She bashed down another skeleton. She didnt know why these things were moving, but she knew that they were no good. Never has any rational creature attacked her or any of her kind. The only ones that did try were either corrupted or extremely stupid.

Undead werent really unheard of either, but these skeletons seems more unnatural than usual. These were fueled by magic instead of souls, so somewhere there must be something controlling them. But right now all she had to focus on was protecting her cubs. She could just destroy all of them quickly, but doing so would put her cubs in even more danger. Whenever she focused too long on the skeletons in front of her, some of them would try and attack the cubs with their pointy sticks. And when she focused on defending the cubs, some of the skeletons she thrashed reanimated and continued to stab at her.

Being stung by small ants is still annoying even if you are the size of a small house.

As she was thinking about how to save her children, Vita suddenly shot out from the bush!

Like a cannonball, Vita hit a skeletons spine and broke it. While the skeleton was falling, Vita grabbed its skull and smashed it into the ground. It cracked open and the purple fire in its eyes disappaered. The nearby skeletons reacted and pushed their spears forwards. But in Vitas eyes, these undead werent much of a threat.

Three spears were thrusted towards Vita, but two of them bounced of the exoskeleton. The third spear landed in one of the gaps, but it only got a tiny bit in before it was blocked by something hard. Vita grabbed the spearhead and swung it around, sending the skeleton flying. Vita pulled it out and threw it away.

Half-face was suprised for a short moment before realising what was going on. A small, weird looking creature was helping her fight the skeletons. She felt grateful knowing that there were creatures willing to help others in need, but those horns felt familiar. Either way, now she could focus on protecting her cubs while the weird creature fought of the skeletons.

Vitas fighting style was pretty simple. Vita would dash and jump onto the skeletons, aiming for their heads. It didnt matter if they tried to pierce Vitas body, they either didnt have the speed to catch Vita or they didnt have the power to draw blood. The fight ended quickly with broken skulls and bones littering the ground.

Vita didnt have any visible wounds other than some feathers that were cut off. Vita felt prideful over the easy victory, but was also bummed out on the lack of biomass found on the skeletons.

Half-face was still vigilant with Vita nearby, because to a mother in the wild any creature that isnt herself could be after her cubs. She already lost some of them to the elk that tore half her face off. She kept her eyes on the odd creature in case it tried anything funny. She watched Vita eyeing her cubs before it left. She let out a sigh and signaled for her cubs to get down from the tree. They were terrified when the skeletons appaered, but now that they werent moving anymore so they climbed down the tree.

With the curiosity of a child, they slowly walked towards the skeletons. They would look back to their massive mother to make sure she still was there. The one closest to the skeletons sniffed a bone before quickly running to Half-face. It climbed up her leg and rested on her massive back, humming to its mother about how brave it just was. The other cub picked up a bone with its mouth. Half-face told it to drop it, but when she saw its big innocent eyes staring deep into her soul she reluctantly let it keep the bone. They would need to eat lots of food if they wanted to survive the winter and she would need a safe shelter to keep her cubs safe.

Moving through the forest, Vita though about what happened.

I helped this parent with its children, so its only fair if I fuck over the next family i run into. So long the next family isnt like a human family or a elf family. Or like something that could live in a city of some sort. You never know when a random shit is related to a ruler of some sort. But what about the skeletons? I guess that because this is a magical world, there might be something that caused these skeletons to pop up. Would be fun to find like a necromancer to fight! It would be the start of my legend! The mighty Vita, the manipulator of flesh fighting a dark being of death! And all of the people of all of the lands bows down to me! And the gods will let me become their king! Hehe, I am so awesome.

Vita kept daydreaming while walking through the forest, picking up small critters that were unfortunate enough to run into Vita. The space between the trees did slowly increase, but there were still a lot of them.

As the days went by, Vita slowly grew taller and taller. Some bugs had better exoskeletons than the others, or some creatures had better organs. All for the growth for Vita. The skeletons were getting more common aswell and seeing the wildlife fight with the undead was quite the sight. From the smallest of mice, to some weird looking creature that was even taller than the bark bear. It looked like a daddy long legs, but easily over 10 meters tall with a large eye on its bottom side. Its way of fighting was horrifiying to watch. Hidden in the trees, easily piercing through the skeletons. Scary stuff.

Finally, Vita found something interesting again. A cave. Or rather-

A dungeon!? Why, this migth be my lucky day! A tunnel made out of bricks and some weird symbols over it to make it even more magical! Or maybe its a warning, telling daring adventurers to come prepared to fight for their lifes! Oh, how awesome this is. Enough of the chit-chat, is there something I could do to prepare myself...

Who am I kidding, Im always prepared! Down we go!

Vita steered the body to walk into the dungeon entrance, going deeper and deeper.