43 BARE BONES BATTLE

Being a hunter was a subjective term with a few key characteristics that held all variations under the same light. All the way from the old guard of Tangent explorers to the captured and converted Wyldmen of the Isle's of Indus.

Some stalked the snowy steepes of frozen valleys. Others waded through liquid shadows. Or some were like Claude, uncaring of the enviroment— adaptable, shifting shape and quickening speed with their noses low and weapons high.

He moved forward but his mind occupied a cruel spiral. Over and over. Cyclically engaging his understanding of what could be awaiting them as they exited the muggy stone worl—

Stone brushed and crumbled against itself somewhere above.

"UP TOP!" One of the students behind Claude and Stella yelled.

"Watch out!" Darius burst forward in a blast of wind, soaring above everyone in the dark tunnel as if he sported invisible wings.

With his hands outstretched, he intercepted the hellish boulder. A hideous tied down mixture of stone and jagged corpses. With another blast of wind, he sent it flying back to the sender in barely contained wave of shrapnel.

"Keep moving! They're in here with us!" Claude yelled to the less initiated students as they began to bottleneck in the tunnel, eyes glazing over at the sight of the skeleton-hunters, covered in skin and muscle, falling apart but still moving beneath the stone shards.

He cursed himself as they moved.

"I should've known they're in here. They can't fight as well as warriors but they're drawn to vantage points and potential trap zones. This whole place could be a trap and they don't need to breathe or have every limb functioning. They could be anywhere. Dammit!"

Behind him someone screamed. Juli. The youngest of them. Swordsman and friend of Finn.

Claude spun around, letting the faster students whizz past him like fire-bulls in a stampede.

Behind the crowd, Ursula hung back, bringing her fist down on the arm of a skeleton-hunter coming out of the cracks in the stone floor.

His eyes flicked upward as another slid down a stalactite to fall on the unaware berserker.

"Ursula!—" Claude reached out for her.

Fire flew overhead, lighting up the tunnel and sizzling the condensate on the walls as it crashed into the skeleton-hunter.

The scorched bones fell behind Ursula and Juli as they caught up.

"Hey, man! It looks like we gotta keep moving— but your face tells me you knew that. We need your knowledge up front. They don't know what they're running to. You do." Isaac said to Claude before taking his egg. "Move it."

Claude turned on his heels after Ursula and Juli nodded to him.

With his Island-Dogs at his side, Claude took off.

He didn't have the greatest speed. That spot was held between Marion, Brink, Darius and Naz. But his stamina was approaching superhuman levels. As the others fell behind, he pushed past until he was back at the front. Just as the tunnel began to twist and the cracks along the walls and floor expanded.

Now that he focused his senses, he could hear them moving. Boney exteriors grinding and breaking against the stones holding them. They were destroying themselves to reach them.

Claude fought off a shiver. "They're in the walls!"

"Stop!" Considering the fact that Darius just saved them all from being flattened by a boulder, the crowd listened. Better than when Burp demanded it at least….

"What?"

"WHY ARE WE STOPPING?!" Brink questioned with lightning dancing on his skin and all through his mohawk.

"We dont know where we're going." Darius said. "This isn't the same path we took."

Everyone looked to Claude and Stella.

"You guys don't smell outside air?" Ursula asked.

"I do. But it's far— it's fading because of all the movement and new scents."

"From them." Stella pointed at the ground.

"We can't stay still—"

"We can't go further blind. We could just be going where they want us to." Darius explained.

"Wait— aren't mages supposed to be the way-finders?" Enzo asked from beside Marion and Isaac.

Darius nodded, "Yea once we have wayfinding knowledge and abilities. We're green as hell currently."

"And sitting ducks!" Brink hopped around, dodging Carmen's usual tail strike.

"Ok, we can take a minute to plan but we have to lock this place up, some of us need the break anyway." Claude said as one of the tanks holding a poisoned student threw up on his shoes.

