Chapter 94: Skeleton Phalanx (2/5)

Wade led his squad into battle, wandering the edge of Skeleton Sands for an entire day.  

He lured those patrolling and standing guard skeletons to the outskirts, picking them off one by one.  

At first, he fought alone, but as the number of skeletons in his squad grew, he and his team began setting traps.  

Simple pit traps, some without even needing to be dug—there were already many sunken pits near the sandy area.  

Wade stood in front of a pit; one by one, skeletons jumped into the pit, forming a semicircle that revealed an empty spot in the center.  

Other skeletons laid torn cloth over the pits to disguise them as passable ground.  

Wade no longer had to do the work himself; he managed the overall situation from the side.  

The skeletons used stones to slowly attract wandering soldiers.  

Those soldiers would reach the edge of the trap, then foolishly fall in.  

Skeletons lying in ambush inside the trap immediately pinned down the cloth covering and smashed the soldiers’ temples with stones.  

After a while, intact bones and parts were picked out and tossed back up.  

Ribs, pelvises, skulls, and leg bones were thrown up, along with complete arms. Dedicated personnel stood by the pits to assemble the skeletons.  

Since each soul preferred a comfortable body size differently, the skeletons customized the skeletons accordingly, adjusting oversized parts or replacing small bones with larger ones.  

Mia eagerly joined the skeletons in the assembly game; she reinforced the skeletons with her freezing magic and occasionally directed this one or that one. When wild wandering skeletons were lured in, she sometimes flew over to tease them.  

She seemed to thoroughly enjoy this game, freely expressing her nature and having a blast.  

Wade only needed to pass some soul fire to the assembled skeletons to bond the entire frame.  

He became a hands-off manager; except for some initial effort when leaving home, he spent the rest of the time watching the show.  

Of course, he wasn’t completely idle.  

He carefully observed and recorded the wandering patterns and behaviors, also noting the actions of the souls. He treated this as some kind of research, though regrettably he had no pen or paper to write down his summaries.  

His squad was entirely different from human armies, with unique advantages.  

Because the souls had a high degree of unity and coordination, the squad was very orderly. They didn’t need to communicate through signals like human soldiers; in a sense, they were one entity.  

When these souls chose to follow Wade, they became a part of him.  

Without words, they moved with tacit understanding.  

Wade could command freely, even from a great distance.  

For example, the carpenter working on the small home was currently planning; although Wade was near the sands, several hours’ walk from the small home, he could still receive reports from the carpenter.  

The basement plan was complete. The carpenter had thoroughly inspected the surrounding silt and soil, confirming the sand was suitable for underground construction.  

Wade looked at the skeleton before him, stood up, and brushed his hands over the last body, passing his soul fire onto the white bones.  

The final soul entered the body tailored for it. After standing up, it bowed to Wade.  

Skeletons hidden in the pits crawled out, and those responsible for assembly also gathered.  

All the skeletons lined up, forming a unit.  

Wade stood before this formation like a general.  

Including the carpenter remaining at the small home, there were fifty-three souls who had all found suitable bodies.  

They stood in neat rows. Fifty-three skeletons sounded few, but standing together, they already formed a phalanx.  

About the size of a Viking pirate group, roughly fifty people.  

Many small castles had fewer soldiers stationed.  

Small castles only required a gatekeeper and a few guards, while medium castles typically had about twenty archers and infantry for defense.  

Wade’s force was enough to guard a castle.  

They formed a small phalanx, with Wade as the commander.  

However, most of the skeletons still had nothing—no cloth to cover themselves. Their only weapons were two or three rusted, broken iron swords taken by force.  

Those iron swords were far less sturdy than Wade’s iron mace; a light clash would cause rust to flake off.  

Wade didn’t see this as a problem; everyone was born with nothing.  

When he awakened as a skeleton, he had nothing.  

He made his own shovel from scavenged bones and scales, found a cave, collected thorny branches, and built a small home for safe wooden slumber.  

The greatest difference between humans and beasts lies in the ability to use tools and work with their hands.  

Without tools, they would make their own. Now with a team, efficiency would multiply.  

He planned to return. The skeletons carried leftover bones as spare parts—if someday a leg or arm broke, Wade could use these bones and soul fire to repair the bodies.  

These bodies were too fragile and inevitably suffered wear during movement.  

Wade hoped to find better replacement bones but had no source yet.  

Perhaps deeper inside Skeleton Sands, stronger skeletons dwelled underground—what was beneath those skeletons digging out?  

Also, the nameless ruins where he saw scales buried under the soil—one day, he would excavate those things long buried underground.  

He wanted to arm his squad so that when he went outside, he could summon a skeleton army to fight for him if needed.  

Wade led the skeletons back under the hill. On the way, they cleared wandering skeletons around.  

The carpenter roughly drew the renovation plan with wooden sticks in the sand.  

The plan was to dig out the land in front of the cave and, using underground cave-digging techniques, hollow out below first, then connect from bottom to top to Wade’s current resting cave, forming a unified structure.  

Besides excavation, wood and stone were needed.  

Stone was easy to find; there were plenty of big and small stones scattered across the sands.  

Wood could only be taken from the thorn forest. Wade felt his current strength could break the tough thorns.  

He planned to gather wood tomorrow. For today, they would just collect stones.  

He ordered the skeletons to gather stones, forming squads of ten to haul all nearby stones back.  

In front of the open space, Wade used the round-headed mace to smash large stones into smaller pieces according to the carpenter’s design.  

Soon, the stones in front of the open space piled up into a small mountain.