Bones cracked. Limbs slid together. It launched itself across the hall.
Merlin didn't think. Didn't blink.
He just stepped, wind curling beneath his boots, twisting sideways, blade already drawn.
The skeleton passed him by inches.
Merlin turned with it.
The blade caught under the jaw, slicing up through where a throat should've been.
The body didn't fall.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Merlin muttered.
Dion choked a breath and sprinted the other way.
Another skeleton lunged.
This one faster. More stable. Not crawling, climbing.
Flint intercepted it mid-step. Two blades. No words.
The bones cracked but didn't collapse.
They came back together.
"Not dying fast enough," Flint muttered, jaw clenched.
Merlin ducked another claw swipe. His back hit Dion's shoulder.
"Stop running in circles!"
"I'm not running—I'm tactically avoiding bone stabbing!"
A ribcage slammed into Merlin's arm.
He dropped low, pushed off wind, slid across the floor, and twisted up into a clean vertical slice.
A femur clattered to the side.
'Right. Not normal skeletons.'
These things were stitched. Reinforced.
Probably by the trial's mana itself.
The bones didn't care about damage.
They cared about pieces.
So long as the parts stayed close, the body stayed moving.
Merlin flicked his hand. Space warped just enough to pull a ribcage five feet to the left.
The rest of it collapsed without it.
"New rule," he called out. "Separate the pieces."
Flint already had three corpses down. Or, whatever the trial's version of "down" was. His eyes never stopped moving. His footing was perfect. Surgical.
Dion, by contrast, was mostly just dodging.
He slid under a skeleton's swing, jabbed a dagger between its pelvis and spine, and yanked. The legs went left. The arms fell like dead wood.
"That count as separated?!"
Merlin hit the wall running. Flipped into the air, launched a windburst beneath his heel, and crashed down through another skull.
He grimaced. 'They don't even have muscles. What's powering this?'
Behind him, the system finally spoke.
[Undead Pressure Field Stabilized.]
[Threshold: 26 Targets Remaining.]
"Twenty-six," Merlin said out loud.
Dion cursed. "That's more than when we started."
"Yeah. They got back up."
Another one lunged from the pile.
Merlin didn't move fast.
Air curved under his heel. Time slid across his wrist like a second skin. He ducked past the strike like it was choreography.
Blade in. Twist. Pull.
He didn't aim for the heart. Skeletons didn't have those.
He split the spinal cord at the base of the skull. Then kicked the head thirty feet across the room.
It stopped twitching.
Flint carved an arm off another. Turned. Grabbed Dion by the collar and yanked him out of a sweep.
"Get behind me," Flint said flatly.
Merlin joined them, his breathing was a little harder now.
The bones were forming a circle.
All twenty-six of them.
Ribs clicking like windchimes in a storm.
"Okay," Merlin said. "We need a plan."
Dion blinked. "Thought you were the plan."
He just watched the circle tighten.
The system pulsed again.
[Trial Condition: Total Annihilation.]
[Pressure increase in 3… 2…]
Merlin felt the weight press into his spine.
'This is going to be a very long night.'
Then smiled, like a crooked miniboss. Tired. Almost amused.
"Right," he said. "Chapter one I guess."
Like it knew they weren't going anywhere.
Bone scraped stone. Knees cracked. Spines rattled. Not like joints, but like intent.
The skeletons didn't lunge this time.
Merlin narrowed his eyes. "They're adapting."
Flint flicked bloodless dust off one blade. "To what?"
Dion shifted to his left. "Do we get to adapt back or are we just gonna die politely?"
Because the first one lunged.
And this time it feinted.
Merlin's blade went high.
Its claw dragged across his ribs.
Wind caught it before it carved deeper.
He stepped back. Felt the sting.
"Yep," he muttered. "They're learning."
Two steps, three cuts, pivot.
He didn't even watch the bones fall, just kept slicing, adjusting, breathing like he was born in a ring.
Dion followed him in.
A lunge here, a twist there, a dirty kick straight to a kneecap. Bone cracked.
Merlin turned back toward the wall. The skeleton that had feinted was already picking its skull up.
'They don't die. They split?'
[Target Regeneration Pattern Identified.]
[Severed Parts Reconnect If Within Radius.]
[Recommended Solution: Wide-Area Displacement.]
"I need a blast radius," Merlin muttered.
Flint glanced at him. "You have one?"
He flipped his blade once.