At the same time, all Claude did was glance at Ursula and she got to work. She took a knee and placed her palms against the stone grounds.

Ice bloomed smoothing over the earth. Finn and a few other tanks took the walls, blending the earth into one solid sheet of rock.

It took no more than a couple minutes. Those minutes were crucial. The tunnel thudded with irregular beats as the skeleton-hunters below tried to break free.

Claude peered through the ice beneath them, coming face to face with one of the hunters as Darius, Carmen, Trey and Goren tried to devise an escape plan. The hunters had broken free behind them, closing off the chance of retracing their steps. Time was ticking.

A hunter watched him through the ice.

It was uglier than the books. Bones uneven. Teeth jagged and rotten— sharpened by having to gnaw on rock and bone. It wore a torn and dirty tundra-stalker pelt. No larger than its head— meaning it was hunted as a kitten.

"No wonder I couldn't sense them. They're hunting the tundra-stalkers. To stay unnoticed they had to hide deep. How deep….. hm…" Claude stood up and found Naz standing inches away from him. So close their noses almost touched.

"I….. do you have anymore seeds?" Claude asked.

"Why?" Naz questioned.

Claude pointed at the floor, "They're sitting ducks as much as we are. If we can take out a handful while they're stuck like this, that would help us a lot in the long run."

"The run hasn't been long already?" Warren sighed and leaned against a wall, jumping as a skeleton on the other side head butted it.

"I do— but your hold on nature is strong— wild. Depending on how deep the skeletons go, you could collapse the floors around us. We'd die with them." Naz explained.

"I don't have the sensitivity with my element required." Claude cursed. She wasn't wrong. She never was.

"Any luck on a route?" Claude asked the mages and healers.

"It has been less than three minutes, Liberator." Carmen replied. In the shadows her pink skin almost looked normal.

"We don't have time…." Claude brandished his claws, ready for another suicide plan as he headed over to Darius.

"We have me!" Finn cheered.

"What?"

Everyone looked at him as he stood beside Ursula securing the walls.

"This is basically my home! I've been lost in…" He rubbed his chin, "Six tunnels back home. I've learned the easiest way to find my way out is to run from the raindrops!"

He pointed to the cieling.

Droplets of water collected there. Claude raised his nose and inhaled, catching hints of red-back saliva, tundra-stalker nostril fluid and Skeleton-hunter bone marrow.

"Oh damn….. why didn't we notice that?" Goren stood up from his huddle with the others. "There's only room for condensate like this when we're farthest from outside air. Meaning if we go where the condensate fades, we'd get closer to being outside where it literally can't be this muggy."

Isaac held a hand on fire to the cieling, flashing light on the almost too obvious trail pointing them to an intersection and down a leftmost tunnel.

As soon as they entered, the iced grounds in the hall behind them shattered as skeletal hands broke free.

"So what are we doing? We're running from the hunters to fight the boss instead? I don't get it!" Juli said from beside Claude.

"Yes, that's exactly what we're doing." Claude kept his eyes up with Isaac's fire to follow the fading trail of water droplets. It was even getting colder, "We don't have the resources to fight the horde hidden in this cave. We need to take out the boss so the Tangent exit can open and then get back to the Glorian Island's. I won't make you all risk more than you already have—"

DING!

[Join up with your allies and slay the Undead Primal-Hunter!]

The floor disappeared.

Claude's breaths left his lungs as darkness swallowed him and wind screamed in his ears.

He hit cold stone at a wet icy slope. The dozens of students behind him did the same until they were all rolling and sliding down the slippery hill.

Light bloomed at the bottom. White and blinding, spitting spinning puffs of snow and dead animal entrails. Almost like a garbage chute.

Claude was spat out like trash. He landed in ice cold banks of snow, rolling through them with ease before harder more icy portions slowed him, tugging on his torn uniform and remaining armor all the way.

The rest of his team came in behind him, eyes stinging from the contrast of white. Thankfully Isaac and Brink's fire helped them adjust.

