Everlast Online

Liz acquired both skills with a quiet glee. She had not actively looked for either of them, having relegated that to her guild members as she felt there were more pressing matters to attend to, but it was still great to have them.

With the scrolls ripped and skills activated Liz waited for something to happen, an evolution to occur - and yet nothing did.

She looked around, inspecting her body, finding it to have not changed. Slightly irritated she pulled up the window that displayed the necessary conditions for evolution, only to grimace as they had been changed:

"Damn..." Liz cursed under her breath, not knowing conditions could change like that; though it would be more accurate to say they updated to match her progression.

However, she didn't allow herself to be consumed by annoyance, instead standing up and declaring an expedition to level up. They would head to a new dungeon and clear it, finding one with enemies suitable to test out her newest skills.

With the combination of her puppets and undead there was very little she couldn't get away with.

There's still six days left until the war, more than enough time to improve. She thought with a wide grin. It's at least enough to get [Ritual Sacrifice] back at least.

The seven dungeons that Liz's city were to be built upon were already cleared and on standby for her to farm, but getting exp that was was not as lucrative as it would seem - the exp being reduced in proportion to her distance from the dungeon; hence, not a good way to build up levels.

The wasteland had a number of dungeons, though there was no indication of any treasures beneath as there were with Elizabeth's - they were all within the estimated distance from one another such that they would seem unrelated.

Liz had looked over the dungeons and was struggling to decide between two:

[Corrupted Festivities (Uncleared)] [Recommended lvl: 170]
[A-Rank Dungeon]

The name of the dungeon gave away more than most as corrupted typically referred to demonic monsters and races as it was in the nature of their magic to do such things to others. Hellfire magic eats away at the target rather than burning, Underpond magic is highly acidic such that the pain it causes could drive those to seek their own death, hellish-whisper magic drives those who hear it into madness and black-ooze magic entombs its victims until they eventually suffocate. The magic of demons had always been exceptionally cruel.

(A/N: These are the demonic fire, water, wind and earth -in that order - elements; there are others for different elements, but these are the basic four)

The other dungeon up for consideration was:

[Cyclops Canyon (Cleared)] [Recommended lvl: 170]
[A-Rank Dungeon]

Because it was cleared, Liz knew what monsters she would face - especially considering the name of the dungeon - but the real reason she thought to use that dungeon was for increasing her undead forces. There were many undead that Liz thought would require giant corpses to create, such as the [Bone Crusher] that Luthor had recommended and simply put the idealised berk from [Savage Caverns] simply didn't reappear fast enough to offer the corpses she desired.

She had already failed at making the bone crusher using the idealised berk, even using more than one giant corpse had not helped and so she knew there was another ingredient needed, but there simply weren't enough giant corpses to test out her theories. 

[Bone Crusher]
[Abilities: {Super Enhanced STR}, {Enhanced END}]
[General rank estimation: C]
[Most believe the bone crusher to be nothing more than a large skeleton, but its power and endurance - mixed with the speed that many giant units lack - make it excellent at breaking past enemy lines and causing havoc. They can be used to quickly wipe out a large number of troops, a large distraction or siege breakers capable of breaking down walls. Their lower durability makes them less versatile and shorter-lasting than {Undead Giants}, but they are still a highly valuable unit for any necromantic army]

[User has not yet seen a {Bone Crusher}] [See a {Bone Crusher} to discover the ingredients]
[User has not yet summoned a {Bone Crusher}] [Summon a {Bone Crusher} to discover the reduced ingredients]

"There's just not a lot to go off of." Liz sighed as she stared at the bone crusher page for the billionth time, finally coming to a decision, "We'll do [Cyclops Canyon]. All I want is to level up, it's better to use a well known dungeon."

With her declaration she and her three guardian undead headed off towards the cyclops dungeon. She did not dare dismiss her entire army this time, fearing the holy magicians might return as she was not sure how they had found her in the first place; thankfully, the trip was a rather easy one.

Liz regularly checked in with the dolls she had placed where they needed them. Luthor had actually headed to the village, reassuring the villagers that the lord was safe; Ralt had began his mining operations once again; all of the dungeons were up and running as usual, even if that did just mean having undead stand at the entrances as they killed a monster every now and then; and finally was Ustad, drooling over the sight of all the metal that had been collected - figuratively of course as he was incapable of drooling.

