Giantspeak - Part 3

While Leezy dealt with the giant skeleton, Reyes was busy dealing his own problems..,

A total of 6 skeletons came at him tirelessly, fighting in sync with each other.

They had started off easy enough for him to deal with. He managed to dispatch two before the remainder that currently attacked him powered up out of nowhere.

Despite his high speed, once the power up kicked in, they were all able to easily keep up with him.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Attacks came at him from all sides. He quickly found himself being pushed to his limit.

Being unable to absorb any blood to give him the slight speed boost he had become accustomed to, his katanas could only be used to counter attack at the moment.

Unable to stand it any longer, he tried thinking of a way to gain the upper hand while deflecting the onslaught of attacks coming his way.

His thoughts immediately went back to his fight with the golem. Looking closely at each skeleton, he didn't notice any immediate vital points.

In an effort to sidestep a slash from an axe wielding skeleton, his back stuck against bone making him realize that he had been pushed all the way to the bone ribcage.

Crossing his katanas in front of him, he blocked the slash instead and got sent clean through the rib that his back touched.

'Think Reyes…think!'

It was then that he remembered what his brother had said.

Immediately, he released his aura which made the small cloud of bone dust that had been stirred fly away from him in white ripples.

All of the skeletons charged in after him, attacking at the same time. One from above, two from below, one from the middle, and two on either side of him.

As their weapons came close to his aura, they slowed down as if trying to cut through thick slime.

With a grin on his face, Reyes wasted no time getting to work.

With one slash, he separated all of their wrists from their arms, making their weapons clatter to the ground. With another, he sliced them all clean in half.

The hollow sound of bone falling to the earth reverberated throughout the ribcage. As if they didn't exist, the bones all slowly faded away around him.

Sheathing his katanas, a satisfied look crept onto his face.

'Cool ability. I really need to talk to Leezy about names for them whenever i get th-'

A loud noise suddenly cut off his thoughts as he looked up.

From above, the giant sword the skeleton wielded came crashing through the ribcage, collapsing it.

Debris and bone dust blanketed the area, flying everywhere.

Combined with the fog, the layer of dust was so thick that Reyes couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face.

Vision completely obscured by the dust cloud, he couldn't see the giant vertebrae that was falling.

Reyes fell down into a pile of bone shrapnel as the vertebrae broke across his head. Blood trickled down his face, blurring his vision even further while his consciousness faded to black.

…

Leezy couldn't see anything at all.

Jumping down from the sword, he landed among the rubble that once was the bone ribcage. He didn't hear the sound of battle so he became sure his brother should be nearby.

"Reyes! Don't you get any bright ideas trying to sneak attack me!"

Silence was the only thing that replied to him.

'So that's how we are playing it eh?'

Using mana sense, he probed around but couldn't sense his brother at all.

There wasn't even a faint trace of anything remaining in the area.

'Maybe he moved on to the smoke we noticed earlier, guess I will just meet him there.'

Continuing forward, Leezy pushed his way through the thick cloud, almost tripping over something in the debris.

"Stupid bones.."

Muttering out loud to himself, he stomped hard on what he almost tripped over and heard a satisfying crunch.

Paying no more mind to it, he continued forward until he exited the cloud of dust and reached the source of the black smoke.

At the end of the rib cage was an altar made up of various skulls. On top of it rested a ceremonial dagger that had dried blood caked in the serrated edges of it's blade. Behind it was what looked to be the remains of a campfire that was left smoldering as if someone left in a hurry.

Looking around, he still saw no sign of his brother.

'Don't tell me that fucker set up camp while I was fighting. He must have decided to move on without me. I know it took a bit long for me to deal with that skeleton but damn! Oh yeah…nearly forgot.'

Recalling his fight with the skeleton, he had almost forgotten about the black crystal he snatched out it's skull once the blade pierced through.

Reaching into his bag, he pulled it out. A few moments later and it was separated into shards to that got completely absorbed.

A slow transformation began to take place with his armor.

His gauntlets became infused with bones along the fingers. Skull like pauldrons formed on his shoulders with a blue glow shining from within their eye sockets. His helmet became more skull like and the broken horn that curved upward from it fully regenerated.

Besides the appearance change, he didn't notice anything else.

'Eh, I can get used to this shit right here. Now I look like a real OG instead of some off brand fuck up while I beat the life out of my enemies. Pretty boy Reyes is going to have to watch his women when I walk into the room now, hehe.'

Chuckling softly at his thoughts, he continued on past the shrine and stumbled upon some footprints left in the mud that lead off into the distance. Pulling out his compass, he determined that the footprints led east toward the canyon.

Building up energy into his legs, Leezy leapt off in that direction.

…

With Grim's movement restricted, he truly had no choice.

"Kyōran"

After muttering those words, a massive shockwave threw all of the undead away from him as a tall aura beam shot up, lighting up the night sky.

After a short period, the beam dissipated, revealing a completely transformed Grim.