Wizard: Starting from Escape from the Thorn Garden

Chapter 91 Little Skeleton

Guided by a mysterious force, Kate's figure vanished instantly, like a stone thrown into the deep sea.

The intense spatial shift far surpassed any previous teleportation, as if the soul had been forcibly stripped from the body, crushed, and then reassembled.

Cold! Dead silence! Boundless darkness!

This was Kate's first feeling after regaining consciousness.

Without a body, without perception, only pure consciousness floats in a void. The Seed of Origin continues to operate, yet it seems frozen in eternal ice, only able to maintain a minimal confirmation of "existence."

I don't know how much time passed, perhaps a moment, perhaps eternity, but a faint, cold, eerie green light appeared ahead, like a will-o'-the-wisp in the night.

A grand, ancient voice, seemingly composed of the wails of countless departed souls, resounded directly within Kate's core consciousness, carrying an undeniable pressure of established rules:

[Welcome, Inheritors—to the Realm of the Dead—the Trial Grounds of Osa—]

【Rules — Stripped Away —】

[Stripping Away Symbiosis — The Art of Stripping — Stripping Away External Objects — Stripping Away the Past —]

[Only to retain————origin————will————and————seeking heart————]

Kate felt an irresistible force sweep over his "presence".

The ferocity of the Bloodthirsty Vine, the coolness of the Moon Shadow, the resilience of the Golden Thorn, the tranquility of the Floating Flower—the connections between all symbiotic organisms were instantly severed and sealed!

Dimensional bag, Shadowthorn Ring, potions, puppets—all external objects vanished like phantoms.

Even the prototype of his newly constructed and proud "space-time nursery" was forcibly suppressed back into the deepest part of his mental sea and fell into silence.

An unprecedented sense of weakness washed over him! He felt like a baby who had been stripped of all his gear and thrown into a freezing cold.

【Form — Reshaping — In the Lowest Position — Understanding the True Meaning of Death —】

The faint green light suddenly spread, enveloping, pulling, and reshaping Kate's cold consciousness.

Click—click—click—

Kate "felt" that she had a "body".

But this body is so fragile, so heavy.

He looked down, and if that could be called looking down, what he "saw" was a pale, cracked, and dilapidated skeleton.

A few crooked ribs, a slender spine, an empty skull, two thin arm bones, and two leg bones that are almost falling apart.

He tried to move, and a few fingers on his right hand moved slightly and stiffly, making a teeth-grinding "crunch" sound.

A level 0 skeleton soldier, the weakest of all.

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[Goal — Survival — Sense of Survival]

From Level 0 Skeleton Soldier to Level 4 Peak Skeleton General

[Time Limit — Unknown —]

【start----】

The cold voice disappeared, and the surrounding darkness receded like the tide.

Kate found herself standing on a vast, endless plain of bones.

The sky was an eternal leaden gray, devoid of sun, moon, and stars. The air was thick with a nauseating aura of death, icy cold, carrying the smell of rotting iron and a faint stench of blood.

There was a thick layer of grayish-white bone powder underfoot, which made a soft "rustling" sound when stepped on.

As far as the eye could see, countless skeletons of various shapes and sizes were scattered among them: huge bones of unknown beasts, complete skeletons the size of humans, shattered skulls, rusted and broken weapons—this was a graveyard of the dead, a cradle of the dead.

The Seed of Origin struggled to function within Kate's empty skull, its remaining faint consciousness like a flickering candle in the wind, maintaining Kate's conscious awareness.

[Environment: Neosa Heritage Space - Bone Wasteland]

[Energy Attributes: Pure Death Energy (Inert State), Faint Soul Residue]

[Spatial Structure: Stable, Rule-Suppressed]

[Form: Level 0 Skeleton Soldier (Weakest Form)]

[Status: Extremely weak, extremely low physical strength, no energy attack ability, no special talents, possesses a weak basic soul fire]

[Threat: Other undead creatures exist in the environment (level 0 skeletons, level 1 skeletal wolves, etc.), resulting in rank suppression.]

