Saintess Summons Skeletons

“I’m pretty sure it was around here…”

Sofia was flying in place above the pine canopy. It was a level of mastery of her new wings that had taken a whole three days of wobbling and crashing to acquire.

Despite the wings being mostly incorporeal, with only the skeletal part being tangible, it wasn’t some kind of decoration with floating magic attached to it. The ragged holy light part of the wings that only appeared when she deployed them was actually acting like real wings, taking support on the ambient mana instead of air. This offered much more support and propulsion than regular wings would. It also meant that instead of riding wind currents, Sofia could only ride mana currents, which she thought was pretty cool.

She experimented with using her own skills to create mana currents to ride for faster flying but that was outside of her capabilities for now. At most she could gain some speed by chasing an [Angel’s bolt], which wasn’t that convenient, especially since she had to rely on the Saint equipment set's passive regeneration effect to heal herself up. At least she now held pretty well against the heat with her augmented HP, the new clothes and her armor. Enough to still be able to fly afterwards. The only sad part was the salamander vest that she couldn't wear anymore because of the wings.

She was searching for a cave in the mountain flank; she had spotted it during her test flights but couldn’t find it anymore. There were a few huge bears on the mountain, with glowing symbols all over their legs and paws, she wanted to hunt one. The first reason why was that the house’s pantry had run out of meat, and she wanted Alith to eat well when she woke up, and also… If Pareth can be a rat…

If she could, she would rather not actually enter the cave, as it would bring a lot of dangers, especially since it was too narrow to fly in. But the Runebears were an elusive few and their cave was the best place to find them. If it was theirs.

She landed with one foot on the tip of a pine tree, it had no real utility but it looked cool, she thought. She was weighing whether that kind of use was enough to warrant keeping [Way of the fool], falling was extremely less scary when you had wings. It’s not as if that’s all the skill does though… I can get rid of [Sprint] and [Menial chores], maybe [Poker face] too. She thought back to how hard it had been to manage her facial expressions when she was ‘acting’ as Aurelia. Yeah, no, I’ll keep this one too for sure.

But where are the damn bears though?

Imagine being unable to find a single big bear that’s three times my height and that literally glows in the dark, on a mountain flank full of nothing but them and huge trees. Surely that would never happen.

But it did. Night was coming down, and she didn’t have the demons’ 360 night vision anymore, the mana sight helped but not much. She flew back to the cottage, some way up on the mountain. Everything around was a mountain or a valley, as far as she could see. She couldn’t fly too high as the ambient mana thinned down at higher altitudes, making the wings incredibly harder to use, so she couldn’t look over the higher mountains in the horizon.

Entering the dark cabin, Sofia walked over to the kitchen to start a fire. She checked up on Alith, still peacefully sleeping. Come on, it's been almost two weeks! Are you stuck in there or something? She went on to prepare a simple vegetable soup. She read over her new specialization skill for likely the hundredth time. She couldn’t get over how incredible it sounded. She was itching to try it out but if Pareth was going to come back, it had to be in a good and strong skeleton.

‘[Eclipse Skeleton] :

Binds the Saintomancer with Pareth.

Pareth keeps all previous abilities, their scaling and efficacy is enhanced by an additional 100%.

Pareth is now soul linked to the Saintomancer. Pareth is now able to teleport to the Saintomancer’s side at any time, from anywhere. There is no longer any mana cost in communicating with Pareth. The Saintomancer is now able to see and hear using Pareth’s senses.

Pareth’s level is now linked with the Saintomancers’.

Pareth completely negates any damage it would take that would amount to less than 10% of its total maximum health.

Pareth knows the following skills :

Active :

Sanctified grounds Flying shields of light Chains of the four seals Gravity well Purification Greater Heal

 

Passive :

Stellar corona Shapeless weapon of light Shapeless armor of light Higher magical damage negation Space magic resilience Displacement skills immunity

 

Blessing : Pareth gains bonus strength and health proportional to their body weight.’

 

“This is really too strong. Pareth has more skills than me now! And no body… Tomorrow for sure.”

 

A man in a black outfit sat cross legged in a plain tatami room, his eyes closed and his expression stern. He was immobile, unperturbed by the storm outside, this was a turbulent night.

Seemingly addressing no one, he calmly nodded before settling back in the same position like a statue.

A wet thud. Something rolled on the tatami mats, followed by the barely perceptible sound of someone landing there, it was unknown where they came from. Only then did the man deign to open his eyes.

“You did not have to make a mess out of the room.”

“My apologies, master,” said the short girl that just entered the room, she bowed down at a straight 90 degrees angle, she was wearing a similarly black and form-fitting attire.

“Give me none of this, we are now equals under the command of our Sun. You accomplished your final task. Your training is over. Raise your head, Imperial shadow Arisu, the shadows need not respect anyone but the Emperor and themselves,” the man said in his signature monotone voice. When he mentioned the new shadow’s name, he allowed himself a rare hint of a smile.

Producing a letter out of his sleeve that he sent her way with a flick of his wrist, he continued, “This is your first assignment, report to the emperor when you’re done.”

As she blinked, he disappeared from the girl’s sight, she still had much to learn, not from his teachings but from experience. Before disappearing in the rainy night, he whispered two last words in her ears, “Well done.”

Alith wordlessly stood in the room, she looked at the decapitated head of some fat noble she had herself thrown on the floor, a slaver. Disgusting. Then she gazed at the letter bearing the wax stamped imperial seal in her hands. She thought about opening it but the contents were ultimately pointless to her. She traced her fingers around the seal. It was the same seal that had been burned in her flesh the day her trial started. She still had mixed feelings about it.

She threw the letter away.

“I wonder if Sof’s done too.”

 

Sofia woke up in the middle of the night, a cold finger prodding her cheek. Again?! But she opened her eyes to a black haired girl in a drooping pajama and not the weird lanky man she had seen in the church. The candles on the table had been lit, lighting up Alith from behind, her hair looked very red like that, instead of the usual black.

“You alive?”

“More than you,” Sofia said, still half asleep, chuckling as she sat up.

“Whoa that’s a low blow, I’m a very lively undead, you’re the one who’s deadpan half the time so who’s alive and who’s dead, really?” Alith retorted, leaning forward and crossing her arms over her chest.

“What do you mean?! I’m the most expressive Saintomancer to ever exist, what have you got to say about that, uh?!” Sofia emphasized each part of her argument by bringing her face closer and closer to Alith’s, eventually touching foreheads.

They couldn’t pretend to remain serious any longer, Alith was first to burst in laughter and Sofia followed in kind.

Alith brought a chair near Sofia’s bed when they settled down, sitting facing the backrest with her chin resting on it, “So, how’s it worked out for you? Not too hard without me or Pareth to take the hits? Also, any idea where we are? Saw the letter but that doesn’t say much. Congrats on the wings by the way, definitely a steep contrast with that whole pure saintess character you’ve been going for.”

“What character are you…” Sofia rolled her eyes at Alith’s wink, then continued, “Lots to say, story is a bit long on my part, can we start with you?”

“Oh, easy enough. So I entered the tower, some light went up the walls, I laid down in the middle and passed out. Woke up back in my old world, kind of, in a place I’d only ever heard of from old grandpa’s tales. First thing I knew I got enrolled in a secret organization and they hot iron branded my ass like some livestock’s then I got sent to a training camp with fifty other kids…”

“Kids?”

“... It is what it is… So the training…”