Claude got to his feet immediately, "Everyone else get the System alert?"

"Yes."

Not that he needed to ask. They could see it ahead. Hidden in the shadows of white just enough to hide the horrific details.

It was big. Almost twenty-five feet and held up by hybrid bones. Claude wasn't the best with anatomy but humans didn't have singular forearm bones our double sets of ribs. Or tusked fangs. However it was happening, the boss was adding and removing bones like spare parts on a carriage. And with whatever undead magics ran through its limbs, they were being used as if they'd always been there.

The undead beast raised its stone axe and unhinged its jaw, allowing it to open like some skeletal viper.

A hideous murky green gaseous smoke spun free and swirled around the boss.

"Viral breath." Naz yelled above the spinning tundra winds as she spun her scythe. It looked a dark crescent moon.

And the skeletal giant was the beast howling to it.

She charged fearlessly.

"Warren! Help her!" Claude took off after her.

All around him, the winds spun higher and harder, sending tidal waves of white rolling with them as they charged.

The undead-hunter's viral aura dispersed.

"Archers!!!" Someone yelled behind Claude.

Arrows whizzed past him. Blending in with the rolling snow drifts.

Along with it came fireballs and lightning blasts.

The giant barely moved from the hits. It's bones chipped in varying levels, speaking to its different density levels.

"Naz, seeds!" Claude yelled ahead as she disappeared behind a cloud of snow.

He never got a reply.

The undead-hunter moved, swinging at the ground with suprisingly high speed.

Claude came in right after, swallowing the urge to scream for Naz. His action prone mind took over. His canine aspects took front seat. Alpha position.

With the undead-hunters unnaturally long and thick left arm still in the ground, Claude used the limb as a ramp to reach its face.

"No real flesh. No pain. No nerves. No eyes…." He improvised, landing in a crouch on top of its skull. From there he reached down and grabbed its tusk, pulling with every fiber of muscle he had.

At the same time, his dogs circled the boss, barking and slashing at its ankles in an attempt to slowly whittle down the bone.

The boss stumbled and sprinted in random directions. The sudden bursts of speed made him slip a few times but he held on. Mind split between where Naz was and how to effectively kill what was already dead.

Golem's had runes. Zombies had critical points and damage limits. Skeleton's needed to be broken. It made the giants tests of strength.

None of them had strength. Not enough to do what was needed. They were exhausted. Some injured. Others straight up in a poisoned coma.

Not to mention the whole cave behind them was crawling with skeleton-hunters.

They needed to make a play. He needed to. He saw the way they looked at him. He took charge before.

The tusk broke free, causing Claude to fall off the boss' skull. He flipped backward and reached out, catching it by the spine as it took off for the largest crowd of students. A huddle of tanks guarding the archers.

Isaac threw down a ball of fire, casting them in steam.

The boss stopped and opened its jaws. The smell— the rumble of bones and spike of foul magics. It singed his nose hairs.

"Watch out!" Claude climbed up its spine and made it back to the skull, jamming the tusk in its eye in a rush. The moment it was in, he pulled back from behind, forcing the poisonous fog to spill into the sky and not on his team members. Or egg.

In its delayed state, he climbed further forward and ripped off its other tusk, jamming it into the other ey—

Brink flew across the snow and shoulder bashed the undead hunters leg in a flash of light.

The boss took a knee. The island-dogs were on it's cracked leg immediately. They'd gained an upper hand. A moment o—

[85% HP Remaining]

An arrow sunk into Claude's shoulder. His eyes went up just in time to see a pool of skeleton-hunters collecting at the exit point of the cave they came from. Members of the swarm rose up and fired from bows and slingshots before being consumed by the mindless movement of their allies.

Claude ripped the arrow out of his shoulder just as the boss grabbed him and threw him.

The throw wasn't as violent. He'd experienced worse. Way worse. But there was something about hearing the students screams fade. Seeing the lights of battle grow hazy behind the thick fall of snow.

It was like he was being thrown into another world.

