Everlast Online

The entrance to the boss monster of the cyclops dungeon was vast and beautiful, such delicate work carved into one of the canyon's dead ends. She couldn't even believe that such a thing had been created by monsters as barbaric as cyclops' were.

The cyclops belong to the same species as monsters like ogres, trolls, orcs and goblins; but they stood at the very apex of that species of monster and could often be seen in myth and legend destroying cities as they pleased. However, they were not famed for their intelligence - nor could anyone who had a cyclops (and lived) call it a noticeable trait of their race.

(A/N: Started a new thing with the difference between species and race. Zombie, Skeleton,Ghost are races - undead is a species. Succubus, Oni, Mind Flayer are races - demon is a species. That's the general idea I'm going with.)

And yet the mural detailed on the threshold to the cyclops stronghold was one that glorified their power in a way that no other race would be willing to do.

"Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries." Liz mumbled to herself as she stood before the door.

"Shall we prepare to enter, Your Majesty?" Demeter asked, stepping forward, "On my command the entirety of your legion shall be ready in an instan-"

"No need." Liz said, cutting Demeter off, "I have something I want to try first."

Liz had practised with [Bone Shaper] and become fairly decent with it. Of course it helped that she could give the skill her undivided attention as an undead beast carried her and both Demeter and Gloria took to commanding the undead.

She could now reliably create rudimentary weapons, things like swords, axes or spears that while not the sturdiest did certainly function as weapons.

Maybe I should try making new undead. She thought bringing out the [Book of Damned Souls] and flipping through the pages before stopping at one she had a minor interest in:

[Skeleton Swordsman]
[Abilities: {Swordsmanship}]
[General rank estimation: E+]
[Skeleton swordsmen are not exceptional, but they are specialised. This specialisation typically allows them to survive longer in a battlefield than their skeletal bodies would normally allow - weak, but decently skilled they make for good padding to a force of undead. At the very least they are superior to standard warrior units]

[User has not yet seen a {Skeleton Swordsman}] [See a {Skeleton Swordsman} to discover their ingredients]
[User has not yet summoned a {Skeleton Swordsman}] [Summon a {Skeleton Swordsman} to discover their reduced ingredients]

This was a type of undead she had come to know of prior to her binge reading of a number of encyclopaedias as it was one of the available options when she evolved [Summon Skeleton Warrior]. This gave her a certain level of hope in successfully creating this type of undead.

She didn't know the exact conditions to create a skeleton swordsman, but felt a corpse with sword ability could be necessary and finding the right level of swordsmanship could be tedious; however, Liz thought she could cheat by taking advantage of the fact that skeleton swordsmen evolved from warriors - all she needed to do was use warriors as the ingredients instead of regular corpses.

Liz created a large amount of bone swords and gathered them together with an equal number of skeleton warriors. Using the skill proceeded as normal and she succeeded, only at a lesser number than she had expected.

Liz found that for every three warriors there was a single swordsman - with all of the ingredients having vanished.

A decent sacrifice.

Liz thought, especially as she could simply ignore that and create swordsmen with reduced conditions. She did note that the original ingredients were as she expected them to be, needing a corpse proficient in the sword, and was happy to know the rules could be circumvented to some extent.

Emboldened by her little experiment, Liz went on to create even more types of skeleton: She found that she could created [Skeleton Defenders] with three warriors and a shield; [Skeleton Fighters] required nothing but three warriors; [Skeleton Barbarians] needed warriors and axes; and [Skeleton Spearmen] were self explanatory.

Liz increased her repertoire of soldiers by focusing on the most simple of units. They couldn't be helpful in a dungeon full of giants, but guild war would most certainly be against humanoids; and every little helped.

Since Liz had only progressed so far in [Bone Shaper] she could not make other types of skeleton, instead she turned to [Flesh Stitching].

Orders went out through her puppets, connecting her to different dungeons to gather a large number of fully intact corpses; leaving Liz with goblins, orcs, spiders and berks to play with.

