3x Cloning System: The Fleshmancer's Undead Army is full of Heroes-Chapter 27: "Did it swallow a tree with its arse?"

"Call your pet off, right now!" She shouted, her voice stern, and her sword neatly positioned in front of the neck of who she assumed to be the Summoner.

There was a lot going on right now, and even though his body had done wonders healing him, so intensively to the point where even his headache, and double-vision was gone, Clayton still struggled to understand what was happening.

He rushed here fully intending to fight the Basher Basilisk, and yet, a woman, one that he would never expect to help, had caught a Summoner, presumed to be the master of the Basher Basilisk. Clayton knew that much. He had heard about Summoners and what they were capable of, but when he saw Esmeralda holding the assumed Summoner hostage, he was stunned.

"Why is she helping me?" He asked himself in a whisper, "She must have an edge."

Clayton had treated Esmeralda, the undead Princess rather harshly recently. He hadn’t verbally harassed her or anything of a greater severity, but he did promise that he was going to get her hands bloody, with the blood of the innocent. Esmeralda had begged to be put out of her misery, but he hadn’t given her a gift like that.

Nevertheless, he did notice that the Basher Basilisk stopped thrashing through what remained of his troops. The Summoner didn’t even speak in order for the beast to stop, which hinted towards the perception that she was connected to the beast in a way that was foreign to him.

Again, this situation was confusing, he was far from figuring it out, but he did cooperate. He sucked the deadly red mist right back into his body before it could’ve spread, and caused some real damage.

He was half-confident that he could’ve killed the Basilisk himself, but in the long run, he knew that his wobbly confidence on the matter wouldn’t have gotten him far. He could’ve been bashed again, which would hardly be productive.

Clayton looked around, and tried to see if Rufus and Lara had survived the massacre. He did tell them to hide, but the Basilisk was fast, it was ferocious, so he feared the worst.

He ignored Esmeralda and the Summoner entirely for now, and looked for his friends, "Rufus, Lara! Where are you?"

Clayton grabbed a torch, and walked across the severed bodies of his undead troops. Although he had renounced his faith a few hours ago, he was still praying to whichever God was listening that his friends weren’t part of the corpses.

The corpses were torn into shreds. Neither of them could be identified, so he feared that he wouldn’t even be able to recognize the bodies of his friends. They walked away from the Chapel wearing looted armor, so they could hardly be told apart from the undead slaves. Odds were he had walked past them already.

"Come on, friends!" He shouted out, "Please let me see your bald heads!"

At some point, he bumped into the Basilisk, and then walked around it. He didn’t care to observe it right now, nevertheless study it, but he was annoyed by how big, and long this beast was.

From head to tail, the Basher Basilisk was seven meters, or twenty-two feet long! Paired with the fact that it was nearly half that height, and put pressure on the ground with a weight of nine-hundred kilos, or close to two-thousand pounds, it went without saying that this beast was a freak of nature.

Or, not a freak of nature? The Basher Basilisk was summoned, after all, and Clayton did not remember reading about wingless dragons inhabiting Hell, so only the Gods knew where this monster was brought from. Well, the Gods, and the Summoner knew, probably.

Clayton was irritated by the beast’s size as he felt that it took forever to walk around it.

"Damned Tree Humper," He sighed.

Once he walked around the beast, he saw that what remained of his undead clones, 4 of them, to be exact, were still attacking the Basilisk, swinging their swords at its head. Their attacks were ineffective, and Clayton could swear that he saw the Basilisk smirk. He was pissed, but he could appreciate a beast that packed up such legendary power behind its scales. Its light-blue array of scales was a mere illusion, portraying the Basilisk as a docile beast, but as he discovered, that was not the case.

"Quit that," He said, and slapped one of his undead slaves on the face, "Half-brained fool."

The undead stopped attacking the Basilisk, so that was one headache less to worry about, but at this point, he was fresh out of luck.

He did not find his friends, and as he looked back at the beast, catching a glimpse of its smirk, he was nearly convinced that it had gotten to his friends before he could’ve gotten the chance to save them.

Clayton quit yelling their names, as he did not get an answer no matter how loudly he yelled. He started silently mourning their deaths, he was sad on their behalf, and in a way, he felt responsible for their deaths. If he hadn’t dragged them out here in the forest, they would’ve been halfway up to the Temple of Zik by now. They’d be safe, relatively safe, as long as there weren’t any monsters at the top of the mountain.

"I’m sorry... friends..." He sighed.

Afterwards, he started walking towards Esmeralda, and the Summoner she was holding at sword’s point. He was surprised that Esmeralda had waited for him, as she was not known for her patience, but he appreciated the gesture.

At the back of his mind, he knew to expect her to force a deal on him, and worse yet, he knew that he had to take her deal.

However, he also knew that Esmeralda could’ve escaped her cruel fate easily, just moments ago when the Basilisk was attacking. She could’ve gotten herself killed, and therefore she would’ve freed herself from this horrid fate, and yet she didn’t, which he found to be very confusing.

"Why did you attack us?!" He shouted, as he paced towards the Summoner. "You killed my friends, you God forsaken demon!"

Clayton fully intended to kill the Summoner, or at least beat them blue, but before he got to the Summoner, a couple of people appeared in front of him, as if they popped out of thin air!

"Hi there," A feminine voice broke out.

A man followed up with a question after her, "Why is the beast standing like that? Did it swallow a tree with its arse?"