Chương 193: Chapter One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Three

The mound of flesh rose up, reforming itself into a knight that was five metres tall. The black blood shifted to the inside, while the rotten flesh and bleached bones blended together to form the epidermis of the forlorn knight. Dark shadows coated its figure like smoke, taking on the appearance of a full suit of armour. Seo-Yoon activated her sun flare spell, charging it up through her staff before launching it right into the head of the newly-formed boss.

It brushed away the shadows as it got near and tore a hole clean through the knight's face. The shadows quickly reformed over the wound, sealing it off, but it was clear that sun fire was quite effective. Still, head damage like that would've normally killed any other knight, but here it seemed barely a minor inconvenience. Adam still wore the aspirant's cowl, so he had seen the colour of the sun fire's mana.

He tried to recreate it in his palm with the fire glove, messing with every possible parameter for the fire that he could think of, but the colour of his flame didn't turn out quite right, no matter what he did. As the others came running, after having gotten the same objective announcement, Adam created the white-hot flame from combining fire and bone, and Seo-Yoon absorbed it into her Cloudmaker staff.

Chien was predictably the first to arrive, and Seo-Yoon spun around and pulled the holy mana out of his cuirass before he could even open his mouth. Then she turned back to face the amalgamated knight as it started lumbering towards the river between them on its malformed legs covered in shadow.

"Adam! What the fuck did you do!?" Natalia exclaimed.

"Don't worry about us!" Adam responded.

"Just get back to Old Town! We'll catch up to you!"

"We'll help you defeat it," Chien said.

"And then what?" Adam retorted.

"Without a true flame, killing it won't be enough."

"My Lightbringer effect might be capable of killing it for good," he said. Adam wasn't sure it would be the same as using a true flame, but First Light's worshippers were rare, so Chien might have some upper hand here, just like how he'd had in Moonport thanks to the Flayed Lady. And the Lightbringer evolution had made it impossible for Adam to manipulate the corpses of any that Chien defeated with his hammer. Perhaps it will prevent the Forlorn Shadow as well.

"We can give it a try, but Horst, Seo-Yoon, and I will take it down, and then you come in to deal the killing blow."

"Understood." Adam gestured for Heiner to come closer.

"Use a frost arrow combined with your barrage skill the moment it steps into the river," he told him.

"Got it." Seo-Yoon was already well underway with casting a cloud of scalding white-hot fire and holy magic, and it tore into the knight's body, pushing back the stubborn shadows and causing the rotten flesh to melt like burning wax, running down its body and leaving big globs of fat behind with every step towards them.

Unlike other forlorn knights, the amalgamated knight seemed to possess no special powers or strong weapons, but it was definitely a lot tougher and clearly couldn't be taken down by just destroying its head.

"Let me know when your sun flare is ready again," Adam told Seo-Yoon.

"Maybe if I absorb it, then you'll be able to take it back from me and combine it with holy mana to create a true flame."

"We'll be able to kill it before then," she replied confidently. Adam wasn't so sure. He switched back to his crown and pulled off the fingers of his left gauntlet, breaking apart much of the gauntlet to make the projectiles bigger, in turn exposing his hand beneath. The sight of his real hand surprised him. It's still broken from when I interrupted the Capgras Demon's hypnosis. I didn't even realise it hadn't healed… Heiner hurled a spear into the air, followed by seven more, all in quick succession.

Adam watched as he threw the ninth spear after activating his lucky charm. The mid-air spears combined into it, creating a God Spear that snaked through the air, trailing crackling thunder. The skill struck the amalgamated knight in the neck, stopping the boss mid-step as it was only metres from the raging blue river. The impact produced a thunderclap that shook the earth underneath them, but there was hardly any effect, since the shadowy armour absorbed most of the damage.

"It's tough," Heiner muttered.

"Get ready to freeze it in place," Adam told him. He fired his finger projectiles after coating them in sticky flames. The remnants of the gauntlet pulled on the material from the rest of the raiment to reform itself. Since the knight wasn't trying to dodge any of their attacks, Adam just sent his attack straight through the air, aiming for the neck like Heiner, since it was possible that beheading it would work.

