For just a moment, my thoughts stopped.
What filled my palm was not the warmth of wood. This was something that cut straight through from fingertip to bone — cold, indifferent, iron. The head was a sphere with a dull gleam, flanked by spikes built for tearing through flesh and bone. Total length: roughly sixty centimeters. Heavier than the long wooden clubs, but with the weight concentrated at a single point — it fit the hand in a way that felt almost natural, surprisingly easy to control.
"AAAAAAAAAGH—!"
The roar and the swing were one motion. Iron against the large Skeleton's skull, aimed at the weak point.
"Ngh—!"
One strike wasn't enough to break it. But it didn't bounce back the way it had before. The impact went deep — a real sense of damage coming back through my fists.
My arms were screaming. Whatever was left in them was almost gone. There was no time to rest before the Skeleton tried to get back up.
I gripped the mace with both hands and raised it overhead.
"SHATTER—!!"
Full body weight, straight down.
The collision rang out across the night grassland like rock splitting rock. The Minotaur Skeleton's reinforced skull cracked clean in two.
"I did it—"
The words came out wrung dry. Relief, satisfaction, something else that lifted — all of it hit at once, and my knees shook with it.
But there was no time to feel any of it. The air of the battlefield was still sharp against my skin.
Not over. Keep going.
I swept my gaze around.
Teok had a Skeleton pinned — and Aron had stepped into the opening to finish it with a clean knife strike. The rest were down. While I'd been locked in that fight with the large one, the two of them had handled everything around me.
Some distance away in the dark, a massive shape was still moving. Two figures stood against it.
"Just that one left."
Aron's voice, close behind me. He'd come back without me noticing.
"Shouldn't we go in?" Teok asked him, just rejoining us.
"No. We'd only get in the way. If it gets truly dangerous, then we step in."
Aron brushed grass and dirt from his clothes, unhurried.
At our feet, the rusted farm tools the armed Skeletons had been carrying lay scattered and broken. One enemy remaining — the large type Elkan and Sed were facing. Of the original three large Skeletons, I'd taken one, and one of those two had already taken another.
The one they were dealing with now had a different skull — not a bull's. Whatever species it had been, the frame radiated the same oppressive mass as the one I'd just finished. Even with the iron mace in hand, I knew I had nothing left to bring to a fight like that.
The Skeleton swung one arm sideways at Elkan — a horizontal sweep like a falling log. Elkan didn't dodge. He set his great axe across his body and took it head-on, absorbing the force through the weapon.
"Not bad at all!"
He said it laughing. He was enjoying himself. In the middle of this.
Sed had already moved into the opening, silent.
"Hnn—!"
One strike. Sed reversed the blade at the last moment and brought the spine — the flat back of the sword — into the Skeleton's torso. The impact was enormous. The huge frame staggered badly.
"This is the end—!"
Elkan's shout rang through the night air. The axe was already above his head. It came down on the Skeleton's skull like it had somewhere to be.
A dry, cracking sound spread through the grassland.
The large skull split in two.
In the same moment, the corrupted presence that had dominated the battlefield dissolved. The grassland went quiet.