They walked into the dungeon and into a new environment. The terrain was all orange stone, a kind of sandstone; the sky was bright and hot, blaring down on the four who were of course unaffected - they could see nothing except the canyon walls and path forward, behind them was nothing but the exit and another canyon wall.

"Only way is forward." Eren laughed.

Instantly Liz brought out a number of undead, all there to protect her and clear the dungeon. At the very front were undead giants and golems with soldiers, riders, hounds and wraiths wandering by their feet as the vanguard; further in front were zombie scouts, created from spider corpses Liz had gathered from the [Venom Cluster] dungeon, finally making good use of their wall crawling abilities to gather information effectively. They were entirely replacable so she did not worry about how many she lost.

Further back were more powerful melee units, the dullahans and bone slayers as well as a number of undead beasts where necessary. Even further back than them were Liz's ranged units, the archers, mages and ghosts. 

Behind them at the rear was Elizabeth herself with Gloria and Demeter who insisted on acting as bodyguards while Eren fulfilled her role as the entire legion's healer by positioning herself near the centre of all the other units, ready to assist where necessary.

Finally, taking up the rear was a single unit: Garnet. Liz's one and only blood golem; she could change her size as needed and the power of a blood golem was higher than most creatures of its rank so she would be more than enough to handle any monsters who approached from behind until Liz could summon more undead to assist or order pre-existing undead to move.

There were other units ready as well, namely puppets wandering freely between the undead to stand in for Liz; replacing the fallen or using magic as she pleased.

Elizabeth had a fully functioning army at her fingertips and although her command was somewhat sloppy, signs of her lack of experience clear, she was truly leading a legion of undead for the first time. There was order and discipline, instead of the usual charging she had employed her undead now moved within the bindings of their role.

Liz grinned widely, she felt more powerful than she ever had before. A feeling that intensified as the first cyclops presented itself.

[Cyclops (155) (MON)]

(A/N: I know I shouldn't change this stuff so much, but I have. NPC: Non-Player Character; PC: Player Character; MON: Monster; BOS: Boss monster)

It was large, almost the same height as the canyon walls, with bronze skin and a single ruby-red eye that glared down at the approaching monsters with a single horn protruding from the top of its head. Its entire body seemed to be made from muscles and even its skin looked as tough as metal; it let out a roar and with thundering footsteps ran towards Liz's army.

However, Liz did not falter, ordering the giants and golems she had stationed to meet the cyclops in its charge. The monster dwarfed Elizabeth's giant units, but with their numbers they were able to slow it down significantly; Liz grinned as she realised she could win. Her first thought was to send the entire vanguard at once, only stopping as she remembered the abilities of wraiths.

Cyclops' had rather high resistance to magic, especially fire and earth, but also being incredibly physically strong with an equally powerful physical defence. However, Liz desired to test how they fared against abilities like [Life Drain] and so she ordered all of her wraiths to move first, latching themselves onto the body of the cyclops.

At first nothing seemed to happen, but over time it was clear its charge had slowed even further - life drain was weakening it. This, combined with the cyclops' inability to use magic, prevented it from stopping the wraiths as they took little to no physical damage.

Seeing her plan work as intended Liz smirked and ordered her army to move. With the cyclops weakened, it did not take long for the cyclops to fall and she had only lost a handful of her weaker undead.

"Haha!" Liz laughed, her victory empowering her as she felt untouchable. She knew she wasn't, but still enjoyed the feeling, especially as she levelled up - reaching level one hundred and twenty once again, gaining three stat points and gaining access to her skill once more, "Didn't take as long to get the skill back as I thought it would. though I guess most people can't fight monsters that much more powerful than themselves."

[Ritual Sacrifice] was back, Liz had [Summon Golem] to level nine and also increased her own level again allowing her to place her three stat points into INT and END in a 2:1 ratio. Everything was looking up, but what was left was the hardest part of the fight: Deciding what to do with the body.

