrible clarity.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Naomi's voice carried a sharp edge of panic as she pulverized another skeletal warrior, sending fragments of ancient bone spiraling through the frigid air like macabre confetti.
"The big bastard on the throne!" Xavier's breathing had grown ragged, each word punctuated by another desperate parry. "We're not in a battle. We're in a goddamn field test."
The metallic scrape of steel against stone sliced through the chaos. Xavier's head whipped toward the obsidian throne as the Bonemarch Knight rose to its full, terrible height.
The massive figure ascended. Ancient joints creaked like the settling of old cathedrals as it lifted the colossal black sword from its knees. The blade was a wound in reality itself—not reflecting the pale, filtered light but actively consuming it, drinking illumination into its hungry depths until nothing remained but absolute darkness given form.
"Oh, shit," Ashley breathed, her usual composure cracking like ice under pressure.
The Knight descended from its throne with the inexorable patience of geological time, each thunderous footfall sending seismic tremors through the frozen cobblestones. The lesser skeletons immediately began their retreat, bones clicking and chattering as they created a corridor of death between their ancient master and the embattled caravan.
Xavier felt his Input Buffer surge as raw adrenaline flooded his nervous system, his body recognizing what his mind still struggled to accept—this was the genuine article, the real confrontation. Everything that had come before had been mere preliminaries, a bloody overture to the symphony of destruction now about to begin.
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"Everyone get behind me," he commanded, brandishing his dagger with more confidence than he felt. The ironwinter steel seemed laughably inadequate compared to that mountain of a blade, but it was his tool, his weapon, his lifeline. "When I engage this thing, you run for the road and don't stop. Don't look back, don't hesitate—just run."
"Like hell we're abandoning you," Ashley declared, positioning herself at his left flank with the fluid grace of someone born to warfare.
"Not happening, pretty boy," Naomi added, claiming his right side despite the tremor in her voice.
The Bonemarch Knight maintained its relentless advance, each step measured with mechanical precision. Twenty yards became fifteen, fifteen became ten, and with each diminishing number, Xavier could perceive increasingly horrifying details about their opponent.
The creature's armor wasn't merely damaged or deteriorated—it had grown into the skeletal framework beneath, metal and calcium fused through some unholy alchemical process into a substance that defied the natural order. Neither fully living nor completely dead, it represented something far more disturbing than simple undeath. The ice helmet reflected nothing from the surrounding world, but through those empty sockets, Xavier caught glimpses of blue flames dancing where a living man's eyes belonged, cold fire that burned without warmth or comfort.
Five yards now. He could smell the grave-scent of ancient battlefields, feel the supernatural cold radiating from its impossible form.
The Knight raised its sword into a high guard position, the movement flowing with surprising elegance despite the weapon's obviously crushing weight. Xavier coiled his muscles, preparing to dodge the inevitable first strike while searching desperately for any exploitable opening.
But the attack never materialized.
Instead, the Knight spoke.
Its voice was winter incarnate—the sound of arctic wind howling through abandoned villages, of thick ice fracturing under tremendous pressure, of the final breath escaping dying lungs on a frozen battlefield. The words bypassed Xavier's ears entirely, vibrating directly through his skull like tuning forks struck against bone.
"You carry the scent of distant stars upon your flesh," it intoned, each syllable dropping like stones into still water. "And bear the weight of borrowed mortality. Tell me, little king—do you comprehend what you truly are?"
Xavier's chronic headache detonated into white-hot agony that threatened to split his skull like an overripe fruit. Images cascaded behind his eyes in a torrential flood—a cosmic wheel spinning through impossible geometries, cards crackling with divine energy that tasted of eternity, Calypso's face twisted with emotions he couldn't identify as she explained Divine Entanglement, a golden-eyed goddess speaking ancient Latin in a tent that violated the fundamental laws of reality.
The Bonemarch Knight tilted its helmeted head with predatory interest, studying Xavier's obvious distress through those burning azure flames.
"Ah," it continued, satisfaction bleeding through its sepulchral tones. "Understanding begins to dawn. The patterns achieve convergence. The game approaches its inevitable conclusion. But first..."
The massive sword descended like divine judgment made manifest.