Something I never thought I would ever see in my entire life is an undead creature moving around like the zombie movies you would see in the theaters and on T.V. back on Earth. But here, standing in front of me, was a tiger skeleton moving around on its own. Its glowing eerie blue eyes and ghostly fire that came up from its neck creating a mane, unlike anything you would see on a lion.

Even though this skeletal tiger was at a low level, I was still wary about fighting with it. I had read about these kinds of monsters in a book. Undead monsters were many times more powerful than their counterparts. And it was not just their strength that needed to be feared but the rotting plague that was inflicted on anyone who was harmed by it.

Just like in those zombie movies, those bitten by a zombie would turn into one. The rotting plague was the equivalent of that. If you were inflicted with rotting plague and did not receive treatment right away, you could only ask to be killed or turn into a brainless undead. Now not all undead were brainless. In fact, there were a few species of undead. There was the scourge which are the undead who had no intelligence and only knew how to kill and spread rotting plague. Then there was the risen, who are more like normal monsters with mild intelligence, and lastly, there are the Lich, who are as smart as any other sentient race and even had their own kingdom to the south called The Great Citadel.

From what I have read normally when dealing with a scourge, it would require three or more people to exterminate it because no one wanted to turn into a scourge if they were wounded by one. So there had to be people there to kill anyone who was inflicted. This was mainly because when dealing with a scourge, they were usually nowhere near a place that could expel the rotting plague.

I was not sure if everything I read was correct or not, but from what I understood, to expel the rotting plague, you would need a rare form of magic, and only those with a particular affinity to what is called holy magic would be able to cast this magic. Whether I could cast it or not, I do not know since none of the magic books I read had holy magic in it. So right now, I could only hope that my mana shield would block such ailments.

I could run as well, but it is said once you are locked on by a scourge, they will chase after you until they are disposed of. I actually never understood one thing about the books when talking about the undead. They always used the word kill when talking about getting rid of them. How do you kill something that is already dead?

I shook my head, trying to clear any unnecessary thoughts as I stared at the skeletal tiger. “Physical attacks are useless on scourge unless you destroy the head completely in a single blow…. Only fire magic is able to really do damage to them….”-.

I was kinda torn on my plan on how to deal with this. I could try to use my sword and really learn what my mana shield is able to block, or I could use fire magic again, which would probably be able to kill it quickly but might start another fire, drawing attention to this area.“I guess I will try melee attacks for now and use ice magic to slow it down and restrict its movement.” I did not want to bring any unwanted attention, so melee attacks were my best option at this time.

My eyes glowed with a dark red magic circle: “Colossal Strength!” I called out, causing a red aura to envelop my body. As the name suggests, it was a spell that increased my strength. The increase was three times that of my normal strength. I was hoping by increasing my strength enough that, I could get a single strike in to destroy the skeletal trigger’s skull ending the fight quickly.

As if sensing that I was about to attack, the skeletal tiger let out a roar before pouncing at me. I quickly dodged to the side and went to strike out, trying to hit the skeletal tiger on the head, but I seemed to have greatly underestimated the strength of an undead.

*Clang!*

My sword rang out as if it had hit an immovable metal wall. The vibration from the collision ran up my arm, almost making me drop my sword. And before I could even react, I felt something heavy hit my mana shield, sending me flying back smashing into a tree. “Arg…”

Pain… I felt pain in my body. The impact jogged my bones, causing me to feel immense pain. This was the first time I felt such pain. It was as if the nerves in my spine had been pinched upon impact. It actually stunned me, making it hard for me to move.

Gradually the pain in my body began to fade, but by the time it did, I only got to raise my sword to block the incoming skeletal claw slamming down on me. “Ahh!”

My body was slammed through the tree and sent flying into another tree. I truly felt like a punching bag at this point. I looked at both my health and mana and saw that my mana was still perfect, but my health had actually dropped by ten points! It was then I realized a huge flaw in the mana shield. Indirect damage was not fully blocked. I am not sure if this was because mana shield was never tested properly due to the consumption of mana when taking damage or if it was because people thought it was too useless to even use. But I was finding out firsthand that mana shield was not omnipotent.

The mana shield blocked the attacks from the skeletal tiger without issue, but the trees I was slamming into were causing me some damage. I am sure I would have lost much more than ten points of health if the mana shield was not protecting me at least a little bit.

In a way, I was glad I was finding this out now. I mean, what would have happened if I ran into someone who used an area attack on me. Since it was not direct, wouldn’t I instantly die? This thought sent a shiver down my spine as I tried to steady myself.

“Faith focus!” I could not let my mind wander at this time. One wrong mistake, and I might just die.

Gritting my teeth and gripping my sword, I finally found time to try to get an ice restriction spell off. “Ice lock!”I watched as the skeletal tiger who was rushing at me came to an abrupt stop as its feet became covered in ice, freezing them in place. Only when I saw this did I let out a sigh of relief. “Minor Heal….”

Minor heal was an intermediate spell and would heal small wounds. I actually never used it before since I never really saw a need to use it. But right now, I could not risk letting my health drop much. There was no telling what will happen during this fight. I only know right now that I am really getting my but kicked!

The skeletal tiger was now stuck in place. It was currently staring me down, probably trying to figure out why I was not crushed to mush or not turning into one of its kind or more importantly why it could not move. I could smell a hint of rotting stench coming from its claws as it struck me just now. It was not something I really wished to smell again. Luckily I have a strong stomach otherwise, I would have lost my breakfast.

I had no idea how long the skeletal tiger would be restrained for, so I have to act quickly in deciding my next course of action, and honestly, I think that my only option is to use fire and hope all goes well. I will just need to make sure I have waterball ready to quickly put out anything that catches on fire and reduce the smoke plums.

I took a deep breath and decided on this plan of action. I stretched out my hand and recited the activation word: “Fireball!”

The whirling ball fire shot forward and slammed into the skeletal tiger’s head, causing a loud explosion.

*Boom!*

I watched as the flames shot up towards the tree branches and brush near the impact point and quickly began casting waterballs left and right to put the flames out, all the while keeping my eye on where the skeletal tiger was.

As the dust and smoke cleared, I started to become nervous because there had been no notification popping up saying I killed it. I stared at the bones that had collapsed on the ground inside the small crater very closely waiting to see what would happen. I began to feel something was really wrong. I could see that I destroyed the head. I mean, there was nothing left except a few fragments and half the skeletal body. But as the seconds ticked by, I saw it. The bones began to shake and rise up off the ground.

Piece by piece, the bones began to form together, and even the parts that were small shards began to regenerate. I stood there in shock because I had never read or heard anything about a scourge being able to regenerate like this!

As I focused on the skeletal tiger, its information popped up in front of me, causing my face to pale.

[Wrathful Scourge Tiger]

[Type: ???]

[Attack: 360-380]

[Level: 25]

[???]