CHAPTER 191: SECOND TRIAL!

The circular chamber was immense, larger than the throne room, larger than any of the halls they had walked through. High walls curved upward into a dome that shimmered with faint veins of pale-blue mana. But none of them looked at the architecture.

In fact, the architecture was the last thing on their minds, and their attention all immediately locked onto the floor.

Lilian froze first, breath catching in her throat as she saw what lay before them, "What... what is this?"

The entire chamber was filled with bodies. Thousands, maybe even Tens of Thousands of bodies.

None of these bodies were fresh corpses, nor were they dried husks. Instead, they were remains, remains of persons who had long since died, skeletal figures slumped in massive piles, and all sprawled across the cracked tiles, pinned against the walls and collapse over one another.

Oxygen-starved armor had flaked into rusted fragments around ribcages. Torn, eroded fabrics clung to bones that had long since lost every trace of flesh.

Blood stained the tiles in wide, dark patches, so old it had turned nearly black. The scent wasn’t fresh, there was no rot, no decay, but the air carried the dryness of death. A stillness and a silence so heavy it felt suffocating.

Elara covered her mouth with trembling fingers, "These people... they all died here."

Lilian took a shaky step forward, nudging the cracked helmet of a long-dead warrior with her foot. The hollow skull beneath rolled slightly, jaw hanging open in a silent scream.

Her voice wavered. "This... isn’t a trial room. This is a tomb."

Albedo scanned the chamber slowly, eyes narrowing. "No. It’s too deliberate. All the bodies facing inward, toward the center... This was a last stand. They died fighting something."

Elara looked around again, and a cold shiver crawled up her spine. Every single warrior had died angled toward the exact center of the chamber, as if they had all faced a single enemy together.

"Whatever they fought," she whispered, "it wasn’t each other. Their armor and weapons all signal that they came from different time periods, the less eroded bodies clearly have better materials in their weapons to signify the improvement over time,"

Before anyone could respond, the room hummed and a low, pulsing vibration rippled throughout the room, leaving the group on guard.

Then another. The floor lit up beneath their feet, thin runes igniting like veins of fire spreading outward from the entrance. The mana lines spread fast across the chamber floor, weaving between bones, curling around ribs and femurs and skulls.

Albedo’s expression sharpened, "Get ready."

Lilian drew her daggers in one smooth motion. "Please tell me this isn’t, "

The voice from before that told them to look for the Palace Hall returned once more. It wasn’t loud or booming, just present, once again resonating from every surface across this circular chamber, shaking the bones of the dead warriors on the ground.

"SECOND TRIAL INITIATED."

Elara stepped back immediately, heart hammering. "Oh no. No, no, no, Albedo, "

"STAND IN THE CIRCLE OF THE FALLEN."

The runes pulsed again.

Once.

Twice.

Then the voice echoed, cold and absolute:

"SURVIVE UNTIL THE NECROMANTIC FIELD EXPIRES."

For a heartbeat, there was silence.

Then the bones that were all around them moved. A clatter rang out as dozens of skeletal hands twitched, fingers clamping against stone. Ribs lifted.

Skulls jerked upright, empty sockets igniting with pale-blue fire. One by one, the dead began to rise, slowly at first, like marionettes lifted by invisible strings.

Then faster, and with much more aggression. The nearest skeleton snapped to its full height with a brittle crunch, rusted sword still fused to its bony grip.

Another dragged itself up, spine clicking into place as if remembering its shape. Armor shifted, plates dragging across bone as skeletal warriors reassembled themselves from scattered pieces.

Lilian cursed sharply, "Oh, this is just fantastic!"

Elara stumbled backward, hands glowing with green mana, "There’s, Albedo, there’s too many!"

He didn’t respond, as he didn’t see a need to. Havoc and Ruin were already in his hands, spinning with flickers of crimson and gravity-blue.

The first wave surged toward them.

Lilian blurred forward in a whirl of shadow, daggers carving arcs of black mana as she met the nearest skeleton head-on. Her blades sliced through its neck, snapping the skull clean off. But even headless, the body staggered forward, still swinging its corroded sword blindly.

"What?! Albedo!! They’re not dying!"

"The necromantic energy isn’t anchored to their heads," Albedo said, firing a rapid spray of crimson bullets that exploded through three ribcages. "It’s animating the whole structure. Destroy everything."

Elara thrust both palms forward, unleashing a column of emerald wind-infused mana that tore apart a cluster of approaching undead. Bones scattered across the floor like shattered porcelain, but the runes flared again, and the pieces began dragging themselves back together.

Her eyes widened in horror. "They’re reforming!"

"Then break them faster!" Lilian shouted, sliding under a swinging axe and embedding both daggers in a ribcage before ripping outward violently. "Albedo, any ideas?!"

