The corpse, which had already appeared pitiful with its stiff, lifeless body, suddenly lunged at high speed toward Clayton. Startled, he instinctively flinched and quickly cast a spell in the creature’s direction.
Snap!
Snap!
Two water projectiles burst forth, striking the creature’s head and shattering it like an overripe waterlon. The headless body collapsed to the ground, motionless.
Clayton let out a sigh of relief. He was just about to approach the body to inspect what had happened— when suddenly, several other corpses, equally pitiful and awkward in appearance, recklessly charged at him.
They were too close, and far too many for him to handle individually. Reacting quickly, he shifted to defense mode. Beads of water ford around him, rapidly expanding into a dark-colored water do that surrounded him completely.
The frenzied corpses slamd into the do but couldn’t break through.
Remaining calm, Clayton commanded his mini skeletons to finish them off. The little skeletons obeyed without hesitation.
One by one, the stiff, miserable-looking corpses were torn apart by Clayton and his skeletons until they were nothing more than mangled, unrecognizable remains. Once everything had gone still, Clayton dissolved the water do and surveyed the scene.
At first, nothing seed out of the ordinary—just a chaotic heap of mutilated bodies. Whether his earlier attacks had destroyed any clues or sothing had actively concealed them, he couldn’t be sure. There were still no clear answers.
But then, sothing odd caught his eye—a thin tendril, strangely out of place, lying among the corpses. Curious, Clayton leaned in for a closer look.
Suddenly, several dismbered corpses twitched back to life and sprang at him with terrifying speed. Startled, Clayton leapt back. The scene looked like it had co straight out of a horror film.
Among all the reanimated corpses, one stood out—and it made his skin crawl: the first one he had attacked. Despite having no head, it was still moving.
The sight made his teeth ache with discomfort.
"Ugh... this place is filthy. There’s way too much creepy shit happening here!"
Clayton began fighting the undead one by one. At first, it was easy—he crushed them just as he had before. But as the battle continued, his unease grew. No matter how badly the bodies were damaged, they kept moving.
Eventually, he realized that to defeat them completely, he would need to utterly annihilate them—leaving not even a trace behind.
After trying various techniques, he discovered that magma and purification scrolls were the most effective. Ard with this knowledge, he wasted no ti and eliminated the rest swiftly.
The battle—already disturbing—grew more grotesque under Clayton’s relentless assault. Anyone watching might have thought he was a madman... or a full-blown psychopath.
Minutes later, all the undead were gone. Only Clayton and his mini skeletons remained.
Now that the area was secure, he decided to rest for a while.
But as he relaxed, completely unaware, sothing stirred—pale yellowish-white tendrils slithering cautiously toward him. So crept beneath the earth, while others hid behind corpses or blended into the shadows.
Just as Clayton let his guard down, the tendrils lashed out and wrapped tightly around him. He froze, a cold shiver running down his spine as he felt a familiar, yet deeply unpleasant, aura.
Bang! Bang!
The sound of sothing blunt crashing echoed around him. Clayton turned his head—and there it was:
The lotus flower, now positioned near the transparent do.
From this, Clayton deduced that the earlier undead attack was most likely the work of the lotus.
Panicked, he struggled to free himself from the tendrils. Fortunately, there weren’t many this ti, and they were thinner than before, allowing him to break free quickly.
anwhile, the lotus flower looked enraged—seemingly eager to punish him—
but it remained trapped inside the transparent do. It slamd against the barrier repeatedly, causing the surrounding area to tremble, but it couldn’t escape.
Clayton knew that if the flower had enough power to destroy the do, it would’ve broken free long ago. Seeing that it was helpless, he grinned and lay back down to rest.
From ti to ti, tendrils crept toward him to attempt another strike, but he handled each one with ease.
anwhile, the lotus kept trying everything it could think of—drilling underground, concentrating its attacks on a single point— but all its efforts were in vain.
Watching this, Clayton couldn’t help but mock it.
"Hehehe... co on, you ugly flower! Catch if you can!"
"Must be tough, stuck in that little prison. Poor thing~"
Whether the flower understood him or not, it grew increasingly agitated with every taunt. But in the end, it still couldn’t do anything.
Eventually, the lotus gave up and began retreating to its original spot. Clayton hurled a few final curses, but the creature didn’t even acknowledge him.
"Ha! Stupid flower! Just wait—I’ll co back soday and smash your ugly face to pieces!" he shouted with conviction.
Although taunting it made him feel a little better, Clayton still couldn’t forget the helplessness he’d felt earlier. He now held a deep grudge against the lotus.
With everything finally calm, he allowed himself to rest more peacefully.
After so ti, he decided it was ti to move on.
But just then—without warning—his mini skeletons froze in place, their stances unnaturally stiff. Thick black smoke began rising from the corpses of both the fallen humans and the stone-scaled serpent.
Clayton hadn’t even noticed when it began.
The phenonon had occurred completely silently, without the faintest hint of motion.
"What... is this black smoke? I’ve seen it so many tis, but I still have no idea what it does."
For now, all he could do was speculate, quietly watching.
Monts later, the black smoke began to fade. Then Clayton noticed sothing—the skeletons were glowing faintly with a soft silver light.
He watched with growing anticipation.
"Are they... evolving?"
The skeletons slowly beca enveloped in radiant cocoons. As ti passed, the light grew brighter and brighter, as if they were on the verge of transforming.
But then... it vanished.
In an instant, the light disappeared. Then, as though suffering from so kind of backlash, the skeletons cracked— and turned to ash.
Clayton stood frozen in disbelief.
"How could this happen? One mont I’m filled with hope... and the next, it’s all ripped away!"
Desperate, he quickly re-summoned his skeletons. They appeared again—seemingly unchanged.
He studied them closely. From his observations, they had indeed been on the verge of evolving, but were missing sothing critical. He had no idea what it was.
Still, they were safe—and seed smarter than before, judging by the intensified glow of the soul flas in their eye sockets.
Clayton grew curious. What exactly was missing? And what would they have beco if the evolution had succeeded?
But since no answers ca to him, he chose to let it go—for now.
Instead, he turned his attention to collecting the loot scattered around the battlefield.
Once done, he approached the body of the stone-scaled serpent to inspect it. Nothing appeared especially unique, so he began extracting what he could: poison, gallbladder, fangs, and other valuable parts.
Even though the serpent had long been used by the lotus as a grotesque food vessel, there were still useful materials left in its body.
To make storage easier, Clayton began cutting it into smaller pieces for his dinsional space.
While doing so, he noticed sothing strange.
"What are these marks...? Why are there so many?"
Across various parts of the serpent’s body were odd, unnatural symbols— they looked more like logos or glyphs than natural patterns.
From a modern perspective, they seed disturbingly deliberate.
"Could sothing else have happened to this monster before? Sothing I haven’t discovered yet...?"
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