Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Are you good to go?” Erredis asked with joyous impatience.

“Ah, uh, kind of? Actually I was hoping to get an hour or two to sort out all the system notifications I received when leaving scribe-only mode and get my reward for the quest…”

“Oh right, Sun sent you on one of her fool’s errands. What did she promise you that you ended up crashing here in the end?”

“Five divine essences.”

Erredis froze, then burst out in a roaring laughter “FIVE?! You got her to promise you FIVE ESSENCES? Bahahah, robbing Sun in broad daylight aren’t you? Good going. I see, I see. Definitely worth crashing into the moon if you want my opinion. Moon must be rolling on the floor laughing right now.”

“Well, I was under the impression that it is a lot too. But I already have six from other gods so…”

“Holy… Girl, do you faint if you ever stop bragging for half a second? You were pretty convincing with everything until now so I trust you, but where would you even get six of them? I get you nabbed Scripture’s, and Sorrow’s pretty obvious, the goblin too. But what about the other three?”

“There’s Dread. Let’s just say their Apostle had met an unpleasant fate and I… Helped free them… Kind of. The last two are from the Lords.”

“You’re being serious?”

Sofia just nodded.

“Well shit. Makes robbing Sun seem less impressive, these are in another weight class altogether. I’m surprised they even have essence… Hmm, we go compare the rot then I’ll give you the time you need, I’ll make my own preparations before we go fetch your sister. How does that sound?”

“Perfect!”

“Then get up already, we’re going!”

Erredis led Sofia through the corridors of her empty castle, surprisingly they were not going outside but under. There was a hole in one of the rooms of the castle, leading straight down into a deep chasm. Somehow it gave Sofia vertigo for a second.

I thought I’d be completely free of that after my last trip to the Sun… Didn’t last long at least. Hmm. “Is the hole by design?”

“No, I just cleaned the borders because it looks better that way, but it’s the things underneath that dug that tunnel originally.”

“You cleaned it up instead of plugging it?”

“What? They taste nice and crunchy in a soup or lightly roasted, having a direct access is pretty handy.”

Alright…

Erredis put on her helmet and jumped down, Sofia followed, the mana concentration shot up the deeper they fell. Suddenly, Erredis just stopped in mid air. Sofia deployed her wings but still fell deeper before flying back up to rejoin her.

She’s… Walking on mana?

“Come, I hear some in this hole,” Erredis said pointing at one of many holes in the walls of the chasm. “They’ve learned to hide depper now, but it’s not like they can really escape anywhere,” she added before striding in with a bounce in her steps.

She has still not told me what we’re going after… I wouldn't say no to a good soup though.

Doing her best to run after Erredis, Sofia could barely keep up, catching glimpses of her horned form disappearing from view at every corner. I wonder what her true form looks like.

After many turns, finally Sofia saw the ‘good for soup pests’. Giant centipedes.

I’m not so sure about the soup anymore…

“You first, girl, here.” Erredis called out to Sofia as she grabbed one of the frantically fleeing several dozens of meters long black centipedes the thickness of an average horse by digging into its carapace with her fingers.

“Hum… If I use it in such an enclosed space it is going to hit you as well.”

“As if you could harm me with my own weapon, don’t worry and shoot!”

The centipede has a lot of mana, it won’t survive long.

Holy light inundated the underground gallery, covering the walls and the centipede in a thin layer of veiny black rot. Unsurprisingly, Erredis was completely untouched.

“Oh, pretty. It’s quite peculiar seeing it being spread by light.” With her hand that held the halberd, she stuck out a finger to scrape to rot on the centipede. She nodded as she observed it, looking around everywhere, she seemed genuinely impressed from the little of her face Sofia could see through her open visor. “That’s the real thing. The system didn’t scam you. The thickness leaves a bit to be desired but that'll be unavoidable if you’re using so little mana. You should work on that after the next trial. Overall, nice. It will kill,” Erredis confirmed with a thumbs up and a large grin.

