“Kenny!” Val shouted as she watched the massive being of corpse flesh start to howl and violently thrash around the gated area.

The corpse golem spun its massive body left then right as it stomped around the wet dirt and grass. It tried to reach behind to grab Kenny, but as it moved its body around it flung Kenny barely out of grasping reach.

Val was both impressed and genuinely concerned for her partner. Her concern wasn’t for his safety but rather his mental state. What had possessed him to jump on the back of this massively disgusting creature.

She understood they needed to tear the monster’s stitching in order to lure the ghost out enough for her to land any magical attacks she could, but to willingly throw himself into the dangerous situations over and over…

The amount of times he had been thrown, flung, and smacked around…she lost count how many times she thought he had died. Especially when he crashed into the wall of the mausoleum. No normal Trial Taker would survive taking a beating like that if they didn’t invest in Endurance. Val was starting to understand the importance of that stat now thanks to Kenny.

However, as she watched this massive creature bucking around like an angry wild bronco trying to get Kenny off its back, she was seriously starting to wonder how long that Endurance would last before he got killed.

Val tried to cast Slow to try and Debuff the creature’s physical body, but just like the last few times it had failed. She didn’t fail because her success rate was garbage; No, she was told she failed because the Corpse Golem had a high resistance to Magic.

This whole fight turned out to be a teamwork effort. You needed a physical fighter to fight and rip the stitches of the Corpse Golem’s body, something a Magic wielder couldn’t do thanks to the creature’s resistance.

Then, once the stitches ripped and the ghost came out, the magic caster was supposed to attack it since physical attacks didn’t work on it. You needed one to handle one creature and the other to handle the latter. If a team didn’t have one or the other they were screwed, no questions asked.

“Val!” Kenny suddenly shouted bringing her out of her thoughts.

She turned her focus on the short teenager who was smacking back and forth against the slimy corpse skinned creature. The squishing sound that echoed with each hit made her recoil in disgust. “This is going to be a big one. So, be ready to stack your attacks!”

Val nodded, not caring if Kenny was able to see it. She didn’t need to question his words since he hadn’t led her astray yet. Instead, she turned to their packs and ran over to them. She dug through hers to find a Mana Potion and downed it as fast as she could.

After she finished, she ran back to what she believed to be a decent amount of range, not too far, but also not too close to be struck by the nasty monster. She readied herself before shouting, “I’m ready! Let it rip!”

Kenny smiled at the phrase before he felt his lower half lift up in the air as the monster jerked forward. He used that momentum to reposition his feet to slam into the monster’s back. He then used the fleshy back as a foot hold before placing his free hand around the wrist that was tangled in stitching string.

Once he felt he was secure, Kenny bent his knees then thrusted his entire body out. He felt a lot of resistance from the stitching as his wrist came to a halt, but that didn’t deter him. He put every bit of strength he had into it and pulled with all his might.

After what felt like forever, he finally heard the noise he was looking for. He heard the sound of string ripping through the fleshy material. It was a single tug at first, but after a few more hard tugs, Kenny felt it give way as the string followed his body while he fell backwards to the ground.

Kenny heard a loud painful scream escape the stitched up mouth as he plopped to his back on the wet grass. His body ached as he felt his bones rattle with the impact. However, he didn’t allow himself to stop moving. He felt the stitching still tangled with his thorns and after swiftly inspecting it, the tangle wasn’t a simple one.

If he didn’t hurry and free himself then the ghost that was starting to come out would have a field day stitching him to the monster’s body. The image of that sent shivers powerful enough to make Kenny’s whole body look like it was convulsing.

Kenny got to his feet as fast as he could. The network of string he had pulled was enough to send multiple pieces of skin to drop off the creature’s back. He hadn’t noticed at first but the corpse golem had dropped to both knees and hands and stopped moving entirely. The ghost that was riding the rotting body was pissed as it fully emerged from within its ride letting out its own howls of anger.

The ethereal creature turned with fury burning in its crimson eyes to stare down at Kenny. It then reached out for the bundled and tangled string so it could pull Kenny towards it. However, before it could touch the string its entire body had suddenly slowed. It wasn’t by much, but it was enough that Kenny was able to whip the intertwining string to the side away from the monster’s hand.

