Archie immediately charged towards the nearest wight, activating Savage ChargeRelentless Flurry

  Surprisingly, his first five punches did not break through the wight’s ribcage. It had seemed that the tumors growing across its chest did more than ooze out pus. Nevertheless, after the fifth punch, its chest warped inwards slightly and by the seventh punch, his fist had already penetrated its chest cavity and ripped out its core.

  The wight fell to the ground lifelessly; its bones that were not attached to the patches of rotten skin clattered on the ground while bits that were attached by sinews and tumors splattered on the ground before sizzling like acid for a few moments. The bits of bone and rotten skin Archie punched were now set alight, its previous resistance now gone with its death.

  Pivoting, Archie dropped the wight’s core and charged at the closest wight, which was thankfully only two meters away from where he was. The bonekiins, recovering from the sudden appearance of Archie and the sudden death of their wight comrade, looked to be rebooting their nonexistent brains, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  The wight Archie was charging at, raised its rotten arm forward, its thin, long bony fingers turning sickly-black, creating a chain that looked to be made out of similarly colored solid mana, and shot it at Archie. Its reaction to Archie’s sudden intrusion came much quicker compared to its bonekiin counterpart.

  Archie pivoted mid-charge, shoulder tackling an elf bonekiin to dodge the dark-mana chain shot at him. While shoulder tackling the elf bonekiin, he cracked its rib cage, giving him the chance to wrap his right fist around its core and slightly lift its body with his left hand, by grabbing its pelvis.

  Archie then hurled the elf bonekiin at the wight who attacked him, and just as it was about to be released from his right hand, he pulled out the elf bonekiin’s core. The bones of the elf bonekiin taking a hit from the wight that fired at him and a sickly-black manabolt from the other wight at the far-right end of the floor he was on.

  Archie punched the bones that were still midair at the head of the wight, smacking its head back, and giving him an opportunity to get into its guard and release a flurry of blows, activating Relentless Flurry

  The wight was now channeling its Undeath-Attuned mana into its body, hardening its bones and rotten tumors against Archie’s blows. But with each punch Archie threw at the wight, flame lingered atop its rotten flesh for a moment before exploding in strength, as though gasoline were poured on it.

  , Archie thought as he ripped out the wight’s core. But just as he ripped out its core, he staggered forward slightly, pain barely registering as he was shot twice; once through his shoulder and the other in the small of his back.

  Archie quickly surged vital energy into both wounds as he had to block an overhead attack from two dual-wielding human bonekiins. Just as he did so, he backstepped; dodging a large blast of blackened fire from three dwarf bonekiins nearby.

  Clicking his tongue, Archie realized the last wight was too far away to reach, especially now that the bonekiins were fully alert, the surprise of his sudden attacks having worn off. Pivoting to his right, Archie kicked off the ground, dodging a volley of undeath-attuned manabolts.

  Now facing two of the three dwarfs spewing undeath-attuned fire at him, Archie delivered a spartan kick to the nearest dwarf bonekiin. As his strike connected, he channeled a surge of mana into the vines wrapped around his right foot. The vines surged with explosive speed, exploiting the opening created by his kick, which had shattered the dwarf's lateral ribs. They wrapped around its core, flame-encompassing tendrils bursting through its side and into the adjacent dwarf bonekiin, engulfing its core as well.

  Springing off his left foot and into a backflip, Archie dodged another sickly-black solid mana chain shot at him from the last wight, and the sword swipes from the nearest human bonekiins. As he flipped, the vines attached to his right foot retracted, ripping the cores from the chests of both dwarfs, the flame encompassed vines, igniting their bodies from within, turning their bones to ash as they lifelessly fell to the ground.

  Immediately after landing on his feet, Archie kicked off the ground activating Savage Charge

  Archie easily shattered through their solar plexuses and wrapped his hands around their cores and tore them out before spinning on his heel to downward punch the head of the dwarf bonekiin beside them. Archie’s punch caved in its skull, preventing it from igniting the alcohol it ingested in an attempt to set him aflame.

  Archie leaned backwards, dodging four more shots aimed at his head before thrusting his other fist into the chest cavity of the last dwarf bonekiin that initially spewed undeath-attuned flames at him and ripped out its core.

  Archie then quickly dodged a large sickly-black streak of mana aimed at him and analyzed where the remaining wight and bonekiins were.

  The wight remained in the back of the far-right of the floor surrounded by three shield and two bottle-wielding dwarf bonekiins and four long gun-wielding elf bonekiins. On his right were six human bonekiins charging at him and on his left were seven human bonekiins charging at him as well with the last two elf bonekiins wielding pistols taking cover behind some half-destroyed at rotten wooden crates.