The [Flesh Stitching] skill was harder to get the hang of than [Bone Shaper], requiring much more work on Liz's part, but she eventually got the hang of it. With the skill she was able to create one of the stranger undead, one that even the [Book of Damned Souls] did not seem to have a decent grasp on:

[Undead Chimaera]
[Abilities: {Based on materials used}, {Enhanced Regeneration}]
[General rank estimation: N/A]
[Undead chimaera are an incredibly varied unit as there is no one chimaera that is the same as one another. They can be weak enough for goblins to kill or mighty enough to devour dragons, but no matter what they are creatures that will always terrify the living]

[Ingredients: N/A]
[Reduced Ingredients: N/A]

What Liz had created was a true abomination, it had seven arms and four legs; three heads - each of different monsters - and its body creaked as it moved, the chimaera groaning as if each second it existed was agonising. Even Liz, who felt as though she had come to understand the undead felt uncomfortable looking at what she had created - and yet she didn't stop.

A total of fifteen chimaera were created, each sporting a different arrangement of limbs parts; no one chimaera looking like another, but all being equally terrifying as their mismatched skins were attached through nothing but magic.

Some were fast, others boasted incredible power; some could use their large number of limbs to their advantage through climbing or ripping away at flesh. It was truly a varied unit of creatures, one Liz wasn't proud of, but was happy to use.

The undead defy nature. Liz finally began to understand the consensus that most books on the undead came to, seeing the chimaera standing before her was enough to show how her class defiled the natural world. Not that she really cared, power was power and that was what mattered to Liz.

Liz prepared to stand, having thought she had created every undead that was available to her at the moment. Most undead seemed to require certain things that she couldn't immediately provide; take the [Skeleton Pirate Captain] that Liz believed needed something like a boat to be summoned. So, Liz thought that with her current resources there was nothing more she could create, but the disgusting nature of the chimaera produced another thought and the [Book of Damned Souls] flipped once again. She grinned as the conditions of another monster became clear to her; one simpler than its power would suggest.

Liz created an undead known as an [Abomination], considered to be one of the cruellest and most disturbing undead as they cannot occur naturally - an undead that must be created by a necromancer.

The abomination was quite similar to a flesh golem, a mass of random bodies stuffed together in the general shape of a person; only, the abomination’s form was far more malicious. As a flesh golem was created all of the corpses used become ground up and unrecognisable, but an abomination's parts are clear and obvious - full, recognisable bodies fused together in ways that even an unintelligent creature could see what it was made of.

The one before Liz had been made from berks, goblins and orcs; there were parts where the entire upper body of goblins were untouched and every so often it seize up, its arms stretching out as if in a desperate attempt to pull away from what it had become; and every time it fell back down, dead.

The abomination was slow and stupid, even worse than most other undead, but its durability, regeneration, strength and most of all its appearance made it powerful. The monster gave off a fear inducing aura, adding further to its fear-factor. The chimaera did not come close to how disturbing that creature was.

"... Let's go." Liz said, looking away from what she had done - she would use them, but still felt wrong about doing so.

The army approached the cyclops stronghold and despite its appearance the door opened with ease, revealing not a cave, but a stadium with hundreds of cyclops sitting in anticipation. Once again it seemed antithetical to the nature of the cyclops race, displaying an intelligence none would ever expect from them.

But Liz did not falter, her army approaching with confidence. As they entered the arena in its entirety the door slammed shut and the roar of cheers erupted through the stadium. In the distance a wide gate was rising, rumbling sounds came from within.

The cheering intensified as the gate rose, the rumbling becoming louder until a cyclops larger than any she had seen before burst out in a cloud of rubble and dust. The cheers reached their apex as its roar pierced through the noise; an impossibly large hammer raised as if in triumph.

[Cyclops Champion (170) (BOS)]

"Not what I expected, but not necessarily bad either." Liz muttered, beginning the fight as the boss insisted on displaying its glory. Wraiths moved forward quickly with their usual strategy, but of course it could not be that easy.

The cyclops' demeanour changed in an instant, swinging its hammer at ridiculous speeds and dispersing a number of wraiths in an instant - brown energy gathered on his hammer.

Liz clicked her cloth tongue and pulled her wraiths back, their weakness to magic making them unable to approach any closer. Instead it was the giants turn to attack, flesh golems and undead giants ran forward to try and pin the cyclops down, but that failed too.

The hammer was raised high into the air, brown energy gathering and slamming down into the arena floor, but there was no crack. The hammer sunk into the earth and the ground began to rumble beneath the undead's feet; mere moments later the terrain shifted entirely, mountainous pillars rising from the floor and launching undead across the arena into the sky.