The ghost went to follow the string but then grew even slower. Kenny used this opportunity to run around, making sure the string was out of the monster’s reach. He made it a quarter of the way before the monster let out a loud and irritated shrill. Kenny stopped to see what it was going to do, but didn’t have to worry because the next moment a murky grey ball of Pain slammed into the ghost’s back.

The next second a different colored ball of mana crashed against its head. The ghost shrilled again as pain coursed through its smoky body. Pushing through it all, the ghost tried reaching out again for the tangled mess of strings. Kenny ran in the opposite direction of where he was to throw the monster off. He was successful.

Two more blasts of mana with a murky grey ball of Pain collided against the ghost as Kenny kept running left and right. This kept going for the next two minutes until the ghost’s hand suddenly jerked fast and gripped the strings as Kenny switched directions.

Kenny felt the pull and was yanked to the ground before he got back up to his feet. He turned to see the monster had regained a semblance of its speed indicating the Slow Stacking was wearing off.

Kenny saw Val noticed it too, but then shouted as he dug his feet into the ground getting ready for a game of tug a war with the apparition, “Don’t cast Slow anymore! Keep bringing the pain…” Kenny paused as he chuckled for a moment before adding, “No pun intended.”

“Really?” Val chuckled as she breathed heavily. Even though Kenny was the one running around and doing the physical labor of the task, her constant use of mixing both her Pain Hex and her wand attack was tiring her out.

She was getting close to her Mana Pool being depleted. Luckily for her she had the foresight to place a potion by her feet just in case this happened. She wasn’t happy it was taking so long to kill the monster.

She understood her Pain was effective, but the power wasn’t great. Her mana blast from her wand was super strong either. If only there were more of those ghosts from earlier, then maybe she would…

A new sound escaped the Ghost’s foggy mouth. The noise made Kenny and Val both shiver with goosebumps forming on their bodies. Shortly after that, the Corpse Golem’s body started shaking.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kenny muttered as he felt panic start to rise within him. “I won’t be able to handle the Corpse Golem like this. Val, hurry up and…”

Before Kenny could finish, dark purple smoke suddenly slipped out from different stitch linings and floated up in the air. The smoke then gathered together before it split into eight smaller ghosts.

The bigger ghost let out a few short shrills almost like it was giving instructions before the eight ghosts split off and raced towards their intended targets. Four of the ghosts flew as fast as they could right towards Kenny.

The moment Kenny saw this he tried to jump to the side. However, when he tried to move he felt the bigger ghost pull even harder. This made Kenny understand he wasn’t in any position to try and dodge the incoming mini ghosts.

Instead, he was going to have to embrace the cold he was about to feel and hope Val could kill the Mid-Area boss before it pulled him in and stitched him up with the Corpse Golem’s body.

Val watched as the rest of the smaller ghosts flew towards her. A wicked grin grew on her face as she sent a silent thank you towards whatever god gave her this opportunity. She threw her hands out and allowed the ghosts to run through her body sending the Debuff they brought with them coursing through her body.

She wasn’t worried about being effected by the Freezing Cold Debuff, not any more since she had awakened her Defense Skill Tree. The ability it unlocked and gave her were these runes on both of the back of her hands, Runes of Absorption. They worked kind of like how Kenny’s Poison Constitution did except for Mental Magical attacks. In short, she was essentially immune or highly resistant to Debuffs, Hexes, Curses, etc.

However, that wasn’t all and not the reason why she wanted these ghosts filling up her two Runes. No it was the powerup she had chosen when fully awakening her Skill Trees. She was given a chance to pick either a powerup for an existing awakened ability or to awaken an entire new ability.

When she opened her Skill Tree page she was confused and almost completely overwhelmed. It was only thanks to her curiosity on what she was hoping for that she was able to focus on getting it done quickly. She didn’t waste time looking at the other things she could get, but instead focused on what she was hoping for.

Thankfully, her guess paid off. And now she was able to increase the power of her Magical attacks once both or a single rune was full. Depending on if either a single or both were full determined a lot. One rune only powered a single magical attack. Having both runes full gave her more wiggle room. She could shoot two empowered magical attacks of the same spell, a single double empowered magical attack, or two separate magical attacks empowered by the runes. What she wanted to do was the last of the three. Empowering her Pain Hex would increase the damage over time and a blast from her wand would increase her damage output.

Once the rune on her right hand glowed brightly with that sinister dark purple, Val readied and shot an empowered Pain Hex. The moment it landed she and Kenny both heard the Ghost let out an ear splitting scream so loud they both felt their bodies wanting to drop to the ground.

