The skull king was fast. Too fast. His speed did not match his huge size, and whereas a lesser being would’ve been slowed by being that bulky, the skull king had enough mana and power to be as nimble as he wished.

I can’t dodge… Camilla was beginning to regret just charging in, but at the time, she had been too impatient to get it over with. If she had the chance for a do-ever, she would have chosen to to take her time approaching. Unfortunately, there were no do-evers.

Straining every muscle in her body, she swung her sword toward the monstrously huge mace, hoping to slow it down by even a little bit. Only up close could she truly appreciate its size. It was as large as she was, yet the undead king handled it as if it was as light as a twig. 

The moment her sword made contact with the descending metal, she felt the terrible force that bore down on her. If something that strong hit her head on… she might die in one hit. Even clipping her will be bad. 

Crack… a small chip formed on the edge of her sword and Camilla’s heart jumped.

“Die!”

“Shut up!” Time seemed to slow down as death neared once more. Camilla’s heart pounded as if it was going to jump out of her chest and a sharp pain pierced through her. It came from near her heart… It was where Kagriss’s core was hidden. Right, her life wasn’t just her own. It was also Kagriss’s.

She couldn’t die…

Chains filled her vision, wrapping around the mace and pulling upwards. Most of them snapped immediately with loud, explosive clanks, but it slowed the weapon down ever so slightly. It was enough. Camilla pushed sideways, using her sword to push herself out of the mace’s path.

Boom. The force of the dark magic pulse tossed her aside like a leaf in a gale, and when she hit the ground, all the air was forced out of her lungs. She rolled to disperse the force, and by sheer luck she dodged a second strike from the skull king’s mace.

The ground erupted, but this time Camilla managed to steady herself by stabbing her sword into the ground as an anchor. 

Way too fast. How do I beat something like this? she thought to herself as caught her breath and tried to organize her messy thoughts. Where is he?

The skull king was gone, leaving only the scene of destruction behind. It had taken only a blink of an eye for Camilla to lose track of him. She didn’t understand how the gap in their strength can be so big when there was only a single class between them.

Left? Right? No, behind me… Camilla put all of her attention on the space behind her and dodged ahead of a giant mace that never came. No! Not behind me! Then, where?

“Above you!” Kagriss cried in her mind and Camilla looked up, just in time for the huge body of the skull king to crash down where she had just been. Although she had dodged the wrong thing, she managed to dodge it nonetheless. The flying rubble rained on her like little shots from slings, hard enough to leave little dents on the metal.

The force sent her flying again, only for a net of black chains to catch and steady her. Kagriss saved her once again. Camilla didn’t even want to count the number of times she would have already died if she didn’t have Kagriss with her. The skull king was just too overwhelming.

There was no way she had any chance against a monster like that.

Helplessness threatened to overwhelm her. Camilla’s fingers shook and she almost let go of her weapon when one of the chains reached back before lashing onto her back like a whip, making her cry out in pain. Icy death mana filled her body like a bucket of ice water being poured over her head, snapping her back to reality.

The tendrils of that helpless feeling reeled back from the sudden rush of clarity.

What was that? 

As if to reply, Kagriss’s voice boomed in her voice, at first sounding distant but becoming more and more clear, as if something that had previously been muffling her was gone. “Milla, calm down!”

“Huh…?”

“Clear your head. You’re being affected by the enemy’s magic. Empty your head and focus on the battle!”

Camilla didn’t know when the magic took effect, but now that Kagriss reminded her, she became aware of a thin black mist around her, almost invisible if not for the holy magic all around them to serve as contrast. Running through the black mist, tied to the skull king’s hand, was a string of dark mana, and on the other end of it was her own head.

With anger smoldering inside her chasing away the last of her hesitation, Camilla flared her mana and burned off the string of magic that allowed the skull king to control her mind. As soon as the connection was cut, the world slowed down again.

The skull king seemed to have slowed down to less than half his original speed and if Camilla didn’t know what the problem had been, then she was truly stupid.

I can see his movements now. I’m faster too! Her confidence returned as if it was never gone. Facing the skull king’s, Camilla stood her ground, waiting and waiting. From their long-time cooperation, Kagriss knew precisely what she was planning and she didn’t remove the chains.