One without Isaac and Marion's jovial banter.

Or Darius' quiet one sided rivalry.

Or Brink's thirst for his craziest ideas.

Or Ursula…. And Naz, the twin inspirations. When they all needed him most. When he couldn't find her.

He rolled to a stop in the snow. Rocks laid beneath, tearing at his arms and legs when they sank deep enough into the snow.

[76% HP Remaining]

He could hear his dogs barking. Feel them coming.

"Stay! Stay!" Claude croaked as he got to his feet. Sweat dripped into his eye smelling of something metallic.

"Not sweat…" He huffed and took a step back towards the battle.

Then he stopped.

Furry ears twitching as he caught the sounds of labored breaths behind him. Up ahead another viral breath cloud bloomed.

Priorities.

He turned around and only saw a flash. Two incredibly hot orbs rippled past him, so fast he didn't even have time to react. The flashbang left him blind. The charge from the beast left him in the snow on his back in a ruffled uniform. It had claws but all it did was pull at his pockets?

From there he felt the explosion through the earth. A cruel flash of green and red erased the white coverage if only for a moment. Melting the snowfall to rain for a handful of seconds.

Claude got to his feet and ran for his team. He tripped and fell and cringed at the pain in his entire body before reaching the scene.

Reagan was down. Soot and burn marks ruined his armor. Isaac stood over him. Juli and Finn stood with Stella. Blood dripped from her arm. Trey and Goren struggled to heal the other survivors of the blast.

Darius, Brink, Carmen and Enzo occupied the boss— who was now missing an arm and half its ribcage.

"The tundra-stalker is here…." He recognized the work of a reactive feline-fire blast anywhere. And it wasn't at Stella's command. She was hurt by it like everyone else. Either way, he once again had to prioritize.

His Island-Dogs barked in the distance.

"Claude! Ursula's at the cave exit." Isaac yelled to him.

Claude didn't ask why. He didn't care. He was on the move.

The snow fell heavier than before, clinging to his eyelashes like bugs that didn't fly away when you swatted them. He tried not to blink— the moisture in his breath made the flakes sticky, threatening to weld his eyes shut. To hide his friends from him forever. Visually at least.

Speaking of visions, she was a sight. As always. In her element.

A steaming, red skinned goliath. She swung her fists and roared torrents of ice at the skeleton-hunters until they crumbled in heaps. But she was slowing. And as he came in from behind Warren, he could tell the supporting archer was out of arrows.

Rivera sped up ahead of him and charged through a skeleton-hunter. A larger one came through the rubble of its kin swinging a club. Claude hopped over the island-dog and drop kicked the stack of bones.

It flew backward, into the cave chute where it crumpled.

[+20 EXP]

"Welcome back." Ursula huffed to his left as she put a skeleton-hunter in a full Nelson and twisted its body apart.

The horde continued to pile as more spilled out into the white in front of them. Ursula grabbed another by the skull and crushed it with her bare hands but not before one could come from the side and stab her in the side.

"ACK!"

Claude punched it's jaw off and roundhouse kicked the skeleton back into the churning pile.

"Retreat!" Claude yelled.

"To where?" Warren asked.

"The others, I have an idea!"

They ran. Claude stayed. His claws sharpened on bone whetstones like individual keratin blades belonging to some feral samurai. He ran them through ribs and arms and wherever else he could until his fingers bruised and bled on the enemy.

[+20 EXP]

[+20 EXP]

[+10 EXP]

[+30 EXP]

A three headed skeleton-hunter with spears for arms exploded from the pile.

"Woah—" Claude sidestepped the monster and lunged for its softer temple with his claws. His hand burst through. One of his fingers broke. Two more heads remained. Before it could turn and skewer him, Claude jumped up and wrapped his legs around its two necks, twisting until it was front flipped onto its back in the snow.

Claude swatted and trashed back to his feet, jumping up immediately to squash it's skull.

[+40 EXP]

DING!