Val bite the inside of her cheek to keep her focus on the task she was trying to do. She had the mini ghosts continue to circle around and through her, filling the second Rune while refilling the first. She threw an empowered mana blast from her wand the moment she felt one of the runes was full. She continued this over and over. The bigger ghost, writhing in pain from the magical attacks, didn’t halt its own endeavors. It, too, kept pulling the slowly freezing Kenny.

Kenny, while placing all his trust that his partner could and would finish the boss, didn’t accept his situation lightly. Even with his limbs slowly becoming frozen stiff, Kenny dug his feet into the wet dirt and grass and used every ounce of strength he had to try and pull back. He wasn’t successful as he felt his body slowly being dragged closer and closer to the monstrosity duo, but that didn’t stop him from still trying.

Kenny sneered at the ghost as it kept pulling him closer and closer by the second. A few times the ghost had stiffened from the sudden increase of Pain that rippled through its entire body, but it was only for a moment before it continued pulling him.

Now, after a very long and stressful fight, Kenny was within reaching distance of the ghost. It reached a single hand out as it kept its other hand gripping the tangled mess of string. Kenny let out a defiant roar as he leaned back as far as he could. That was until one final blast of mana slammed into the ghost, causing it to finally explode into a cloud of smoke and dissipate from sight completely.

Kenny felt his body fly backwards and slide across the wet grass and dirt. He heard Val drop to her knees, panting and gasping for air just like him. He let out a chuckle as he heard his teeth chattering from how cold he was feeling. The mini ghosts had disappeared when the giant ghost had, also bringing the corpse golem and the strings that were caught on his hand wrap along with it, freeing him.

[Congratulations! You have defeated Mid-Area Boss, Call of the Undead (Complete Corpse Golem/Ghost). Exp earned. Tower Credits earned.]

[Calculating results.]

[Fighting the Mid-Area Boss with only two people has been taken into account.]

[Calculations completed. Appropriate loot suitable for performance and involvement has been determined.]

[Congratulations! You have leveled up! You have reached level 9! 5 Free Stat Points are available. 6 free Skill Points are available!]

“Great job Val!” Kenny clattered as he threw a fist in the air. “I knew you could do it.”

“Oh, shut up you…energetic wild child,” Val responded, cringing at her weak insult. That look of cringe was soon replaced with a grin as she took in breaths of air and heard Kenny laughing at her lame attempt at making fun of him.

“I don’t know about being energetic, but if I’m going to be considered a child then I’m going to take a quick nap,” Kenny said between breaths. “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

“I…have to agree with you there,” Val stated as she turned around to grab the packs. She turned to ask Kenny if he wanted to use his pack as a pillow, but then noticed he was already asleep.

He wasn’t snoring, but the way he was breathing and how he had his head tilted to the side with his eyes closed, she knew he had already passed out. Whispering to herself, Val muttered, “How can you just fall asleep so quickly like that. You really are a child if you can do that without a care in the world. Especially with where we currently are.”

Val shook her head before looking at both packs. With a shrug she pushed them together and muttered something along the lines, “Oh well, I guess I’ll use it then.”

Thirty minutes later, Val woke up to the sound of rushing water coming down fast with the sounds of Kenny complaining about how cold it was. Val rubbed her eyes and grumbled as she slowly sat up.

When her vision was cleared up she noticed a small fire had been started close by her, keeping her warm. She noticed Kenny not too far away shaking the water he had ran down his clothes like a dog that had jumped in a river.

She thought it was both kind of cute and funny how she instantly thought of him like a dog when he did that. Her growing smile quickly shifted into a frown as she shook her head. She must have been still slightly tired if she thought he was cute.

Kenny turned to move back to the fire to warm up when he noticed Val sitting there frowning at the fire. “Good morning sleeping beauty,” Kenny teased with a grin. “Get enough beauty sleep?”

Val couldn’t help but giggle at that. He was so cheesy at the weirdest times. Something she was slowly starting to appreciate. “I could use more if I’m being honest, but then you’d only just accumulate too much energy and probably do something stupid like a toddler hopped up on sugar.”

“Hey, I’m not toddler,” Kenny frowned. “I’m more like preschooler. So be ready for the mountain of questions I’ll spring on you at random times.”

