Just ten seconds after Tharaxes began the summoning of the new undead creatures, two five-metre wide roughly spherical balls of bone and dust had formed around the floating cyan lights that gave the creatures un-life. His plan of charging right into the boss and taking it out in—if not a single blow—a single, decisive movement.

He had critical tempo, and critical experience, and Ronan felt that defeating the boss wouldn't be too much trouble. That assumed it didn't have a phylactery as Howard had suspected, and was able to return to life when its physical body was destroyed.

Even so, it would surely weaken it to lose the vessel it currently inhabited, which was likely its most powerful.

Letting these two creatures finish forming would be a mistake. With his clear path to the lich-lord cut off by their summoning, Ronan was forced to change tacks.

He wasn't sure that destroying the growing balls of bone would interrupt the summoning, but he had to try. With just fourteen metres between him and the nearest cluster of bones, he was certain his newly evolved skill would carry him all the way. His target wasn't moving, so if he missed, he was a fucking moron.

Raising his mace in his hands and stabilising his footing, Ronan activated unstoppable charge of the juggernaut for the first time.

The old skill carried him across a distance of up to ten or so metres in a little under a second. Ronan barely had time to blink before he smashed through the ball of bone and into one of the stone pillars that held up the ceiling.

His vision was black, then it returned in fragments. Stars danced in his eyes as he peeled himself from the cracked stone. The pillar held, but there was a roughly Ronan-shaped indent marring its surface.

As he was gathering his wits, he felt his entire body lock up for a half-second. Looking at his arm, the fingertips were blackened and charred. "Foul, insolent creature! I hate fleshbags," Tharaxes screeched, launching two fireballs at him and charging up another lightning strike.

While weaving between the fireballs, which wasn't difficult given how hastily the boss had tossed them at him, Ronan glanced at his notifications, and the spot the ball of bone had occupied. There was no notification. He feared he'd failed, until he saw there was only one floating bone structure, and a distinct lack of a floating cyan light where the other one had been moments before. No wonder the lich-lord was furious.

The lightning actually didn't damage Ronan that much. His all-damage resistance was working overtime, and his durability stats were prodigious thanks to his class.

Despite that, he wasn't immune, and given enough opportunities, Tharaxes would be able to kill him. Of course, that would only prove a temporary obstacle, but Ronan would prefer to kill the annoying undead now, rather than be forced to trudge through the hard difficulty tutorial a second time. I want to try the next step up, this isn't challenging enough.

Perhaps it was arrogance to think that, when he was struggling to even land a blow on the boss. To the man who'd needed almost fifteen lives to complete the normal difficulty tutorial, not dying once before even reaching the boss room felt lacklustre.

Judging where the lightning would strike was impossible. All Ronan could do was wait until the very last moment before Tharaxes unleashed the bolt, and leap to the side in hopes of avoiding it.

It didn't work.

The bolt fried his right foot. Ronan lost feeling in the toes, and walking became slightly more difficult. But, not impossible.

While he was playing magic dodgeball with Tharaxes, his teammates had managed to defeat the last two invisible undead assassins. Jenna and Alyssa approached from behind, and the three now faced down the almost summoned creature at the base of the dais, and the maniacal lich-lord, together.

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Ronan was torn. Even though the summoned creature was almost fully formed, he still had time to obliterate it. Thanks to his earlier successful charge, his momentum bar had pushed all the way to 103 points. The rush of stats it brought was heady, and he felt unstoppable.

But, he also felt that as he was now, he might still lose to Tharaxes. If he was able to let the summoned undead be brought to life, and then defeat it, he might gain another level, and all the stats that came with it.

Unfortunately, while he'd been able to convince his teammates that waiting a few more hours to allow him to cultivate was worth it, he doubted they would understand his reasoning here. "I think we should wait for the… whatever this is going to be, to finish the summoning process. We might get another level for killing it," he said.

"Are you crazy? We have a chance to destroy it now, then go right for that skeleton motherfucker," Alyssa exclaimed, pointing her shortsword at the cluster of bone to emphasise her point.

Jenna hummed for a couple of seconds. "No, he has a point. I'm pooped after fighting those annoying invisible robes. A level-up would help a lot, and I could use the extra mana."

"You—" Alyssa started cursing under her breath. "Ugh, fine. If I die, I'm going to haunt both of you until the moment you draw your last breath." Having said her piece, she settled into a low combat stance, and took a step back.

Surprised his gambit had worked, Ronan followed suit. Tharaxes had taken a momentary break from unleashing spells on them, and was currently clacking its teeth together while staring intently at the bone ball.

"Fools! You should have acted while you had the chance." With the lich-lord's sudden exclamation, he slammed his staff twice more against the ground. A cyan bonfire erupted around the cluster of bones, engulfing it in its entirety.

The trio were forced to take another step back. The flames gave off no heat, but rather pulsated intensely with mana so thick it was almost a physical force.

Tharaxes twirled its staff, taking two exaggerated strides down the steps of the dais. Ronan thought he looked like a circus ringmaster, but didn't give voice to his thoughts lest he activate a hidden second phase of the boss that instantly killed them. He wouldn't put it past the system to hide some sort of annoying bullshit mechanic like that in the tutorial.

As Tharaxes finished its second stride, it slammed its staff against the ground a final time. The cyan flames vanished, sucked into the staff, and revealed the monstrosity they had forged from the remnant bones.

To Ronan's budding mana senses, the air was like a kaleidoscope of colour and vibrancy. The raw power held within each of Tharaxes' summoning spells was impressive, and despite the lich-lord being their enemy and final obstacle, Ronan had to respect its skill.

The creature it had summoned was fearsome. A towering skeletal horse that made the giant skeleton soldiers look like dwarfs, clad in platemail armour forged from bone and held together with glittering threads of cyan mana. Its eyes burned intensely, penetrating Ronan's very soul—or at least, it felt that way.

If the horse was all that Tharaxes summoned, Ronan still would've put their chances at victory at around eighty-five percent. The undead beast thrummed with power and its winnying snorts spoke of violence and death. However, the deathly creature was simply a mount for the true target of the spell.

Reminiscent of the giant skeleton soldiers, the mounted undead warrior's helmet almost touched the ceiling of the throne room. It was clad in its own set of bone plate, and carried a fearsome lance in its right hand, tucked into its armpit for stability.

All that had been used in the warrior's creation was bone, and yet the armour was ornate, carved with filigree of cyan mana that spoke of a high degree of mana manipulation on Tharaxes' part. Its helmet had a slit for the eyes, and Ronan met the two glowing orbs before the undead warrior reached up and put down its visor.

[Elite Death Knight Cataphract Lv.60]

Even the name was fearsome. Ronan wasn't sure, but he felt that he'd seen the name in a game before. That didn't matter now.

The monster was the highest level by far in this tutorial, and it was an elite. The horse and rider were counted as one, and Ronan wasn't sure if that was a boon or a curse.

Ultimately, it didn't matter.

"Right, let's tear that fucker to pieces," he said, hefting his mace and preparing to charge right through the mounted knight.

"Full steam ahead!" Jenna echoed, already gathering black lightning at her fingertips.

Alyssa simply grunted, but her stance echoed her own readiness. Excited at the possibility of gaining multiple levels, Ronan took a breath, and used unstoppable charge of the juggernaut.

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