Chapter 2353: Change
The killing intent emitted by that Black skeleton went away immediately.
The difference is night and day. Now, it just looked like a dumb undead creature created by the most useless necromancer to ever exist. As it walked, it even b.u.mped into the other undead creatures as if it didn"t know how to dodge. It appeared a bit clumsy. However, it is still fast.
After looking around for a couple of minutes, the light in its eyes returned and it suddenly charged straight ahead. It didn"t even bother with the presence of other skeletons. As it charged, those skeletons were destroyed.
At the same time, in the direction the skeleton was charging in, a young man just stood on a giant rock while panting.
He just destroyed a couple of skeletons and is resting as those skeletons tried to recover.
He held a bone in his hand. He tried to push it in his storage and even divine dimension fragment, but he couldn"t.
"It figures."
He muttered to himself as he watched the bone in his hand tremble as it tried to go back to the skeleton it came from.
He gritted his teeth, turned around and threw it with all his strength.
While he is throwing that, he felt a sense of threat.
He looked down to see his own shadow moving. A hand came out of the shadow, holding a blade aimed at him.
He froze on the spot, unable to move. Just when he thought he was done for.
*BOOM*
A black flash came out of nowhere and hit the rock he was standing on. He was blown away by the impact and crashed into the ground. On his way down, he saw the black flash transforming into a black skeleton.
That black skeleton"s arm caught a hold of the black shadow arm that was aimed at him. The skeleton pulled the shadow which extended out like an elastic band out of which a human being came out of.
The skeleton used its other arm and stabbed into the human"s chest. More than stabbing, it should be called severing the body in half. The moment, the fingers made contact, the body split into two parts.
He is one of the candidates.
After that guy is done, the skeleton turned towards the young man that was still on the floor.
He immediately turned around and started running at the top speed. The skeleton followed him.
It didn"t even take a minute for the skeleton to catch up to him. Just when he thought his head was about to get blown off, the skeleton halted. It turned around and looked in a different direction, where a woman was standing looking at the scene.
She shivered in fright upon feeling the skeleton"s gaze. Before she could react, the skeleton came and ripped her head off.
The first target was stunned.
He took the chance to turn around and run in a different direction.
He was not only one who was shocked by this abnormal behavior though. The elders watching this through the projection are equally surprised.
In the projection, they can see a large orb of black light flashing through, indicating the position and the movement of the black skeleton.
In the side projection, they can also see the exploits of the black skeleton.
"Why is it behaving so weirdly?"
One of the elders asked in confusion.
Meanwhile, another one of the elders has already arrived at a solution.
He projected a few lists that showed the kill count of the students inside the pocket dimension.
"The black skeleton is picking up the strongest living prey around it. Among the two candidates, Sam and Crow, the latter has more kills in the pocket dimension. So, even though Sam directly interrupted its advance, it went after Crow, adamantly.
Once they disappeared, since there are no living prey in the immediate surroundings, it started searching around.
Once a living prey appeared in its radar it went in that direction.
In between that two kids, the shadow kid had more kills, so it went after him, even though the other kid was an easier target.
When the other kid was running away and the skeleton was about to bust his head open, that woman appeared in the radar, who had more kills, so it changed targets."
The elders quickly connected the dots. They were intrigued and wanted to study more.
One of them also raised another observation.
"The energy density of the black skeleton. It is not changing when it is idle. It only changed when it killed a living creature.
And there seemed to be a qualitative change too. Our surveillance doesn"t pick the energy signatures clearly. We could have had a much better a.n.a.lysis in that case."
All the elders seemed to be in a research mode instead of just surveillance mode. They are just focused on observing the changes of the pocket dimension as well as the skeletons.
They don"t seen interested in the lives of the partic.i.p.ants.
And to reinforce their intriguing minds, another black dot appeared in the map.
At a different corner of the pocket dimension. A gorilla skeleton has transformed into a black skeleton. This one is much faster and much more agile than the giant skeleton and its killing methods are also a lot more ruthless.
It exuded the same behavior as the Giant skeleton. It also went after the target that has the higher kill count.
Within a few minutes of the first two black skeletons, the third one appeared in a different corner of the pocket dimension.
Judging by their pattern, soon they will kill everyone in the pocket dimension until no living creature is left.
While these black skeletons are running rampant over the pocket dimension, Sam brought crow to a secure location. The latter is still in a shock. His body is shivering while he soaked in
his own sweat.
Sam closed his eyes and used his soul energy to interfere with his state of fear.
"You are alright. Snap out of it."
Crow took deep breaths and came back to himself.
"That thing... what the f.u.c.k is it?"
"I don"t know. But my guess is that is the latest stage of evolution in the skeletal creatures of
this place.
And it is d.a.m.n powerful. You are lucky that I was there besides you. You would have had your head knocked off your neck if I wasn"t there."
"I know. Thank you.
That creature... it had such weird energy. It felt so evil. I don"t even know why it felt like that."
"My guess is that it is the result of all the blood thirst in the surroundings gathered into the creature along with the acc.u.mulated energy.
I was wondering what happened to that. It didn"t invade the bodies of the students as much as
I expected.
I guess it is going to the skeletons."
"What should we do now? That thing... you created that thing."
"No, I merely accelerated its creation process. I don"t want credit for something I didn"t do.
As for what we should do? We just need to continue what we were doing before. That too if
you can be sure that you won"t p.i.s.s your pants."
"That"s reaaal funny."
"I know it is not. My concern was serious."
"Alright, if you think its fine, let"s go ahead and continue the hunt."
"Okay, just be careful. We will be close to the giant skeleton more and more. To observe how it works. I might just pull you out of a fight at any given moment."
"No problem."
Sam then took Crow to their next target. A target close to the black skeleton. And Sam started
making observations. Just like Sam guessed, he had to pull Crow out of the fight several times.
And through that, he managed to observe everything the elders did through the projector screen and then some.
As time pa.s.sed and the energy density and nature of the black skeleton changed. And that change incited a specific behavior.
At first it is very minute. However, he recognized the pattern soon enough. Along with that,
the change in the energy nature itself is a big indicator of something else, which made him estimate what will be the final picture of this pocket dimension by the end of the twenty-four hour time limit.