Chapter 178: Chapter 177: The Final Ultimatum

The Skeleton Legion approached, one step at a time.

Kase tugged on the reins. The lead dog, the loyal Pepe, let out a couple of soft whimpers. The other sled dogs immediately slowed their pace, bringing the sled to a gentle stop.

"Don’t use too much Magic, and don’t get too close. Just try to get their attention from a distance," Colin instructed.

Kase nodded and took out his Longbow.

The others’ Magic had a short range; his Longbow had the longest reach of them all.

The Skeleton Legion drew closer, step by step.

Kase drew his bow and nocked an Arrow. With a sharp WHOOSH...

...the Arrow shattered a few large snowflakes drifting in the air, traced a graceful arc, and landed among the Skeletons.

He couldn’t tell if it hit anything, but the Skeletons clearly reacted. A group of skirmishers from the rear of the formation moved to the front. They began to take aim, some brandishing Catapults, others gripping Short Bows.

Colin took a closer look.

The ranged weapons in the Skeletons’ hands looked like they had been made on the spot; they all appeared quite crude. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Kase quickly urged the sled dogs to pull the sled forward.

Immediately after, with a few THWIPS, several holes appeared in the snow behind the sled. The Arrows from the Short Bows fell even further away, clearly lacking power.

"Their range is short. Their gear’s no good." Kase’s tone lightened a bit.

Colin smiled. "The world hasn’t exactly been standing still these past few thousand years. Besides, the things they made are just too crude."

The Half-Orc shouted a few commands to the sled dogs up front.

Pepe then led the other sled dogs, pulling the sled to keep the Skeletons at a distance, never too close nor too far. At the same time, they began to change direction, gradually veering away from the path the Orcs had taken.

Kase kept his Longbow drawn, loosing an Arrow into the horde of Skeletons from time to time.

Seeing this, the Skeletons, possessing only a sliver of consciousness, did indeed start following the sled, not splitting their forces to deal with the main Orc party that was leaving.

"It’s working. Now we just need to shake them off," Colin said with a sigh of relief. "Just like Ale said, no Skeletons on Winter Wolves are coming after us."

Ale said, "If they were still alive, the Centurions in the legion probably wouldn’t have minded coming up to deal with a small nuisance like us. Or rather, they wouldn’t have chased us in the first place; they would have gone after the Orcs."

"I can’t even imagine how terrifying these things must have been when they were alive," Colin lamented.

The snow fell thicker and thicker from the sky.

The group’s sled traveled on, following the winding mountain valley.

The Skeletons tailed them the entire way. Once they confirmed they were completely off the path the Orc Tribe had taken, Kase urged the sled dogs to accelerate, trying to shake off the Skeletons behind them.

"It snowed too much yesterday. The snow’s too loose, so it’s hard to pick up Speed," Kase complained. "It’ll probably take some time to lose these shitty piles of bone."

Colin said, "Don’t rush it. We just need to lose them bit by bit."

’But even after traveling so far, the Skeletons showed no signs of turning back.’ A bad feeling crept into his heart. ’Are we really going to have to ask the White Dragon for "help" later?’

After traveling a little further, the view suddenly opened up as they rushed out of the valley.

Before them lay a wide, downward-sloping snowfield, with only a few massive boulders standing there.

The most conspicuous was an oblong boulder with a string of colorful flags tied to its top. There were also some handprints on the stone; it looked like another of the Orcs’ Ancestor Stones.

Kase called out a warning, "There’s a river in the middle of this slope, right next to that Ancestor Stone. It should be frozen over now. Make sure you hold on tight when we get there."

The others in the back of the sled shouted their assent, and a few of the sled dogs barked in response.

Aided by gravity, the sled picked up more and more Speed.

When the sled was halfway down the slope, Colin glanced back at the Skeletons just emerging from the valley.

He said with a smile, "Looks like we might actually be able to lose them this time."

"We’ve escaped! Now we just need to find those Orcs, right?" Orelia said excitedly.

"I thought this was going to be so hard at first, but it turns out those Skeletons have even lower Intelligence than we expected."

"Next we have to lead our people to Snow Deer Ridge," said Kase. "I just hope we don’t run into any more damned things like Giant Dragons or Skeletons along the way."

You could clearly hear that his tone had relaxed considerably, though he was still trembling a little.

Colin leaned back in the sled and let out a long sigh of relief, idly watching the white puff of his breath drift slowly toward the sky.

CLANG.

As they passed the Ancestor Stone, the sled suddenly jolted.

Colin glanced back. Sure enough, the layer of ice beneath the snow had become visible behind them. The sled must have slid onto the ice.

He was bored with nothing else to do, so he decided to stare at the ice for a bit.

In a daze, he could faintly make out something white moving slowly beneath the ice.

’A fish?’

The white shape under the ice grew larger, and larger... ’Wait, how could a fish be that big?’

Colin quickly shouted, "Kase, there’s something under the ice!"

Kase’s arm snapped back as he cracked the reins, yelling for the sled dogs to accelerate.

The next instant, with a series of CRACKS, he watched with his own eyes as white fissures began to appear on the surface of the brilliant blue-white ice. Tiny shards of it exploded, striking his face.

"Hold on to the sled!" Colin yelled.

BOOM!

The ice behind the sled completely shattered, and the blast from the splintering ice threw the back half of the sled high into the air.

Colin saw with his own eyes a gigantic Skeleton arm emerge from the shattered ice. It then propped itself up on the surface and dragged its entire body out of the frozen river.

A brilliant blue light flickered in the massive Skeleton’s empty eye sockets. It wore tattered leather clothes and a Helmet with twisted, long horns, and in its other hand, it clutched a huge one-handed Battle Axe.

The Skeleton, standing over six meters tall, immediately began to chase the sled the moment it got to its feet.

Each step shattered the thick ice, sending cold droplets of water splashing everywhere.

As the Skeleton pursued the sled, it opened its jaw, and a hoarse voice boomed out: "Cursed one, go back! My lord will bless your tribe. In return, you must cleanse those Skeletons for her. This is your last chance!"

"Don’t even think about it!" Kase shouted. "We’ve seen what the sun looks like! We will no longer submit to you!"

"Can we lose this thing?!" Colin yelled.

As he yelled, he cursed inwardly. ’Who knows what kind of blessing he’s talking about? We barely managed to escape. Only an idiot would go back to fight that horde of Skeletons to the death!’

The others in the back quickly began flinging Cantrips at the Skeleton’s face.

The sled soon slid back onto the snow, and the soft, deep powder immediately slowed the Speed they had worked so hard to build up.

’So the snow these past two days was a trick by that damned Evil Deity?’ Colin cursed in his mind.

The Skeleton behind them closed the distance, sprinting wildly.

The Axe, dripping with water, was raised high and then swung down at the sled.

The lead sled dogs swerved frantically. The sled fishtailed violently, narrowly avoiding the Axe. The snow where the Axe hit erupted outward in a spray of white mist, like a small explosion.

’Getting hit by that thing would definitely not feel good!’

Colin shouted, "Dammit, we have to pull away, now!"

"I’ll use Grease." Ale, beside him, pulled a piece of pigskin from her bag and quickly began to chant the Spell.