[Suggestion: Avoid, observe, seek out and devour the Soul Fire to strengthen yourself]

"Devour—Evolve—"

Kate analyzed the cold hints from the Seed of Origin word by word, and the faint green light inside the eerie green soulfire skull flickered slightly.

He tried to move the new body.

Every step was incredibly difficult, with worrying friction sounds coming from the joints of the bones, as if they might fall apart at any moment.

The deathly aura, like icy venom, attempted to erode his faint soul flame, but the Seed of Origin emitted a barely perceptible chilling will, like the most resilient barrier, firmly protecting the core and slowly dissecting it.

Kate was like a true walking corpse, aimlessly "wandering" in the boundless sea of ​​bones.

He saw several broken skeletons similar to his own moving aimlessly in the distance, and he also saw a skeletal wolf, made up of several larger animal bones with slightly bright green eyes, tearing at the arm bone of a skeleton, making a "crunching" gnawing sound.

The skeletal wolf seemed to sense Kate's presence, raising its head and locking onto him with its empty eye sockets.

Its soul fire reveals an instinctive greed to devour its own kind and grow stronger!

The skeletal wolf made a low growl, and a silent soul fluctuation came through. It suddenly abandoned the remains under its claws, and its limbs dug through the bone dust. Like a pale white lightning bolt, it rushed straight at Kate.

Its speed far surpasses Kate's dilapidated body!

The threat of death suddenly descended.

Kate felt no fear, only the cold calculations of the primordial seed:

[Target: Level 1 Skeleton Wolf]

[Speed: Fast (relative to host)]

[Attack method: Pounce and bite, moderate physical strength]

[Weakness: Relatively vulnerable joint connections (knee joints in the hind legs, neck joints)]

[Host's response: Unable to withstand the attack, unable to dodge (insufficient speed). Only chance: Utilize the terrain to attack its weak joints.]

Kate stumbled backward as if tripped, her entire skeleton falling backward and crashing into the bone dust, raising a cloud of grayish-white smoke.

The skeletal wolf missed its target and landed in front of him. Without hesitation, it opened its "mouth" made of sharp animal bones and bit hard at Kate's fragile cervical spine.

At this critical moment!

Kate fell precisely at the narrow angle formed by the intersection of two enormous skeletons.

As he fell, his "left hand" "accidentally" grabbed a broken spear, rusty but with an unusually sharp tip, that was stuck diagonally in the bone powder.

Almost the instant the skeletal wolf bit down, Kate used all the strength in her wrecked body to thrust the rusted spear in her "left hand" upwards at an extremely tricky angle from below the wolf's open jaws.

The target skeletal wolf has a relatively slender neck joint that connects the skull and spine.

puff!

With Kate pushing with all her might, the rusted spear tip precisely pierced the gap in the neck joint of the skeletal wolf.

The skeletal wolf's biting motion suddenly froze, and a powerful surge of soul energy erupted from its body—pain and astonishment.

Kate didn't pause at all! He suddenly dug his right hand into the bone powder, using it as a fulcrum, and thrust his whole body upwards like a lever.

Snap!

A sharp, teeth-grinding crack.

He used the rusted spear and all his strength to pry and tear the skeletal wolf's head off at the neck joint.

The headless wolf skeleton instantly lost all its strength and crashed to the ground. The embers in its eye sockets did not go out, but flickered like candles in the wind above its broken neck bones, filled with terror and resentment.

Kate struggled to sit up, turning the skull toward the floating, unclaimed soulfire.

A hunger emanating from the depths of his soul burned like a raging fire at his core.

Devour!

Kate stretched out her "hand," and the eerie green soul fire seemed to be drawn towards Kate's empty skull.

The moment the soul fire merged, boom—!

A torrent of icy energy, several times stronger than before, instantly surged into Kate's soul core.

This energy, filled with chaotic, violent, and hungry instincts, attempts to assimilate and tear apart Kate's fragile consciousness.

But the Seed of Origin suddenly burst forth with dazzling golden light.

The icy analytical force field acted like the most precise filter, instantly stripping away, shattering, and annihilating the chaotic will contained within this ball of soul fire.

Only the purest and most fundamental soul energy remains.

This pure energy, like a sweet spring, instantly nourished Kate's parched soul fire.

