38.2ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ.ᴄᴏᴍ/sᴛʀᴀᴛᴏᴛʜʀᴀx

Rain's paw whipped out with Panthara arm held by the stump and its wicked hooked claws caught the boney creature's rags. The fire in the creature's eyes died down for a moment as they stared at the Panthara talons snarled up in its clothing.

"Uh-"

Rain hauled back on the arm with all his strength and the bone creature stumbled toward him, near enough that Rain could drop the arm and reach out with his own paw. He grabbed a wrinkle of black rags in his fist and dragged the bone creature close.

"Fool. You will still die, you have just sped your end along!"

The skulls began to chant, a whispery dry wind sound, the green fire in its numerous eye sockets flaring up bright. Rain dragged his other arm free, still covered in the crawling spines. His broad paws slapped down on the shoulders of the bone creature and he brought his head back, and back, until he was leaning as far back from the creature's hood as possible.

The creature's chanting went up a notch in tone and began to rush, panicked. Too late. Rain brought his head forward and dragged the creature toward him at the same time. The skulls single chant splintered and the smaller skulls screamed as Rain's head rocketed toward them.

"Wai-"

"Stop!"

"No!

"You ca-"

"Plea-"

The larger skulls screamed or pled in the moment between but it was too late, Rain's forehead collided with the horned skull in the center of the seven larger skulls like a blacksmith's hammer striking an anvil. Bone met bone and the horned skull not being firmly attached to anything blasted backward and exploded out the back of the creature's hood leaving a hole that could be seen straight through. Green electricity sparked between the remaining howling skulls.

The undead stumbled, seeming to become sluggish, weakened. Rain leapt on the chance and surged forward forcing his paws into the gap the horned skull had left. He grasped the sides and forced his arms apart. The skulls seemed to resist, green lighting dancing between the bones desperately holding everything in place, but with a ripsnarl roar Rain tore through and ripped the creature's hood across sending skulls and spines pouring out the sides.

He didn't stop and swiftly tore the creature to pieces, ripping away hunks of cloth and hurling away paws full of bones. Mounds of ribs and spines washed out of the holes in the disintegrating creature to clatter to the floor. The undead fell with it, their motions becoming weaker and weaker until they slumped under their own weight like ragdolls.

Rain tore the thing to pieces until it was nothing but bones scattered across a room with a ripped up pile of rags at the center.

Breathing hard he dragged himself free from the mound of undead, the snake like spines slipping from his torn up arm.

"Opal! Are you alive?!" he roared.

"Yes!"

The Goblin squeezed herself from underneath the body of the Panthara where she had hid.

Rain breathed a sigh of relief. But still limped over to her and checked her over. She batted his paws away.

"You're hurt. Forget me." She looked over his savaged body with dismay.

"It's fine, I just, I just need to rest."

"I hope you die from blood loss you horrible mangy dog!" cried a voice and Rain turned to see the horned skull resting on the stone throne where it had landed. Its voice was a touch higher than when it had been part of a larger body.

While the other skulls littered around the room were immobile and still a crackle of green sparked around this one, its eyes sputtering as it desperately held onto life.

Rain's eyes narrowed.

"All that work, all the time I put into crafting the perfect collection, and you stumbled in and ruined it all! Damn you!"

Rain stepped toward the skull. "You attacked us without cause, you got what you deserve and you likely had it a long time coming. You were a leveler once weren't you?"

"You know? Pah. What does it matter."

"I've heard stories about forbidden classes turning levelers into horrible things. Necromancy. You seem like the sort."

"Yes, I was a great Necromancer, in fact, over level sixty, until that bitch of a Queen found me. I only escaped by transferring my soul to a skull I had secreted away, unfortunately the side effects were… problematic, I lost my status as a leveler and became a level-less undead, more's the pity."

"And you spent the centuries down here pissing around and not planning revenge?"

The skull gave him a sour look. "Do you not know what the Queen is? I couldn't defeat her in a thousand lifetimes. I was retired, you know, this was my retirement you ruined."

His words bothered Rain for some reason. "If you had just wanted it badly enough you- AAH!"

Rain's back arched back as something cleaved into his spine and he fell to the ground, a spot of white hot pain burning up his lower back.

He rolled over and tried to scramble backwards with his legs. To his horror his legs didn't respond, not even a little, he looked down at them, they remained limp and unmoving, paralysed. An image of what he had done to the first Panthara flashed through his mind, helplessness. Panic began to seep in.

A black clad figure holding a long handled axe materialised in front of him out of thin air. The blade of the axe dripped with his blood.

"Oh poor wolfy can't use his legs?"

She stood over him but not by much. A black leather covered Dwarf, a leveler. Judging by how serious and professional looking her equipment was a particularly high leveled one at that.

Behind him the skull cackled, "It's karma! Karma I tell you!"