Chapter 127 Bait

*tap.. tap… tat… tap*

“Weird little creature…” Jay thought, still watching it shovel broken bits of stone and bone into its swaying jaw.

He didn’t dare to move closer and touch it, lest it suddenly do something wild like jump up and suck onto his face – Jay would let his skeletons do the dirty work, naturally.

Of course, he could still analyse it.

<[Half-bred Mannadipede Level 1]>

[HP 5/5]

<[Skills]>

[Amalgamation] (Body Parts)

– Consumes (Body Parts) to grow stronger

[Dire Blades] (Arms)

– The creature slashes its target with its sabre talons

– 0.3 damage per successful hit.

[Semi-aphrodite Degradation]

– Un-whole; it’s soul split in two, forever yearning to be made whole

– Nesting

<[Description]>

[The result of unchecked, twisted magical experiments; combined with a yearning for offspring.].

“Such low health… completely defenceless…” he felt sorry for the pathetic creature. It could barely crawl away, in fact, it didn’t even bother as it went back to eating rocks.

“What a cursed existence.. Oh?” Jay smiled as he kept reading its skill, finally seeing its semi-aphrodite degradation ability.

“So you’re like its baby…” his grin turned a little more sly, a glint of murderous intent in his eyes as he realised the ‘parent’ would probably not abandon half its soul.

“It seems like your ‘parent’ gave you half of its soul. That’s pretty messed up.” he almost felt sorry for it.

“…wait, that means it was technically your own choice to do this… what kind of bat shit crazy scientist lets themselves become a monster that splits its own soul up to reproduce?” Jay shook his head in disgust.

Over time, it seemed that chaos reigned supreme as the scientist mutated themself and lost their minds – and the more twisted they became, the more twisted their ideas. It was like a feedback loop of semi-magical mutation.

He looked at the creature, still desperately clinking away at its nest; trying to consume more to get stronger – this was all it knew.

“Poor little bastard… If I ever become like that, I hope someone will kill me.”

A ferocious smile then appeared on Jay’s face.

“Good thing I’m here to kill you. What a blessing I am to you” he smugly grinned, though his eyes looked like a predator.

The assistant-creature having offspring meant that there was a good chance it would come back. This was great news for Jay as now he would have another chance to kill it.

“Now… I suppose daddy… or mommy? …whatever. ‘It’ will come back for you, so all I have to do is wait…”

Two of the skeletons returned just as Jay planned his trap.

He walked towards the other room, having a strange feeling as he planned the pyramid trap since it seemed backwards – shouldn’t the dungeon be making the trap for him?

“I guess I’m not locked in here with the monsters, they’re locked in here with me” he shrugged.

Jay had his skeletons pick up the little baby-sized creature and shove it into one of the cages.

The little fiend responded with screechy little cries, but Jay totally ignored it.

“It will be better if you cry, go ahead, call for help,” he smiled.

Jay went back to the main room as he planned his trap.

“Hmm… how am I going to keep the assistant in here when it comes back…”

A series of thoughts ran through Jay’s mind as he thought about what to do.

“Collapse a pillar to block off the assistant?”

“Hold a knife to the baby’s throat?”

“Just try to kill it really quickly?”

As he looked at the passage, the solution hit him like a truck.

“Oh, it’s so obvious! I just need to close the door and seal it again. Duh!”

It was the simple, elegant solution, and it should work too; the door was keeping this thing in, standing the test of time over the centuries, so it easily passed the durability test.

Jay willed his other two skeletons to return as well as he thought about how his trap would work practically.

He would keep one skeleton in the room with the half-bred, while himself and the other three skeletons would hide behind the pillars in the main throne room.

Jay also extracted bones from his gauntlet, making a small pile of bones next to the entrance.

When the creature returned, Jay would sneak into the exit passage, close the door and place the heavy iron bar across it.

However, he first needed to test something.

Jay unsummoned Blue and closed the door – then he tried to raise the skeleton from the other side of the door.