His soul fire expanded and condensed at a visible speed, its color changing from a faint, ghostly green to a deeper emerald green.

At the same time, this energy flow also washed over his skeletal body.

The cracks that covered the bones quickly healed and strengthened under the influence of death energy, making the bones thicker and tougher! The height also seemed to have increased slightly.

[Successfully devoured a Level 1 Bone Wolf Soul Fire Core!]

[Absorption of Primal Soul Energy —]

[Soul Fire Enhancement: Level 0 → Level 1 (Initial)]

[Skeletal Body Enhancement: Increased strength, repaired cracks, slight increase in physical strength, speed, and defense.]

[Analysis yielded: Skeleton Wolf Basic Combat Instinct Fragment (Bite, Pounce)]

Kate rose from the bone dust, feeling a newfound power—though still small, she was no longer the little skeleton everyone in this world trampled on.

He held the rusted, broken spear firmly in his "hand," and it became his first weapon.

"Analysis—Devour—Evolve—" Kate's soul fire leaped, the coldness of the Seed of Origin perfectly matching the cruelty of the undead world.

He stopped wandering aimlessly and began consciously using the Seed of Origin to scan his environment:

[Three hundred meters to the left front, there is a faint soul fluctuation beneath the pile of bones, possibly a level 0 skeleton soldier————]

[Three level 0 skeletons are slowly moving to the right rear; an ambush could be set up.]

[Beneath the massive beast skeleton ahead, there is a Level 1 Bone Wolf Soul Fire reaction —]

The hunt begins!

In the time that followed, Kate acted like a sophisticated killing machine, guided by the Seed of Origin.

He used the terrain to set up an ambush, luring lone level 0 skeletons into a pre-set bone pile trap, then precisely piercing their vulnerable cervical or spinal joints with his rusted broken spears, devouring their soul fire.

He observed the habits of the skeletal wolves and took advantage of their greed for soulfire. He set up bait, such as deliberately exposing his own weak soulfire fluctuations. At the moment they pounced, he predicted the landing point and inserted the broken spear into their vulnerable joints.

Each absorption brought growth to the soul fire and strengthening to the skeleton. He steadily advanced from the early stage of level 1 to the mid and late stages of level 1.

After he devoured enough level 0 soulfire and several level 1 skeletal wolves, his skeleton became thicker and stronger, and his rusted broken spear was replaced with a more complete and sharper bone blade.

This bone blade is the loot from killing a level 1 late-game strong skeleton.

[Soul Fire Enhancement: Level 1 → Level 2 (Bone Warrior)]

[Skeletal body significantly enhanced: highly similar to that of an ordinary human, with increased bone density, and a marked improvement in physical strength, speed, and defense.]

[Analysis revealed: Basic Weapon Mastery (Bone Blade), Weak Combat Intuition]

Having become a Level 2 Skeleton Warrior, Kate's goals begin to shift towards even stronger beings.

He discovered a small group of level 2 ghouls gnawing on a fresh, rotting corpse.

Analysis of the Seed of Origin:

[Target: Ghoul (Level 2) 3]

[Characteristics: Moderate strength, moderate speed, claws and fangs are slightly poisonous, has a fanatical instinct for fresh flesh, and acts in packs.]

[Weakness: The spiritual core (soul fire) has low resistance to impacts from pure souls, and its joints are relatively stiffer than those of humans.]

[Tactics: Utilize their bloodlust to create chaos, eliminate them one by one, and disrupt their core with a mental attack.]

Kate did not rush forward directly.

He found a relatively fresh skeleton, the remains of some unfortunate trial participant, that smelled faintly of blood. He sliced ​​it open with his bone blade, smeared the blood on his own skeleton, and then dragged it to the entrance of a narrow passage made of huge fossilized ribs.

He deliberately released a wisp of soulfire energy carrying a bloody scent, then concealed it within the shadow of the massive bone spikes above the passage.

Soon, the three ghouls, attracted by the smell of blood, charged over with excited growls.

As they jostled and pushed their way into the narrow passage, lunging toward the decoy skeleton!

Kate descended from the sky! The bone blade, accompanied by a whistling sound, slashed fiercely at the nape of the neck of the foremost ghoul.