At the last moment before the mace hit her, Camilla moved. She ducked out of the way at an angle, letting the mace slam into the chains behind her. In an instant, dozens of chains— many times more than Kagriss had summoned the first time— wrapped around the mace. Even though many shattered from the strain, the sheer number meant it prevailed, leaving the mace entangled in the net.

“Now!” As Camilla dodged past the skull king, she lit her sword ablaze and slashed. With a horrible screech of metal against metal, her sword bounced off the armor that the skull king wore, At the same time, it left a long, deep scratch on the metal, black and charred.

There was no time to admit her handiwork, but as Camilla jumped away, she couldn’t help but smile. Her first strike against the skull king… he was not invincible, and this was the start of their counterattack, and the start of their victory.

All they had to do was hold out while she distracted the skull king, and the only way that she’d be able to hold the attention of such a powerful being was to be a valid threat.

“Kagriss, how much longer?”

“Not long. The seal is powerful but not very complicated. It’s just that unraveling it from a distance is difficult, especially since I have to be inconspicuous.”

“That’s okay. Thank you, by the way.” Camilla shivered. If Kagriss hadn’t reminded her about the controlling magic that the skull lich used, things would’ve been way worse than it was right now. “You can leave the rest to me.”

A warm feeling of trust and an “okay” came from Kagriss, and Camilla readied herself for another deadly dance with the skull king again.

“Come! I’ll show you that no matter how strong you may think yourself to be, you’re ultimately doomed to fall!” she shouted at the skull king.

The giant looked at the scratch on his armor, then at her. The flames in his eyes burned brighter and deeper as some unreadable emotion fanned them to new heights. Equally unreadable was his voice. “I see. But, for someone that could not even break past this armor of mine, you are quite brazen. I will remedy that.”

After exchanging a few words, the skull king hefted his mace and stomped toward Camilla, each step shaking the ground. Camilla sent a wave of holy magic from her sword, only for the magic to be dissipated with a wave of the skull king’s hand. However, Camilla didn’t mind, since her job was only to buy time and take up the skull king’s attention while preventing him from noticing Kagriss’s covert actions.

She sent a few more waves at the king, and when he was close enough, Camilla dashed forward. The king’s eyes flashed and he swung his mace down at her, but she dodged past the terrifying blow and circled around to the back of the giant skeleton. 

The back always contained the weakest point in armor, and sure enough the back of the knee was uncovered by anything. Camilla saw hints of the skull king’s bone. Without hesitation, she stabbed toward the gap, only to be topped when she struck something even harder than skull king’s armor.

Her face paled, but she shook aside that growing discomfort and stayed on the move. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t hurt him… she just needed to stall for time.

Strangely enough, the skull king had become much slower than before. Rather than that blistering fast offense that left Camilla struggling for breath and balance, the skull king seemed content to let her set the pace, leisurely swinging at her.

Stalling for time? Camilla thought, thinking back to the sudden change in pace from the undead earlier in the tower passage, but she quickly tossed aside that guess. No… there’s nothing that he can be stalling for. As more time passes, we are the ones at an advantage!

But except for stalling, Camilla couldn’t think of anything else.

“Kagriss…”

“Shh! Stop bothering me! I’m almost done!”

Chastised, Camilla focused on keeping the skull king busy, continuing to circle the giant, looking for an opening to attack. She had already found several openings, and the scratches that covered the lower half of the skull king’s armor was the perfect proof. However, she had yet to actually harm the skull king.

She couldn’t put enough power behind her sword to cut through the dark reinforcement that covered the skull king’s bone. Worse still, her sword was taking a huge beating. The chip on one of the edges had gotten even bigger, on top of being joined with several new ones. Even the edge had gotten full from the attempts she made at stabbing into the gaps in the armor.

In that case, chaos mana is my only option. Camilla bit her lips as she concentrated on controlling the dangerous mixture of elements. One step wrong and the magic will backfire, and that was something she could not afford in a battle like this.

It was the whole reason she had not used it before now. It’s difficult, but I have no other choice.

As she gathered the mana at the top of her sword, creating a red sphere of blood mana in preparation, the skull king tensed for a split second.

