[NR] Well Crafted And Trash - Chapter 554

The last wave brought only two monsters. Undead, of course, as that seemed to be the theme. Though the two were true and proper abominations. Well, most would see undead in general as abominations, but in this case it is being used to refer to the category of undead. Those that are created from a number of bodies instead of just a single source.

To the left was the more straightforward monster. Most would call it a bone golem, though those are a different thing. The fundamental difference being the power source.

On the right, though, was a monster disgusting and horrific. The undead atrocity seemed to be made entirely of meat. No organs, skin, or bones could be seen. Like some kind of slime except for the flopping protrusions of once limbs, stripped of support. A great maw raised up from the center, though without teeth, it turned towards a more unique method of rending its prey.

The mouth protruded upwards, a floppy tube of raw muscle that undulated, displaying just how it would chew on you. Instead of teeth, the mass used numerous closely placed sphincters that could rotate slightly. All to twist apart anything it might shove down its gullet. That is, if the muscles weren’t strong enough already to simply sheer apart the victim.

Jason wasn’t willing to put that to the test. “Rosha, focus on the meat monster. Everyone, with me against the other and try to keep it between us and the meat. I don’t want to know what happens if it catches us.”

With that; Jason, Courtney, and Lily charge towards the bone abomination. Rosha, in turn, jumps down from her perch and peppers the meat pile as she runs away from the others. And thankfully, despite their clear artificial nature, the two undead are still mindless and so the meat slime takes the bait.

As for why Rosha abandoned the high ground? Simple enough, while the bone monster was only a couple heads taller than everyone, even if it was built like a sumo wrestler, the meat monster was much bigger. The tubular mouth reached up beyond the height of her perch already, and that was while its main mass was spread out on the ground.

As the monster turns its attention towards her, it rises up and flops over towards her. Such a move would have likely been enough to destroy the building, let alone reach her. Still, without a proper solid support system, the monstrosity was much slower than even slimes. It seems that while the bone abomination was relatively well put together, this blob of meat was a much more haphazard creation, likely just the leftovers from making its counterpart.

This haphazard nature allowed Rosha to guide it into the trees and dodge around various larger trees that it couldn’t knock over. Though what wasn’t haphazard was the bone wrought monster. It was solid bone, all the way through. Each bone git together such that they slid across each other effortlessly when it moved. And while the outer layer of bones kept their natural appearance, from what they could see of the inner parts, someone had carved the bones into just the right shape.

The monster was a true masterpiece of necromancy. Well, one branch of necromancy. Most don’t bother crafting their minions ahead of time, instead raising them first and then corpsecrafting them. Not that they don’t make abominations, but rather they tend to be closer to the meat monster, being raised from a pile of corpses.

So with that in mind, you might suspect that the bone monster would be the harder undead to redead. You’d be wrong. Sure, it still took the trio fighting it a few minutes to finish off, but that was more because it had a lot of power put into its creation and thus took longer to end.

As for why this was the case? It was exactly that love and care that went into the creation of it. Someone perfectly placed each bone to allow smooth movement. Which meant if those bones weren’t in place, the movement was much less smooth.

Even the first unpowered punch from Jason caused the arm he hit to start making a grinding noise. The tolerances required by the undead abomination to move were simply too tight and left no room for battle damage. Sure, if the undead was left alone, it would recover to perfect condition, but it wasn’t exactly given the chance to do so.

The afterthought pile of meat? Well, it was the opposite of precision and in turn could suffer massive amounts of damage without consequence. As they watched Rosha fight, Jason wasn’t even certain it was taking damage. She clearly needed help, except he couldn’t figure out how to join in.

The meat monstrosity, while slow, would slam into the ground with great force. This left Jason without a safe way to attack, especially after the monster proves it can reverse direction instantly, going from crashing down in one direction, to another. Worse was what it left in its wake.

It seemed the undead creature wasn’t actually free of organs. Rather, the muscles were wrapped around said organs. This fact was revealed after an arrow pierced something inside of it, likely a stomach. A section of the beast’s side lost connection and opened up to reveal a jumble of stomachs, all of which began to spew out concentrated stomach acid. And so behind it was a trail of barren earth with pools of slurry, bubbling from the acid still working at the earth.

Well, they assumed it was all stomach acid. Behind the stomachs, Jason could make out just about every other organ you could name, including balls of skin. However, there was one organ missing from the jumble. There was not a single brain.

Worse, all the organs, unlike the muscles, were rotting. Though being undead, this wasn’t the normal process of rot and decay. Rather, it all seemed to be in a constant state of rot and recovery as undead energies swirled around it all. And with each new arrow, more wounds opened up, releasing more noxious fluids.

Sure, Jason could kick it, but only as long as his Energy was able to protect his body.