Saintess Summons Skeletons

[Heal Undead] : Invokes a pillar of Holy healing light. Only heals the undead.

Max range and radius of 200 meter (1*Skill Level).

Heal the undead for 210 (10 + Skill level) Health + (5% of the healed undead’s maximum health) per second while the light is channeled.

The light pillar’s upkeep is 100 mana per second plus 1 mana per 2 Health points restored.

Does not work in restricted spaces.

How many can I touch at once with this? I could cover a larger area by casting smaller consecutive rays in the four directions instead of a maximum sized one around me, but can I do that fast enough for the rot activation not to consume too much mana?

The apocalyptical screeching wave of flying monsters surrounded Sofia in a matter of seconds after night had fallen. She patiently waited for the closest ones to be about thirty meters from her before she fired her first ray of deadly holy light. The sky was illuminated by a large pillar of light for a brief second with Sofia as its center. The flying monsters of all sizes recoiled at the sudden flash of light. Their cries intensified as the black veins of the Erredian Rot covered them all.

Sofia closed her eyes to focus on her mana vision. Each individual monster had mana, the smaller ones only what should amount to a few hundred points, up to was Sofia estimated to be several thousand for the meanest looking of the winged abominations.

The rot was actively devouring all of that. Interestingly, the rot only cared about mana directly in contact with it, so when it touched the thin membranes of the monsters’ wings, it quickly sucked out whatever mana was in them before devouring the wings too, despite the monsters having plenty of mana left. They dropped like flies.

Notifications started raining like the bodies of the monsters, below, the Ebb was churning.

‘You have defeated [Ebon jagged-jaw - lv. 219]’

‘You have defeated [Quetzalcoatlus - lv. 243]’

‘You have defeated [Leather winged harrier - lv. 157]’

‘You have defeated [Crimson feathered crow - lv. 89]’

‘You have defeated [Mountain tunneler - lv. 112]’

‘You have defeated [Three-legged starbringer - lv. 168]’

‘You have defeated [Nest guard - lv. 220]’

‘You have defeated [Leather winged harrier - lv. 174]’

‘You have defeated [Blue sky wire wyrm - lv. 190]’

‘You have defeated [Carrion flesheater - lv. 60]’

‘You have defeated [Skull-crusher - lv. 146]’

‘You have defeated [Ebon jagged-jaw - lv. 179]’

‘You have defeated [Young wire wyrm - lv. 91]’

‘You have defeated [Skull-crusher - lv. 198]’

Cut that off, only give me status effect notifications if needed. And prepare to give a full recap when I’m done.

The barrage of kill notifications instantly stopped.

Thanks, Mr. Scribe, much better.

Only a few seconds later, Sofia had to use another ray of rot-spreading light. The endless swarm was closing back in on her, their number not decreasing in the slightest despite the hundred of dead monsters already piling on the ground hundreds of meters below.

They die when they touch the ground. That’s good because they still have mana; that’s bad because I don’t get any mana back from [Heat death] because it’s too far. But it seems the rot from the fallen corpses is fighting back the Ebb, preventing it from consuming the dead monsters. The fight is fiercer down there than up here right now.

Health : 20 000 / 20 000

Stamina : 20 063 / 20 067

Mana : 303 016 / 319 100

This is mostly a fight about keeping these numbers up. Stamina especially might become a problem for once, so I should be careful about not moving too much.

More monsters came rushing after the second wave of themes decimated from the rot. Sofia actually absorbed a bit of mana from some of the weaker monsters dying mid-air. But now the monsters were coming closer. Since she couldn’t afford to keep using the Erredian Rot only, her other main way of attack was her amor with [Bone dominus]. The first bird-like monsters who reached her were impaled by unexpected spikes of bones before their skeletons exploded inside of their bodies. Only for the bigger ones like the ‘Quetzalcoatlus’ which were much bigger than her and had a hide tough enough to resist the quick attacks of her armor did Sofia bother moving and fighting back with her dagger. They were also the only ones who had made any kind of react damage to her armor and health so far, but overall, it was less damage than what the passive healing from her blessed constructs could heal her.

These big monsters dying to her hand usually had up to ten thousand mana, so she managed to retrieve some and spread the rot more often as a result. A few of the monster species also had ranged attacks, but they were, for the most part, laughably weak. The scepter absorbed most of them, and what rare stronger projectiles it couldn’t counter, Sofia knew she had to dispel with [Heat Death] for a few thousand mana each.

It took a good five minutes for a correct rhythm to set in, where Sofia knew exactly how much mana to spend and what attacks to look for. The whole process was smooth sailing after that, and Sofia sat in the sky as a seemingly invincible meat-grinder, bearer of a virulent black plague.

Whenever the light shone, the Rot spread to more monsters. They were eaten alive, the rot gnawing at their flesh, giving them the appearance of freshly dead zombies. Some stopped, struggling to get rid of the Rot, most kept fearlessly charging ahead, ravenously trying to dine on the invader in their sky.