At the same time, the Seed of Origin was operating at full power, transforming a cold, extremely concentrated analytical will into an invisible spiritual spike that pierced into the relatively chaotic core of the ghoul's soul fire!

"Gah—!" The ghoul's movements suddenly froze, its soul fire flickering violently, as if it had been struck by an invisible hammer.

puff!

The bone blade precisely cleaved its neck bone!

Without pausing, Kate kicked the ghoul's corpse towards the two in front, creating chaos.

At the same time, his body spun like a top, and the bone blade drew a pale arc of light, sweeping towards the knee joint of the nearest ghoul.

With its joints shattered, the ghoul collapsed to the ground, howling in agony.

The last ghoul finally reacted and angrily pounced on Kate.

However, the narrow passage restricted its movements. With its stronger fighting instincts and the sharpness of its bone blade, Kate, after paying the price of having several ribs cracked by claws, once again pierced its soul fire with the mental spikes and killed it with the bone blade.

After absorbing three Level 2 Ghoul Soulfires, Kate's Soulfire became like burning jade, deep and condensed, and his skeleton was covered with a faint metallic luster.

[Soulfire Enhancement: Level 2 → Level 3 (Bone Lord)]

[Skeletal Body Enhancement: Covered with a thin layer of bone armor, physical strength is greatly increased, with improvements in speed, strength, and defense.]

[Analysis revealed: Weak resistance to corrosive poison, Mental Shock Technique (Basic), Enhanced Combat Instinct]

Kate, having become a Level 3 Skeleton Lord, possessed the instinct to command lower-ranking undead.

He could forcefully suppress and command the nearby level 0-2 undead. But he knew that wasn't enough.

The Seed of Origin guided him toward the depths of the Wasteland of Bones, to an area where the deathly aura was even denser and the soul fluctuations even stronger.

He encountered a well-organized squad of skeletal soldiers led by a level 3 skeletal warrior, massive level 3 gargoyles with incredible defense, and even a small group of vengeful spirits led by a level 4 early-stage "Wailing Banshee".

Every battle was extremely dangerous.

Faced with the skeletal soldiers' siege, Kate used her commanding aura to create momentary chaos, while her true form moved in like a ghost, her bone blades targeting vital points and her mental shocks disrupting the core.

Facing the gargoyle, he constantly moved around, using the Seed of Origin to calculate the gaps in its slow turns, and then stabbed the bone blade into the relatively weak connection at the base of its wings, eventually wearing it down to death.

Faced with the mental attacks of the Howling Banshee and the Wraith, the Seed of Origin became the strongest fortress, not only resisting the impact but also allowing Kate to initially grasp the counter-attack technique of "Soul Scream" by analyzing its attack patterns—although it was still very rough, it was enough to interfere with opponents of the same level or even slightly weaker.

Devour, fight, analyze, evolve!

Kate's soul fire grew stronger and more refined through repeated devouring and tempering, its color gradually changing from emerald green to a deep, dark blue.

His skeleton was covered with thicker, metallic-textured bone armor, and his bone blades had evolved into those made of highly condensed death energy.

The prototype of a two-handed greatsword with eerie blue flames burning along its edges.

[Soul Fire Enhancement: Level 3 → Level 4 (Bone General - Initial Stage)]

[Skeletal Body Metamorphosis: Covered in complete, dark bone armor, its physical strength and defense rival those of fine steel, and its power and speed surpass the limits of mortals. Weapon: Death Aura Greatsword (Prototype)]

[Analysis revealed: Undead Intimidation (can intimidate low-level undead), Soul Howl (Beginner), Initial Condensation and Control of Death Energy]

Finally, he stepped into the threshold of level 4 and became a true skeleton general.

But this is only the beginning.

Neosa's requirement is to reach the peak of level 4.

Kate's target was a forbidden area deep within the Bone Wasteland, known as the "Soul Forge." There, the death energy was so dense it was almost liquefied, and countless fragments of unconscious soul fire floated in the air like a boiling sea of ​​stars.

And entrenched there was a true level 4 peak undead—the Forge Guardian, Balrog.