Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 71 - Skeletal Frog

Bright white bones, as if shining through the darkness of the room. A towering build, that would overwhelm any opponent. The empty eye sockets, filled with two large crystal orbs. With a loud, rumbling noise, the boss monster finally began to move, as the door slammed shut behind the four adventurers.

With a single swift movement, the boss monster leapt into the center of the room, letting out an ear-deafening... croak.

"It's a frog? Seriously? The boss monster is a frog? How the hell is that supposed to be in-theme?" Foster asked with a wry smile, staring at the large undead.

"Oh shut up, what does the 'theme' matter right now? Be careful, and get ready." Octer said with a stern expression, holding his shield in front of his body as he stood in the front of the group. For now, they couldn't act too rashly, as none of them knew exactly how this undead was going to attack them.

And as they were all standing there, waiting for anything to happen to break this silence, Foster noticed something. He looked at the two crystal orbs that the skeletal frog had instead of eyes, "Well shit... those crystal orbs, they're the same kind that ended up creating those slimes... just intact."

"That means that it's probably partially related to the slime anyway, then." Lynol added, "Good to know."

As if it realized that the group noticed one of the frog's traits, it launched its first attack at them. Slowly, it opened its mouth, and all that could be seen inside of there was a black void that seemed to swallow everything that touched it. And well, that wasn't directly wrong either, considering that the 'black void' was actually a mass of death slime.

Foster immediately got ready to run forward and take care of a slime, in case this frog simply started summoning them, but instead something different happened. A long, thick black tongue shot out of the frog's mouth, aimed directly at the group.

Luckily, Octer moved quick enough in its path, stopping the impact with his shield. But that wasn't where it stopped. Like a regular frog's tongue, it seemed like this one was meant to retrieve things, and it got stuck on the shield's surface.

Octer's muscles bulged up as he tried to hold onto the shield, although rather than either the frog or himself letting go, it seemed like he would be dragged along with the shield.

"Kyla, cast a holy aura on Octer's shield, quick!" Foster exclaimed, and the cleric reacted immediately. She was playing her harp and singing the tune that Foster had heard a couple times today already. And just a moment after she begun, Octer's shield started to give off a faint golden shine. As this shine grew more intense, the surface of the frog's tongue started to dry up and crumble, making the undead frog release its grip on the object.

"Good, now we have a way to defend against it. Did anyone get hurt?" Lynol asked as he looked around the group, but nobody ended up touching any of the slime, "Octer, keep its attention, Foster and I are going to attack it. Kyla, support us from back here." He said, as the two vanguard fighters quickly rushed toward the frog. Octer yelled loudly and hit his shield, trying to get the frog's attention. Luckily, since it seemed to have at least some semblance of intelligence and the ability to enrage, the frog fell for Octer's 'Mock' martial skill, and kept trying to use its tongue to attack him, all the whilst staying steadily in the center of the room.

"Let's try to aim for its eyes first! If we destroy those, maybe it won't be able to use its tongue anymore!" Foster exclaimed, and Lynol quickly nodded. But first, they had to get the chance to do so in the first place.

If Foster tried to throw a knife at one of them right now, he wasn't sure if he would be able to pierce all the way through to the point where he could properly break it. If possible, Foster wanted to attack it from close up, so that he could make sure they were both immediately broken.

"Aim for its front-legs." Lynol advised, and Foster immediately nodded. It was a risky position to attack the undead frog, at least for Lynol himself. It was close to its mouth, and if the frog could use any other abilities beside just that tongue-based attack, this was obviously a very risky position to be in.

But that didn't stop him from attacking the undead. He swung his sword at its front-leg, thinking that he would be able to shatter it apart immediately. But instead of it being as easy as he thought it would be, all he could do is create a slight crack in the bone. And it wasn't particularly deep either.

"It's bones are incredibly hard! Make sure to attack the same spot as much as you can!" Lynol exclaimed, so that even the others could hear in case they needed to attack the monster somehow, and the two quickly continued on attacking the frog.

Its attention was slowly being pulled away from Octer over to its two attackers, but luckily, Octer hadn't gone all out yet. With his huge body came huge lungs as well. Lungs that allowed him to let out an even louder yell, which once more drew the frog's attention.

"Hurry it up, you two! I don't think it's going to work for much longer! Undead are super resistant to 'Mock'!" Octer yelled from where he was standing, slowly moving around to lure the tongue into a better position for Lynol and Foster to attack the frog's legs.

More and more, the attacks of the two sped up, so that they could try and break the frog's bones apart, not only incapacitating it, but also making sure that the two of them could get closer to the frog's crystal eyes.

And then, a shiver started to run over Foster's body. Something bad was about to happen, he just knew it. The frog's tongue shot out once more, but this time, it wasn't directed at Octer, but at someone else in the group. It was neither Foster or Lynol, the ones that were actually attacking it... but the one that was letting out the same pesky energy that kept hurting its tongue as it attacked the shield.

The tongue shot at Kyla.

Immediately as he realized, Foster rushed forward to try and pull the tongue away from its current trajectory, but he wouldn't be able to get there in time. The tongue was too far away. Instead, someone else with a greater reach attacked the tongue.

Lynol's sword sliced through the pitch black tongue with ease, and the slime beyond the point where he cut the tongue immediately fell apart into a puddle. Luckily, it didn't reach Kyla, but it was damn close.

As the black slime slowly dripped down Lynol's weapon, the swordsman yelled out angrily, "Pay attention, you two! Do you want to get killed, or something?!"