"Woah!"
Feeling the incoming projectile long before I could visibly see it, by back instinctively fell into Gravity's embrace before stopping midway with a tensing of the thighs.
Back now parallel to the earth, the sharp object spun through the air slicing through the space I was previously occupying with speed and force meant to kill with a single strike.
Leaving behind a black trail that I instinctively felt was harmful, I fell against the ground and rolled to the side where I equipped my weapons and lifted my head.
Hurriedly reorienting myself, I turned to look at the figure who had launched the dangerous attack filled with murderous intent and spotted the purple robed figure floating above the ground.
Body lined with cyan white bones, the figures ribcage melded together to form something akin to a chestplate as a long tail like appendage protruded from the tailbone not unlike that of a snakes.
This ominous looking enemy was complete in a set of ragged purple robes that seemed to have been high quality once upon a time, but time did the clothes no favors as they now hung loosely over the skeleton's unflattering physique.
Adjusting their pointed purple wizards cap over their head so that the red flames bouncing around in the skull's pitch black eye holes could see me, his free hand reached out towards me.
And feeling the very same feeling that warned me of an incoming projectile, I fell forwards without hesitation.
A good thing I did to as the very same situation occurred as when I fell over backwards except it was now occurring in reverse.
Black trail flying through the air, I noted that the bones that it touched decayed to the point that it was visibly decreasing.
'Enemy'
It didn't take a genius to understand that whoever it was was in front of me was an enemy.
Especially if they attacked twice with the intent to kill.
I really hoped that they wouldn't try to kill me seeing as they don't have orange eyes but I guess it was a fanciful thought.
Reaching out to my inventory screen, armor forged by the hand of the islands resident Blacksmith covered my body alongside a few tasteful pieces I had made myself with the help of the Terrarian game system.
It really wasn't hard when things could just be consumed in my inventory to create something.
Adjusting the helmet so that the slits would allow be sufficient sight for combat, the armor perfectly covered my limbs in such a way that my mobility wouldn't be severely impacted.
And seeing that I was ready for combat, the skeletal wizard responded in kind.
Raising his free hand in the air, a much smaller iteration of the doubled sided scythe in the skeletons hand appeared.
Blades shaped like batwings, the double sided and double edged weapons splits into four before suddenly flying towards me like guided missiles.
Seeing this, my hand found its way into a shield which instantly blocked the first two which broke apart the instant they collided against the hard surface.
The other two took to arcing over my shoulders and backtracking to strike my exposed rear.
But now having a vague grasp on how strong these flying constructs were, I simply turned around and struck them with the length of the spear, breaking them apart into motes of black and red light.
'I better start fighting back now.'
With that in mind, I pulled out one of the many bows from my inventory.
This particular one called the Marksman's bow had increased piercing power the further my target was.
And seeing as they were floating above the ground sending flying scythes and flying orbs at me, it was pretty far.
Knocking the arrow into the string, the scythes flew past my body with little distance between my flesh and the blades all the while the flying orbs swiftly tracked where I was and pierced through the bones behind my previous position.
I loosed the arrows.
Whistling through the air, the skeleton mage raised their scythe and forced it to spin in the air instantly chewing up all the arrows I had sent his way.
And not to be outdone, the skeletal mage raised their free hand and revealed a much larger ball of visibly shaking energy.
Directing it to the ground, I intuitively understood what was happening and sent flames into my feet so that I would land on one of many uplifted foundations.
What i didn't expect was for the ground to cave in when the magic spell struck the ground.
Bones and stone alike flying into the air as the shockwave tore through the supports holding up the ground, the platform underneath my feet gave way making me feel briefly weightless
Falling through the air, the reality of it all came crashing down on me with thew weight of gravity as sharp bone spurs hidden underneath the earth revealed themselves with several corpses that supposedly fell into them long ago.
Most of the corpses were mostly fresh if a little drained of blood but they were corpses nonetheless.
"Kekeke" A sound came from the skeleton, the first he had heard since they started fighting, clacking his jaw in supposed laughter, the skeletal mage had a mocking glimmer flash through its red eyes
Raising their hand as if my death was already a done deal, a voice came echoing out of that boney vessel.
"Oh fleshy mortal who has been marked by the Grand King of Blood, be awed that you have been struck down by the lord once and now by me..."
I can't say I wasn't mildly angered by the sight and sound.
Especially when he followed it up with a few choice words.
"...The King of Bloods right hand man, Death."
His jaw clacked a few times in a crude mimicry of laughter.
And me?
Well I was getting ready to punch the arrogant bastard int he jaw and knock his teeth loose.
'Mana conservation can go to hell, right now I just want to punch this guy in the face.'
Feeling a rage bubble up in my chest, I forcefully reigned in the rage and directed it to attacking my brand new enemy.