[You have Leveled Up! You are now Level 7!]

[+1 Stat Point]

[1 Stat Point Available]

[+1 PHYS U—]

Another came flying out of the cave exit at a sprint and clotheslined him. From his back he faced the monster, his dogs took it down. The next was shot down by arrows.

Before he could get up, she came through swinging. Big heavy swings with her scythe. At the same time, the tundra-stalker she rode in on spit feline-fire blasts from its jaws, atomizing the horde pile and surrounding snow.

"Naz…" Claude mumbled.

"I heard you have plan." She held a hand out to him. Her earrings and necklace jewels glowed in tune with the reflective snowfall, but the rest of her was completely unlike the enviroment. She was dark and alive and vibrant. Everything else was white and dead.

Claude couldn't hide his smile as he grabbed hold and let himself be carried back to the others.

They came to a stop at the back of the group. Ursula took a knee with Trey holding a hand to her back. "She'll be fine— if she'd stop trying to get up so fast—"

"I'm good! We need to break that thing now!" Ursula huffed with low eyes.

No more than a hundred feet ahead, Marion, Enzo, Brink and Darius danced with the devil.

Well, maybe not that.

But still.

Claude moved. Naz followed, abandoning the tundra-stalker as if it was a house cat she found and not a legendary beast as far as bronze tangents were concerned.

"Fish-wolf-liberator boy! Tell me you have a crazy plan! Tell me we get to watch this thing eat the sun somehow! HAHA!" Brink drifted around the battlefield, turning his laugh into a sonic blast empowered by wind. It made the boss stumble and lose a few shards of bone.

The boss reacted by running at Marion. He flipped out of the way, tripping in the snow before Darius blasted him out from under the undead-hunters stomp.

"Not exactly. But we need to lead it to the cave exit. We need to lead it inside actually. I will." Claude said as he ran into the fight. His dogs flanked him.

"Oh give me a break!" Enzo huffed.

"You want to collapse the cave on it." Darius realized. His pressurized wind aura was fading around his legs. He must've been purposefully letting it fade to conserve energy. They were running out of time.

"HOHOHO! Let's go! Let me come with! I love landslides!" Brink climbed up the boss' ribcage like it was a ladder and flipped off. Literally for no reason.

"I already said I'm not—"

"Shut-up, now. Naz, get the others hidden. So it can chase us, you know?! Come on! Come on!" Brink sped over to Claude and latched onto his hand.

Naz nodded, winking at Claude. He could see the "I told you so" in her face as she took off.

"We'll know the signal." Darius replied as they all stopped, circling the undead primal- hunter.

They looked like trash.

Claude was bleeding, covered in cuts and bruises along with fur and fang. His uniform was frozen. His buzzed head and pointed ears were covered in melted snow.

Darius wasn't banged up, but his skin was beet red, losing its beautiful tan.

Enzo and Brink looked the best. For different reasons. One was an assassin, the other one was at peace in chaos.

A fireball lit up the sky.

"Signal?"

"Signal."

"LETS ROCK!" Brink took off in a burst of speed. In the wrong direction.

He charged the boss. It moved to stomp him with its good leg.

Brink, empowered by a lightning cloak, sidestepped the explosion. Then he drifted to a stop and spit at its other leg. The precision blast of saliva split its kneecap.

The boss crumpled again. Now face to face, he grabbed it by the tusks in its eyes. His Mohawk was spitting embers like the maw of a dragon.

Claude didn't fully understand his abilities when Darius explained them, but as they watched he understood.

He was the first quadramage in centuries. He had control of four elements. The only person on earth to claim such a feat. The gods gave him balance by making him incredibly weak with all them.

Then they tossed the balance aside by giving him inhuman levels of finesse and control over them. Along with his aura.

Which is why he could spit saliva bullets, make sonic blasts and achieve super speed at the same time.

He was brink. The boy on the verge of chaos, neutered only for as long as his skill remained unknown. And that wouldn't last much longer.

