Saintess Summons Skeletons

[Sanctified grounds] activated along with Pareth’s other holy skills.

Name : Pareth

Health : 2 905 692 / 2 905 692

Stamina : 1 177 925 / 1 177 925

Mana : 49 800 / 49 800

Name : Sofia Aphenoreth

Health : 31 050 / 31 050

Stamina : 31 148 / 31 149

Mana : 407 633 / 417 100

Pareth charged forward. In a single leap, he was now inside of Saria’s red circle, close enough to reach her. His sword sliced the air, carrying all the momentum of his charge. Saria blocked the blow with the shaft of her weapon. The impact carried great force, yet Saria only slid back a few centimeters, unwavering.

A red crown appeared high above Pareth’s skull like a secondary halo.

Fall back.

Sofia gave the order as she ripped off one of [The Book of Skeletons]’s pages and threw a first piercing-type angel bolt. Pareth moved back to the side, freeing the path for the bolt at the last moment.

It missed, through some kind of instantaneous short-distance teleportation, Saria had moved out of the way of the bolt, which pierced through the remains of the mechanical boss and hit the other side of the room an instant later.

Sofia noticed the red crown disappearing from above Pareth, and fog gathered near her in the shape of a tall female skeleton holding a broom. She started preparing another bolt on her scepter, explosive.

Saria raised her polearm overhead. The motion was wide, predictable, and before her blade fell, she dashed in Sofia’s direction. Despite being slightly slower, Pareth managed to step in and intercept her midway, his shield meeting the blade of her fauchard.

The shield of light shattered, but Pareth’s armor held, he struck back, stabbing with his sword, the red crown instantly reappearing above his head. Once again, Saria teleported just out of reach of his sword. Pareth’s sword extended, from a shortsword to a longsword, reaching Saria anyway. The sword colliding with the blue armor created sparks of blue fire, but failed to pierce through.

The broom-wielding [Solar Sun Nun] was finally ready, though her health was ridiculously low, she was Sofia’s fastest skeleton, she ran forward as Saria disengaged with a backstep.

So far, the fight was clean, almost surgical. Both sides were carefully analyzing the skills and capabilities of the other. To Sofia, the red crown was worrying, and she was starting to think that, considering her reactions to Pareth’s attack, Saria’s health pool must be gigantic.

Saria raised a hand, a gigantic circle of red light appeared around her. Both Pareth and the Nun were inside. Sofia felt magic tremble in this area, whatever was coming, there was little time to react. Pareth, teleport!

Just as Pareth appeared near Sofia, a violent burst of flames replaced the red light. The Nun skeleton died instantly inside of the hellfire hot enough to melt the steel floor. As Saria held still, casting her fire spell, Sofia hit her with a ray large of light, covering her armor and weapon in a thin layer of rot right as the flames died down. Another circle of red light appeared right after. The spell wasn’t over. This circle was enormous, encompassing almost the entire room. The flames took a bit longer to appear this time, so she commanded Pareth to charge again. Sacrificing just above 15 000 mana, she dispelled the second burst of Saria’s fire spell with [Heat Death].

Such a huge area for ten thousand mana. How many times can she do that?

A tiny red light appeared around Saria, and a third, precise burst of flames freed her of the rot. Sofia could reapply it if she wanted, but at ten thousand mana every time, she would rather keep it for key moments in the fight when Saria wouldn’t have the free time to afford instantly cleansing it.

Saria raised her weapon, Sofia felt her send a stream of mana toward Pareth, but nothing happened. Pareth reached her, unleashing a storm of blows with his two shortswords which she met in kind with her fauchard.

Sofia kept charging her bolt as Pareth traded blows with Saria. So far he had not lost any health, but with every polearm strike he parried and deflected, he seemed to struggle more and more while his blows connected but glanced off of her armor.

I need to charge this bolt more.

Pareth blocked another hit of the polearm, which was maybe the eighth in a row. His weapons shattered and so did his armor as the fauchard’s blade sliced through.

Name : Pareth

Health : 2 544 348 / 2 905 692

What?! Teleport! She mentally screamed as Saria raised her weapon again.

Pareth appeared near Sofia, and almost immediately, a wave of mana hit Sofia. She tried to dispel it with [Heat death], but it did not activate. Instead, she suddenly found herself near the dead mechanical boss, while she saw Saria’s weapon hit Pareth again at the entrance of the room. The polearm struck; Pareth defended with his arms, they broke both, absorbing most of the blow.