The moment they struck, Adam attempted to flood his mana into its body, but the Forlorn Shadow's protection was densely-concentrated dark mana that proved too difficult to overcome. As a result, his magic was no stronger than Heiner's spears against the knight. Worse still, the Shadow was able to quickly overpower his own mana and absorb his projectiles into the amalgamated knight's body. Shit. It wasn't worse case scenario, but it was close.

At least it can't just take over anything I'm controlling without a fight, and it'd probably have a hard time trying to overpower my raiment, but my attacks that rely on blood, bone, and flesh have to be powerful enough that they can't be intercepted, at least not until after they've delivered their damage. I may have more luck just focusing on normal spells, such as Heart Lance and the Push and Snare traps. I suppose this is the flipside to having a build that's highly optimised for one stage.

Chien seems to be the only one whose optimised build would be powerful two stages in a row, but someone like Seo-Yoon has way more versatility, almost no matter the situation, although she would probably be weak against elemental enemies, but so would I. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The amalgamated knight stepped into the rushing water and Heiner fired a frost arrow combined with his barrage skill.

Seo-Yoon had shaved off about 40% of the knight's mass with her concentrated firestorm, but pulled it away to allow for Heiner's attack to have the most effectiveness. At the same time, she walked towards the river's edge, stepping her feet down into a shallow bit of water near the shore. Heiner's barrage struck true, delivering a payload of twenty-one frost arrows that turned the rapidly-flowing water first into slush and then completely solid.

Surprisingly, the water pushed aside the Forlorn Shadow's protection, so the freezing effect was able to travel deep into the knight's legs since they were under the surface, turning them brittle. Seeing it gave Adam an idea. He once more pulled the fingers from his gauntlet, shaping them such that the flesh and blood was encased in bone, then he shot them down through the water and into the knight's unprotected legs, penetrating the ice that Heiner had created.

"I'll try and strike it with lightning when the ice wears off," Heiner said, clearly also noticing the way the Shadow was repelled by the flowing water. With his projectiles buried into the knight's legs, Adam sent them up through its body, one by one. He crystallised each in turn, making sure he was quick enough that the Shadow's power couldn't overtake his projectiles as they entered the torso where it was actively protecting the knight.

On the fourth projectile, Adam's skirt of the elementalist triggered the Magical Disturbance affliction, causing the Blood Crystal spell to act in a wild and unpredictable manner. Last time the affliction had gone off with the crystallisation spell, Adam had destroyed the entire basement of the Blue Pavilion. This time it was something else entirely. Holes formed in the amalgamated knight's epidermis as its black rotten blood turned into lamprey-mouthed worms that sought to escape out into the fresh air.

They pressed against the shadowy armour from within, finding it to be impassable, but then they travelled down to the legs and escaped into the river. They were quickly diluted by the rapid flow and disappeared moments later.

"What kind of spell is that?" Seo-Yoon asked as she started to spiral the water around the knight's immobilised body in a vortex.

"It's more of a chaotic side-effect of a relic I'm wearing," Adam explained.

"Does that mean you can't teach me how to do that?" she asked as she moved her hands and Cloudmaker staff in a strange wave-like manner.

"It does."

"That's a shame," she replied. Seo-Yoon's vortex started to spin the knight around, picking up more speed with each rotation. At the same time, Heiner fired a lightning arrow into the water right next to the knight, sending a spasming current up through its body by avoiding the shadowy protection like Adam had done. Still, it wasn't very effective. Even losing all of its blood also seemed to hardly matter.

After spinning the knight around for a bit, Seo-Yoon brought the rotations to a sudden and violent stop, causing the water to press in on its hollowed-out body and producing a sound that was the humanoid equivalent of a can being crushed. With a lazy gesture she pulled its body towards the shore nearby, and Chien didn't waste a moment, rushing over to where it came to a stop. With devastating blows, he broke through the shadowy armour protecting its head and crushed it into a pulp.

