Saintess Summons Skeletons

The crusader sidestepped, narrowly avoiding Pareth’s mace. Mana coursed through the ground as enchantments built into the room’s floor and walls absorbed the strength of the blow, preventing the place from collapsing.

The fight continued at that pace for a good minute, Sofia and Pareth playing it safe and keeping their mana reserves high as they analyzed the crusader’s way of fighting, neither side managing to inflict any real damage on the other.

Somehow, both sides were back to their starting position, and there was a second of calm.

Come on, you know you want to do it.

Vakarian’s magic started to swell up.

There you go, use that signature skill.

Space started to distort around Sofia and Pareth. Pareth immediately stepped closer to Sofia as their surroundings were being warped by Vakarian’s skill. The relatively limiting room became a wide expanse under a black sky, thousands of stakes in the shape of Sorrow’s divine rune growing from the ground. The crusader’s armor was surrounded by currents of dark energy flowing out from the stakes, as he slowly floated up in the air, his sword splitting into a smaller sword and a lean scepter canalizing the dark energy.

That’s more like it!

“Let’s go all out!”

A ray of light shone over the crusader, covering him in erredian rot and an array of Sandworm skulls formed behind Sofia.

With a wave of his scepter, Vakarian summoned hundreds of black meteorites in the sky behind him, and with a light swing of his sword, he blasted away Pareth’s giant mace with a burst of black energy.

That black meteorite started raining down. Pareth jumped back and summoned his flying shields of light, enhanced by the Ochiaran’s turgescent soul, the shields rapidly inflated and grew to form a dome of light above Pareth and Sofia, right as the meteorites started crashing upon them.

The shields held until the end of the attack. Right as the shields came down, the Sandworm skulls were ready.

Fire!

Beams of wild energy fired from the skull choir, each aimed at a different divine rune stake. About half of the targeted stakes broke, but there were hundreds yet left standing all around the battlefield.

A swing of Vakarian’s sword sent a wave of dark energy in Sofia and Pareth’s way.

Too expensive to cancel, take it.

Pareth stood in front of Sofia, raising his shield. The dark wave broke through his shield and his armor, but failed to break his bones. Only remnants of energy washed over Sofia, who simply focused on growing her two piercing bolts even more.

Pareth charged again, his weapon changing to a huge sword. The crusader blocked like before, but Pareth’s sword became charged with energy at the last second, sending forward a bright arc of cutting light. Sofia could tell, this was half of Pareth’s mana gone in one burst of [Arclight].

The light struck Vakarian head on, leaving deep glowing gashes in his black armor.

The armor is fucking empty! Sofia realized. We’re fighting an armor suit!

Said armor’s counterattack was swift. A blast of dark energy escaped from the holes in the armor. A ray of black light pierced through Pareth, leaving a gaping hole in his armor and his health forty million points lighter, while Sofia was sent straight to her next life without even any time to react.

She reappeared three seconds later, piercing bolts still in hand, while Pareth was trading blows with the flying crusader, a few hundred meters away. The skull choir was all gone.

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Sofia flew to the closest divine rune stake and struck it down with her Angel Bolt swords.

Energy continuously gathered from the stakes to the crusader, so each stake she took down brought his signature Skill closer to its end, and his mana closer to zero. R̃

Sofia deftly flew from on stake to the next, her piercing bolts slicing through without much resistance.

Vakarian soon noticed, and despite being busy with Pareth’s unrelenting assault, he found the time to summon another wave of dark meteorites in the sky.

Keep him busy, don’t worry about me.

Sofia sent the piercing bolt from her left hand in Vakarian’s direction. It was much faster than the meteorites, and just as Vakarian was about to grab the damn thing mid-air again, letting his staff go for an instant, his arm was caught by Pareth’s [Chains of the four seals].

Vakrian’s helmet was blasted into non-existence by the bolt, as he could only use his sword to free himself from the chains, blocking another of Pareth’s strikes with a kick.

Sofia let them to their battle, the meteorites were getting closer.

How do I avoid that?

With her free hand, she grabbed the admin dagger and sliced off her head, letting it fall in front of her, and kicking it right into the incoming dark meteorites as her bloodlight left her body.

As ‘herself’ was linked to her head in priority over the rest of her body, she was left with only fifteen percent of her health as her head flew toward a meteorite.

Her vision went dark as her head was annihilated, and her bloodlight was recalled toward the remaining part of her body. She quickly embedded a vision token in her armor to be able to see again, while the crown of Victory got automatically teleported back to what was left of her neck. An instant later, she headlessly resumed her destruction of the stakes of Sorrow under an apocalyptic shower of meteorites each the size of a small house, that failed to inflict any damage at all. It was all negated by [Singularity edict].

Would have been too good if they damaged the stakes…

As the stakes fell under Sofia’s attacks, Pareth was starting to have an easier time dealing with the crusader. Another ray of black light flashed through, but it was weaker and slower. Pareth still couldn’t avoid it, as he was too close, and his left arm disappeared, but Sofia was able to fly sideways fast enough to avoid it.

She turned around and sent a flash of light back to the sender, covering him in another layer of rot as the previous one was starting to get torn off by all of Pareth’s attacks.

Sofia broke enough stakes that the crusader’s signature skill faded away before he could unleash another dark energy attack.

Pareth’s weapon changed into a gigantic flat hammer, and during the instant Vakarian was disoriented by the backlash of his skill being forcefully canceled, Pareth gave the final blow. The living armor was crushed into the floor with a thunderous metallic bang.

‘You have pacified [Grand Crusader Vakarian - Encroaching Echo]’

Sofia wanted to say something but she had no head.

Nice fight, Pareth. Just, uh… I hope this guy didn’t have another heart of Velania inside him.

Pareth disappeared, sent back to his own trial in the palace.

Sofia dispelled the piercing bolt in her right hand. She felt a bit unsatisfied by the fight.

That was too easy. I only died once. And this guy doesn’t even have a skeleton to steal. Truly a waste.

Walking up to the crusader’s remains, Sofia was underwhelmed even more. The armor turned out to have been a mana construct, it had entirely disappeared, and so did the weapons, the only thing left were the smashed debris of what was once Vakarian’s mana heart. Not even worth picking up…

Sofia walked up to the tall doors that the armor had been guarding, not trying to open them.

There were six round slots arranged in a circle carved into the two sides of the doors, three each.

So that’s what all the hearts of Velania were for? Really sells that we’re approaching the end.

Sofia grabbed the hearts from her storage, but she just sat down where she was. Maybe it would be wise to regrow my head and refresh my runes first, huh. Not to mention the mana situation. Better stop the music now. That should also give Everelle some time to be ready for her summon.

Sofia took her sweet time in front of the door, making bone statuettes of the enemies she had encountered so far through the palace. It only took her an hour to sculpt decent figures of most things, starting with the candle zombies and finishing with Vakarian’s empty armor.

I’ll have to make a sculpture room in Zangdar to store all these. Since I still don’t have the bone color alteration down, maybe I could find a painter to finish them for me?

So many things to do…

“Alright. About time to go.”

Sofia stood up and inserted the hearts of Velania into the doors. A pulse of mana coursed through the doors and the walls as she inserted the last heart, and the doors slowly opened.

Am I dreaming? I know I wanted to take a nap but…