Kanos rolled roughly to the right.
A second later, an axe made of a giant thigh bone smashed into the stone floor right where his head had been. The cave floor shattered. Stone splinters sprayed into Kanos's face.
Kanos didn't waste time complaining. He immediately kicked the wall next to him, sending his body sliding away from the monster's reach. His dirty left hand pulled one thick shadow line, hooking his body to a pillar above so he could swing up to higher ground.
A red screen blinked in the corner of his eye.
[ MINI BOSS: BONE AMALGAM (LEVEL 55) ]
The creature down there was a total eyesore. It was purely just a skeletal arrangement of various monsters forcefully mashed together. It had four legs like a horse, but its upper body was like a giant human with its ribs spread wide open. There wasn't a single piece of meat or vein attached to it.
But that creature could run as fast as a race car.
The Bone Amalgam looked up, staring at Kanos who was hanging from the shadow wire. Its skull jaw opened, letting out a roar that sounded like dry bones grinding together, making his teeth ache.
Kanos closed one eye fighting the dizziness. His Structural Analysis skill had been on this whole time. Neon blue lines formed a grid around the monster, sending data without stopping to his brain.
'This makes no sense,' Kanos thought. His artist brain protested loudly. 'It doesn't have muscles. It doesn't have veins. A pile of bones like this should just collapse to the ground, pulled by gravity.'
The creature readied its stance. Its hind legs made of thick pelvic bones bent downward. Getting ready to jump and chase Kanos up the pillar.
Kanos's eyes widened. He sharpened his focus until his head felt like it was going to split.
He looked at the monster's leg joints. The blue grid from his skill caught something weird. In the empty spaces between the bone joints, there was a flow of thick purple energy. That energy wrapped between the joints, pulling and stretching perfectly to replace the function of real muscles.
Mana.
This monster moved purely using mana acting as pulling strings to replace flesh.
Kanos's mind suddenly went blank. The monster's roar and the stone dust around him seemed to vanish.
A crazy idea suddenly slammed into his head, hitting harder than any monster's punch.
'Wait,' Kanos held his breath. His eyes followed the flow of purple mana in those bending bones. 'If a pile of dead bones can walk, run, and swing an axe just by using mana flow...'
The bone monster leaped. Its skull mouth was ready to chew Kanos's leg whole.
'...why can't my drawn skeletons do the same?'
Kanos let go of his shadow wire grip. His body free fell downward, passing right by the monster that was flying up.
When the distance between them was only a meter, Kanos pulled a black stone out of his pocket. The leftover monster core from the gargoyle bat yesterday. He crushed the stone using his left fist. Thick black smoke instantly exploded into the air.
Kanos didn't draw a sword. He didn't draw barbed wire.
While in free fall, his finger danced with insane speed in the middle of the black smoke cloud. He drew something massive. A thick steel frame, huge gears, and one giant cutting blade that weighed a ton. A decapitation machine, also known as a Guillotine.
[ PURE ENERGY MEDIUM DETECTED ]
[ MANA COST FULLY DIVERTED TO MONSTER CORE ]
The air around Kanos shook violently. The giant execution device made of solid shadow appeared in the air, right above the bone monster that was losing its balance from failing to catch Kanos.
The giant shadow blade slid down as fast as lightning, pulled by gravity and the machine's springs.
CRUNCH!
The shadow blade split the monster's spine with a cracking sound that made his ears ring. The Bone Amalgam's body was cut in two. Hundreds of its bones instantly broke apart, falling and crashing onto the stone floor like building blocks slammed down hard.
Kanos landed roughly on top of the bone pile, rolling twice before finally stopping face down.
Silence. His shadow guillotine faded into black dust and blew away in the wind.
Kanos was panting heavily. He turned his body over to lie on his back, staring at the cave ceiling while laughing softly. His laugh was very quiet at first, but it kept getting louder until his shoulders shook.
Golden screens appeared in front of his eyes.
[ ENEMY DEFEATED: BONE AMALGAM (LEVEL 55) ]
[ EXP GAINED ]
[ LEVEL: 15 -> 16 ]
[ HP & MANA RESTORED ]
Kanos didn't care about his level notifications. His brain was now exploding with hundreds of crazy ideas. If he could master how to flow mana exactly like that monster earlier... he wouldn't need to make inanimate objects anymore. He could make servants. He could make guards that moved on their own.
He hurriedly got up. His feet kicked the scattered remains of the monster's bones, looking for the main energy source that gave life to this crazy creature.
Behind the largest chunk of chest bone, there was something glowing brightly. Kanos squatted and picked the object up carefully.
It looked like a crystal, but it was the size of a fist and glowed a bright purple. The object pulsed slowly. Soft but steady, exactly like a heartbeat. Thin purple smoke wafted from its surface, giving a weird cold sensation to Kanos's palm.
[ MONSTER CORE: BONE AMALGAM ]
[ QUALITY: HIGH GRADE ]
[ PURE ENERGY CONTENT: 98% ]
Kanos stared at the monster core intently. Memories of the bone structures of wild dogs, shell wolves, and all the monsters he had ever seen instantly mixed together, forming a clear design in his head.
"This is it," Kanos whispered. His eyes shone sharply, full of an ambition that had never been there before. "This is the heart. I just need the right frame to wrap around this energy."
He stored the purple crystal safely into his cargo pocket. Tonight, he was going to find a closed room. Tonight, he was going to absolutely shatter the rules regarding inanimate objects in this world.