“Blood magic— the power of the vampires. How interesting, whelp. But what can you do with something like that? They will be next after I stamp out this final symbol of the flugels,” the king asked, shrugging his shoulders mockingly. “But enough playing around and running around like a little rat…”

He pointed the head of the mace at Camilla. She furrowed her brows, confused about what the skull king was trying. Only when a huge amount of dark, deathly mana gathered at the head of the mace did she realize that she had discounted a good half of the skull king’s strength.

The skull king wasn’t just a warrior. He was a mage as well, with the mana to prove it.

“Let my darkness overwhelm yours, whelp!”

With a low howl, the gathered death mana surged forth with the force and speed of an avalanche, threatening to consume Camilla. Her eyes widened. “I will not fall here!”

Please… Camilla slashed, splashing the blood mana forward in a growing line. Still concentrating, Camilla executed the crucial step in using chaos magic, the conversion. The blood mana disappeared, replaced by an unholy light that consumed the darkness itself that was pouring toward it. 

The chaos mana disrupted the formations that focused the wave of death magic, and the whole spell fell apart into a dense aura of dark mana, harmless to any undead. The skull king froze in surprise.

“Well… that’s something new that even I did not expect.”

Kagriss grinned. “I’ll kill you with this. If it’s this magic, then even your defenses will fall!”

At the same time, the dark barrier around the pedestal faded away, and Kagriss’s voice sounded in Camilla’s mind. “It’s done! I’ll stop the king, while you—”

Her voice was cut off by the skull king’s booming laugh, and they both looked toward the spasming giant that held his stomach with his free hand. “Kill me? With that? You must be kidding.”

“What?”

The laughter stopped as suddenly as it started and the skull king glared at them. “Why do you think you landed so many hits on me? Because you’re my equal? Did you think that the only reason you can’t win is because you can’t cut me? Don’t make me laugh!”

He lifted his mace. “It was a nice treat to see your hopes rise, and the looks on your faces the moment the barrier I put on that damned rock broke was well worth the wait, but unfortunately I tire of the act.”

The skull king’s words chilled Camilla to the bone. If the skull king was to be believed, then the only reason they even got this far in their plan was because the king allowed them to. And the sudden shift in the king’s movements made sense if the king was just playing with her.

Camilla wanted to throw up, but she was in the middle of battle. 

The next moment, the skull king moved, charging at her and Kagriss. It was like she was all the way back at the start of the battle where the gap between her strength and the king’s strength was as wide as an ocean, but this time, she knew that it wasn’t an illusion.

“First is the pest in the back…!”

“Kagriss!” Camilla shouted. She turned and ran toward Kagriss. She had to get there before the king.

But the king was faster. Much faster. 

A rare look of surprise appeared on Kagriss’s face and with a twitch of her fingers, the chains around her rose to defend her, but they looked like they were moving through syrup compared to the skull king. The mace moved back over the skull king’s right shoulder, like the slow rise of a guillotine blade.

When it falls, so will Kagriss’s life end.

How did it come to this? Why can’t I save her? Camilla asked. No, I must. Never before had she felt such strength in her legs as the moment she rushed between the skull king and Kagriss. In that moment, she was faster than even the skull king, and she felt a sudden power rise up from deep within her.

But there was no time to grasp it, only enough time to lift up her sword and use it as a shield.

“...Bulwark! Major!” she screamed, and a golden shield spread from her hand over the sword.

The mace fell, crashing into her sword, with a force greater than anything she had ever experienced. Her arms numbed instantly and she could no longer control them as they warped into shapes outside of their range of movement. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the whites of her bone jutting out.

Then, her own sword crushed into her, unable to bear the force of the mace.

Her insides turned to mush, and only with all her remaining mana gathered around that precious gem in her chest did she manage to protect Kagriss’s core. 

With a crack, her sword broke in half, sinking with the mace into her lower body. Through her lower body.

All Camilla could feel was that she was flying, and she felt so light. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Kagriss’s horrified eyes, and through their bond… she saw what Kagriss saw— half of a body leaning against the pedestal, with golden hair stained with blood spilled all over the floor.

Just the upper half. Nothing below her rib cage remained. 

Is… that me…? 

Slowly, her vision turned dark. All she could feel was the heat of the holy magic protecting the pedestal burning her back, but amidst the deathly chill she felt, that blistering heat felt merely warm and gentle.

No… not yet… 

I can’t… 

But she couldn’t stop her fall into the icy abyss.