[Undead Skeleton Guard (Human)]
'I really wish [Identification] was more useful at times like these, I can tell that from its appearance!'
As the enemy closed it Seth could finally see what it looked like, it wasn't too much different from the other corpses on the ground other than the fact it was walking towards him in a staggered manner, it had the full plate mail armour covering nearly every inch of itself and was equipped with a standard two-sided sword along with a large square shield.
'So, this is simply great, how am I meant to fight this thing? I can't just go for the core since its got a thick piece of metal covering it and it's not like there are any other vital parts.'
He racked his metaphorical brain to try figure out what to do and he turned to Silva who had popped up to his side once more.
"Any chance you can roast this thing?"
("Not really, I still haven't recovered fully and even if I did, I wouldn't have built up enough power to do it again for now.")
"So useful…"
("Well, what are you going to do?")
"First of all- "
He took a few steps back without turning his back on the approaching enemy and knelt down to pick up a long sword laid on the floor near him, it had the same luminite blade composition as the gladius he already has tucked away in his bones, but he felt he needed something heavier to take on this foe.
[Luminite Longsword
Sharpness - 68%
Strength – 43
Durability – 59%]
'At least this is in much better condition than the gladius'
He took the sword in both hands and took stance with the top of his blade pointing towards the throat, or rather the gap in the armour where the material was thinner for movement.
'From the skeletons I've fought before and my own experience any small wounds to the bones isn't particularly useful or affective, I need to take a limb entirely for it to do anything substantial'
"Only problem is… that armour is damn heavily guarding everything"
He didn't take the offense against the guard; he only had a sword, but the other side had both a sword and shield leaving him unbalanced in offense and defence.
The guard broke into a staggered charge with its blade swinging from the right towards Seth's side while its shield remained in front.
Seth quickly dodged with a jump backwards, yet the guard chased him shifting into a piercing thrust aimed right at his chest, he used his sword at the ready to parry the thrust and cause the blade to glide past the left side of his head before it was quickly withdrawn and Seth was suddenly hit with a force from his right side, the guard used the shield to bash him and knock him tumbling.
"Bastard! Why are these undead still used to fighting?!"
He stumbled until he regained his footing, but the guard was once more upon him with its blade swinging diagonally across his chest barely allowing Seth to throw up his sword in a failed guard and being knocked away once more, but he remained standing this time and decided to take even more distance.
[Health – 63%]
He realised that one slash left a deep groove covered with cracks travelling from his left shoulder inwards through his chest.
'If that were any deeper it'd get my core, this thing is way stronger than I thought it would be!'
"I can't hesitate now"
He activated [Lesser Reconstruction] while he retreated carefully and stepping back whenever the guard tried to make an attack, not daring to take another direct hit.
[Health – 100%]
[Mana – 79%]
'At least that's gotten better'
"I need a different approach; I lose out in base stats probably and I'm still below it in terms of pure skill even though it's definitely not comparable to when it was alive"
("Don't you know any magic or anything?")
"As if I've had any time to practice such a thing? It takes way too long for what it is"
("Haaah, you shouldn't throw it away that easily if you had magic, you would have another option in this situation, what about your innate abilities since you're undead you should have some other indirect options")
"Not as far as I know, I have [Reinforcement] and [Core Overclock] to boost my abilities but since that thing is a skeleton as well it should also have [Reinforcement], combat ability wise I only have [Crushing Strike] and that's just brute force which is probably useless here."
("I swear I'm hammering some basic magic in to that thick skull of yours when we get out of here")
"Sure, whatever I have to survive first"
He put his head to the test.
'Let's see, we're both skeletons and we most likely have the same basic set of skills at least so what do I have over him'
'Spirit magic? No, I have no idea if and how I can use it offensively, as for actual spells the only thing I have is [Far Sight] but what use could that be… wait skeletons use [Mana Vision] to see mainly, while they also have [Life Sense] that doesn't work on undead!'
An idea formed in his head, but he had no reason to believe it would work so he got to testing, while evading whatever attacks the guard tried to throw at him, he created multiple orbs of light that travelled around him, normally he would only do one or two since he can't process vision from multiple sources easily, but he wasn't using them to see right now.
He let them float towards the guard and its surroundings, immediately he saw an effect.
*Swish*
The guard let out a slash towards one of the lights, splitting it clean in half and causing it to disperse the mana to the surroundings.
'Hahahahahaahah I knew it! Skeletons, unlike myself, are brainless idiots that act on instinct, all he sees is the mana in his vision increasing and so he determines that it's an enemy.'
[Mana – 57%]
'Each orb takes around 2% mana to create so it's not much and it sustains itself for a long time with the surrounding mana'
He crafted a good handful of orbs sending them to surround the guard, it became seeming flustered and began to slash around itself haphazardly, Seth took this chance and creeped up towards it waiting for the chance to strike.
It wasn't too long before the moment presented itself, the guard had swung wide at one of the lights and Seth charged in activating [Reinforcement] and taking a precise swing, with one smooth movement his blade passed through the gap between the helmet and chest piece and cleanly decapitated the head sending it spinning to the side along with the helmet.
"Gotcha'!"
He was relieved for a second before Silva almost screamed at his from the side.
("Idiot! Just because you took its head doesn't mean you defeated it!")
"Wha- ?!"
Before he could finish his line he felt a cold pain coming from his left side causing him to react quickly and turning to see the headless body slashing at him, before he realised it his set of left arm bones were falling pitifully to the ground.
[Health – 43%]
'Auuuuugh that hurts like hell! Why! I'm a skeleton?!'
He pushed away the pain to face his foe in a more desperate attempt, Seth could see its movements were a lot more sluggish, it already abandoned its shield and went full offense and once he sidestepped an overhead swing from the guard the kicked it from the side causing it to crash to the floor, it struggled to get up due to its weak state and its heavy armour.
"Fucking bastard you'll pay for that one!"
He stepped on the back of the fallen enemy forcing it down before putting his longsword in a reverse grip and letting his other hand regenerate
[Lesser Reconstruction has evolved – Reconstruction has been learned]
[Health – 100%]
[Mana – 24%]
He didn't take notice with his heated head, but the reconstruction took slightly less mana and also took about half the time, his left arm now appeared once more in perfect shape as it grasped the sword along with the other hand.
'Pierce this shell!'
The sword glowed with a blue hue before surprisingly easily piercing the armour and whatever was underneath it, causing the skeleton guard's movement to grind to a halt.
("Hoh, already? Not bad, not bad at all!")
[Ability Learned – Spirit Sword]
[Spirit Sword – Turns the wielded weapon in to an ethereal state that can damage the enemy's spirit and soul]
[Mana – 4%]
"Phew…"
He pulled the sword out after waiting for a few seconds due to another message that sounded in his head.
[Level up – Stat points gained]
[Level up – Stat points gained]
[Level up – Stat points gained]
[Level up – Stat points gained]
[Level up – Stat points gained]
His teeth almost chattered with joy since he couldn't exactly smile.
'Been a little while since I heard that one!'
He knew the enemy was defeated as he observed the now still skeleton, one thing he noticed was that the armour didn't have a pierce mark where he stabbed it.
"Well, that's certainly useful, takes a lot of mana though"
("Hmph you should be much happier than that, using Spirit energy to coat and convert your weapon albeit temporarily is a fairly big achievement usually it'd take about a year to do it for most people but you… well I'm not sure whether you're lucky or a genius")
'Probably neither'
He thinks about his [Smooth Sailing] blessing, it was probably because of that.