Saintess Summons Skeletons

Ihuarah was still adapting to the system but this was when he decided he really needed to read the full description of Sofia’s skills if he wanted to do his job correctly. She also demonstrated the principle of the Angel’s bolt and explained how Pareth and Alith fought while she was at it. It seemed he could be trusted so Sofia decided to hold nothing back. The Erredian rot wasn’t a name that struck a bell.

Out of all things, it was the most unassuming one that stood out to him.

“The blood never disappears?”

“Don’t think so, no. The Vampires bought it and never complained that it went missing or anything.”

“This makes no sense… The only stable conversion from mana to matter is the gas that makes up water. You can have it bind with another gas in the air and make permanent water, but to make any other kind of permanent matter with mana… It should be impossible!”

“Well, it works.”

“Your magic truly is beyond comprehension… Has so much really been discovered while I was gone? I thought it might have been a few thousand years at most but was I mistaken?”

“The system is a bit over three thousand years old, shadow guy, so you’re at least that much behind, that a lot, don’t you think?”

“That is not beyond my expectations… Ah, no matter, I merely need to adapt to the new times, it might take a few, I apologize.”

Sofia shook her head, “Don’t worry about it, you adapted to your situation more than fast enough if you want my opinion. But that’s not the subject, do I try to kill that plant or not?”

“By all means, you are free to try, I doubt anyone would complain.”

“Do I go all out or try a sample first? Let’s try it small I think.”

Sofia sent a small ray of light toward the plants below, 5000 mana worth of Erreddian rot instantly coating a patch of the green’s wild plants about two meters in diameter. The rot didn’t instantly eat the plants, instead, it started growing.

Oh, this must be really full of mana.

“Is it not working properly?” Ihuarah asked, seeing that nothing much happened.

RIght, the description of the Rot doesn’t explain much even if he reads it. “No, this is expected, just wait for it.”

They did not have to wait for long, the number of veins on the black film that covered the patch of the green grew more and more in number, looking like a writhing mass of small black snakes, and silently, it started spreading. At the same time, the vegetation around the place Sofia had first targeted ran out of mana and started getting consumed.

“It is spreading quite fast. How long does it usually last?”

“When it’s outgrown whatever it’s eating and can no longer sustain itself it usually self-destructs.”

“Convenient. The Unstoppable Dimmerion is also not striking back yet, which is surprising.”

Alith averted her gaze from the furiously spreading rot for a second, “Fight back? What do you mean fight back? With poisonous pollen clouds or something like that?”

“No I mean with these,” Ihuarah answered, pointing at a gray mass in the distance, coming from the green.

Sofia tried her best to understand what she was looking at but it was too far for her eyes to give a clear picture. “What are those?”

“Zombies. Whatever the wildlife used to be around here. They are probably somewhat strong. However, considering where we are, I would not worry.”

Zombies? They’ll probably catch the rot too. Ironic. And good riddance.

The rot really isn’t slowing down. It’s still picking up speed even, this is kind of scary.

By now, the rot was the most violent she had ever seen it, even when it feasted on the piles of dead flying monsters and the ebb, it was nowhere near this virulent. It was eating and spreading so fast that it had already completely cleared an area large enough to host a small village from any sort of vegetation. It was quickly spreading in all directions, and kept picking up speed as it went. These plants must be absolutely loaded with mana. And it doesn’t even really show in the mana vision.

The zombies were taking some time to arrive, it seemed there were a lot as they could be seen from very far away. The rot would reach them in a while. The group silently watched the Erredian Rot eat the best meal of its existence for about a whole minute. Sofia was a bit proud of her accomplishment with getting rid of the green. There was still a lot to clean, but at this rate, the rot did not look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

Then, right below Sofia, plants started to regrow out of the bare soil, at a worryingly high speed.

“What’s going on?”

“Your rot was not able to dig deep enough. This is the true nature of the Unstoppable Dimmerion. It has many deep roots, and plenty of reserves to regrow its lost parts.”

“Oh, I see.” Sofia fired another ray of rot-spreading light below her. “So I only need to do it again until it runs out.”

Finally, the zombie horde clashed with the rot, far in the distance. By now the rot was spreading over the green like a tidal wave that couldn’t be stopped. The zombies stood no chance, and kill notifications started to trickle before Sofia’s eyes.

‘You have defeated [Zombie Runebear - lv. 125]’

‘You have defeated [Zombie Follioon - lv. 42]’

‘You have defeated [Zombie Lightning Hare - lv. 112]’

‘You have defeated [Zombie River Kianka - lv. 146]’

Nothing very interesting. Let’s hide those. “Should I speed things up?”

“Go, Sof, we’ll be waiting for you here, maybe the main body of the plant can give us some good experience.”