Oddly enough, Sofia was relaxed. Amidst the death and screeches, she found a calm form of inner peace. And of course she didn’t forget to store the corpses of the most interesting monsters on the fly. Just because the book of skeletons wasn’t participating didn’t meant she wasn’t going to feed it.

 

About three hours in, a larger monster appeared, its level likely to be over 250. Sofia did nothing about it, Pareth appeared above the flying monster and grappled it, sending it crashing down into the charnier of Rot and Ebb below. It did not survive for long.

Pareth teleported back to Sofia with the dead body of the giant flying monster and she stored both of them.

Health : 20 000 / 20 000

Stamina : 17 202 / 20 067

Mana : 247 986 / 319 100

At this rate I can easily hold until morning.

How many have I killed? Yet they keep coming without a shred of hesitation. There’s something very wrong about these monsters.

 

Two more of the bigger specimens appeared throughout the night, getting the same treatment as the first. One of them managed to land a few good hits on Pareth, but ultimately, it succumbed to the combined fury of the Ebb and Rot all the same. These monsters had a high level but their abilities and intelligence were underwhelming. The tentacled phageid larvae had posed a much bigger threat back in zangdar.

Until morning, the tidal waves of flying monsters coming from all directions never stopped.

Only when the sun showed up again did the endless massacre come to an end.

A good night of work.

Health : 20 000 / 20 000

Stamina : 2440 / 20 067

Mana : 28 598 / 319 100

I was starting to overuse mana at the end, this was tiring. Sofia yawned as the sky cleared up, the monsters regained their nests in the flying isles. She looked down, the Rot and the Ebb were still fighting over the countless corpses, the land around had been dyed black from the carbon powder flying everywhere and sticking on the Ebb.

Sofia thought that she should send one more big wave of rot on the ground to clean everything up, but she might as well wait until she had a bit more mana for that, instead she was curious about the results of her hunt.

After deactivating her armor and taking a few seconds to appreciate the freshness of the morning wind, she watched for the first time the collapsed version of her notifications that the Scribe had been working on all night.

 

‘Extermination results:’

‘You have defeated [Monsters - lv. 23-99]’ *39 919

‘You have defeated [Monsters - lv. 100-199]’ *279 435

‘You have defeated [Monsters - lv. 200-249]’ *124 193

‘You have defeated [Monsters - lv. 250-276]’ *3

‘Total kills : 443 550; Average Kill per second : 11.7’

‘Damage spread : [Erredian Rot]=78%; [Bone dominus]=17%; Other=5%’

‘You gained a level!’ *113

‘Remaining debt : 17 Levels’

‘[Way of the Fool] reached level 23’

‘[Way of the Fool] reached level 24’

‘[Evasion] reached level 33’

…

‘[Evasion] reached level 58’

‘[Radiance] reached level 27’

…

‘[Radiance] reached level 36’

‘Dungeon clearance: Sky=2.8%; Ground=0.0%; Underground=0.0%’

‘For your mental health, remember to take breaks.’

 

Sofia was impressed by the results. Eleven kills per second, just that number was wild, and so was the total number of kills. Only a hundred and some levels for that many kills was a bit surprising at first but considering the diminishing returns of such hunting methods it was actually quite a lot. A few more nights like this one and I might just get to 249 in record times. Even then, I probably wouldn’t go to the next trial for a very long time so there’s little point in rushing things.

This night had fully displayed the true power of the Rot, all the monsters it had touched had died. And yet even though Sofia had killed more monsters in one night than she had killed in total up until then, the scribe informed her that this was less than 3% of the monsters occupying the skies of Sovuln.

What does that even mean? I would need to do this thirty-three times to get rid of them all? There’s more than fourteen millions of these flesh-eating suicidal birds? And they get stronger near the center?

No wonder no one has cleaned the kingdom so far…

Hey at least I got some nice levels and even a few skeletons out of it, they were the three biggest ones. It might be better if I wait before feeding Bookie though, I could make bigger pages, I’ll see.

Nicet and Alith came flying up to Sofia and she almost instinctively formed spikes with her armor even though she had seen them coming.

Seems like I still need some time to get out of it.

Alith came up to Sofia, holding a wet towel and a jug of water. “Here, take care of yourself a bit, you look like a graveyard.”

“Thanks.”

“Ehrm, lady Sofia?”

Lady?

“I have a young cousin who has been looking for a bride, he has also placed well in his second trial, would you happen to...”

You what?!

“I- I’m not, I don’t have time for things like these!”

“Oh, you don’t have to pay it any mind, but he would be interested I’m sure, and he would probably kill me if he knew of today’s event and that I didn’t… So, yeah. Anyway, I think we can find the island you have been looking for today if we are lucky, tell me when you are ready to go.”

Alith was glaring at the snakeman, “This isn’t a roundabout way of talking about yourself, Sir snakeman, is it?”

“Ahah, no, no, no. I wouldn’t!” Nicet defended himself as he backed off from the accusatory ghost, “I’m married!” he exclaimed, showing the bracelet shaped like two interlocking snakes around his left wrist. “My wife would obliterate me if I started courting anyone else, I really have a cousin who’s working at the north Elven academy…”