Cark got to fight two of them. He was the strongest of us stat wise, though I didn't know exactly how many points he had, so he decided to take the initiative and hit one of the two duos himself. I personally was annoyed by the fact, but it made sense so I backed down in the end. Benny and I each took one of the other death knights, as Sarah informed us they were called, while the H rankers mopped up the basic skeletons.

Callie was sadly unable to fight with us, being exhausted from keeping up the shroud around us for literal hours, and Jessie was pumping life energy into my girlfriend with her ability so she was out of this too, which left us with just the three G rankers on our side. Still, Cark, Benny, and I were more than upto the task of taking on some undead knights, so I wasn't worried and was able to just focus on having fun.

First thing I did obviously was light up my tonfas with poison fire, and the second was activate Leaf in the Wind to allow me to jump around a bit more and compensate for the fucking horse the skeletal knight was sitting astride. I wasn't too familiar with fighting someone on horseback, but I figured not being ground bound would be a benefit, not to mention that horse was probably G ranked as well, so I wanted to be free to dodge it easily. Getting trampled by a nightmarish bone horse was pretty low on my list of preferred ways to die, not that there were any ways to die that I'd like better.

With the strength in my legs jumping around was easy enough to manage, and with Leaf on the Wind and Cloud Step I could manage my directions pretty easily, so I wasted no time sending myself streaking toward the skeleton knight in a shallow arc, my tonfas flashing out to slam into the thing. As I came in at it, the ghostly blue flame in its eyes, a twin in color to the Omen Star, flickered steadily, and it lashed out at me with black metal sword on it's back, a weapon that matched its spiked and jagged armor.

One thing I appreciated about the skeletons were that they didn't talk. There was no monologue or boasting, much like the sleepers they didn't say a word getting straight to the fight. Unlike the sleepers though the skeletons weren't actual living thinking beings, they were piles of bone animated by dark magic, so I didn't have to feel bad about crushing the damn things without mercy.

My tonfas seemed to be pretty well suited to normal skeletons, as I actually ended up smashing two of the H ranked bone constructs when they got in the way of my attack. They didn't even slow me down, sadly the knights were wearing armor however, and it was much less susceptible to blunt force trauma than the bone of the skeletons. Still, I got in close fast and start lashing out at joints with my weapons, doing my best to take the things apart even through the armor.

The downside to fighting bone constructs in armor became apparent, as even while the poison fire spread through the bones, burning away at them, the skeleton not only didn't react, but wasn't actively slowed either. No flesh meant no muscles to wear down or burn away. Whatever the hell moved this thing, presumably stat points and a skill even the slow destruction of the materials didn't seem to do much to stop it.

Still, aside from the bones I landed several blows on the armor as I closed too, and the force enchantments dented and cracked the black plate even as the poison fire seared away at the stuff. My attack unfortunately had to end early as I dodged that big ass sword, using Cloud Step to bounce myself over it and activating my gymnastics skill to maneuver more freely in the air and reposition myself for my next attack. A smashing blow to the helmet didn't do much sadly, since the skeletons didn't use their eyes as we'd already figured out.

I juked hard to the side as the second one's sword came in at what it probably thought was my blind spot, and turned to glare at Benny who was looking a bit irritated that his tranquilizer punch wasn't working. He shrugged apologetically and I stepped forward hard, skating through the air in an incredibly short forward arc that let me travel just above the surface of the ground to land next to him. He grinned at me as I landed. "Hey, sorry about that these bastards are fast. How about we tag team the two of them?"

I blew out a breath. 'Probably not a bad idea. You have any ideas for dealing with them? We can just crush them through brute force but I feel like that might take too long. You notice any special weaknesses?" It would have been useful to ask Sarah, but the cleric was among the H rank skeletons with Martin and Celine, so we would have to rely on our own observations here, as unhelpful as they might be. All I'd been able to grasp was the obvious 'break bones so they can't move' strategy, so hopefully Benny had more.

Sadly I had no such luck. "Nope. They're skeletons. Blunt force breaks bones, so that's probably our best bet. My punch and probably my density shifting are my most effective weapon from what I can tell. You seem to be doing ok though." He pointed over at the second skeleton I'd just been fighting. "That poison fire will probably melt them if we leave it to work long enough, looks like it's having an effect already." He pointed out a specific spot where the skeleton's limb seemed to be barely attached. Sadly that limb was a leg and it didn't seem to effect him given the horse he was sitting on. Still, he wasn't wrong.

