Amidst a strewn tapestry of bones, straw, and splintered wood, crack—a left hand bone sprang upright. With practiced urgency, the skeletal digits scurried to gather scattered components, reassembling Adam's frame with the efficiency of one well-acquainted with post-pursuit reconstruction. Within moments, he stood reconstituted, scooping up the half-conscious black cat.

  "You...next time you fly...leave me behind. You're already dead. I'm not..." The cat wheezed weakly as distant hoofbeats and clamor approached.

  Panicked, Adam scrambled through a nearby window, cat dangling from his grip.

  "Where'd they vanish?"

  "Search! Comb every crevice!"

  Soon, torch-bearing searchers flooded the streets.

  "They'll...reach here soon..." the cat rasped between labored breaths.

  "No matter. I'll simply fly again—they can't match aerial escape." Adam clinically adjusted a misaligned rib, testing its articulation with two sharp clicks.

  "Trying...to kill me twice over?"

  "Death isn't as dreadful as imagined. Besides, haven't you died once already?"

  The cat's pupils rolled upward in exasperation. Truly, a lich's reasoning defied mortal comprehension.

  Gathering its fading strength, the cat gasped instructions: "Two shops north...blacksmith's forge. Steal armor."

  "Steal?"

  "Aren't you...knight-aspirant?"

  "Ah, right! I recently vowed knighthood!"

  "Suddenly...lich-knight seems...inspired concept..."

  "Truly?"

  "Profoundly suitable...trust me." The cat feebly clawed Adam's tattered robe for emphasis.

  ?**?*

  "Milady Eileen." Bearded Sir Hórsal approached with a wiry infantryman in tow. The soldier bowed stiffly, his tabard bearing another knightly house's crest. "His liege requests our aid in the hunt. They pledge ecclesiastical commendation should we assist."

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  "I thought they feared us poaching glory?" Eileen's eyebrow arched.

  "The lich employed magic of non-trivial potency. Hence their...revised stance."

  Her gaze shifted to the trembling soldier. He doffed his helmet, revealing a sweat-beaded face.

  "We require no priestly accolades," Eileen stated bluntly.

  The soldier gaped, confounded by this heresy against local orthodoxy.

  Her advisor, the gaunt Abiramos, discretely cleared his throat.

  After measured silence, Eileen amended: "Hórsal—take willing volunteers. Abiramos assumes command during your absence."

  "Aye!" Hórsal hammered his chestplate in salute.

  "Aye!" Abiramos bowed with bureaucratic precision.

  ?**?*

  Adam clattered from the smithy, absurdly oversized armor echoing his movements, the cat's head lolling from his helmet's visor slit.

  "Subtlety eludes you. This carapace hangs like a bell! They'll spot your ribs clacking inside!"

  Observing two soldiers searching a nearby alley, Adam ducked behind a tannery. He stuffed straw into the breastplate, sawed off excess leg bones with a rusted dagger, spliced wooden extensions, and counterweighted his spine with river stones.

  "Won't this...compromise structural integrity?" the cat slurred, sprawled weakly nearby.

  "Temporarily. Magical reinforcement will suffice."

  His height now stretched to 180cm, Adam tested mobility with creaky rotations.

  "Next requirement: armaments!" He patted a pilfered longsword at his hip. "Treatises mention lances and bows..."

  "You'd drag a lance fleeing? Absurd."

  "Ah! The Knighthood Ascendant's Manual specifies steeds!"

  They shambled toward the bookstore, Adam's jerky gait drawing bewildered stares.

  "That knight...marches like a puppet cut from strings!"

  "Left arm swings with left leg—some foreign drill?"

  "Clumsiest man-at-arms I've witnessed..."

  Under mounting scrutiny, Adam panicked and bolted into the shop.

  ?**?*

  Beneath the sanguine moon, the silver-armored knight roared at exhausted search parties: "Fools! Let rival orders claim the lich, and we become jests for generations!"

  ?**?*

  At the scorched hilltop—Adam's would-be "citadel"—he incanted. The earth shuddered as a skeletal steed erupted forth, corroded barding spewing ectoplasmic flames.

  "WHO DARES AWAKEN TOMATO THE TERRIBLE?!" it neighed with sepulchral grandeur.

  Adam yanked its jawbone downward. "Silence! Hunters approach!"

  The steed glimpsed its exposed ribs through armor gaps. Clatter. Its mandible dropped in existential dismay.