These Hallowed Bones - [Monster Evolution, Dark Fantasy, Heroic Undead]

The golem's grip closed on my shoulders.

Pressure built. Measured. Calculated. Not the wild crushing of a beast, but careful thought wrapped in dead flesh.

Through gaps in stitched hide, I saw tubes pulsing with luminescent fluid. Metal beneath meat. Glass vials where organs should be.

Its mouth opened wider.

Rows of fangs behind fangs. Bear teeth. Wolf teeth. Things I couldn't name. Deeper still, glass beakers bubbled and mixed suspended in its throat and deeper within.

Baldred's voice carried from the high table. "Magnificent, isn't it?"

The golem shifted its grip. Fingers found gaps between my ribs, probing trying to inject.

Needle-tipped claws extended from its fingertips.

Hollow. Dripping substances that hissed against bone. Chemical trails of frost and corrosion spread where they touched.

I twisted free before the needles could pierce deeper.

The golem followed.

No wasted motion. Each step already positioning. This creature wasn't fighting by instinct or rage.

Something inside that chest cavity was thinking.

It swung a massive fist toward my skull. Enough force to shatter stone. I dropped low. Bones creaked. Dropping low. The blow continued.

Behind me, the blow connected with a stone pillar.

The pillar shattered. Stone fragments sprayed across the feast hall. Ancient architecture collapsed under the impact.

The golem didn't pause to assess damage.

Already moving. Already adapting. Its other hand swept low, seeking to catch my legs. I vaulted backward, bone fingers finding purchase on a toppled table.

Bones shifted. Five fingers becoming six.

Better grip, better leverage.

Changed grip strength. Changed what this broken frame could accomplish.

I launched from the table as the golem's fist pulverized it.

Wood exploded. Metal framework bent. The feast table that had held Duke Halcyon's grotesque banquet became splinters and twisted iron.

I landed behind the construct.

Aeternus swung out.

The blade's edge found the back of the golem's knee. Through the flesh toward the joint beneath. The mechanism Baldred had crafted to make this thing walk.

Steel met metal with a shower of sparks.

The blade bit deep but did not sever.

The golem's leg buckled slightly. Gears ground. Something inside its knee joint screamed with metal-on-metal friction.

But it did not fall.

Already compensating. Weight shifting to its other leg. Internal mechanisms rerouting power from damaged components to functional ones.

Adapting.

It spun faster.

Backhand caught me across the chest. Dragon plates absorbed most of the impact. Soldier ribs beneath them did not.

Four cracked.

I flew backward across the feast hall. Hit a stone column. More bones cracked on impact. A wolf vertebra split lengthwise. Two more soldier ribs shattered.

Fragments scattered across flagstones.

The golem advanced.

The damaged knee no longer bore full weight. It had learned. Adjusted its gait to compensate for injury.

Ten seconds.

That's how long it took for Baldred's creation to adapt to crippling damage.

The Arkashoth fragment stirred with dark appreciation.

This was intelligence. Real thought housed in meat and metal. Learning from every exchange.

Getting smarter with each failed attempt to destroy it.

I pushed off the column.

Scattered finger bones flowed back across the floor. Drawn by will. By purpose. They climbed my legs. Found their way to stumps of wrists.

They reformed differently.

Right hand assembled with seven fingers instead of five. Two thumbs. Both functional. Both positioned for better grip strength. Wolf claws jutted from three of them where soldier bone had failed.

Left hand grew eight fingers. Each one tipped with bone that had sharpened itself during the scatter. More claws. Curved. Hooked.

I flexed both hands.

Different. Changed. Better.

The golem adapted to damage through calculated response.

I adapted to damage through purpose.

We were both learning.

The golem's fist came again.

I didn't dodge.

Instead, I caught it.

Seven fingers wrapped around knuckles larger than my skull. Dragon plates along my forearm locked together. Bracing. Absorbing the force that tried to drive me backward.

Wolf bone in my wrist twisted. Ligaments of spectral flesh pulled taut. Muscle memory from borrowed fragments guided movements I'd never learned.

