27 Skeleton Brigade

After running for just a few hundred meters, Ayaan stopped and turned to look towards the vicious undead creatures.

"Why the hell am I running away from this low-class undead mob? No one below heaven-rank mage could hurt me. The system must have given me some kind of powerful shield or something, hehe." As Ayaan remembered about the protection which was given by the system for one month, his lips curled upward proudly.

Now, he didn't need to feel fear from this undead mob. He can stand at the same place, and these creatures won't be able to hurt him, hehe' that's what he thought. However, sometimes things would not go as we had planned.

"Swish!"

"Puchi!"

While he was rooted in thinking, a sharp claw arrived in front of him, and before he could react, it went directly inside his chest like a sword in tofu.

Subsequently, his expression froze when he felt the heartwrenching pain from his chest. Moreover, he felt the taste of blood inside his mouth — no voice was able to come from his mouth due to the excessive pain.

"Snap~."

The white-skeleton snatched its hand out from Ayaan's chest, but there was something more present in his hand — a heart.

At this moment, blood was gushing out from the hole on Ayaan's chest, and his body started to lose strength. Slowly, his eyes were losing their brightness. However, before closing his eyes, he looked at the skeleton that had attacked him and found its eyes glittering with the red light.

Afterwards, the skeleton turned his glowing eye towards the heart, dripping with Ayaan's blood. He threw it away like garbage and turned around to leave without betting an eye to Ayaan's body.

"Low-class human," the skeleton spat out a few words disdainfully before disappearing from the site in the blink.

Nonetheless, Ayaan, who was lying flat on the ground, saw and heard everything and knew that he fell into the hands of a formidable enemy, but was that enemy a heaven-rank?... How could a heaven-rank undead exist in this low-level plane?... How else would it hurt me with the protection of the system?... Is my luck really this shitty?

Soon, his eyes lost their colour and became grey. At this moment, the skeletons who were on their knees to pay respect to the higher being of this region also stood up and started to scatter.

The skeletons were the undead creatures, who don't eat the flesh of a living person and only devour other undead to increase their strength. Therefore, no undead paid any attention to his body and place again fell into deep silence. At this moment, only a single skeleton left standing not far away from Ayaan's body.

Without its owner, it can't even walk an inch. That was the strength of the heaven grade 'Undead Control.' Only after Ayaan's death, this skeleton will be able to free itself from him.

However, was he really dead?

Eventually, the hole on the Ayaan's chest slowly started to patch on its own.

At first, the heart started to form inside the hole, which was present at Ayaan's chest. After it became complete — heart began to beat, which warmed the blood inside his body, which had already frozen.

Secondly, the wound on his chest started to patch, and in just a matter of seconds, it had disappeared. Lastly, what remained at the place of the hole was only soft white skin on his bare chest.

"Gasping!"

"Huff~ Huff~."

Instantly, Ayaan's eyes, which were close all this time, snapped open. Afterwards, he started to take long, gasping breaths. And his whole body became wet from sweat.

When his breathing became somewhat regular, Ayaan tried to stood-up but failed.

"Fuck you, system! If I had known this would be the meaning of your protection, I would have long disappeared from those disgusting creatures!"

Lying flat on the ground, Ayaan cursed for some time. However, he didn't dare to raise his voice. Nevertheless, even he wanted to raise his voice, he didn't have the strength to do so.

Afterwards, Ayaan tried to run magic power inside his body and slowly gained his strength. Later, when he stood-up, Ayaan turned to look at the skeleton with a grim expression and tried to compare it with the previous skeleton which had attacked him.

Too weak~

At this moment, it was the only thought that came to his mind when he looked at his skeleton and compared both.

Was that a lich? Ayaan wondered.

After gaining knowledge from the system, Ayaan had a vast amount of information about necromancy and other magic schools. He knew there are many levels in skeletons. When any skeleton starts to develop consciousness, it becomes the higher life form among the skeletons, akin to the nobility between ordinary folks in the mortal world.

That higher life form is called lich in the world of necromancy. Moreover, lich's had been divided into many different levels — there were even kings among these liches that ruled the territory, and their intelligence wasn't any less than humans. Furthermore, they can use death magic on their will after developing their consciousness.

Nevertheless, Ayaan didn't dwell on it much longer and decided to find a safe place and wait for these hellish twenty-four hours to over and go back to Aemmugar from this shitty place. However, it's only been a few hours since he arrived. Therefore, he can't go back anytime soon.

Afterwards, Ayaan instructed his skeleton to carry him because his body didn't have much energy left and couldn't walk much longer without support. However, he continued to channel magic power to recover faster. Although his body was recovering rather quickly, it will still take a few hours to heal completely.

Soon, Ayaan was on the skeleton's shoulder, sitting comfortably. After searching for more than two hours, he realised a bitter truth — in this world, there was no safe place, and every corner was filled with undead.

Wherever he went, undead skeletons greeted him. After four hours of running and struggling, Ayaan realised there weren't any creatures in this place other than undead skeletons.

"Did I arrived in some kind of skeleton kingdom or something?" He thought out loud.

However, there wasn't any point in thinking about it. Therefore, Ayaan didn't dwell on it and walked away with his three skeletons who were following him tightly from behind.

After four hours, he had almost recovered completely, and this insane speed of recovery was a pleasant surprise to Ayaan, 'this must be one of the benefits brought by the upgrade of the system.' He thought.

Anyways, after four hours, his wounds had already recovered from inside-out, and there was nothing wrong with his body any longer. Moreover, after struggling for four hours, Ayaan was able to control two more skeletons — equally as powerful as his previous one.

Furthermore, Ayaan realised that he could gain experience points by killing these undead skeletons, and after every kills, the power of death element inside his body would increase. Moreover, every kill done by the skeleton would be count as his kill as well.

Thrilled by knowing the truth, Ayaan started to counter-attack and increased his magic power from level-one junior mage to level-two junior mage.

However, Ayaan wasn't stupid enough to fight with those powerful undead skeletons. On the other hand, he would only fight with the undead, where he was confident of his victory. If Ayaan encountered a powerful skeleton — he would run away with his three skeletons without wasting his time fighting with them.

Ayaan had already stared into the eyes of death one time, and the feeling wasn't pleasant. Therefore, he would not let that happen again.

He wasn't a coward; on the other hand, he was brave and courageous. However, he just didn't want to make the same mistake he made previously, just because he was trying to show off, even though there wasn't any girl present at the site.

At this moment, Ayaan was standing inside the dark cave, which was already acquired by few undead skeletons. Surrounding Ayaan were his three skeletons whom he was giving orders to attack the skeletons in the cave.

Ayaan had already checked the strength of this group of undead and knew they were no match for his three warriors' undead legion. Therefore, he started to give attacking commands to his skeletons.

"Attack!"

At the single command, his undead of three started to attack other skeletons frantically in the cave. However, Ayaan never let them run away more than five meters from him to avoid any mishap from happening again.

"Dodge the attack!"

"Attack from behind!"

"Yes, crush its head!"

Simultaneously, he issued many commands to his undead. After fighting with these undead skeletons, Ayaan knew they would only die when their skull would be crushed, or they would just revive, again and again, even after separating their bodies into numerous parts.

Eventually, as he gave the command to his undead brigade, an undead skeleton entered the circle of three skeletons and arrived in front of Ayaan. However, when Ayaan saw this, there was no fear on his face; on the other hand, his lips curled into a mocking smile and spat out only two words...

"Undead Control!"