No wonder there weren’t any weapons laying around. This bone head was responsible for gathering them all, Scott thought as he perused the status screen.

  The creature turned, exposing its bony visage. It unleashed a ghastly howl, drawing its twin blades. Scott remained undaunted, summoning his war hammer.

  The undead creature tilted its head from side to side, tightening its grip around the twin blades as it slowly approached. A flickering crimson mist swirled in its empty eye sockets, giving it an eerie and otherworldly presence. It observed the strange intruder with an unsettling air of malevolence.

  Scott, despite being in the face of the otherworldly creature, remained remarkably calm, even though the battle could prove too challenging, as he lacked any combat-oriented skills or experience.

  Scott narrowed his eyes as he assessed the Hoarder's stats. I can’t drag this out. The war hammer could shatter at any moment.

  The skeletal adversary paused its advance, raising the twin blades as crimson mist enveloped its bones, mirroring the eerie glow in its eye sockets.

  Scott's expression darkened as he realized the Hoarder had no intention of dragging out the confrontation.

  The undead released a sickening howl, its strength, dexterity, and agility stats surged by ten percent, while its toughness was reduced by half. In a split second, the creature darted toward Scott with unnatural swiftness, its twin blades raised menacingly, aiming to decapitate the intruder in a single strike and complete its nefarious task.

  The Hoarder arrived in a blur, both blades poised to strike with deadly intent. It was convinced that its attack could not be dodged. To its astonishment, Scott's form shifted with incredible speed, narrowly avoiding the twin blades that whizzed past him.

  Scott’s right arm bulged, and thick veins distorted his pale face, as he swung the war hammer with all his might on the stunned creature. A crisp crack echoed as the sharp, jagged end of the weapon landed on the skull of the undead creature.

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  The undead creature fell face-first on the floor, a thin lattice of cracks lining its bleached skull. Scott ignored the flashing system panels. Instead, he sidestepped, positioning himself to loom over the fallen creature. Only three seconds remained until Quick Step deactivated.

  He kicked away the twin blades while raining a violent storm of strikes on the creature's right arm. In a mere two seconds, the echoes of shattering bones filled the air as the skeletal arm of the Hoarder detached from its socket, all to the misery of the suicidal creature.

  Scott moved again, putting more distance between himself and the wailing hoarder.

  Scott inhaled deeply, his eyes, now clear and resolute, shifting between the Hoarder, the shattered war hammer, and the system's message. “That was tougher than I thought it would be. If it didn't go all out from the beginning, I might've been the one lying on the ground.”

  He tightened his grip on the war hammer’s handle once more and swung the damaged weapon with all his strength, aiming directly for the Hoarder's skull. The fragile hammer offered no resistance and shattered on impact, leaving deep cracks in the Hoarder's skull. The crimson mist enveloping the creature’s bones sifted back into the skull, but the cracks were too extensive to contain it. The mist dispersed into the air.

  Scott walked over to the Hoarder's twin blades, retrieved them, and approached the now immobile and silent undead. With a determined resolve and crude savagery, he began hacking away at the skeleton's bones, shattering them one by one. Moments later, the familiar ding echoed in his ears.

  Scott furrowed his brow as he examined the updated stats on his system screen. “No change in my physical stats again,” he mused. “Perhaps they can only be improved through training or something like that.”

  He continued to scroll through his stats, his fingers tracing the panel as he stopped at the abnormal stats section. “I probably wouldn’t be alive if I didn’t have such a high composure,” he muttered softly, his gaze turning to the fallen Hoarder's corpse. Composure had been crucial in maintaining his calm and making the right decisions in the brief but intense battle.

  Scott's thoughts returned to the class section, where the options [Yes] and [No] blinked before him.

  I’m not sure if I should wait or do my class advancement now. Normally, a better array of skills should offer a more useful class, right?

  With a sense of curiosity and a lingering desire to explore his options, Scott clicked on [Yes]. Another ding sounded, and a new system window appeared before him.