Ihuarah seemed to agree with the idea so Sofia started growing her wings further, the more mana she could catch with them, the faster she could fly. The runes from [Runeforged Overlord] actually spread over the new parts of the wings. I was wondering about that. It’s a bit ticklish.

“Alright, we’ll see. Just stand back and admire, it’s time for a light show!”

Sofia quickly checked her stuff, but she was already holding her scepter and there was not much else she needed. She simply flew forward. As fast as she could, she accelerated, and when she left the area already infected by the rot, she started activating and canceling [Heal Undead] with the maximum size along with [Erredian Rot] every few seconds. Like this, she left new spots for the rot to spread from. Flying deep into the heart of the green covered region, between mountains and over valleys, she covered everything. Sofia ran out of mana long before she reached the other side of the green, though she could now see a glimpse of the red desert on the horizon despite flying quite low.

Had Sofia tried this with a normal mountain forest, the damage to the environment would have been considerable, but limited in scope. In comparison, the green was a perfect vector for the rot to spread.

“The notifications about the zombies have stopped. Already all dead? I didn’t get a single level out of that.”

Sofia flew back to Alith and Ihuarah. The area beneath them was already covered in blooming greenery again, it was still only short grass and plants, but that much was already a stark contrast to the desolate land it had been after the Rot cleaned it.

Another flash of light covered that in another layer of rot.

“I see why it’s named unstoppable. It is actually bound to run out at some point, right?”

“Certainly, yes. I have no experience in this, so I cannot say much more except that we should search for the core. Perhaps we may be able to harvest something from it, if your black wave of death doesn’t swallow it all. It might make for good ingredients Alith might be able to use in witchery.”

“That’s an idea. By the way, what do you really think of the rot? What if I used it against a Dragon, or that Leviathan?”

“Assuming you managed to touch them with it without dying, they would probably get rid of it before it has time to start absorbing their mana, let alone deal any real damage.”

“It’s that weak?”

“No, they are that strong. If you could keep applying it constantly throughout a fight, however, the result isn’t the same. Suddenly you have a strong weapon constantly hindering the enemy and depleting their mana supply. But you would have to be able to survive long enough to attempt that.”

“Maybe I can upgrade it… Well, let’s get searching for that dimmerion core. Since I started this anyway we might as well see it through to the end.”

“Really, trying to get rid of a dimmerion…”

The group flew up until Ihuarah pointed at a large tree in a distant valley, saying that it should be the core of the Dimmerion plant. Seeing this, Alith couldn’t help but ask a few things.

“Couldn’t we just burn down the whole thing? And what happens if you just get rid of the core? Doesn’t sound very unstoppable.”

“These plants do not burn easily at all, the rot spreading like it does is really unprecedented. Dragon fire would perform as well, but it’s hard to imagine much else attaining such results. I couldn’t do that at my peak if I tried. As for the core, it is pointless to go for it unless you get rid of the plants feeding it energy, it will heal much too fast. You might as well try to excavate a whole mountain with a spoon.”

“What about catching the seed when it’s mature and tries to spread to somewhere else?”

“That is the best way of handling it. A rather easy endeavor, all things considered, any of us could do it. The issue is time. Some Dimmerions take twenty years to reach maturity and some take five hundred. Who is willing to sit five hundred years in such a desolate place just to be in place to catch a random seed? It’s not as if there’s only one unstoppable dimmerion either, sometimes there is more than one seed even.”

“There’s more? If they can duplicate like this, how can the world not be overrun by now?”

“The world manages itself, if it’s a plant, then there’s an animal to eat it.”

What the hell would eat this and want to deal with the stinky pile of zombie welcoming committee every time? What could even eat so much in the first place?

I guess the Leviathan probably needs to eat a lot if it’s as big as Ihuarah says… But it’s a sea creature.

Alith asked about what animal that would be but Ihuarah had no answer. He shrugged and flew toward the core, reminding them that his wings were on a timer and he didn’t have that many feathers left. As they approached the massive tree-looking plant, Ihuarah had a suggestion.

“Lady Sofia, this would be a perfect time to show me the power of that Angel bolt you bragged about. Even with your rot, you will need a very strong attack to hope to breach the core. If you cannot do it then all we did here was slow down the dimmerion’s growth for a few months.”

“I can do that, but I need a few minutes to get my mana back first… And we should probably fly a bit higher, then, I think we would be in the explosion radius right here.”

“Inside, from up here? Is Angel a secret word for meteorite? Your skillset is ridiculous. And I haven’t even said anything about your name and your blessing yet, but you should know it is worrying, I hope. I can see why Sorrow would choose to send me to you. I haven’t been revived for a day and already I have more questions than I had after my first encounter with the Headless One.”