Adam switched back to his aspirant's cowl to watch what happened to the shadowy mana, but, even without the mana-sight, it was obvious that every strike of Chien's war hammer peeled the Forlorn Shadow off of the knight little by little. To expedite the matter, Chien activated his keepsake relic, causing a holy aura to blast out from his necklace and cascading onto the downed and crushed knight. After what must've been his twentieth hit, they all got an announcement. [Forlorn Knight defeated.] < < Optional Stage Objective Complete > > < Defeated the Amalgamated Knight >"It worked!" Diwa said in relief. Her and Natalia had watched from the back, with Natalia holding onto the brazier with the ember. Neither of them had been able to contribute to the fight, but it seemed they were still rewarded for being nearby.

"We're screwed," Heiner remarked.

"What do you mean?" Diwa asked.

"We can defeat the knights thanks to Chien's power."

"That's not the point," Heiner said.

"Look how much it took to defeat it. It didn't even fight back, and the odds were entirely in our favour." Adam nodded.

"If the other knights are that difficult to kill as well, then we need to come up with a better strategy. The shadowy veil on their bodies clearly prevents most forms of magic from directly harming them, except for concentrated fire and holy attacks. Physical weapons may not have any effect at all, unless there's a way to make them effective against the knights."

"Imagine if it had moved like the captain in stage four," Natalia added. That comparison clearly made Diwa realise why Heiner was worried.

"It dropped a chest," Chien remarked from near the defeated knight. The knight's body slumped against the river's edge, its shape hardly recognisable from the humanoid form it'd had before. Adam beelined for it, excited to see what it would offer them, but Natalia stopped him.

"You said I should do it," she pointed out.

"And you opened the demon chest despite that."

"That's because I knew there would only be one relic inside. This one is no different," Adam told her.

"But you're right, we did agree that you open the chests, so go for it." She handed off the brazier to Chien and approached the chest, which looked like rusted metal covered in shifting darkness. They all surrounded her as she pushed open the lid. The hologram showed a full suit of armour formed from the amalgamated knight's epidermis of rotten flesh and bleached bones.

< < Relic Available > > < Amalgamated Armour (Epic) — Reduces damage received from direct attacks by 75% | Reduces Speed by 75% | Reduces Damage by 75% | When hit, a piece of the armour breaks off, until eventually the relic breaks completely > Everyone looked to Diwa.

"It's tailor-made for you," Heiner said.

"It will make me very slow and weak," she pointed out.

"Perhaps it will limit the damage your helmet may inflict," Chien remarked. Diwa frowned at his words. After all, it had been his power that'd nearly killed her.

"How do you even swap out armour with your helmet active?" Adam asked.

"I just equip it," Diwa explained.

"But the armour I swap out is destroyed in the process." That's so not worth it…

"You need to get rid of your helmet," Adam told her.

"Since it's sentient, I can kill it for you. If I do it in one attack it won't have time to harm you." Diwa stiffened, and her melody told him she'd never be able to get rid of the helmet. Sick as it was, she'd grown attached to it. A discordant note moved through Heiner's melody as well, and Adam thought he was upset at Diwa for a moment, but then he looked over and saw the guy staring down at the ring he'd equipped. The demon relic. Heiner caught him looking and shifted his hand out of view.

Something just happened with his ring, but he's hiding it…

"Take the armour," Natalia told Diwa. Adam could tell she wanted to leave this place.

"I will," she said.

"But please let me keep my helmet for a bit longer."

"If it looks like it'll kill you, I'll do what I must," Adam told her honestly.

"I understand," Diwa replied and took the relic from the chest. The moment she equipped it, the amalgam helm shifted and changed into the design of the new armour, with the raiment of bone she'd worn just vanishing.

"Alright, let's get back to Old Town before it gets dark," Adam told them.

"We're going by carriage, right? You promised," Natalia reminded him.

"I'll do my best, but I've never shaped something like that before," he replied.

"And I'm kind of low on materials."

"That's your own fault," Natalia pointed out. True… I could've experimented in a less wasteful way, but at least I got my answers.

"We're not riding the serpent back?" Seo-Yoon asked, clearly disappointed.

"Not if I have a say in it," Natalia replied.

"I would also like to veto the serpent transport," Chien said.

"Me too," Diwa added. Heiner wisely decided not to comment, since the others were sort of blaming him for letting Adam do what he wanted in the first place. Adam quickly got to work sculpting a carriage ride for them.