Name : Pareth

Health : 1 821 660 / 2 905 692

Sofia cursed internally, she almost lost control of her bolt’s channeling. It took no genius to understand that the damage had doubled; if the next hit connected and its damage doubled once more, Pareth would be left with only a fraction of his health. He teleported to Sofia again and disappeared inside of her armor’s storage space. Since he was one of the two blessed constructs of [Bone dominus], his life would be back to full in about a minute, but that was a long time to hold on. The entire fight up until now had lasted about ten seconds.

I need to buy time. It was the right choice to keep paying for the graveyard’s upkeep until now.

Sofia grabbed one of the skulls above her head, ordering the rest of the choir to spread out in their circle formation.

Saria was already charging in Sofia’s direction when a hundred graveyard skeletons surged from the ground. Somehow, Saria avoided a lot of them without even looking, her body simply teleporting short distances continuously to avoid all the hands, until even that stopped, and two of the skeletons managed to grab her.

The skeletons were almost instantaneously pushed back by an invisible force, but with a loud bang, the skull of the choir within Sofia’s hand flew straight to Saria’s face, exploding in a silent burst of invisible blades. The first real combat hit of [Saintess’ madness].

The damage was low, not much mana had been invested and the skull did not have much health, but Sofia had hoped for a good element.

Yes! Space!

One of the best effects she could have gotten, Saria was hit by the space affliction, preventing her from teleporting for the next ten seconds.

Pareth instantly came back out to benefit from the two stacks of Dominus blessing’s heal, as Sofia’s bones were the second blessed construct. His arms were slowly regrowing.

She tried to switch positions with him earlier, but it failed because of his [Displacement skills immunity] passive. Then she used it on me. I need to keep a distance from my skeletons from now on.

The exploding bolt kept on charging. And Sofia called out Bookie again. To replace Pareth for now, she summoned the five fire salamanders as she flew back. They would hold out well against the fire spell and hopefully be harder to dispatch than the nun.

Pareth teleported several times to keep up with her, and Saria, free to move again, was hot on their track. She flew past the forming salamanders, not stopping, she used a skill of her own, summoning ten ghosts of a monster Sofia knew well. Quetzalcoatlus.

The salamander skeletons brawled with the ghosts, spitting lava at them while Saria came dangerously close to Sofia and Pareth. Unwilling to try taking a hit, Sofia let the few backup graveyard skeletons she kept near her pull her underground as she summoned a heavy rain of blood to hinder Saria’s vision.

With Pareth back inside her armor, she would be hard to track from above ground, especially with the rune hiding her mana, still, the graveyard skeletons spread out, a single one of them quickly carrying her to a far corner of the room while deep underground.

Health : 31 050 / 31 050

Stamina : 31 097 / 31 149

Mana : 314 940 / 417 100

The mana is still fine. About thirty thousand of that is into this angel bolt, I can’t miss. I need to use it before the space element affliction runs out and she can teleport again.

The salamanders died…

Sofia finally emerged from the ground, far from Saria and her ghosts. She instantly flew up, reaching the ceiling of the room. As if she had eyes on the back of her head, Saria instantly turned to face her, once again running in her direction.

Sofia patiently waited, charging up her bolt, the blue plasma was starting to get a bit wild around her scepter. Summoning another ray of light, she covered Saria in rot again.

Saria kept charging, her blue weapon shone fiercely as she drew closer. Now!

Pareth appeared, using his [Chains of the four seals]. The glowing chains surged from the ground and the ceiling, grabbing a hold of Saria’s limbs. Yet just like the graveyard skeletons before, a forceful wave of magic instantly broke them. Her momentum had barely slowed. She was much faster than Sofia could hope to escape.

The way Saria’s polearm shone, this was no ordinary strike. It was brimming with mana, and since it was applied on a weapon, [Heat Death] might not be able to prevent its effect.

Sofia could either block with her scepter and try to activate [Heat Death] anyway, her bolt’s channeling would likely be interrupted but she might only suffer minor damage, or…

Sofia ordered Pareth to enter her storage again, wielding her pulsating bolt of plasma like a sword, her weapon met Saria’s.