In an instant the formations of Liz's army had been destroyed and now they were separated by pillars of rock. Pillars that did not ascend, the cyclops champion having permanently shifted the environment.

Liz began to feel her connection to the undead cut, some falling and some being destroyed as crashing sounds echoed through the new canyon created by the boss.

More corpses were sourced and scouts created to search the landscape, all other undead given the order to gather and regroup - each linked to Liz and able to find her.

However, it did not take long for Liz to find her enemy, a spider scout being crushed as a hammer hit the pillar of earth and turned it into rubble - rubble that began to fall above Liz.

She clicked her tongue, not feeling much danger as she knew no damage would be done to her, but still not wanting her undead to be killed pointlessly. Many of her [Split Minds] were working to find a solution and so they did; zombies were flung into the air, detonating the falling rubble into dust so that Liz could protect herself.

Just as she began to think she would be out of the woods, the monster jumped from where it had hidden - hammer at the ready. But Liz did not tremble, her orders clear.

Gloria jumped forwards to meet the attack, her skills flaring to life as black corrosive energy built up on her sword. [Destruction Slash], [Incompetent Strike], [Corrosive Flurry], [Demise Burst] and [One-On-One] were activated one after another, hitting the hammer with force enough to send out shockwaves.

The hammer flew upwards and the cyclops was off balance, Demeter moved as Liz ordered. Using her tail to spring forward she flew high, her weapons raised and ready to strike with them digging into the metallic skin of the cyclops. She pushed backwards with a twirl, her blades digging even further into the monster as she fell backwards.

With its size the damage was minor, but cyclops were not the type to regenerate, small and targeted damage was the perfect plan for Liz. 

With the giants and golems arriving plans continued with smaller and expendable undead being picked up in handfuls. As they were propelled forward many were crushed against the cyclops, many were shattered as it regained balance and swung its hammer, but just many dug hit the target and dug into the cuts left by Demeter. They were not strong enough to damage the cyclops, but they had more than enough power to worsen a wound.

For the cyclops it started off as an itch, but soon grew into tremendous pain. The rationality and intelligence that had created such an intricate strategy - separating the army and weaponsing the environment - devolved into savage swings of its hammer. 

Rubble fell, but none endangered Liz.

The wound grew and as Eren made sure it would not even begin to heal, Liz began the third phase of her plan.

Skeletons no longer flew, but corpses did. The explosions, just as the skeletons, did little against the cyclops; but every now and then one corpse would land perfectly on the wound, or just close enough to its eye, that damage began to build up and so did the cyclops' fatigue; a problem Liz did not face. With such a large body, the monster boasted an even larger amount of blood so for Liz, with [Vampiric Thirst], she could keep fighting indefinitely.

Liz had adapted her strategy for the opponent, fighting giants was not easy, but that only made watching them fall even more fun.

The monster fell to one knee and more undead moved to attack, spells and arrows and weapons all pinged off of its skin, but with such exhaustion the cyclops could do nothing but take the attacks.

It knew it would die soon, but couldn't allow itself to die so easily.

The earth began to shake and tremble, the final skill of the cyclops champion coming to life as from its rear the ground morphed and grew; a hand appeared from the land itself. [Diamond Shattering Rock], an attack that increased the density of earth such that it could shatter even the hardest of materials - it grew without restraint and hovered over the cyclops.

Liz did not stop as she saw the danger, power radiated from it in ways she hadn't seen since Ouroboros - a mere replica of such profound power, but powerful nonetheless.

And still Liz did not fear, a skill she had not needed to make use of activating: [Ritual Sacrifice] devoured the shattered remains of Liz's soldiers, fed upon the corpses she produced and empowered her army even further.

They didn't need to kill the magic, only the magician. It came from a simple skeleton mage, positioned perfectly in front of the cyclops. A pillar of bone grew above it, wreathed in blue flames from those around it who began to shatter as sacrifice for the skill; and just as the hand moved to crush everything below it, so too did the spear of flaming bones fly.

It touched the eye. It pierced the eye. 

It hit the brain... It pierced the brain.

The hand vanished as fire lit up the inside of the cyclops' skull - brain reduced to blood and ash. 

Liz had won, if only barely.