[NR] The Ultimate Puzzle - Chapter 555

In the end, all Jason and Lily could do was sit back and watch. At least Courtney could provide minor magical support in the form of healing and stamina recovery spells. If she tried anything more, the undead meat monstrosity might have turned its focus on her.

And so after about two hours of cat and mouse, the mouse wins. Within the first half hour, Rosha ran out of prepared arrows and had to depend on skill-based ammunition, but she eventually managed it. Maybe with a better way to regenerate her Mana, it could have wrapped up quicker. Though being so low on Mana did force her to focus on more targeted attacks so there is really no way to know.

The only upside to this drawn out fight was it allowed Rosha the chance to guide the undead abomination away from the clearing. Because once it did die, the remains are just as much, if not more, of a problem. The undead already cause problems for minor life forms like grass. So, the remains of such a large flesh-based undead would devastate wherever it died. At least, it would if you didn’t take care of things quickly enough.

Sure, with most undead, the simple solution is a mix of cleansing fire and holy water. You burn it clean and then douse whatever is left over. This blob of meat was more of a problem. Instead of the usual dried out husk that most undead end up as, this was one of the moist undead. Which unfortunately meant that even when dead, the thing resisted fire of all sorts.

Though despite the fact that it was far enough from the clearing that they didn’t have to worry about cremating it, they also couldn’t just leave it as is. With how much necromantic power had been pumped into the monster, there was a non-zero chance of the remains rising once again. Good thing Courtney had the answer. She actually still had some of the redeath rose oil.

Jason had already sold all of his, though now is kicking himself for doing so. It wasn’t like he got all that much for it. Still, with a corpse this big, especially one that had already been raised once, it took the entire container of oil. So now, none of them have any left.

Jason shakes his head, “Well, I hope tomorrow we don’t fight undead again. We can’t even take care of the bone monster. Not that I worry overly much about it.”

Courtney shrugs, “There are rituals we can do to at least remove the current undead taint from it. Wouldn’t stop it from rising if more is introduced. However, with an amalgamation like that, you generally need a special ritual to make it work. The remnants of necrotic energy can act like a seed crystal, so once those are removed it shouldn’t be able to rise.”

Rosha, “So what was the point of the oil? Couldn’t we have just done the ritual for this one as well?”

Courtney shakes her head, “Unlike the bone abomination, the meat abomination isn’t some finely crafted undead. After having a closer look at it, whoever made it basically sewed up a bag of muscles and tossed all the unneeded organs into it, then called it a day. That left large portions of muscle together and allows for the chance of revival.

“The bone one on the other hand has the pieces all mixed up which removes the natural connections that would allow such a thing. It is like someone took a ton of puzzles, took a piece from each of them, and put those pieces together. Unless you’re the guy who put it together originally, trying to put it together again is hellaciously difficult.”

Jason nods, “They even went as far as to cut up the pieces to force them to fit. I can definitely see why a bit of natural necro shenanigans would fail to raise it.”

Then they headed back to the clearing. Once there, they had to do a little bit of clean up. Though their clean was more about moving all the bones into the area they had burned before. After all, if you’re going to do a ritual to cleanse foul powers, you might as well get as much out of it as you can.

Once the bones are moved, Courtney settles in to do a bunch of carving. And it actually did have to be carving. No using earth magic or what have you to shift the earth aside. Part of the symbolism behind the ritual included removal of the unwanted and actually carving out the ritual enforced that. In fact, part of it was to take the bits you carved out and put them in the center of the ritual to represent what needed to be removed.

As she finishes up the carving, Courtney wipes her brow, mostly for effect. “Phew, glad this was the last wave of the day. We would have ended up stacking them if it wasn’t.”

Rosha, who had been collecting the bits being carved out, nodded, “That would’ve sucked. Though not disastrously. It was just me dealing with the meat monster. Sure, without your support it would have taken longer to finish, but I trust you and Jason could have cleared up any following wave.”

Courtney sighs, “I’m actually not certain about that. While not by much, each wave is getting more dangerous. Tomorrow is the last day and I’m a little afraid of what we’ll be facing.”

Rosha shrugs, “As long as tomorrow’s waves have packs of monsters instead of a couple boss tier fools, we should be fine.”

Courtney nods, “That would be nice. Now let’s get this show on the road.”

Rosha backs away as Courtney scatters the carved out dirt over the bones. Then, after retreating outside of the circle she begins to channel a small trickle of magic while chanting.

The chanting isn’t actually necessary, rather working as a mnemonic to keep her mind in the right state. Though keeping the right thoughts over about a half hour time period isn’t exactly a walk in the park either, so it isn’t not not necessary either. Worse, there isn’t a way to shorten the time taken either, rather, you can only extend the time if you don’t have enough Mana to fuel it in that time. The ritual simply needed that much time to work.