"The birds are simply too far away," Rudigas declared, his voice trembling with the type of dignity only a floating skull pretending not to shake could muster. "Since I don't have my body, I can't attack at my full power."

He lifted his chin or what would have been a chin, if he weren't an ancient skull and tried to look smug. The purple-black necromancer's cape billowed behind him like he was posing for an illustration in a villain encyclopedia.

No one was impressed.

Vargan, towering in his werewolf form and already irritated from seeing the several birds, let out the deepest, most exhausted sigh of the morning.

He reached forward, casually picking Rudigas up by the top of his cranium as if holding a misbehaving plush toy.

"Don't worry," Vargan rumbled. "I'll help you close the distance."

Rudigas's empty sockets widened.

"No—no, wait—WAIT, YOU BRUTE—!"

But destiny had already clenched its jaws around him.

Vargan swung his arm with brutal, perfect momentum, launching the skull upward like a catapult stone.

Rudigas screamed the entire way up… a high, magical and deeply offended shriek.

He rocketed through the air and crashed straight into the head of an oversized bird.

The bird exploded.

Feathers, gore, eyeballs, and chunks of bird brain splattered everywhere. Rudigas's skull became coated in a dripping mixture of viscera and burnt-red flesh.

His cape soaked up the blood… then dripped it behind him like he had just risen out of a corpse pit.

'Fucking wolves…' Rudigas thought as he hovered in midair, vibrating with horrified anger. With a pulse of pale-blue necrotic mana, he burned away the blood and filth from bone and cloth.

It hissed off him like steam.

Below, the hunters watched the crushed bird corpse fall. One wolf leapt upward, catching it easily.

They tossed it toward the ground to start a pile.

Rudigas felt something deep in his nonexistent stomach.

Humiliation… Pure, spiritual humiliation.

'I was once a scourge upon kingdoms… and now I am an airborne projectile!'

He glanced upward and froze.

Every bird in the sky had turned toward him.

Dozens of black-feathered monsters began screeching, swirling, dive-bombing around him. Their wings cut through the air like swords.

'Oh no… I'm finished.'

The first bird slammed into him.

Rudigas went spinning through the air like a cursed bowling ball.

"AHHHHHHHH—!!"

A second bird dove with its massive beak aimed right for the crack in his forehead. Instinctively, Rudigas's sockets blazed blue… a violent, necrotic glow.

He unleashed a spell.

The bird's skeleton snapped inward. Every bone twisted simultaneously. Its body collapsed into a pulpy explosion of blood and shattered fragments.

The gore rained around him in a gruesome mist.

'Without my body I'm pitiful… but I'm NOT that pitiful!'

Another bird swooped.

Rudigas opened his jaw, and a single spear-like bone shot from his throat, stabbing straight through the bird's skull. The creature convulsed once before going limp.

The bone retracted back into his skull with a click.

'See? Even weakened, I still—'

Ten more birds turned toward him.

His courage evaporated instantly.

'ARE THESE BASTARDS NOT COMING TO HELP ME?!'

He turned and finally spotting the hunters launching themselves skyward like a squadron of living arrows.

Vargan intercepted the next bird before it reached Rudigas, slapping it away with enough force to send a shockwave across the mountain.

The werewolf caught Rudigas midair, descended in a neat arc, and dropped the Lich gently like returning a child's toy to the floor.

"You can sit tight and let the major forces handle it," Vargan said before powering back into the sky.

The wind from his launch blew Rudigas's cape backward dramatically, which would have looked cool if Rudigas wasn't visibly shaking.

He floated toward Azel with a deeply wounded aura.

"I can't use most of my spells without my body," he admitted. "So I… can't be of much use to you."

He hoped or rather, he prayed for sympathy.

Azel merely crossed his arms.

"Well, I can understand that."

Rudigas brightened…

"But everyone here is earning their keep."

He dimmed.

"According to you," Azel continued, "you're an all-powerful necromancer who had to be sealed for threatening the world. Even without your body, you said you could handle opponents weaker than those you've faced."

Rudigas faltered.

There was no way out.

"Throw me up!" he declared.

Azel gripped the skull with one hand. Rudigas felt something horrifying: Azel's aura gathering.

"Oh no—nononono—AAAAAH—!"

Azel launched him.

The air cracked from the force. Rudigas flew straight upward in an arc so bright it left a faint trail.

He headed directly toward a bird…

'Perfect.'

Until a different bird… one Selene had punched so hard it was still flying like a meteor crashed right into Rudigas.

He veered off-course like a deflected cannonball and slammed into the ground far below.

His cape covered his skull like a cloth of shame.

'I was a king among sorcerers! A living nightmare! A walking catastrophe! HOW HAS MY LIFE COME TO THIS?!'

Azel, meanwhile, calmly opened the Territory interface.

He skimmed the entries.

'Last time the territory boss was an insecure elf who sniped from a distance. This one better not be that ridiculous.'

[ Territory Boss: Lava Bird. Rank 3 ]

[ Note: This monster hates noise ]

Azel blinked.

'Lava? Hates noise? What does it do? Melt anyone who sings?'

Birds were still dropping from the sky as hunters finished clearing them. Azel collected the bodies neatly into his storage ring.

Rudigas floated up again, following Azel like a depressed balloon.

'I feel so useless…' he thought, deadpan.

Then his sockets flickered. 'Wait… what is that?'

At the top of the highest mountain, gray ash began drifting upward… it was barely visible at first, then thickening rapidly like smoke from a giant furnace.

"Uh… Master?" Rudigas's voice cracked.

Azel turned.

The ashen plume twisted upward in a pillar and the ground trembled beneath their feet.

Azel's eyes widened.

'…No way.'

The trembling grew stronger… pebbles began dancing and cracks appeared in the dirt.

Azel understood immediately.

"RUN AWAY! IT'S GOING TO BLOW!"

The hunters reacted instantly.

Selene thrust both hands forward… an enormous gust of wind blasted out, pushing everyone toward safety with incredible force.

Vargan grabbed two wolves.

Azel ran last, shielding the group with holy aura.

Then…

A thunderous roar split the world.

The mountain ruptured violently.

A pillar of molten lava shot into the sky like a flaming spear, tearing through clouds. Ash and glowing cinders exploded outward in a devastating wave.

The volcano's fury lit the entire mountain region in shades of burning gold and hellish red.

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