"For now?" Albedo’s eyes flashed purple as Source Code activated. "Kill everything that moves. The trial giver didn’t say we needed to kill them all, just to survive until whatever this necromantic field is expires. Manage your mana efficiently to delay for as long as possible,"

He said as the chamber erupted into chaos. Skeletons poured in from all directions, some wielding rusted weapons, others clawing with bare bone fingers.

Albedo fired shot after shot, switching between Infernal Mode and Graviton Mode fluidly, crimson fire blasts turning skeletons to ash, gravitational rounds collapsing them inward like crushed tin.

Those two modes were the best for large scale destruction of the attacking enemies, which was perfect for delaying as long as they possibly could.

But every time a skeleton fell, the runes fed a surge of necromantic energy to the remains, animating them again.

Elara’s breath came fast and uneven as she pushed her palms down onto the cracked stone beneath her feet. The emerald glow around her hands deepened, swirling into a vibrant circle of wind, vines, and shimmering natural energy.

"I....I can make us an anchor point!" she shouted, her voice strained under the pressure of the necromantic field crushing inward, "Just hold them off for a few seconds!"

Lilian pivoted around her, blades flashing as she shredded through a skeleton lunging with a rust-crusted halberd, "Seconds are kind of expensive right now, Elara!"

Albedo didn’t say anything, he simply shot down three more skeletons, the explosive flare of Infernal Mode scattering their bodies across the chamber like brittle gravel.

Then he switched instantly into Graviton Mode, collapsing two more into dense heaps of bone dust. "Do it," he ordered, "We’ll buy you the time."

Elara slammed both hands into the floor.

A burst of emerald energy detonated outward, shaking the chamber. Vines erupted from the cracked stone tiles, thick and sinuous, weaving into a wide, spiraling pattern beneath the trio’s feet.

They grew rapidly, forming a rooted platform reinforced with wind, bark, and hardened mana. The swirling barrier of green magic slowed every skeleton that stepped into its perimeter, making their movements jerky and sluggish.

Elara gasped, sweat beading at her temple, "Okay, okay, I can slow them down, but I can’t stop them entirely!"

"You’ve done enough," Albedo said, firing a gravity-enhanced slug through the skull of a berserker skeleton sprinting toward them. "Maintain it as long as possible. Lilian, rotate left!"

Lilian was already moving, her figure flickering like a streak of shadow as she intercepted a massive skeletal warrior wearing remnants of plated armor.

Its blade came down with force meant to cleave stone, but she redirected her dagger, twisting her entire body as she flipped over it, carving through its spine mid-air.

"These are getting sturdier!" she snarled, barely landing before another swung at her. "Seriously, how many died here?!"

The chamber answered her question in its own horrifying way.

A thunderous, piercing screech echoed from deeper within the field, making the bone piles rattle. Suddenly, a massive shape formed from the reanimated remains, a skeletal wyvern dragged itself upright, wings stitched together with necromantic mana like ghostly veils.

Blue fire poured from its empty eye sockets, and its maw gaped open in a soundless roar as lightning crackled along its exposed ribs.

Elara’s voice trembled. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no, Albedo, that’s not normal! That’s not normal at all!"

"Welcome to the second phase," Albedo muttered, thinking about all the video game boss battles he did in his past life as he spun both pistols, "Lilian! Incoming aerial threat, take its wings if you can slow it!"

The skeletal wyvern lunged.

Elara thrust her hand forward, and thorned vines burst upward, latching onto one of its wings. They wrapped tight, digging into ancient bone and binding joints together.

The wyvern jerked violently, slowed but not stopped, its tail whipping through a wave of skeletons and sending scattered bones flying.

Lilian blurred up the vines in a shadow-step, her daggers slashing across the wyvern’s joints in a flurry of blackened arcs. "Come on, come on, break!"

A crack echoed as one of its wings shattered, sending the monstrous thing crashing to the ground. But the moment it fell, the necromantic runes pulsed again, and the wyvern began knitting itself back together, bone splinters dragging inward like metallic filings to a magnet.

"Elara, stronger hold!" Albedo shouted, firing gravity bullets directly into the wyvern’s core, crushing ribs inward, "The beasts are going to keep evolving."

"I’m trying!" Elara snapped, voice cracking. "The field is fighting me, it’s sucking mana out of everything!"

As if to confirm her words, another roar echoed.

This one deeper..

A skeletal Thunder Lion leapt into view, twice the size of a living one, ribcage wrapped in lightning-charged mana, each pawstrike causing crackling shockwaves that shattered weakened skeletons around it. Its mane was a crown of sparking necrotic electricity.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Lilian shouted, barely leaping away as the lion pounced, claws carving through Elara’s vines like wet parchment.

Albedo shot it mid-air, the gravity round slamming it sideways, but it recovered instantly, electricity buzzing through its frame. The runes on the floor blazed brighter, as if celebrating the escalation.

More shapes rose behind it, beasts and warriors, all undead horrors combining the magic they once used with the necromantic field sustaining them.