“Oh god that’s even worse,” Val stated with a fake groan. “I remember when my young siblings were that age. They wouldn’t stop with the why’s, how’s, and how come’s.”

Kenny let out a laugh before saying, “So you have siblings?”

“Two younger, boy and girl, and an older brother,” Val informed as she repositioned herself to get comfy. “You?”

“I have twin half siblings, both younger than me. A sister and brother,” Kenny nodded absentmindedly as his smile turned sad.

Val noticed the change when he mentioned them. She wasn’t sure why his smile turned sad so she asked the only question she thought, “Do you miss them?”

“Hm?” Kenny muttered as he looked at her. After a moment, the question sunk in and he shook his head before saying as he sat down on the other side of the fire, “Oh, no. Nothing like that. We just…We had an interesting relationship. They and I.”

“Oh?” Val questioned, starting to feel curious about this. “How interesting are we talking about? Like they were latched onto you, they loved you so much they chased away any potential romance?”

Kenny barked out a laugh at her questions. It came out forced and came with a hint of annoyance. He then sneered as he stated, “Them? Love me? They loved to make my life a living hell. They loved that I would clean up after their messes. You were right about them chasing away people, but it wasn’t just potential romance. Friends, possible girlfriends, you name it. I had two friends that saw what they were doing and stuck around, but others? They didn’t see it. And that isn’t the half of what they did.”

Kenny let out a breath of air before throwing his head back. Val’s eyes widened at the proclamation. She wasn’t expecting that at all. Her relationship with her family was great. Sure her siblings both younger and older were annoying at times, but she wouldn’t say they were as bad as what Kenny made his out to be.

“Funny though,” Kenny started back up as he looked at her.

Val could see something different from the annoyance or anger he showed moments ago.

“I don’t blame them. It’s not their fault that they are the way they are because their mother taught them to be that way. I just wished our relationship was more than me,” Kenny moved his finger to create air quotations as he finished, “Protecting’ them.”

Val didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t understand what he meant by that. Wasn’t it the older sibling’s job to protect the young siblings? Of course it was, she knew Kenny understood that too, but the way he said it made her think there was more it than what she was thinking. Deciding not to say anything at all and allowing the silence to build, Val stared at the fire.

After a couple minutes of silence, Kenny finally broke it and said, “Sorry for making it awkward. I’ve never really had a chance to talk about it before, so I guess I let my emotions get the better of me.”

“Oh? Don’t worry about it,” Val said as she gave him a slight smile.

Kenny shook his head before standing up. “Changing topics, we have loot to open up. If you’re feeling better we should check out what we got and then get ready to head out.”

Val nodded in agreement as she stood up and followed him to where two chests sat waiting for them. They both opened their assigned chests and stared in surprise at what was within.

Inside Val’s chest was a silver chained necklace with a gun grey metal outlined gravestone with a swirling dark purple mist filling the rest of the shape. It was cool to the touch and if she listened close enough she could hear faint wails. The notification that appeared before her made her grin widely.

[Graveyard Necklace of the Freezing Undead. (Common) Tier 1.]

[Graveyard Necklace of the Freezing Undead. This necklace houses five spirits that, when called up by channeling mana into the gravestone, fly through the target the user deems and stacks a Debuff called Freezing Cold. The Spirits will run amok for as long as the user channels mana into the necklace. Once the user either cuts off the mana source, runs out of mana, or are killed through magical means then the spirits will return to the gravestone. Even when destroyed the spirits will return to the gravestone and will have a day’s cooldown before they can be used once again. + 5 to Wisdom, + 3 to Willpower.]

Next to the necklace sat a book. One that made her instantly feel like vomiting after reading the notification that appeared.

[Skill Tree Tome of the Corpse Golem Maker. Focus Requirement: Hex, Necromancer, or any Black Arts Focus that uses Undead Minions. Other Requirements: Has to have magical capabilities and a Dark Arts type of Class.]

[Unlocks an Unspecialized Node in any of the Required Dark Arts Focus giving the user the ability to create a Corpse Golem Minion. Corpse Golem Minion is a minion that is created out of the flesh of slain enemies. This minion starts at level 1 and stays alive until the user cuts off their connection or dies. If this creature dies then the user must create another Corpse Golem from another set of slain enemies.]

“Ew, nope, nope, definitely nope,” Val said as she looked at the book with disgust. “I am definitely selling that when we get out of here.”