Then drove the sword into the floor.
Air pressure spun out from the point. Water threaded the edge. Time pulled tight behind his shoulder like a string about to snap.
Space collapsed, just briefly. The hallway bent inward, forcing everything toward the blade's center.
The skeletons didn't scream.
Arms snapped forward.
Skulls cracked on each other.
Four of them collapsed.
Merlin didn't let them.
Wind caught them mid-step and drove their torsos into the stone wall like meatless hammers.
Dion stared. "Okay, what the hell was that?"
Just cut another one down.
But this time, he separated the head and kicked it down the hallway.
"You're welcome," he muttered.
Merlin turned to Dion. "Can you keep their limbs scattered?"
"Do I look like I've got a bone magnet?"
He turned back into the fight.
More of them were coming.
The pressure hadn't dropped.
If anything it climbed.
The room pulsed again.
Dion cursed. "They're circling again."
"Let them," Merlin said.
He was already forming the next pull.
From the cracks beneath the floor, he felt the damp. Labyrinth humidity. Sweat. Condensation.
He pulled all of it upward.
Threaded it through the pressure he built.
Then timed the strike.
Five skeletons lunged.
Too synced. Too perfect.
'Almost pretty,' he thought. 'Almost.'
The floor ruptured beneath them.
Water exploded upward, thick and fast, freezing midair as he layered Time over the arc.
The skeletons froze in the motion, limbs caught in a half-step.
Then he shattered the ice.
Flint gave a low whistle. "Damn."
Merlin didn't respond.
He was watching the last one crawl back up.
Kicked it in the skull.
Dion wiped his face with the back of his arm. "Are we winning?"
Merlin rolled his shoulder. Felt the bruise from earlier.
Another crack echoed in the back of the hall.
The second wave was forming.
And they were bigger.
The second wave didn't hesitate.
It didn't click. Didn't clatter. Just moved.
Harder. Heavier. Bulked-up skeletons with armor melted into their frames. Like someone shoved steel plates into old bones and called it an upgrade.
Dion swore. Loud. Honest. "That one's wearing a helmet. Why is it wearing a helmet?"
Merlin didn't answer.
He was already moving.
The system hadn't pinged, but he could feel it, these weren't stitched together for flavor. These were the real deal.
'The first wave was noise.'
He yanked time backward, not far. Just a tick. Just enough to slide past the first strike. A jawbone flew by his shoulder. It smelled like old dust and rot.
"Flint!" he shouted. "Take the right flank."
Flint didn't respond. Didn't need to.
He was already there, blades out, cutting low. Not clean. Not elegant. Just sharp.
It was holding a weapon.
A sword. Ancient. Cracked, but glowing faintly at the edge.
"Seriously?" he muttered.
Merlin ducked left. Brought his blade up. Parried. Almost.
His arm rang like a tuning fork.
He slid back on wind. Used it like a skate, not a shield. Time slowed again, barely.
Just enough to realign.
A clean arc. Space folded. Blade hit shoulder.
It cracked but didn't break.
Dion landed beside him. Two daggers. Wild swings. Wild eyes.
"Tell me we've got a plan!"
"Separate. Disarm. Displace."
"That's not a plan, that's a TED talk!"
The armored skeleton reached out. Grabbed Dion by the wrist.
The arm didn't just break. It vanished. Pulled into a tear Merlin forced open and slammed shut.
Dion dropped to the floor. Clutching his wrist. Panting.
"You're not," Flint said.
He kicked a leg out from under one, drove a blade through its hip socket. Bone cracked. Still moved.
Merlin twisted wind into his legs, launched himself into the air, spun once, dropped his blade into another's collarbone.
The skeleton collapsed.
Out of maybe fifteen.
The one with the sword raised it again.
Merlin stepped forward.
He wrapped water around his wrist. Compressed it. Not a wave.
Straight into the skeleton's jaw.
Merlin caught it mid-air.
He threw it sideways.
Straight into another skeleton's knee.
It collapsed with a sound like scaffolding giving way.
Dion scrambled back up. Still breathing hard. "You're terrifying."
Merlin didn't smile. "You're welcome."
Merlin saw the tear in his coat. Red patch soaking through.
He locked eyes with him.
"Back left. Pin them."
The room pulsed again.
Merlin dragged mana into his spine. Pulled wind tight around his ankles.
Chapter two wasn't over.
But the fight was starting to turn.