Skeletal Mass

After dinner, Magnus went out to kill more skeletons. He could intuitively feel that something would happen to Restiel once he stocked up on enough Spirit Energy.

Something akin to a metamorphosis of sorts.

Thus, although it was hard, Magnus fought against the abnormally sturdy skeletons. He easily crushed the archers, but the swordsmen and shieldsmen were giving him trouble. The most he could do was stun or immobilise those skeletons so that a single purification from Restiel vaporised more than one skeleton at a time.

He had to herd the skeletons together and pull out the weeds.

It was a satisfying endeavour when all of them lined up perfectly, but a frustrating one if they kept—

"Roaming around! Again!" Magnus exhaled in frustration as he had Restiel wait on the purification bolt. Earthen walls erupted from both sides of one of the skeletons and moved it back into place.

Only then did Restiel silence a big group of 12 skeletons all at once.

"Haa, haa," Magnus breathed. His Spirit Energy reserves were half gone, and yet Restiel still did not have enough Divine Energy for whatever was supposed to happen to him.

Restiel was going to stay there for quite some time, it seemed.

That was a benefit of being in the Hivemind.

The delegation of tasks was finally viable with Restiel's Spirit Energy regeneration. It was no longer a deficit to have more than one member present.

Thus Magnus left Restiel behind to slowly deal with the skeletons from the air— anyway, with Magnus' memories of Spirit Manipulation, the angel has a good set of armour. The arrows won't hurt him and the swords can't reach him.

Magnus took some fruit and went deeper in. He followed the slope in the cavern, flying over the heads of the ever-increasing densities of skeletons.

It took him a while of floating, but he eventually made it.

"Is that... A church?" Magnus held his hand out to light up the area. In front of him was a spire, and below him were roofs and pillars of gothic style.

It was a massive construct built out of stone that was darker than black. Spikes and spires littered the building, making it look like an armadillo.

Here, the skeletons were akin to a flood. There was barely any extra space for another human to stand in. It was an image reminiscent of those seen during the Feast of the Black Nazarene.

Just... a little eerier than seeing normal humans.

Skulls of white were like floor tiles that Magnus could safely step on without his Curse acting up. He couldn't even be attacked.

The skeletons were so badly jammed together that they could no longer move their limbs.

None of their weapons was wieldable.

Magnus thus strolled atop their heads like the Gravity Fairy he was.

He entered the church through its towering double doors and caught the image of a damaged church.

Giant chandeliers littered the floors, and the altar in the great distance was split in two. Whichever god was displayed in the distance had been de-faced and stripped of any holy status, defiled and blasphemed.

A skeleton was standing atop the altar—alone and unmoving.

It was only when Magnus entered did a red gleam spark in its empty eye sockets. Its gaze drilled into him and gave him chills.

"A mage?" was Magnus' first thoughts.

The skeleton held its hands out in a different way than he was expecting though. The skeleton seemed like a priest at that moment, benevolent despite its undead status. It had been naked, yet a red robe slowly appeared over its shoulders as soon it began its gestures.

"A priest..." Magnus shuddered for some reason as a choir began singing above his head. Skeletal voices and a choir of ghosts echoed out across the church.

The rest of the skeletons stirred, and Magnus lost his footing as they shifted their heads about. He resumed floating around as he watched the spectral sight before him.

Many of the skeletons knelt at the pews, while others remained standing.

They all sang despite their lack of vocal cords, and it rang like lightning in Magnus' ears. He heard every lyric, every note.

He heard of praises given to a god of the night. A god of Tyrm's bright moon.

Magnus scrunched his brows. He noticed something even more peculiar than the sight before him.

"That book," He drifted ever-closer to the altar. To where a black tome lay open before the priest, looking still and holy.

"Why do I want it so badly?"

.

.

.

Restiel, who was killing skeletons far away suddenly felt an emotion within him stir.

It was a savage emotion that desired the death of a foe. The extinguishing of their existence.

He looked into the distance, in the direction where Magnus was lingering before a black tome.

If he had a mind of his own, he might have muttered something inexplicable.

"..."

Instead, it was just a cautious silence.

He was wary of whatever was occurring near Magnus.

.

.

.

Louviarch was sipping on tea, reading through a letter he had received from his friend from afar.

Suddenly, he felt a bad premonition. One that lasted but a split section that tugged at his gut.