Kenny let out a laugh as he looked over and saw the book. With a playful look he said, “What? You don’t think it would be an excellent addition to your already sinister style of abilities. Or is it you don’t want people calling you the Dark Corpse Queen.”

Val’s face paled at the thought of what he said. Something Kenny was quite impressed with since she already looked so pale. Before he could say anything she gave him a very serious look and said, “Kenny, never say that again or so help me I will kill you, take this ability, use your dead corpse as material for the minion, and then make you be my servant for the rest of your undead life.”

Kenny chuckled loudly as he listened to her very elaborate threat. He really enjoyed this kind of banter with her. It was definitely different compared to how his siblings would treat him. As for his two friends, their humor was nowhere near this level. Especially when it came to Rachelle. Her humor was more…refined he guessed. That’s what she called it when he tried to make a crude joke once.

Kenny shook his head as he looked at the necklace and read what the notification popped up said. “That’s a good necklace.”

“Oh most definitely,” Val stated as she beamed at it. “It will definitely come in handy going forward.”

Kenny raised a brow at that as he said, “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

“Oh yeah, I haven’t told you yet,” Val stated as she gave him a warm smile. “When I fully awakened all of my Skill Trees I received a notification saying that I was allowed to either improve one of my already awakened abilities through the nodes attached to them or awaken a new Specialized Node to receive a new ability. I chose to improve my newest Defense Skill Tree ability, Runes of Absorption and chose the Rune Conduit improvement.”

“Improvement? Rune Conduit?” Kenny asked, confused by what she was talking about.

“I’m just as confused as you are and I’m sure we’ll learn more about it once we pass the Trial Grounds. But the improvement Rune Conduit allows me to turn any fully charged Rune of Absorption I have into increased power for any of my Debuffs, Hexes, Curses if I get any, and magical attacks. It’s how I was able to do more damage at the end.”

“Whoa, wait a minute, hold up,” Kenny said as he tried to wrap it all together. “First what are your Runes of Absorption?”

“Oh right,” Val stated remembering she hadn’t fully explained her new ability. She showed Kenny the runes on the back of her hands and explained, “These bad boys allow me immunity when they aren’t filled or to be highly resistant to Mental Magic attacks when they are filled. So, Hexes, Curses, Debuffs, and others similar. I still have to figure out what the others part is, but I digress. Whenever I get hit with those types of spells or attacks these Runes absorb them until they are full.”

Kenny looked surprised by that. He then grinned as he started piecing it all together. “So that ability is basically the rune form of my Poison Constitution right? Val, that is so cool! Wait, then that part about the necklace…”

Val nodded her head vigorously. “Yup, whenever we aren’t fight any curse, debuff, or hex users I can use these spirits to charge my runes for me.”

“And you say the healing ability my bracelet gives me is broken,” Kenny mock scoffed. “You’ve become the broken one now.”

Val rolled her eyes as she said, “Hardly. I know there are some downsides to this, but we’ll figure it out as we go. What did you get?”

“Besides the same book as you?” Kenny started before frowning, “I got a chest piece that I will never even consider wearing even if I was paid a lot of Tower Credits called, Chest Layer of the Corpse Golem. It increases my health and has the ability to restitch any skin that happens to be cut, blasted, frozen, or whatever you can think of right off. The only problem is it takes double the healing magic just to get my skin back to normal and not rotted flesh.”

Val gave him a disgusted look before saying, “Why, in the tower’s great ascent, would that item even exist?”

“I think it’s for those who pursue the Corpse path or even Necromancy,” Kenny shrugged. “Either way I’m putting it in the sell right away pile.”

“I agree with that,” Val said, not even thinking about arguing with him on the logic. After a few seconds she looked back at Kenny and said, “Alright, anything else we need to do here before we move on?”

“Not that I can think of,” Kenny stated. “I want to defeat the Area boss before we take an actual break. What do you think?”

“Sounds reasonable,” Val agreed before pausing for a moment. She hesitated before saying, “Hey…Kenny…”

Almost as if he knew what she was going to say, Kenny cut her off and said, “Let’s head out. There’s a chance I could find a trigger as we move.”

Val closed her mouth as she nodded. She understood he didn’t want to talk about it and she was going to respect that…for now. “Okay, let’s go. We still have an entire second half of this area.”