Chapter: 821

“A bit too much to handle… at least without too much risk.” Jay thought.

Blue had prepared an ambush for them this time, but seeing how many there were, Jay decided to take command.

(Fall back. They’ll go on guard once they find their comrades dead bodies, and the sneak attack will fail. We’ll just have to wait and see what they do… plus, there are other tactics we can try.)

When giving the order Jay explained part of his reasoning, not sure if Blue had realized that the ambush wouldn’t be too successful.

Nevertheless, Blue accepted Jay’s orders without hesitation like it always did, and the skeletons all slipped deeper into the forest before the knights came too close.

Jay made sure to keep himself much deeper in the forest this time, only barely seeing the dead knights through the gaps between the trees.

As the knights entered the area, they suddenly stopped marching as they saw the corpses, and readied their weapons before assembling themselves into a semi-circle formation.

Two intelligent variants at the back moved to the front of the formation. First they inspected the surroundings, but seeing the quiet forest they began to check the corpses.

One was using another two-handed sword, while the other wielded a sword and shield.

The shield had symbols on it for the number two (II), and were faded to a light blue color - but other than that, Jay couldn’t make out much else because of its heavy rust.

While Jay had the option to run, it would have made things harder in the long term for a few reasons. If any of the knights made it back to their army, all of the knights would be alert and had their defenses ready - they would also realizing that seven knights were not enough to win - meaning that Jay would have to fight larger groups of enemies.

They had already sent two groups of knights, seventeen in total to investigate, but it was hard to determine how many were waiting deeper in the knight territory. Jay assumed that they were sent in two different groups as the first seven gathered much more quickly than the second group of ten - or perhaps it was merely a scouting or vanguard force. Maybe the group of ten were there to restore the underground corpse-eating plants, while the first seven were the guards?

Either way, Jay couldn’t be sure - and neither did it matter very much. All he was sure of was that they had to die, and he would not let them return to the knight headquarters.

Jay quickly sent Lamp to scout, seeing if there were more groups of knights coming or not, and he knew Blue would warm him if there was, if Lamp found any.

In the meantime, he positioned the rest of his skeletons on the other side of the knights, the opposite side of the forest. All skeletons left except Red who he kept as protection.

While waiting for them to get into position, he devised a new tactic for the skeletons to use.

(Blue, send Handy out of hiding and make sure the knights see before having Handy run back to you. Ambush the ones that come to investigate without the other knights seeing you slay them. If all the knights follow Handy, go deeper into the forest and remain hidden, then try again.)

It was a simple tactic, using Handy as bait to lure a handful of knights to their deaths, and Jay wasn’t sure if they would fall for it. Naturally, a commander would send a scout or two to investigate, or at least that was what Jay thought he would do if the situation was reversed.

Jay hid with Red on the opposite side of the knights as he waited for the plan to go into action.

Eight of the knights were in a semi-circle formation while the two intelligent ones were still investigating the corpses of their kin. They had not found the intelligent knight’s corpse yet, so perhaps they were hoping it would come back and report what had happened eventually.

After all, this group of ten knights were only marching about ten to twenty minutes behind - surely their brethren weren’t decimated that quickly? Surely some would still be alive?

Suddenly there was movement on the edge of the forest. Ashen white sticks all mixed and moving together as one with a large white dome - a skeleton had appeared.

Of course, the parasites had seen nothing like it.


A skeleton appeared? What is that?

Neither of the parasites had seen anything like it - though they felt a sense of fear coming from the human brain they held captive.