He Actually Had a Brain
Riyao hoisted Gray and Cana onto his shoulders and narrowly dodged the Skeleton King's dainty foot as it came down toward the train.
He stumbled a couple of steps as he landed, deliberately retreating toward the nearby forest. Then he laughed aloud, his taunt deliberately provocative.
"Hey! You coward hiding on that pile of bones! You can't hit us, you can't hit us! Mad yet?"
The boss standing on the Skeleton King's shoulder trembled with rage, his murky eyes bloodshot. His voice was both raspy and shrill, grating like a battered gong.
"Arrogant brats! You're asking for death! No matter where you run, you'll die!"
He was utterly blinded by fury and gave no thought to the scheme behind it. All he wanted was to tear the three brats who had humiliated him to pieces.
He immediately barked an order. "After them! Grind them into mincemeat!"
The enormous Skeleton King let out a deafening roar and charged after the fleeing trio with heavy strides.
Its giant feet left deep craters in the grass. In its fury, it was drawn toward the dense forest by Riyao's taunts.
Seeing this, Riyao's eyes flashed as his plan succeeded, and he immediately put Gray and Cana down.
"Quick, run into the woods! The trees are dense there, so they can limit this big guy's movements and get us well away from the passengers!"
Without further hesitation, the three turned and raced deeper into the forest.
The Skeleton King strode into the woods after them and swung its giant bone blade. The thick, closely packed trunks failed to stop the blow, but they did slow it down.
Its massive skeleton had trouble turning, and its long legs kept catching on the protruding roots of old trees.
Its normally powerful stomps and sweeping blows couldn't be fully unleashed in the cramped woods, and its movements became clumsy and sluggish.
Riyao wrapped his arms around towering trees and heaved, uprooting several ancient trees with a crash!
The fallen trunks piled atop one another, jamming firmly against the Skeleton King's ankles and knee joints and locking it in place.
Even if its bones could regenerate quickly, they would only remain wedged fast in the wood, unable to move.
Gray immediately caught on, ice-blue magic spreading along the roots in the forest. "Ice-Make: Ice Geyser!"
Ice crept along the trunks and wound into the gaps between the Skeleton King's bones, strengthening its restraints.
Cana flung out several cards. A fierce wind swept up the dead leaves on the forest floor, turning them into a haze that filled the air and obscured the vision of the Skeleton King and the villain on its shoulder.
At the same time, trees multiplied and wrapped around the Skeleton King's lower body, making its limbs increasingly stiff.
After that perfectly coordinated series of moves, all three were breathing unsteadily, cold sweat covering their brows. Most of their magic had been spent, and they were close to running dry.
Gray propped himself up on his aching arms, while Cana clutched her cards tightly. Only one thought remained in their minds: they could only hope the Magic Council's troops would hear the commotion and hurry to the forest.
Meanwhile, the Skeleton King, trapped by the ancient trees wrapped around it and the ice sealing its joints, continued to twist its massive body wildly. Its joints clacked, but it couldn't break free of the wood and ice for the time being.
The villainous boss on its shoulder was wild with rage. He screamed as if mad, "Useless thing! Get up! Crush them! Grind those three brats to dust!"
Seeing that the Skeleton King was trapped for the moment and couldn't approach them anytime soon, Gray and Cana breathed a little easier, their tense shoulders relaxing slightly.
Riyao alone felt a sudden jolt in his heart. A strange stirring quietly welled up inside him, and, in some mysterious way, a force rooted in the earth was slowly resonating with him.
He suppressed his doubts and cautiously bent down, reaching out to touch the damp forest soil with his palm.
A moment later, his eyes suddenly cleared, and he instantly understood the source of the resonance.
An intricate emerald-green magic circle interwoven with golden patterns quietly spread across the ground. Its glow shimmered for a moment before silently fading away, leaving the ground bare, as though nothing had happened.
Gray scratched his head, while Cana tilted her head, her face full of confusion. They exchanged a glance, neither able to understand what Riyao was doing.
Just then, the boss high above completely lost patience, a vicious gleam flashing in his eyes. Since it's trapped!
He abruptly channeled his magic and gave an order.
Without hesitation, the giant Skeleton King raised the enormous bone blade in its hand and viciously hacked at its own lower body, which was locked in place by the trees!
"Boom!"
Dust suddenly billowed through the air, blocking their view.
The severed bone fragments of its lower body floated into the air, escaping every restraint before rapidly reassembling and joining together.
In just a few breaths, the Skeleton King was as good as new, standing firmly on the ground and completely free of its shackles.
Looking at the freed Skeleton King, the boss let out a crazed, piercing laugh, his voice laced with triumph and killing intent.
"Hahaha! A bunch of useless, trashy brats! Die! Every last one of you, die here!"
The dust settled, revealing the Skeleton King before them, which had severed its own body and reassembled itself to break free, knowing what to sacrifice to escape its predicament.
The three youngsters, their magic exhausted, froze on the spot. Riyao instinctively let out a low cry, his face full of astonishment.
"Damn... This little villain whose name I don't even know actually has a brain?!"
Gray and Cana stared at the Skeleton King, which looked even more menacing now that it was free. Their magic completely exhausted, they panicked and turned helplessly to Riyao—he was their only hope now.
But the moment they turned, both froze.
A faint green glow shimmered around Riyao, lingering like morning mist in the forest.
It flowed slowly from the tips of his hair, his fingertips and the hem of his clothes. Even his pupils had taken on a translucent emerald hue.
What resonated with Riyao now was the boundless life force of the trees in this ancient forest.
That emerald-green magic circle had already quietly established a link between him and the forest.
Riyao closed his eyes and stopped suppressing the resonance. Like parched land drinking in rain, he greedily absorbed the vast life force surging toward him from deep within the forest.
The ancient trees around him trembled slightly. Their leaves lost their luster at a visible rate, and their branches gently withered.
Vast quantities of mixed life energy followed the magic circle's pathways, forming streams of green that poured wildly into his body.
Though this life force was mixed and impure, bearing the wildness and coarseness of plants, Riyao couldn't spare the attention to filter it now.
His nearly depleted magic recovered rapidly, nourished by the life energy.
The golden patterns of "Hundred Battles" on his body grew ever more brilliant, intertwining with the green light around him to form a dazzling curtain of gold and green that spread along his blood vessels throughout his body.
The golden patterns of Hundred Battles on his body slowly lit up. Riyao clenched his fists and felt he could kill a black dragon with a single punch.
"Gray, Cana, go back to the train and wait for the Rune Knights."
Gray and Cana didn't move. They refused, saying, "No. If we fight, we fight together. There's no way we'd abandon a companion and run."
Riyao simply picked them both up and threw them out of the forest, cursing, "I'm worried you two idiots will get caught up in it!"
The instant the two were thrown into the air, "Boom!"
The giant Skeleton King's enormous bone blade had already swept toward him. It howled as it tore through the air, its shadow covering the entire forest, while its frigid aura of death nearly froze the air.
Riyao turned, not a trace of fear in his eyes. Instead, they blazed with fighting spirit.
Facing the bone blade, powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, he advanced rather than retreating. The intertwined gold and green light around him gathered in his right fist, and he drove it straight forward!