When Kyle gained his physical form back, he saw Rieler standing motionless with a peaceful expression as if she had already accepted her death, just waiting for it. For a moment, Kyle had the impulse to say something along the lines of..
'Didn't I tell you that running away isn't an option for me?'
But this sentence seemed oddly familiar to him. Then he remembered, wasn't it a popular dialogue from all those 'hero saves the beauty' scenes that he had seen in the anime. In such a situation, the hero would usually appear from behind the female character, pat her head and then say something like the dialogue he was about to say while flashing her a grin. This would then lead to the later developing feelings for him.
Kyle then looked at the little girl standing a few steps away from him with her eyes closed and a serene expression..'No way! He wasn't a paedophile!'
Putting those weird thoughts aside, Kyle looked at the corpse which had successfully lifted itself to an inverted 'V' shape by hitting all four of its limbs at the ground simultaneously. It should be able to get up within a few seconds.
Walking and fighting were the two most common activities for any creature that was present in the Ascension Temple, so they were imprinted as instincts in the corpse, but no one practised falling in different positions and then standing up in different ways, so the corpse didn't have any instincts regarding that.
"Since you are holding a dagger, I hope that you know how to throw it at a target." Kyle said as he stared at the corpse.
"You.." Reiler was taken aback.
"Yes or no?" Kyle didn't want to waste his time explaining things of no consequence to her. Two minutes out of the five had already passed and he didn't want to waste any more of it.
"Yes!" The girl replied in one word.
"Alright then take these, carry your fathe.... No, I will carry him. Move to the side of the corpse and throw it at the back side of that thing's knees as soon as I signal you. Also, don't make any noise after it gets up, not even the slightest sound" Kyle said while handing four palm sized canines of beasts that he had hunted on the way here.
"And remember to run away as soon as you throw the canine without looking at your throw whether it hits or not. Otherwise you will end up like that." Kyle said in a hushed tone as he pointed towards the ravine in the ground.
The girl gulped at the sight of the ravine. If she was hit by the impact of the attack, wouldn't she be ripped to shreds?
Thinking this, her face paled and her expression became solemn. Reiler made a mental note to run away as soon as she threw the gross thing in the direction of the gross corpse.
Looking at her pale face, Kyle wondered if he had made the right call by including her in this fight. But, his situation didn't allow him to take pity on her for her young age or for the fact that she was a delicate little lady.
Soon, the corpse was back on its feet, but it didn't move any further and stood erect like a pole.
Reiler who was standing on one side of the corpse saw Kyle who was standing on the opposite side of the corpse lift his hand and show her his thumb.
She was confused for a second. Why would he show her his thumb from such a long distance?
Only after a second had passed, did she realise that it was the signal. She immediately threw one of the canines at the corpse and ran around it in a circle.
Although her skirt caused her to nearly trip and fall down, she somehow managed to get away in time.
'Booooom!'
Yet another ravine was formed. Reiler turned around to see what had happened and nearly couldn't stop herself from screaming in fright when she saw the ravine. If she had been half a step behind, it would have been the end of her.
When Reiler had just taken her position, Kyle had also taken his position at the other side of the corpse such that the corpse stood exactly in between him and Reiler.
Earlier when Kyle was on the verge of giving up, he opened his system inventory so that he could discard some of the bones that he had collected from the beasts he had hunted as the 'item drop' for his death.
It was at that moment that he saw a piece of paper taking up one of his inventory slots.
Immediately, Kyle was reminded about his purpose of entering the Ascension Temple.
Kyle wanted to punch himself for forgetting his aim.
'How could he forget? He was here to find the cure for his parents' condition. So how dare he think about escaping only to never be able to step inside the Ascension Temple again.
The Ascension Temple was his last hope for waking up his parents. He would rather die than abandon the only goal of his life.
As soon as he saw the corpse twist at a weird angle and hit the canine with its fist, Kyle immediately swung his sword in the shape of X repeatedly for four times. After that, just like Reiler, he also started running in a circle.