Brink smiled at the boss, "Follow."

He took off just as the giant skeleton spit another wave of viral breath.

Claude and the others followed after him. Now dashing across an empty valley of white on high knees to avoid being swallowed by the snow.

"Come on!" Claude thought as he pushed. But he was slowing. He'd almost drowned. Been shot in the shoulder— twice, poisoned, and stabbed with dark fire glass all in one day. It was catching up to h—

"No, no, noooo Mr. Hero! Keep up!" Brink grabbed his hand and dragged him to the front.

Claude kept with him, "Darius and Enzo go left and right, hide with my dogs. Once I'm in with the boss use whatever elemental magic you have left."

"But—"

"We'll go out the way we came. There's barely any skeleton-hunters left so the path will be open."

"In theory." Darius huffed.

"That's fine." Claude yelled.

"Is it?"

"Do you want to get home or not?"

Darius didn't reply.

The cave exit loomed. A small tunnel draped in shadows being ate by the glow of snow. It wasn't big en—

Darius sent a blade of wind at the top of the exit. It crumpled and expanded. As the dust fell him and Enzo cleared out.

"And then there were two! Well… three technically. Not for long, haha!" Brink and Claude entered the tunnel.

Running up wet stone was hell. They managed until the boss jammed its way in causing the whole cave to quake.

Claude fell. Stalactites shattered like glass all around him. He got to his feet and pushed on until they both made it up to the corridors of stone.

They never stopped moving. A massive hand of bone slammed the ground right behind him, turning the ground to rubble as it gripped the earth and pulled.

The cave shook again. Weak walls caved in, connecting hallways he didn't know existed as they ran.

"We may not need windylocks!" Brink sounded exhilarated as they ran and dodged stone pellets in darkness.

"No chances." Was all Claude could manage to say.

The two spared a glance behind them as a foul breathed roar bloomed.

The boss crawled through the tunnels like a snake, slithering loudly on hard bones. Slowly gaining less wiggle roo—

Claude's feet came out from under him. Up ahead the same happened to Brink. They tumbled like weeds.

Behind them, skeletal hands reached from the newly opened cracks. Some rose up completely, sporting animal bones and stone replacements beneath their tundra-stalker and red-back pelts.

Brink giggled as he got to his feet, spitting blood.

Claude didn't have any joy left as he came face to face with the boss. Just a head in the tunnel, eyeing him. Smiling almost. If he blinked he could see the demon-snake. Still didn't get answers. Still nice and snuggled up with death.

No reason not to fight though.

He backed away, slipping on wet stone and pebbles as the boss unhinged its jaw. Nauseous green fumes churne—

"Wait…"

The pebbles on his palm made his fingers thrum with power. No. The pebbles. They had the power. That untapped nexus of pure life. That thing he didn't quite yet understand.

He heard the song.

He picked up the seeds that were somehow in his pockets now, nearly jumping as a garden snake slithered out into the dark as well.

Too late.

"ERRRUUUAGHHHH!" The boss let out a final viral-breath blast of hybridized undead magics and ro—

Brink jumped over Claude with a skeleton-hunter on his back and screamed.

The sonic wind blast sent back the smoke cloud, further down the crumbling tunnel in its wake that had already taken its legs. Or what was left of them.

Claude did the rest. Just as Naz said.

He took a fistful of seeds and sank his hand into the cracked earth. The endless miles of mined cave full of corpses on the hunt. The fragile foundations, nooks and crannies waiting to be tested even slightly.

He could do more than slightly.

"How's this for crazy, Brink?" Claude let loose all of his nature magic. He poured every ounce of mana he had left with no direction or control. Just growth in growth on growth.

An explosion of wild vines, roots, magical force field flowers and carnivorous plants took apart the caves grounds. Starting an avalanche of green that swallowed and crushed the darkness.

A darkness they occupied.

A darkness swallowing Claude.

It felt like the absolute wrong time, but he couldn't help but question where the seeds came from. And the snake. And Naz….