She could raise another giant, likely getting a stronger and better one than those she was using. She could try using it for [Bone Shaper] and [Flesh Stitching] to actually test them out. Or she could try to get a new type of undead with its body; there was the [Bone Crusher], the [Lonely Giant] or even something like a [Endless Walker] that she could try - all undead she thought would need a giant corpse.

In the end the decision was fairly easy and based purely on her own interest: She decided the corpse would be best used to test [Bone Shaper] and [Flesh Stitching]. Liz knew there would be many more cyclops to come and there was no harm in trying out her newest skills.

The corpse was large, coming from a giant race this was no surprise. Liz first attempted [Flesh Stitching], but found that nothing happened - she couldn't manipulate the skin of the giant no matter what she tried. 

Liz's undead army had formed a defensive formation around her to protect her as she practised and yet, no matter how she tried to go about it, [Flesh Stitching] simply wouldn't work and instead just wasted her mana.

Ten minutes of that passed before she finally gave up, realising that the skill worked in some other way. From there she moved onto [Bone Shaper], first a mixture of [Skeletons], [Zombies] and [Skeleton Miners] removed a large amount of flesh and muscle to reveal the bone so that Liz could try and use her skill. As she activated its knowledge, allowing mana to flow through her she could not mould the bone as she desired, but did feel a slight reaction.

With an order to a miner a few chips of cyclops bone hit the ground and as Liz picked them up she found that through her skill she could transform them from solid bone to a more clay-like material. From there it was a simple matter of shaping it and the moment she stopped applying mana it returned to its original feeling - regardless of shape. With different amounts of mana she could alter the viscosity of the bone; this simple test was more than enough to understand just how powerful the skill could be.

I'm not restricted by weapons anymore! She realised, almost cheering as she continued to practise with the skill and increasing its proficiency.

There were many types of undead in the [Book of Damned Souls] that she believed would need weapons or even armour to fully manifest, before that would have been difficult to source; draining resources as they disappeared through the summoning. However, this was no longer a concern.

Using [Bone Shaper] Liz could realistically create any weapons or armour that were needed on her own - or more accurately through her puppets.

"Collect all of its bone, dispose of the rest!" Liz called out, desiring a large amount of practice material and having a lot available. [Skeletons] made use of her skill [Dismantle] and due to its already high level they were able to selectively gather certain items; namely the bones.

When the process came to an end, Liz almost had an entire cyclops skeleton hidden away in her inventory; all there for her to practise using [Bone Shaper].

She used the skill as she walked, she used the skill as her undead fought increasingly powerful cyclops and she used it as she used the corpses of cyclops to replace her defeated undead - learning that giant corpses seemed to be worth quite a few regular bodies.

She had made significant progress as she wandered through the canyon, quite a number of changes occurred as she moved to conquer the dungeon. Her level had reached a hundred and twenty nine, her [Bone Shaper] skill had increased in proficiency exponentially to thirty two percent - allowing Liz to create basic weapons with some consistency - and she had finally evolved [Summon Golem].

The skill was one of her oldest and now it had been fully integrated into [Book of the Damned]. The evolution came with quite a few options; she was given the choice of three types of undead and another golem monster: [Summon Combat Golem]; [Summon Blood Golem]; [Summon Bone Golem]; [Summon Flesh Golem]. Having already acquired the conditions for the [Blood Golem] and not wanting to use a non-undead golem type that left Liz with the choice between bone and flesh.

Using the [Book of Damned Souls] she found that the main difference between flesh and bone was choosing between defence and attack. Flesh golems were significantly better tanks with the ability to self-destruct their own body parts  to defend themselves, but with little other methods of attack; on the other hand, bone golems were significantly more brittle and easy to kill, but could shape their bones into weaponry to attack back.

In the end her choice was easy; to Liz, golems had always been about defence and so the [Flesh Golem] was the easiest choice. It required a large amount of flesh, but with a single cyclops she could create two flesh golems that massively bolstered her army's defensive abilities.

By working with the undead giants, the flesh golems could grab hold of the monsters and begin detonating the flesh that made up their bodies - with cyclops' dropping so quickly it did not take long for them to regenerate either.

As Liz stood outside the boss room, she had improved her skills by incredible amounts - she was improved in every way possible, having surpassed the strength she had before being killed and ready to take down a boss before transforming the dungeon into a farm to gather powerful corpses.