Though that did give me an idea. Unlike Benny's punch my Mercy Kill ability let me apply a flat increase to any attacks I used. It didn't matter what weapon or skill was involved, as long as I was making an attack Mercy Kill would work on it. I put my hands together and turned to Benny. Here, I have an idea. I'm going to launch you up, then you use the density shifting in your leg to come down hard and slam your fist into the one that's already damaged. Just concentrate on the triple punch."

He seemed unsure about the instruction, but in the end he was the one who wanted to team up, so he did what I'd told him to do. As I launched him up into the air I triggered Mercy Kill, designating Benny himself as my attack in this case, at least in my head. My friend went sailing up into the air, his arc actually improved by the skill, and as he came back down I saw him slam his fist into the chest of the skeleton knight. The triple punching force amplified by the hundred and fifty percent boost of Mercy Kill and his increased speed and momentum crashed down on the death knight with a deafening roar of shattering metal, driving the skeletal being right off it's bony mount.

I was already in motion before it hit the ground, sailing in with Leaf on the Wind to rain down as many blows as I could on the thing. Given it's missing leg and position on the ground, my blows had the added effect of not just slowly corroding it with acidic poison flame, but driving the thing into the ground it was now lying on. Despite not having seen any actual rain lately the earth here was loose and easily disturbed. I smashed the bastard as hard into the dirt as I could, letting the ground restrain him as best I could as I tried to deal maximum damage.

Bone cracked and plate fractured as the increased force of the blows and the poison flame effects compounded to degrade the death knight as best I could manage. Of course, it wasn't just the one knight, but Benny was more than up to blocking the second skeletal charge with his hyper dense leg, kicking out hard at the head of the horse to turn the knight off course and prevent me from being trampled.

Of course I had to dodge the horse of the knight I had downed, but without a rider it seemed jerky and easily frightened. It shied away from the loud noises and bright lights of the smashing attacks as I pummeled its former rider. It only took a minute of constant wailing before I managed to get the thing broken up enough that I was pretty sure it couldn't move and turn to help Benny with the other one. The poison fire should finish the job on the one I'd downed, which left us dealing with the last two on one.

Benny was using his legs weightless mode to make himself for mobile, and combined with his Might stat was managing to stay ahead of the skeleton. I suspected his high speed perception was coming into play as well, because he was barely dodging the thing, clearly trying to stay in close to prevent it from building up too much momentum. It was a solid way to deal with the knight, and I slipped in close as it wheeled yet again to deliver a Mercy Kill empowered blow to the leg of knights horse.

The big thing that people rarely note about horses is how absurdly delicate their legs are. The sheer amount of weight focused on such a small area combined with the delicate artistry of equine legs means that they're actually one of the most vulnerable parts of the animal. My blow didn't manage to actually shatter the leg, but it did fracture it and the poison fire started to degrade the limb pretty soon after.

The horse itself didn't really seem to notice, given the bone was still holding together, but it did give him an active debuff that would drop him eventually. Despite not being a flesh and blood horse it was still pretty heavy, and the more it used that leg the worse it got. As it spun on me though Benny dipped in with a triple strength punch aimed at unseating the knight, and though it had learned from its companion and wouldn't come off its horse so easily it DID get the things attention.

We played it like that for a while. Whittling away at the death knight from either side, me hitting its horse's legs and him attacking the main body as we did our best to take the second knight down as thoroughly as the first. The initial skeleton was gone at this point, the poison fire having been stacked enough to completely consume the bone, though there were still some pieces of armor left.

Finally it was done, the horse collapsed, its leg dissolving too much to be usable as it toppled over, and we fell on it the same as the last one, pounding it into the dirt and making sure not to let up until it wasn't functional anymore. It was one of the more satisfying fights I could remember because it was just pure combat. No worry about humanity or motivations or even sentience like with animals. It was just raw force against dead bone, and it put me in a great mood.

Once we finished I turned to check on the others and had to chuckle at my own worrying. They hardly needed it. The skeletons were demolished, bones and weapons littering the ground, and everyone was waiting for us to finish. Cark was just polishing off his second with his blue flames, and I turned to Callie as I finished, grinning behind my mask. "Now that's what I'm talking about. So, what do we do next boss?" I couldn't wait to get into the necropolis, I wondered what new monsters would be waiting.