'Booooom!'
Another sound of impact and another ravine appeared behind Kyle.
Kyle turned around to look at the corpse and was pleased to see four large texts of (-105) appear above it in red coloured fonts.
Kyle could hear a sizzling sound from the hand of the corpse as the smell of burning flesh spread from the corpse.
Kyle heaved a sigh of relief and thanked his lucky stars that it worked.
He also commended himself for choosing a skill that projected mana when he was deciding his three basic skills in the school.
Usually, mana projection skills were useless on the first floor of the Ascension Temple and by the time one reached the second floor, they would have learnt better skills from the missions completed on the first floor, so the teachers discouraged their students from choosing these skills. Most students also didn't choose such skills, leaving only rare cases like Kyle who had chosen it so that he could train his sword wielding and not be over-reliant on his skills.
Kyle regretted that he had ignored the fact that the corpse was suffering from mana corruption previously and thought that his skill would have no effect on it. Although he would have ended up dead in either case, at least he would have dealt some damage.
Putting his regret aside, Kyle looked at the corpse which had lost its balance once again and fell down on the ground. He signalled Reiler to stop where she was and once again launched three more 'energy cuts' before fleeing from his position.
'Booooom!'
Once again, Kyle saw three (-120) hover on the corpse. Kyle looked at the status of the corpse once again and his smile vanished.
[Karcellen corpse]
[HP: ???/???]
[Debuff: Mana corruption]
[-60 HP/sec]
[Stats:]
[Strength: ?? (???)] [Agility: ?? (???)]
[Stamina: ?? (???)] [Endurance: ?? (???)]
[Intelligence: 0] [Energy affinity: 0]
Although the debuff had increased, Kyle still wasn't able see the value of the reduced HP of the corpse.
Kyle then looked at the mission timer and his expression turned to despair. Half of the time had already passed but he didn't even know how much more damage he had to deal in order to destroy the corpse. Kyle took a deep breath and once again sent out three energy cuts from his location before running away.
When he was launching the second attack, he saw a small vortex of mana form near the tip of his sword.
[- 140]
[-1200]
[-400]
This phenomenon was called 'Resonance' which was commonly known as a critical hit. It had an extremely low chance of being triggered, but when it was triggered, all the mana in the surroundings would be absorbed in a small vortex formed with the attack no matter how scarce the mana in surroundings was. This would also increase the damage dealt by four or five times, but since the attack itself was especially effective in this case, the damage dealt also increased exponentially.
After the attack connected, Kyle was finally able to see the HP of the corpse.
[Karcellen corpse]
[HP: 98670/???]
[Debuff: Mana corruption]
[-120 HP/sec]
Kyle was baffled by the exceptionally long HP. Didn't corpse mean a dead body with 0 HP? How come this thing had such a long HP?
Since he was already out of MP, Kyle took out a bottle of lowest grade mana recovery potion and immediately drank it while hoping that it wouldn't kill him instantly.
Kyle felt an uncomfortable heat spread in his body, but he completely ignored it and once again began bombarding the corpse with energy cuts frantically. He was able to feel a destructive heat welling up inside his body.
After ten attacks, Kyle once again took a mana recovery potion, this time a medium grade mana recovery potion meant for level 3 ascenders.
This time, the heat generated inside his body was much more unbearable and was increasing at a very fast rate. Kyle felt that at this rate, he wouldn't be able to live past half a minute.
Ignoring the damage that each of his strikes dealt, Kyle continued on with his fanatic attacks and occasional dashes.
In midst of his frantic attacks and running, a strange thought that it was ironic that both he and the corpse were dying due to over exposure to mana.
Kyle wanted to laugh at his strange thought, but the frown caused by the feeling of his blood and internals burning in a strange heat was getting deeper every passing second.
In the midst of these strange thoughts, Kyle's eyes suddenly lit up.
"Yes! That's it." Kyle blurted in an excited tone.