'Something's wrong,' He thought as he swiftly sank into the earth and re-emerged atop an earthen tower of his own creation.

He surveyed his entire city, and everything looked normal.

Nothing was different. Nothing was going wrong.

That young man, Magnus had already left a few days ago.

'Weird,' Louviarch bit his lip.

The bad premonition returned to him.

.

.

.

Magnus felt the wariness of Restiel. He also felt similar premonitions as Louviarch did.

But he couldn't resist the calling of the tome before him. He wanted to grab out and take it into his hands.

He wanted the book to become his, no matter what.

He felt power now emanating from its pages as if whatever was written was truly the word of a god.

His recent greed for power was being called upon by the hymns and chants that echoed throughout the church.

"Take it,"

He suddenly heard the skeleton priest speak.

"Take it,"

It whispered again.

And so, Magnus did.

Instantly, the world around him churned and spiralled. Voices aplenty bombarded his mind, like the suffering souls of hell. They writhed around his body as the skeletons paraded towards him from beneath the altar.

The skeleton priest before him looked dead into his eyes. Its cracked skull seemed to be smiling.

"Well done,"

It cackled in triumph.

"You will now become one with us! Our very own Lich!"

Cheers came from the once-silent skeletons. They rattled their bones and stomped their feet. The clicking of their jaws as they laughed and shouted in a manic frenzy would give every child nightmares.

It was then,

Something subtle clicked.

And the skeletons, the thousands of them, felt a new mind appear.

"He's here!"

They cried out.

But their joyous cry turned into something else at that moment.

It turned into dread, as Magnus began to mutter.

"I am the master and maker of the Hivemind,

The mind behind minds,

The one who stands above humanity,

And the one civilizations despise."

He invoked, and the aura of enslavement erupted from his body like a tsunami. It washed over every being in the church, as well as the book that was now in his hands.

The skeletons trembled at this sight, and they felt their connection to the book run wild. It scrambled for control as the skeleton priest's eyes flickered in spiritual agony.

"You lot used to be human," Magnus smiled, as his foggy eyes returned to their previous clarity. "You have no power over me."

WHOOOOOOOOM!

The hum of Spirit Energy flowing out from Magnus' wrist shook the entire church. A massive amount of power flowed into the black tome in his hand, forcing its powers down.

Two powers clashed, both of the nature of enslavement. One was a Blessing, the other, a curse. But one came from /the/ world of Blessings and Curses.

Which one do you think would attain victory?

Crack!

One of the many gemstones on the book broke and disintegrated into nothingness, and Magnus suddenly felt that the ordeal was done.

The skeletons behind him suddenly went crazy as they thrashed about. Some wielded their fists to bash those beside them while others wielded their weapons and created space. Broken bones flew into the sky at a rapid interval.

No longer were they governed by one mind.

Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!

Pandemonium ensued as Magnus fled into the darkness. He carried the black tome with him as he did.

.

.

.

Magnus examined the tome in his hand.

It seemed like an ordinary object now, but he intuitively knew that it wasn't so. The pages were all blank, save for the first page.

A list of names could be seen on it.

=o=o=o=o=

- Klaris of Thawsore

- Magnus Avary

- Restiel the Archangel

=o=o=o=o=

"The members of my Hivemind, huh?" Magnus muttered in thought as he flipped to the other pages.

The latter half of the tome was composed of dense black pages while the first half was in pale, garlic-skin white.

Magnus figured it might have something to do with the nights of Tyrm being half bright, half dark. But that was just him.

He didn't know where the tome truly came from, after all.

He just found it within a crowd of skeletons, and it was also exerting a force that Restiel found dangerous.

"Could the latter pages be locked somehow?" Magnus thought to himself as he sensed the powers of the Half-Night Tome. "Something is blocking me from activating some of its latent power despite it being a part of the Hivemind now as some... auxiliary member."

Magnus wasn't sure how it worked. All he knew was that in the process of protecting himself from the presence of a hundred thousand minds, he ended up enslaving the main cause of it all. His slots were supposedly full, but the Blessing accommodated the presence of the book for whatever reason.

Seeing no progress as to how to operate the tome, Magnus decided to put it off for a moment. The moment he thought so, the book disappeared with a flash of light.

"What...? So it can be summoned and unsummoned like my members as well?"