She had let the centipede free as she gave her approval, but the creature died just as it was starting to flee.

‘You have defeated [Blackmoon mole - lv. 137]’

“Couldn’t have we tested that on a rock or something? That would have worked too.” Sofia asked.

“No, I needed to see how well it absorbs live mana, if the system’s copy was a bad imitation I would have to fix it. Glad to see that it’s pretty close to the real thing. Wait for me here, I’ll go grab another one to show you how I do it.”

Sofia couldn’t see or feel anything as Erredis disappeared from her vision. No mana movements… She just… Gone?

Before Sofia knew, Erredis was back, another, even larger centipede in hand. It was so big it filled the entire tunnel.

“Alright. I’m going to try hard to show my lowest output, but just in case…”

Sofia felt mana from Erredis for the first time. It was only for an instant, but her mana vision had turned brighter than the sun before calming down. A clear mana barrier now isolated Sofia from the outside world, it was somewhat similar to the fake god’s bubble, though it clearly worked on different principles.

The halberd disappeared of Erredis’ right hand, and she used that free hand to remove her helmet. She took a deep breath, sucking in the air that for some reason extended from the castle to the underground. Her head tilted back as she inhaled, and then she straightened up again, and very slowly, exhaled a thin black fog.

The fog was quick to spread in every direction. Under Sofia’s incredulous eyes, the tunnel widened, destroyed by a rabid, furiously pulsating mass of rot that appeared everywhere the fog touched. It was nothing like the thin film Sofia’s light produced, and more like the absolute highest degree of violence her rot had ever reached when it battled the ebb for an unending buffet of flying monster corpses.

As Erredis finished exhaling the black fog, the few meters wide tunnel was already turning into a full fledged cavernous and echoing grotto of ridiculous proportions. Some unstable parts collapsed and the debris was instantly consumed by the all-devouring mass encompassing it, failing to even begin to slow it down. The only thing protecting Sofia from certain death was the thin bubble of mana around her.

The dragon looked back at Sofia, she sounded happy as her voice echoed around the newly created vast open space, “What do you think?”.

Low… Lowest output. THAT’S YOUR LOWEST OUTPUT?!

“It’s… Pretty impressive. Does it always spread that far?”

“That far? Be serious, sweetie. It’s only a few hundred meters, I could cover the entire moon.”

Sofia struggled really hard, clenching her teeth to avoid her face from contorting violently.

Notes for myself: do not under any circumstances upgrade the rot; never piss off grandma Erredis.

“See, I told you everyone avoids me, you get a bit of why now. You can still leave if you want.”

“N- No.. It’s not … I mean… You can control whenever you’re using it, no? It’s not an issue…”

“Your body language says otherwise, but your call. Let’s go back then.”

Sofia’s gaze returned to the rot still ravenously gnawing at the moon rock all around them. “Is it ever going to stop?”

“Just like yours, give it another twenty seconds maybe. We should go actually, this tunnel will likely collapse, let’s not cover the castle in dust.”

Saying this, Erredis dispelled the shield protecting Sofia, and grabbed her by the waist as she ran past mid-air. She let Sofia go once they left the area covered in rot. As they flew back up, Erredis spoke up again. “You can return to the bedroom to do your things or follow me if you want. I’ll be making us a meal before we go. Anything you want to eat?”

“I’d gladly try anything you make that isn’t a huge black centipede.”

“Deal, kid. I’ll make you a meal like you’ve never had before.”

 

Sofia decided to follow Erredis in her kitchen. She sat on a chair near to the door and started going through her system notifications as the old dragon hummed unknown tunes while slipping in a pink apron.

So many messages… So much experience. I see Ihuarah and Alith haven’t been lazing around either… Lords how many of these monsters did they kill! This would almost make my Sovuln extermination sessions look lackluster. The plant monsters should be from Alith so these are all from Ihuarah… Where the hell did Sun send him to?!