The soldier's corpse beneath him spasmed briefly, nerves firing off the last desperate commands from its brain before getting decapitated, then went slack after a few seconds.
*[Human Lv 11] has been slain – XP has been given.*
Panting heavily, Deacon's gaze remained fixed on the soldier's corpse as he staggered to his feet, chest heaving, his throat still burning where the man's fingers had nearly crushed it.
The clang of swords nearby him snapped him from his thought as he was forced to remember that he was in a war and not a one-on-one battle. With that realization hitting him, he barely had a second for his ears to register the sound of pounding hooves heading towards him.
His delayed reaction to the pounding hooves cost him, as by the time his head snapped to the right, a shadow was already blurring past in front of him.
As the rider of the horse thundered straight at him, he could see the very same insignia the soldier had embroidered onto his leather chest armor, draped atop the horse's body and atop the centerpiece of the chestplate of the knight.
"By radiance of dawn and sorrow of dusk, bless my blade – Sanctify Armament!" the knight clad in steel plate shouted with blazing eyes as her longsword began glowing bright gold. Her free hand shot to her visor and closed it shut as she raised her longsword to level with his head and commanded her steed to trample him. "Die, you undead scum!"
Deacon's instincts kicked in before he could properly think of a plan of action as the knight and horse were less than ten meters away from him and would eventually reach him in a second, maybe two if he was lucky.
Going purely on instinct, he dove sideways, landing hard atop the corpse of a disemboweled vampire soldier. Just in time, as a spray of bloodied mud burst into the air as the knight's blade crashed down into the spot he'd been a heartbeat before.
He rolled harshly atop the disemboweled vampire's corpse before landing in a crouch atop a corpseless patch of mud, whereupon crouching upright, his right hand plunged into his Spatial Sling Bag.
His fingers closed tight around Echoform Reliquary's newest form; Crowbar – the very same weapon he used to break the knees and pummel the creatures he and his Party sacrificed for their Lesser Heart-Fire buffs.
Item Name: Echoform Reliquary
Type: Weapon
Rarity: Artifact
Description:
Forged from Livingwood, Echoform Reliquary can shift between multiple forms stored within, seamlessly in response to the wielder's intent. Currently, it is made out of Tier 1 Inconel-Tungsten. The Echoform Reliquary is designed to accept upgrades, allowing stronger materials to improve its durability and additional forms to improve its combat effectiveness.
Current Forms (3/3):
▸ Form I: [Broadsword]
▸ Form II: [Dual Short Swords]
▸ Form III: [Crowbar]
Effects: Soulbound, Self-Repair & Swap Form.
Current Material: Tier 1 Inconel-Tungsten
Material Upgrade Requirements: Tier 1 Damascus Steel
Materials needed to increase the Number of Forms: Tier 1 Artifacts x4
Requirements: Humanoid.
While Murdren had made two crates of Damascus Steel ingots not long after he'd left, due to how long he spent climbing up to Floor Five, his supply already went dry as it was quickly purchased by others.
Learning from that mistake, Deacon put aside a portion of Damascus Steel from Murdren and scheduled an appointment with him to upgrade Echoform Reliquary a week from now.
The knight wheeled her horse around to face Deacon again, flicking her blade to the side to shake off the mud and blood that coated it. With a sharp command, she sent her steed charging at the traitorous undead human once more – but Deacon was already moving, legs pumping him forward in a low sprint. As he ran, his eyes locked on the rhythm of the horse's gallop, barreling toward him and trampling the scattered corpses of humans and undead across the battlefield.
With a sudden kick of the ground from the side, Deacon was out of the way of the horse and knight, but his crowbar was not – with a brutal upswing, he slammed the crowbar across the horse's front right knee with all the might he could muster with his 106 Strength stat.
A wet crack split the air as metal struck bone, and in one fluid motion; bone snapped, sinew tore, and the horse screamed, pitching violently as its leg folded beneath. The rider shouted, armor clattering as she lost her seat. Horse and knight crashed down – momentum driving them deep into the bloodied, corpse-filled mud.
The knight tried to pull herself free, but her left leg was still caught in the stirrup, pinned beneath the weight of her broken-legged steed, whose face was buried beneath mud and violently thrashing around while producing agonizing neighs.
Her gauntleted hands scrabbled at the leather strap, panic flashing in her eyes as she searched for her longsword, as she saw Deacon's eyes lock onto her own.
Scrambling to find it and coming up empty, the downed knight grabbed a hold of a blade that pierced and pinned down the body of a human soldier and defiantly held it up.
Echoform shifted in his grip, stretching, reshaping until it transformed into its Broadsword form.
The knight lifted her newly gained blade weakly to parry, her arm trembling under the weight of her trapped body. Deacon's strike came down like an executioner's axe as Inconel-Tungsten bit through her blade's steel like it was butter.
And like an executioner's axe, her armored head toppled from her shoulders and hit the mud. Blood geysered across Deacon's front while her body began convulsing beneath the thrashing horse.
*[Human Lv 12] has been slain – XP has been given.*
Wiping the blood from out of his eyes with the back of his palm, Deacon yanked Echoform Reliquary free from the mud it sank in and rested it atop his shoulder.
"F-Fuck me," Deacon coughed out as he took in deep breaths while now beginning to scour the battlefield for signs of his friends. "That's o-one warm ass wel-come."
Brushing aside the bloodied corpses of humans and undead alike strewn across the churned earth, tuning out the distant clash of steel on steel, and swinging his blade at anyone who came too close, he eventually spotted the familiar shapes of his friends—each of them looking unscathed, unlike himself, but surrounded by a corpse or three.