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The impact drove me down two inches.

Stone cracked beneath my feet.

But I held.

The golem pulled back. Tried to wrench its fist free.

I didn't release.

Eight fingers on my left hand found purchase on its wrist. Claws stabbed through stitched hide. Found metal beneath. Scraped. Sought weak points in Baldred's construction.

Held on.

The golem's other arm swung toward my exposed ribs.

I released. Dodged, summoning Aeternus into my hand.

I sprang up.

The blade sliced through the golem's abdomen. A shallow cut.

Just enough to part flesh and expose what lay beneath.

The golem's chest split open.

Ribs folding outward on brass hinges. Inside, glass chambers rotated on a carousel system. Bringing different formulas forward.

One chamber cracked.

Yellow fluid sprayed from the fissure. Outward. Downward. At the floor between us.

Where it touched stone, the flagstones hissed.

Bubbled. Smoked. Dissolved into slag that spread in widening pools.

Acid.

I moved.

Bone shifted mid-stride. Dragon plates along my spine locked. Providing the rigidity needed for what came next.

My left foot found a feast table's edge.

Shattered wood. Twisted metal frame. Just enough surface for leverage.

I pushed.

The table flipped. Momentum carrying it upward. Creating distance. A barrier between myself and spreading acid.

Claws scraped stone. Left furrows in flagstone. Missed me by inches.

I landed beyond the acid pool.

Seven fingers found purchase on intact floor. Eight more braced against a toppled chair. Both hands working in concert. Different configurations. Same purpose.

The golem turned.

Gears whined inside damaged knee. Compensating. Always compensating.

Its chest carousel rotated again.

Bringing forward a chamber filled with blue liquid. Frost clear on the glass surface.

Different weapon. Different approach.

Learning.

"Impressive, is it not? My great creation" Baldred called from the high table. "What will you try next, skeleton?"

I said nothing.

Just watched the golem's chest close.

Ribs folding inward on brass hinges.

Sealing away its vulnerabilities.

The golem's mouth opened again.

rass nozzle extending from deep within its throat. Connected to tubes. To the blue chamber I'd seen rotating forward.

It sprayed.

Blue liquid erupted from the nozzle. Was not a mist or a vapor.

Concentrated stream aimed directly at my torso.

I moved left.

Not fast enough.

The substance caught my right shoulder. Splashed across dragon plates. Seeped between ribs into the hollow space beneath.

Cold spread.

My right arm locked.

Shoulder frozen solid. Elbow joint seized mid-motion. The seven fingers that had been flexing a moment before became rigid. Locked in position. Unable to move.

The dragon fragments within that arm went silent. Soldier fragments unable to extend.

Even the wolf like claws jutting from fingers holding Aeternus stilled.

Frozen.

The substance spread.

Creeping along my collarbone. Downinto ribs. Across my shoulder blade. Blue frost coating bone. Locking it into stillness.

My right arm was dead weight now. Useless. Pulling my frame off balance.

The Arkashoth fragment stirred.

I grabbed my right shoulder with my left hand.

Eight fingers. Hooked claws. All positioned for maximum tearing strength.

I pulled.

The frozen shoulder resisted. Connected by tendons of spectral tissue that still functioned. By ligaments that hadn't frozen yet. By sheer will that tried to hold structure together.

I pulled harder.

Spectral tissue tore. Ligaments snapped. The frozen scapula separated from my ribcage.

I threw it down.

The arm hit flagstones and shattere. Frozen bone fragmenting into pieces that scattered across the floor.

Gone.

The golem's nozzle tracked my movement.

Preparing to spray again.

I didn't give it the chance.

I charged.

No right arm. Balance off. Frame uneven where shoulder blade had been torn away.

Didn't matter.

I kicked Aeternus up with my foot.

The blade spun through air. Handle rotating toward my remaining hand.

Eight fingers closed around the grip mid-spin.

The golem's nozzle swiveled.

Too slow.

