Chapter: 869

The bridge itself impressed Jay as they formed it from one complete piece of metal, and had a pattern of small thumb-sized holes across in it; however, there was no time for analysis.

Across the bridge and below the balcony, a hallway stretched through the underground compound, turning left and right at the end.

Speeding over the bridge, Jay soon heard sounds of rustling armor.

It wasn’t the usual ordered, rhythmic sounds of marching, but a chaotic mess of frantic clunking which was getting noisier. Clearly, the knights were distressed and now disordered.

To Jay, it sounded more like a rock slide or heavy rain; he couldn’t even see them yet, but in a matter of moments the sound was becoming almost deafening.

“Dammit. Too many, too-fucking-many,” he thought, shaking his head with a smile of disbelief. Jay stopped his dash down the hallway.

Gazing back at the door, he thought about rushing out, but knew it wasn’t an option.

“That room will be the first place they search, and I’m already locked in the castle. There’s no going back now.”

Looking back at the hallway, he saw the first shadow of the knights coming.

Jay looked down at the moat below. It was his only option.

(Move!)

He immediately jumped into the moat; the skeletons followed along, and together they huddled under the metal bridge. Jay put his disgust at touching the skeletons aside and huddled with them.

He quickly grabbed the end of Lamp’s shepherd’s crook and stuffed it into his bag, stopping any light from escaping, and in moments, the first enemy ran over the bridge.

*Clong ~ clong ~ cling ~*

The metal boots of knights began stomping above their heads. Jay placed his hand over his mouth.

He looked up cautiously; peering through the thumb-sized holes at the passing knights. For once, he was glad their armor was so concealing; it blocked some of their sight, stopping them from looking below their feet and finding the four infiltrators hiding in the shadows of the bridge.

Jay steadied his breathing and tried to calm himself, but also came up with some worst-case scenarios and thought about how he would get out of them.

Many of the solutions involved flooding the room with bones.

[Your skeleton is no more.]

“Ah? So they can un-summon themselves.” Jay thought, “but they’ll have to wait before I can bring them back.”

Tens of knights passed, and soon over one hundred, yet the sounds of them somehow became louder.

Jay just made himself still, focusing on being quiet and calm despite the stressful, life-threatening situation. It would have caused many others in his situation to panic, but Jay knew there was nothing gained from doing so. After a while, he received another notification and his mood quickly improved.

< [Ability Acquired] >

[Stealth - Level 1]

“Oh?” he raised a brow. “Well, I guess it makes sense. I have concealed my presence while all these knights have passed.” He thought.