Jay had a regretful, pitying smile but he was soon bothered by something - he wouldn’t know how strong this spell is, or what it did, until he actually experienced it.
This was the least of their problems for now though, as there was another dilemma facing them: do they wait to see if the dihexapedes can thin out the stone guards before entering the battle - or do they enter now before all the dihexapedes die out, taking some pressure off themselves while fighting the statues?
It was clearly a different pack of dihexapede’s too, as the one they fought in the mist only had about fifteen left; the number of them fighting this battle were in the mid forties.
Jay squinted at them for a moment. It seemed like the dihexapede’s were doing well and the battle would be equal - yet there was one problem: each time a dihexapede died, they would all get weaker.
This would have a compounding effect - if one was slain, then the next one was easier to kill. It seemed an even battle now but soon it would snowball out of control and the poor twisted creatures would all probably die at once.
With a resolute decisiveness, Jay made a decision.
“We’ve got to go in now,” Jay made an icy stare at the small entrance of the pyramid.
“Can’t we just wait and see?”
“No, it will be too late then. We have to break through them while they’re distracted. Let’s move.” Jay crept forward with his skeletons into the ruins on the right.
Anya bit her lip but followed along anyway, deciding to trust Jay. It wasn’t like she had a choice anyway, she was the one following Jay along after all.
All seven of them - Jay, Anya and the five skeletons - crept quietly around the small mounds of rubble in the ruins. They didn’t want to be noticed by either the dihexapedes or the stone statues.
Jay had already begun to charge a few unstable teeth spells in his hand while they snuck through.
Unlike the mysterious purple spells being launched by the floating statues, these were effective because they created a physical force, which was the explosion followed by the tooth’s enamel shrapnel.
Jay led them closer to the pillar on the right; it would be better to push through the side rather than through the middle - there were also less dihexapede corpses here to jump over too.
Still, it wouldn’t be easy.
“Hmm… this probably won’t be enough.” Jay thought as he looked at the charged teeth in his hand.
What Jay did next made Anya look a little confused as the skeletons all began handing their hammers to Jay - but she decided to keep quiet and just wait and see.
With the hammers stashed away in Jay’s inventory, he was ready.
“If one of the floating statues notices us, shoot a bolt at it and keep running.” Jay whispered, adding one last order “... and try not to get hit.”
With a serious nod, Anya gripped her crossbow, ready to fire.
“Ok, let’s move.” Jay said.
Suddenly, two humans and five undead were sprinting out of the ruins across the battlefield. Were they running from the skeletons?
They went from crouching silently to sprinting madly at the wall of spearmen.
Jay was initially in the lead, but the skeletons quickly caught up and overtook him. They knew exactly what to do, as Jay was commanding them with his mind while they charged.
The stone statues didn’t seem to be taken by surprise as the undead came charging; they reacted almost mechanically as they pointed their spears and raised their shields. To them, it was just another enemy of Helvetia which needed purging.
The feeble creature had a spear thrust into its rib cage, but it survived, occupying a spearman temporarily - at the same time, one of the higher level skeletons jumped at the statue.
It clawed and grasped onto the statues body and soon wrapped itself around the statues head, blocking whatever vision it had.
This was something that did take the statue by surprise.
Its spear was useless against something at such a close range, but it wouldn’t drop its weapon - perhaps its hands had even locked up as they had been holding it for centuries.
What it did next almost made Jay laugh as they continued to sprint towards the stone phalanx.
The statue had no other options than to smash its own shield against its head, trying to deal any damage to the skeleton it could.
*shhhrew~*
A purple spell suddenly flew around the head of the statue and ended up hovering inside the rib cage of the skeleton.
“Huh…?” Jay thought, “Is it meant to do damage or… hmm…”
The spell still had no effect. Jay wasn’t sure what to make of it. Either way, he was just glad it wasn’t used on him.
A second statue received a skeleton to the head. It also couldn’t do anything to shake it off.
“Here!” Jay yelled as he charged between them.
*Scriiiii!~*
The dihexapedes noticed something strange was happening now too, and some began to charge over to the side. It seemed that the soldiers had partially broken their formation and this was their opportunity to strike.
Jay and Anya dashed through the wall of spearman statues. Thankfully, the floating spell-casting statue was still trying to cast its useless spells at the skeleton since it was the first enemy that made it into its attack range.
The spearman statues on either side of the skeleton-covered statues started thrusting their spears into their allies’ heads.
This proved quite effective as they skeletons lost grip and were pushed off, though they still damage their own kind.
The feeble creature had died by this point, and another skeleton was soon to follow - but it didn’t matter to Jay. They had done their jobs quite well.
It was a crazy tactic but it worked.
The dihexapedes that had noticed the commotion were already attacking the preoccupied spearman statues, taking advantage of the chaos.
Jay didn’t want to favour one side over the other, but it seemed that this was all the dihexapedes needed to shift their battle in their favour.
Two spearman statues perished, followed by the rest of Jay’s skeletons and then two more statues.
***Bonus chapter 2/5***