I was already inside its reach.

The blade drove upward.

Through stitched hide beneath the jaw. Past the brass nozzle. Into the throat cavity where glass chambers rotated.

Glass shattered.

Blue liquid mixed with yellow. With green. With substances that had no business touching.

Chemical reactions ignited inside the golem's chest.

The construct's eyes widened.

Whatever intelligence Baldred had placed inside that skull recognized the danger.

Too late.

The carousel exploded.

Glass fragments erupted outward. Chemicals sprayed in every direction. The golem's chest cavity became a fountain of hissing, burning, freezing death.

I yanked Aeternus free.

Stepped back.

The golem reached for its throat with both hands.

Trying to contain the breach. Trying to stop the cascade.

Its fingers melted where they touched.

Flesh dissolved. Metal warped. The careful construction Baldred had created came apart.

From the inside.

The golem collapsed forward.

Still dissolving as it fell.

The golem's flesh sloughed away.

What remain separated.

Stitched hide peeled back from the framework beneath. Revealing what had truly been piloting this construction.

A homunculus.

No larger than a child's torso. Pale. Translucent skin stretched over a bulbous skull. Four spindly limbs that once let it control the whole. Eyes that took up half its face.

Black. Wet. Terrified.

It had been nested in the chest cavity. Connected to the carousel. To the brass mechanisms. The thinking thing behind dead flesh and metal.

Now exposed.

Vulnerable.

It screeched.

High-pitched. Panicked. A sound that scraped against reason.

The homunculus scrambled backward.

Awkard limbs seeking purchase on dissolving meat.

It slipped.

Fell.

Righted itself immediately.

Skittered toward the edge of the feast hall.

Away from me. Away from Aeternus. Away from the death it had suddenly realized was coming.

I moved.

Three strides across dissolving meat and shattered glass.

The homunculus didn't make it far.

Spindly limbs carried it maybe six feet. Pathetic distance. Weak. Frantic.

My foot came down.

The homunculus looked up.

Black eyes reflected blue-white fire. Saw death coming.

Opened its mouth to shriek.

My heel met its skull.

Squish.

The bulbous head collapsed like overripe fruit. Pale flesh burst. Dark fluid sprayed across flagstones. The spindly limbs twitched once.

Twice.

Went still.

I lifted my foot.

What remained stuck to the sole. Fragments of translucent skin. Pieces of the thing that had piloted Baldred's creation.

I scraped them off against stone.

The golem's framework groaned behind me. Collapsing fully now. Without the homunculus to animate it, just meat and metal and dissolving chemicals.

Nothing worth salvaging.

I turned toward the high table.

Baldred stared at the crushed remains of his champion.

His fists clenched.

"You destroyed months of work."

I said nothing.

Just advanced toward the demons who still lived.

Pan cowered behind an overturned chair. The other candidates watched. Calculating. Afraid.

Good.

I knelt beside the golem's dissolving framework.

Brass components still intact beneath melting flesh. Hinges that had animated ribs. Pistons that had driven limbs.

Purpose recognized potential.

My remaining hand reached where the chemical slurry had not touched.

Seven fingers closed around a brass joint. Pulled. The metal came free with a wet snap.

I pressed it to my empty shoulder socket.

Spectral tissue wrapped around foreign material. Drawing it in. Dragon fragments shifted. Making room. Accepting what served function.

The brass fused.

New shoulder. Different. Stronger than bone.

I reached deeper into the wreckage.

Found a piston. Hydraulic arm designed to multiply force. I integrated it into my bicep. Found gears. Added them to my elbow. Wrist mechanisms that had controlled the golem's crushing grip.

All of it flowed into my frame.

Changed me.

My right arm rebuilt itself. Not bone anymore. A hybrid of dragon plate, soldier fragments, and Baldred's engineering.

I flexed the new fingers.

Metal scraped metal.

The hand opened. Closed. Precise. Powerful.

Better.

I stood, faced Baldred with Aeternus in hand.

"Your grand work," I said.

"Now mine."