  Archie channeled mana into Thornscourge Expansion

  The vines wrapped around the elf bonekiin, locking its arms together and making it drop its Mana-Long Gun. The elf bonekiin next to it remained unaffected and began to refill its Mana-Long Gun with mana before once more taking aim at Archie.

  Kicking off the floor, Archie pulled himself towards the elf bonekiin, while simultaneously activating Savage Charge

  Just as Archie was a foot away from the elf bonekiin, he wrapped it up, he then recalled the vines that he wrapped around it, freeing his hands. Archie thrust his fist into its chest and ripped out its core, before throwing the same core at the head of the elf bonekiin a few meters away from him. The core shot through its skull and out before hitting the side of the ship; the sudden core’s entrance and exit through the elf bonekiin’s skull caused it to jerk momentarily and drop its Mana-Long Gun onto the floor.

  Archie closed the distance between them and ripped out the elf bonekiin’s core, before he had to jump back from the Undeath-Attuned manabolts fired at him from the elf bonekiins at the opposite side of the floor.

  Archie quickly saw the three human bonekiins which he had sent sprawling onto the floor with their bones scattering before they started to reform around their core. With the other human bonekiins now charging at him together, he needed to take advantage of the three human bonekiins' inability to act right now.

  He surged his mana into the vines around his arms once more; making them rise from his arms and shoot towards the three human bonekiin cores that were reforming their bodies around them. The vines engulfed the three cores before swiftly retracting towards Archie, who then let them drop onto the floor to dodge the incoming firing from the elf bonekiins.

  Archie kicked off the ground, activating Savage Charge

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  Archie, with his arm still inside the human bonekiin’s chest cavity and back turned, was unable to see three human bonekiins charging towards him. Archie staggered forward as he felt a heavy force strike his back, but no pain accompanied it. His armor tanking the human bonekiin sword strikes without a scratch, but the sudden attack erased his smile, inwardly berating himself for his own stupidity of not being aware of his surroundings and placing himself in a position to be exploited. If the swords were made of mana they would have sliced right through him.

  Pivoting on his heel Archie jumped backwards to create distance between him and the eight remaining human bonekiins, unintentionally dodging a sickly-looking spell that when splattered across the wood flooring. Within moments the wood turned sickly black and produced sickly-black smoke that grew in size, covering five meters in diameter in less than a few seconds.

  Archie narrowed his eyes, glancing at the human bonekiins lingering within the smoke. , he thought.

  Archie's smile returned as he surged mana through the vines on his sides and sent out many large, corded vines that pierced through the black smoke and lassoed around the human bonekiins within. Archie felt the vines start to decay, but constantly surged mana through them, reinforcing them as he pulled the eight human bonekiins out towards him.

  Once they were outside the smoke, he activated Savage Charge

  Noticing this Archie quickly crushed the core of the human bonekiin underfoot with a swift stomp and jumped backwards, dodging the fourteen blades that stabbed towards where he previously stood.

  Kicking off the ground and towards the group once more, instead of activating Savage Charge, Archie took a deep breath, and just as he was a meter away from the nearest human bonekiin, he released a guttural roar that shook the entire cargo floor, activating Taunt

  The human bonekiins who were about to skewer Archie with their blades suddenly froze mid-thrust. The sickly-black flames that engulfed their blades, extinguished.

  The wight’s right arm exploded, splattering pus and ooze in every direction as a result of its sudden stoppage of spell casting. Unable to even react to its arm exploding as it was locked in place.

  The elf bonekiins found themselves in a predicament similar to their human counterparts. The mana they channeled into their guns suddenly evaporated into nothingness, their connection to it abruptly severed. While they themselves were locked in place.

  Archie speared through two of the human bonekiins before lifting them up and throwing one at the three on his right and the second to the three on his left, ripping out their cores as they left his hands while bones engulfed in flames rained over the remaining human bonekiins.

  Turning to his left, he activated Savage Charge

  Turning to face the three human bonekiins who had broken out of their stunned states and were charging at him, their blades relit with undeath-attuned flames. Archie saw out of the corner of his eye the wight rip through the chest of an elf bonekiin beside it. Unease filled him as he knew what a powerup looked like, and being both an avid fantasy reader and gamer when a stronger enemy starts to kill their allies on their own accord, they get a boost.

  Archie thought as pivoted away from the six blades of the human bonekiins and sent a surge of mana into the vines around his right arm. The vines rocketed towards the blades, wrapping around them, uncaring of their undeath-attuned flames as its own flames engulfed them.