“Arise…”

…

“Dammit.. Come on…” he crouched down, holding his gauntlet to the bottom of the door; he closed his eyes and pictured the pile of bones in front of him.

“Arise…”

This time, the necrotic green mana left his gauntlet and slipped itself under the door like it was searching for something – then a larger amount of it left the gauntlet.

*Clink~ clack~*

Hearing a few noises from behind the door, Jay confirmed it was a successful summoning.

“Good.” he thought, opening the door again and stepping back into the room.

“Hmm…” he looked at his shield, “I guess I won’t be needing this since I won’t be fighting.”

“Blue, here ya go.” he handed his precious deathwalkers’s sentry to the human skeleton.

After giving his shield to the skeleton, it seemed that holding the hammer in one hand and the shield in the other was just a little too much for the skeleton to handle; they were too heavy.

“Hmm… maybe next level then?” he consoled his skeleton, hoping it would level up soon.

All the skeletons were level three, but they could currently all reach a max level of four thanks to Jay’s necrotic mastery.

They would only gain more strength as they levelled up, but for now it was quite low.

Instead, the skeletons were incredibly dextrous; daggers and spears were more suited to them at the moment.

Perhaps they would get more bulky and could handle heavier weapons later, but in the meantime, their ideal weapons were light. The heavy hammers only worked out since they dual-wielded them.

“Soon…” he thought.

Jay assumed a crouched position behind the pillar, now all he had to do was wait….

…

And wait….

And wait.

…

“Hm… maybe it abandoned its kid?” Jay thought, “Not a very good role model… hopefully it only went out for a pouch of tobacco.”

“Maybe I can entice it to come home.”

Jay took out his trusty 1 damage cooking knife, which had since blunted, chipped and rusted… and no, he was not going to cook a meal to entice it to come back, he had something far more sinister planned.

“I suppose I’m not a very good role model either.” he shrugged, handing the low damage knife to one of his skeletons.

“Only cut it once. I don’t want it dead… Not yet anyway.” The skeleton then sped off into the room – its target was the half-bred abomination.

The creature, despite only taking one damage, began to squeal incessantly.

Jay waited and waited as he suffered through the mind-numbing squeals. It seemed that this was taking forever – he slowly got frustrated.

Jay walked slowly to the passageway, ignoring the shrill screeching coming from the next room as he stared into the tunnel for a moment.

“Where the hell are you…”

Suddenly, Jay’s shield lightly squeezed his arm. He looked down at it, eyes bulging for a moment as he realised it had seen something in the darkness.

Immediately, he rushed behind the pillar while mentally commanding his skeletons to get into position and hide.

Then, he listened.

…

*tap… tap… tap tap… tap*

It seemed that the creature was sneaking back slowly, cautiously.

Seeing the bone pile near the doorway, it seemed like that gave it some reassurance – perhaps the undead skeletons assaulting it had all died somehow?

It was no longer as intelligent as it once was, so it didn’t question how they would have died.

Unfortunately for the assistant, the skeletons were still there waiting silently, brandishing their hammers behind the pillars. Time did not matter to the undead.

Each one of them was ready to strike; a single thought from Jay and they would enter battle, becoming the berserk, unmerciful skeletal warriors they are.

*Shhriiii~ … click click click*

It made some strange hissing and clicking sounds, very different to the hissing previously.

“Is it trying to lure out the skeletons?” Jay wondered, shaking his head with a smug smile.

“It won’t work with me controlling them.” he shrugged, “try all you want.”

*arrchh~ arr~*

The half-bred cooed, replying back in its own way from the other room.

“Oh, it was calling its offspring?”

*tap tap tap tap-tap tap*

The creature fully entered the throne room, ignoring the bone pile as it began to head into the dark room.

Jay only smiled hearing this, with each of the tapping steps of its sword-like legs, the trap was closing. Slowly, its fate was being sealed.