Tower of Paradise

ARCEUS PENDRAGON'S POV

—Arceus, to your left! —KathyIn's shout resonated behind me, cutting through the air like a dagger.

I turned with a sudden movement and instinctively stepped back, just in time to dodge the crude point of a sword that whistled inches from my face. The air displaced by the enemy weapon caressed my cheek, reminding me how close it had been to wounding me.

Without losing a second, I brandished my lance in a perfect arc that knocked down the skeleton soldier who had tried to finish me off. These undead warriors were individually weak, with their precarious armor —or rather, lack thereof— and their low-quality weapons, simple swords and rudimentary shields.

[You have killed a skeleton (F)]

The skeleton collapsed to the ground, dropping its weapon with a dull noise that was lost among the chaos of battle. But I had no time to celebrate this small victory; another skeleton was already rushing towards me, its bones creaking with each step and its empty eye sockets fixed on my figure. I pierced its skull with a precise movement, and then another, and yet another. One after another, the undead continued running towards me, as if they were attracted by an invisible magnet.

It was evident that, as individual combatants, the skeletons were clearly inferior to us and had no real chance of defeating us in a one-on-one confrontation. However, their numbers more than compensated for that individual weakness; it was a battle of endurance and strategy, not brute force.

KathyIn and I found ourselves at the epicenter of the village, protecting the giant rock that stood imposingly a few meters away. This was the first wave of the third day of our confrontation.

Although the number of zombies had not increased after surviving the first day, we now also faced skeleton soldiers, which added a new level of complexity to our situation.

Unfortunately, these undead did not provide us with soul fragments, as they lacked one in the first place. Obviously, they were not the only way to obtain them.

The undead possessed indisputable advantages, especially in prolonged battles, where almost no one could surpass them. They felt no fear, pain, or fatigue; they did not need to rest or sleep. These characteristics made them formidable adversaries, as there was no way to undermine their morale or wear them down.

There was no need to explain in detail the advantages these characteristics conferred on the battlefield. If someone hit a living creature's head with a mace, there was a high probability that it would die or, if it survived, would suffer unbearable pain and lose the will to continue fighting.

Of course, warriors trained to endure large amounts of pain were an exception, but they constituted a minority.

It was a perfectly natural reaction of living beings: avoid pain, preserve life.

But what about the undead?

Breaking their skulls? They would continue attacking while their brains spilled out with each blow.

Destroying their arms? They would continue their offensive with fractured limbs.

Cutting off their legs? They would crawl along the ground to launch the next attack.

In fact, as long as the negative energy that served as their life force did not run out, the undead would continue fighting tirelessly. They would not lose the will to fight as humans would. In other words, they were perfect soldiers, killing machines without remorse or weaknesses.

The undead and most monsters usually employed two different tactics: scaring their enemies by keeping silent or attacking them quickly with an indomitable force.

The zombies surrounding us tried to encircle us while beginning to disperse and maintain a certain distance. They were becoming cunning as time passed, even cooperating with each other: some distracted while others attacked from behind, a strategy I had never before observed in these creatures and that deeply concerned me.

I launched myself against the multitude of undead, piercing skulls with my lance in a heated frenzy. The air filled with spine-chilling creaks and terrifying howls as I attacked everything that moved within my field of vision.

My only mission was to defend at all costs the enormous rock that rose a few meters away. The consequences of failing were evident: if that rock broke, we would die. I didn't know how the tower planned to execute us if such a situation occurred, but I had no intention of finding out either.

Suddenly, a gray-skinned zombie leaped toward me with an agility I didn't expect. My body instinctively reacted to avoid the blow, but I immediately understood my miscalculation: I had underestimated the creature's power.

I raised my lance to deflect the imminent attack and, in a fraction of a second, positioned myself behind the zombie with my weapon pointing directly at its skull. The tip of the lance pierced through the undead's rough skin, emerging from the other side in an explosion of putrid matter.

I continued piercing skulls as more zombies lunged at me from a distance of approximately five meters. Their scarlet eyes glowed unnervingly from their gray, tangled heads. These specimens, unlike those from the previous day, possessed a particularly muscular upper body, with prominent abdominal and pectoral muscles, as if they wanted to flaunt a physical strength they no longer needed.

After piercing the head of the first one, I moved my arm with precision to cut the second and then the third. I focused especially on their heads, because otherwise I risked having skulls rolling on the ground, trying to bite my legs even when separated from the rest of the body.

Stab, stab, stab!

In each wave, KathyIn and I faced fifty zombies, but now we also had to deal with fifty skeleton soldiers, totaling one hundred enemies.

Despite the difficulty, KathyIn had never needed to resort to her ice element, while I was saving my abilities for the critical moment when I would need them most. I could only activate my private attribute once a day, that ability that was not something I could resort to capriciously, as it always left my body on the verge of collapse.

An agonizing grunt behind me caught my attention. As I turned, I watched KathyIn wield her sword with a speed my eyes could barely follow. In seconds, she finished off the few zombies and skeletons that harassed her from multiple directions. All her enemies were reduced to inert fragments in an instant. Her agile and precise movement drew an involuntary sigh of admiration from me.