  With a fling of his wrist, Archie ripped the blades and their palms off their arms and flung them to the opposite side of the ship.

  Archie quickly got to their sides and made sure they were lined up before winding his arm backwards and surging concentrated mana into his left hand. He condensed his mana around his hand, recreating the mana knife he had made minutes prior. But this time he needed it to be longer.

  , Archie repeated to himself as he repeated those steps in real-time. He felt as the knife grew in size, exponentially. He felt as it shaped itself to be a lance. He also felt it start to falter a meter away from piercing through the human bonekiin.

  Archie felt chills grow on his back as he knew he was running out of time to deal with the wight before it completely powered up. Archie gritted his teeth, willing the mana around his fists to solidify, now

  As though it were a sudden snap of a light switch; Archie felt his mana respond to his will, the mana lance snapping into shape and pierce through the three human bonekiins. The lance creating a six-inch hole in diameter through their bodies, shattering their cores.

  Pivoting off his heel Archie turned to face the wight who had just killed its second elven and third dwarven Bonkiin comrade. Archie activated Savage Charge

  [Osteophage wight Lv 86]

  “Fuck,” Archie muttered as he pushed Adrenaline Rush

  Crashing onto the wight, Archie released a flurry of blows to its reinforced body. Archie’s crashing sent the two elven and three dwarven bonekiin sprawling onto the ground.

  Archie wailed blow after blow onto the wight, feeling its bones start to crack. Just as he was about to crack through its solar plexus something happened. The wight screamed.

  DIE!

  The word embedded itself within Archie's mind as an extreme emotion of rage and hunger surged through him, locking his body up and blurring his vision. The stench of rot and decay filled his nose as chaotic scenes unfolded within his mind.

  Brothers and sisters, looking at each other with their faces twisted with desperation and madness, stabbing and gutting each other in a futile bid for scraps of food, the size of which rivaling that of a fingernail. Their agonized screams echoed, raw and engulfed in rage, as they clawed at themselves to dull the unbearable hunger and pain coursing through their bodies.

  The feeling of pain arcing across his arm took him out of his trance and returned his focus to the wight beneath him. He stared at its long gnarled sickly-black covered fingers puncturing through his left forearm and injecting undeath-attuned mana directly into his vital stream.

  Rage filled his mind as Archie released another guttural roar directly at the wight, activating Taunt

  Archie felt the decay and disease start to spread across his forearm, making him send a large surge of vital energy to hold it back from spreading further. He needed to end this fight now.

  Archie pivoted on his heel and speared through the backs of the still downed bottle-wielding dwarf bonekiins and ripped out their cores. He felt his vital energy start being pushed back, almost being pushed above his elbow.

  He then turned to his right, seeing the elf bonekiins getting themselves off the ground and reaching for their Mana-Long-Guns which they had previously dropped. Kicking off the ground, Archie pierced through both elf bonekiins with a mana lance that encompassed his right hand, destroying their cores.

  Archie turned to face the last standing bonekiin and saw it charging at him. Activating Savage ChargeThornscourge Expansion

  Archie ignored the bones that fell to the ground lifelessly and quickly unbuckled his bracers. He felt his vital energy that was stopping the decay was now pushed up towards his mid-bicep.

  Ripping off his chestpiece, Archie pulled out his Silver Carving Knife and held it in his right hand. Looking at his decayed and rotting left arm, spreading up his bicep with increasing speed.

  Archie clenched his jaw tight, teeth grinding, his eyes steeled.

  He plunged the blade into his shoulder, just above the bicep, the searing pain eclipsing every other sensation. Blood spattered as he hacked at the flesh and muscle, each stroke biting deeper into the bone. The sound of cracking echoed in his ears as he hacked through his arm.

  Archie's knees buckled and his arms shook with every hack of the knife. But his adrenaline flooded through him; keeping his will strong, steeling his mind with every hack.

  With a final hack of his knife, his arm fell onto the ground, decay encompassing it as it started to ooze out pus and flake.

  Archie collapsed to his knees, his forehead pressing against the blood-soaked ground as his chest heaved and tears flowed. The world blurred around him as pain consumed his mind.

  He felt his Spirit BondAdrenaline Rush

  

  Archie gritted his cracked teeth, pulled his head off the ground, and took out a healing potion from his spatial storage. Ripping off its cork with his grounded teeth and scarfed down its liquids before dropping the bottle onto the ground.

  Gripping his bleeding stump, Archie entered Nature’s Meditation

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