"Fall i-in!" he barked out, his voice hoarse and thick with lingering pain from almost being choked out. He winced mid-shout as his bruised and bloodied throat protested, and coughed violently. In response, the Party began converging toward him with haste, cutting through the lingering remains of human soldiers that stood in their path to their friend and leader.
Managing to put a stopper to his coughs, Deacon's eyes flicked to a white-and-gold heater shield by his feet, the sun insignia gleaming faintly despite the blood and mud.
… what's it with people who symbolize the sun and them wanting to kill me, Deacon thought to himself. First, the Huitzilopochtli fucks, now these people… if the next group of people who have a hard on for me symbolize the sun in any way then…
"You… okay?" Sam asked cautiously, stepping closer. His gaze lingered on the deep blue and bloodied bruises and finger-like punctures lining Deacon's throat.
"Ye–ah" Deacon replied, wincing as pain flared anew when Bonehead's skeletal hands, slick with sludge-like ointment, began working over his neck.
"Easy, now," Bonehead muttered as Jass went around and cut the head off the horse to end its suffering. "This is just numbing and sealant ointment. It won't heal anything by itself, but a Healing or Health Potion right now would be dumb—considering we just stepped onto Floor Six."
*[Horse Lv 12] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*
Deacon nodded, letting Bonehead carefully wrap the ointment with plain bandages, the undead hands moving with precise, practiced efficiency.
"When you do use a potion, the ointment will slide right off. Until then… don't make sudden movements," Bonehead instructed.
"Thanks," Deacon muttered, eyes sweeping over his team. "Everyone, get a warm welcome like I did?"
"Thank the System, no," Esmerelda said with an eased chuckle. "We all get teleported far enough to react to attacks coming at us. You? Just unlucky."
"Story of my life," Deacon muttered back, earning nervous, light-hearted chuckles from the others.
He turned his gaze away from the muddied faces of his Party and caught sight of an incoming charge; rows of knights and soldiers of the Holy Human Kingdom, judging by their raised banners snapping in the wind and blades pointed at them.
"We got company," Deacon said, stepping forward and tapping his knuckle, Echoform Reliquary's Broadsword hilt gripped tight in between his right hand's grip, against Jass's shoulder – signaling to both her and the rest of the team their next plans.
In perfect sync, Sam, Esmerelda, and Bonehead fell back to higher ground, taking vantage positions as Deacon and Jass surged forward.
The charge of the Human Kingdom met the duo head-on, but Deacon and Jass were far from alone as hundreds of undead knights and soldiers roared from beside and behind them.
With barely a thought, flames began to lick along the edge of his Broadsword as Deacon cast Flame Armament.
Deacon pivoted away from a spear aimed to strike him in the chest and immediately parried a downward swing from a heavily armored knight just behind the other knight on the horse that he had just dodged.
Sliding his own blade across and up the knight's glowing holy blade, Deacon's blade tore through the man's neck armor and neck in one swipe, sending his head to smack onto the chest of the soldier just behind the knight he had just beheaded.
*[Human Lv 12] has been slain –XP has been given.*
Jass spun behind Deacon with the blade of her glaive turning into a blur as she carved through the legs of a charging horse, the rider screaming and tumbling into the muck. Where Deacon left an opening, Jass moved like a shadow in an armor of earth, covering her leather armor, finishing off knights and soldiers who slipped past Deacon, their shields and holy blades barely reaching her before she struck.
Blood sprayed in geysers, mixing with mud and ash as they pressed forward, a deadly, unrelenting tandem. Where Deacon took the initiative and slaughtered his way towards the center of the horde of soldiers and knights, Jass was always behind him, covering his openings; twisting through the chaos, parrying, ducking, and slicing with immense focus.
From the high ground, Esmerelda's voice rang out as she chanted what felt like the thirtieth massive attack spell in the past hour, "Spirits of frost and storm, descend upon my foes – Rain of Ice!"
Spears of ice struck armored knights off their horses and pinned them, along with the foot soldiers, to the ground with bloodied wounds. Sam's spells followed in tandem, sending spears of earth to similarly pin other knights and foot soldiers to the ground.
The pinned states of the knights and soldiers around them were something that Deacon, Jass, and the undead army took full advantage of.
Bonehead flitted across the battlefield like a specter; slipping potions into the grips of severely injured undead knights and soldiers, or slathering ointment onto their wounds if they had already taken their potions, and occasionally tossing bombs of acid and volatile concoctions from above onto the dwindling horde of knights and soldiers from the Holy Human Kingdom.
"It's been over three hours of this shit," Bonehead muttered to himself as he dragged yet another fallen undead soldier behind a massive boulder and shoved a medicinal pill down the zombie's barely attached throat.
Deacon and Jass moved in tandem like a single machine, covering each other's flanks, leaving bodies in trails behind them, augmented by Bonehead's bombs and Esmerelda's and Sam's relentless spells.
Then, amid the chaos, Deacon caught sight of a single figure that made him freeze mid-stride: a knight atop an immaculate, polished armored horse, the sun insignia gleaming sharply against gold-etched plate. Every motion spoke of training, skill, and deadly intent.
[Human – Lieutenant Lv 13]
Deacon's hand tightened around Echoform Reliquary, the flames licking hotter, reflecting in his eyes. He brought his thumb and index finger to his lips and let out a shrill, piercing whistle that cut through the battle's roar.