"Huff… huff… huff… I'm alive,"
As I stretched out my hand, I noticed it was boney and had absolutely no skin, and when my eyes attempted to squint, I realized I had no eyelids.
Surprised by this sudden realization, I glanced downwards to try and find the rest of my body, only to find the body of a skeleton right below me.
"But… I can still speak?" I muttered and decided to just try and check my status to see if it was still there.
『Status』
[Name: Helu]
[Race: Undead]
[Class: Disciple of Smoke]
[Level: 1/10] (1/50) XP Needed
[HP: 10/10 MP: 10/10 SP: --/--]
[Strength: 1]
[Defense: 1]
[Magic: 1]
[Speed: 1]
[Skills: [Empower] [Haste] [Eagle Eye]
…
I had lost pretty much all of my skills besides the body enhancement ones, which, to say the least, were decent.
I wasn't going to complain, as losing all of my skills would've broken me down as my stats were so incomprehensibly low.
Slowly, my eyes moved past the large gray panel, only to find the sun that I had attempted to after was a single glowing rock sitting above a pile of dirt.
My eyes scanned even further, and I found myself in the hall of a massive empty and gray tomb made from massive pillars of gray stone and interwoven bones.
"What… the fuck?"
I began to walk around, but my legs wobbled as if I was a toddler just first learning to walk, so I took baby steps in the beginning and slowly worked my way up into walking.
Walking started off incredibly difficult, but only after half an hour was I able to run around across the solid stone ground.
It was strange.
There was just a massive pile of dirt in the middle of this tomb, and sitting atop it was a single golden stone that seemed a bit familiar.
Slowly, these brittle and fragile bones carried me to the top of the dirt pile, where I grabbed the golden stone and crushed it.
[You obtained 10 XP]
"Ah… that's right… an XP pocket," I muttered before glancing over at my status again, and what do you know…
[Level: 1/10] (11/50) XP Needed
As I still needed to gather more information, I jumped off of the pile of dirt and landed with a loud clatter that shook against the stone ground.
The test and conclusion meant that even though they might feel weak and brittle, even under such pressure, they won't break that easily.
"I see… Am I a skeleton?" I muttered to myself, but a skeleton wouldn't be able to talk, and it probably would've elaborated with that on the section of my race.
Though, all it says about my race is that I'm an undead. Nothing else to that…
Just as I took a step forward, as soon as I had jumped down from the pile of dirt, the clatter of bones came from before me, and five skeletons appeared in front of me.
"Hello?"
No response, and if I had skin, I would've been blushing profusely with embarrassment at how stupid I must've looked trying to talk with a skeleton.
I took another step forward and saw that the skeletons began to wobble towards me with a sense of threatening aura looming over them.
"I see… so you all really are undead," I muttered before activating [Empower] and [Haste], coating my skeletal body in a light orange tinge.
I sent out a simple punch, and that was enough to crack the skull of the skeleton in front of me, but seeing as how it hadn't fallen down yet, I went with a hook with my opposite hand, crushing the skull into pieces.
The others had walked around it and grabbed one of my arms, trying to yank it away from my body, but I quickly tore them off with my increased strength and then smashed all their skulls to pieces.
[You have acquired 5 XP]
As soon as I had finished taking care of these skeletons, I saw another wave of them rise from the ground, but this time with double the numbers.
[You have acquired 10 XP]
They all circled around me, showing some sort of intelligence before I smashed their skulls to pieces… only for double of that to reappear in front of me.
"This is bad," I muttered before running in the opposite direction of the skeleton horde as my mana was about to run out.
But, just to my luck, a horde of forty more skeletons appeared in front of me, so I quickly deciphered what was happening and charged through the horde of forty skeletons.
I left [Haste] activated while deactivating [Empower], just so I could get that extra boost while also reserving some more of my mana.
Dodging the slow and very stiff attacks of the skeletons was easy, but as more waves attempted to get in my way, the sheer number made up for their low agility.
I was soon overwhelmed by the number of skeletons and was pinned to the floor, unable to move from my position as they tore me limb from limb… though I felt absolutely no pain. In fact, nothing really happened after I was torn apart.
They took my torn-apart limbs and brought me to my destination, which was a gaping wall of darkness at the very end of the tomb.
I don't know why, but I felt strange connectivity to it as I glanced into it.
It was like the abyss since when I stared into it, I felt something stare back, sending shivers down my spine.
[Main Quest has been revealed]
.
[Main Quest: Awoken]
[Description: You have finally awoken, but where are you? Who are you? Are you still the same person or something different? But, what is that darkness from across the room]
[Reward: Skill Book - Hand of The Souls]
[Penalty Upon Failure: Eradication of Soul]
[Time Left: Infinite]
.
Just as this panel appeared before me, and before I could even have the chance to comprehend it, my skull from where I was seeing everything was thrown into the wall of darkness, making my mind go completely blank.