Uncontrolled rage although deadly, wasn't as deadly as a coldly sharpened blade that could strike at the enemy in the jugular.
And stab the enemy jugular I so wanted to do.
Pulling back the string of my bow, I tensed the wooden limbs as far as they could go before loosing the three arrows placed onto its string.
Piercing through the air, the feather fletching placed on the ends of the arrows instantly corrected their course as they struck at the skeleton.
Having expected a last ditch effort as so many gave done so before, the skeleton calmly reacted by erecting a barrier made of bones in front of him.
The thing was, these weren't any normal arrows.
Activating the vine rune alongside the inferno rune, additional fletching grew over the arrow head, giving it a distinctly drill shaped look that pierced through the wall of bones before lighting themselves aflame.
Caught off guard by this, the skeleton hurriedly dodged the attack, dodging one, letting another glance off his arm and letting another strike true.
Digging deep into the shoulder blades of the cyan colored skeleton, it seemed that the skeleton's bones were made out of some unknown strong material as my arrows were able to effortlessly carve through a thick wall of bones.
But in the brief time frame where the arrows were flying through the air, I reacted by activating the blaze rune and kicking against the air.
Flying through the air, I reoriented myself with the help of the Blaze rune providing propulsion and slammed into one of the still falling chunks of earth.
Placing my feet square against its surface, I pushed off of it sending the chunk of stone careening into the pit filled with bone spurs.
Now havin reoriented myself so that I was now flying back up, my eyes flashed through the air as they took in my surroundings.
Spotting another wildly spinning chunk of stone, my legs kicked against the air as they beelined to another of the falling stones.
Zigzagging through the air in this bastardised form of flight, the skeleton mage who belatedly reacted with an arrow stuck through its shoulder tried to strike at me with miniature scythes and balls of energy
Balls of energy aside that could be dodged easily, the miniature scytehs were performing their duty to the utmost best they could by acting like self guided drones.
Hurriedly dodging them through the air, my body bounced around the falling chunks of stone and air as I slowly but surely climbed up to where the Skeleton was still arrogantly floating.
But eventually, the laws of conversation said that there couldn't possibly be an infinite supply of material manifesting out of nowhere to serve as supports.
This was where I was using all of my brain power.
Sweat buckets, my clothes stuck wetly against my back as I lifted my feet into thin empty air where there was nothing to be seen except the miniature scythes.
"No!"
Belatedly realizing the same thing that I had a long time ago, the briefest smirk made its way across my features asi Used the Inferno and blaze runes alongside the time runes to reorient myself in the air.
My foot struck the miniature scythe flying through the air, my armor long gone to reduce the weight on my body.
"How!? HOW!?" Shouting like a mad man possessed, the skeleton slowly moved from its position, holding its giant scythe like a protective charm against his chest.
"What are you!?"
Flying through the air, my feet struck another one of the miniature scythes tracking my movements through the air right before the Skeleton laughed a mad cackle
"I know the answer to that question! A FOOL!"
Snapping his boney fingers, a crisp snap filled the air followed up by the subsequent disappearance of all the miniature scythes flying through the air.
"You really didn't think I was stupid enough to just let you climb up to meet the living embodiment of death did you?"
"Yeah, you glorified pile of dog food."
Now not even trying to hide the large grin on my face, the wind whistled against my ears as flames coated all of my limbs and sent me flying like the man of iron.
But instead of using the epitome of technology to fly, I was using the equivalent in magic.
Red orbs flashing in surprise, the skeleton raised their scythe in panic and swung it, sending a black trail flying through the air
By now, the distance between me and the floating skeleton had narrowed considerably,
So much so that if I didn't sacrifice something, I wouldn't be able to strike a blow against that arrogant skull of theirs.
And as much as I wanted the skeleton to be as empty headed as their skull currently was, the magical equivalent of their brain stopped that.
So I did what any reasonable person would do.
I sacrificed my left arm
Flying towards the man, I stabbed the skeleton through the chest much to the Skeleton's dumbfoundedness as my left arm began to decay from the black trail in real time.
Planting my feet against his chest while the blade pierced through the skeletons spine, I couldn't see my face right now, but I had no doubt that there was a massive shit eating grin on my face.
Leaning down on the now falling body, I whispered quietly into what I assumed were the skeleton's ears.
"You aren't the living embodiment of death, I know someone with better qualifications for that." My orange eyes flashed black unbeknownst to me.
"I know this because I've seen them before, now go talk to him you arrogant shit."
Where he understood me or not, it didn't matter as the red light in the Skeleton's eyes flashed once before disappearing.
Smiling, I jumped off of the corpse and onto a nearby platform, rolling to disperse the momentum safely, letting the corpse fall into the pit behind.
"...You know? That went a lot better than I had thought it would"
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