Saintess Summons Skeletons

That’s also a way I could use to attack, dropping things from very high. Sofia dropped the debris of crystal bricks on the roof.

The chunks of Midenicite collided with the roof in a heavy crash. This time the reaction was instantaneous. A stretchy tentacle that still somehow looked like it was carved out of blue stone pierced the roof from the inside. Who could tell what had happened to the crystal chunks, all that was certain was that you didn’t want to be at the end of these tentacles. They had effortlessly smashed through the roof and even extended tens of meters beyond that before retracting back into the mansion.

We can have the Phageid collapse the whole roof on itself if it reacts like that every time. Who knows whether that would actually hurt it though…

Despite the pestering thus far, the monster was still perched on its crystal sphere.

So it most likely won’t move unless we really attack it. And the tentacles have a reach of at least forty meters in all directions… That means I can fly high enough to be safe, if they can’t attack further than that. If they climb the walls it’s another story.

Maybe we could lure it out with a magic item… Nothing I can afford to risk losing, so guess not.

Sofia flew back up to Alith, they had a few ways they could approach this.

 

They ended up going with a rather straightforward approach. Sofia softly landed on the roof, holding Alith, who jumped out of her grasp without a sound. Sofia didn’t move and activated her armor. Pareth was on standby on the stairs leading to the Phageid’s floor, and Alith was standing on the roof’s edge, right above one of the third floor’s windows.

Her [Hidden Presence] skill was finally being useful, coupled with [Shinobi] she had a double stealth buff.

The only problem was that they didn’t know how the monster perceived things, since they couldn’t see any eyes, but their tests did hint that hearing was at least one of its capacities. Hence their emphasis on being silent.

Alith gave the ok from her position.

It’s time.

Sofia used [Graveyard of the righteous], they had tried and activating it on a different floor above or below worked fine as long as it was in the skill’s range around her.

Out of nowhere on the third floor of the mansion that had only been occupied by the monster and its sphere, dozens of gravestones rose. Curiously enough they were all made of Midenicite.

The Phageid didn’t take kindly to this invasion of its space. The three tentacles lashed out one by one in a rhythmic cadence, destroying a gravestone each time. A tentacle can only attack once a second.

Letting the skill run its course, as the skeletons started to pop out from the ground, she summoned balls of blood one by one. They crashed on the floor, attracting the monster’s attention on yet another target.

This was the time for Pareth to shine.

The chicken skeleton rushed out of the stairs, dashing straight for the busy Phageid. He used [Chains of the four seals], summoning four chains of light, all latching to a single tentacle, the one closer to the window that Alith stood above.

The monster tugged on the chains, one broke straight away but the others held. It lashed at Pareth with another free tentacle that had just smashed a blood ball. By the time the tentacle reached him, he had disappeared from this floor and reappeared on the roof next to Sofia, then rushed to latch onto Alith’s back.

Sofia flew back up a bit to be safe and controlled the skeletons from a distance.

A few skeletons’ upper bodies from the graveyard skill had had time to emerge from the ground and latch onto the third tentacle during this time.

Alith finally made her entry through the empty hole of a window. She was close to the monster before it could react. While the tentacle that was held down by Pareth’s chains broke its second tether, Alith landed on it near the base. She had to be on it since she was too short to reach it from the ground as the monster was still on the sphere that was higher than her.

Straddling the tentacle, she attacked the appendage’s base as fast as she could, her mithril blades flashing around. The tentacle she was on kept moving, the third chain broke, then the fourth, and the tentacle’s tip did a U-turn to stab Alith from the back. Only to be met with Pareth’s [Flying shields of light] and a few hits from his talons.

The second tentacle was completely overwhelmed by the skeletons that had managed to bury a quarter of its un-stretched length into the solid Midenicite floor. The tip of this tentacle was now emerging on the lower floor that teemed with even more half skeletons. The third tentacle was busy trying to destroy all the skeletons and free the second, but it could only do so much, and they kept reforming after it smashed them.

Sofia found it mesmerizing how the graveyard skeletons could phase in and out of the solid floor and bring the tentacle with them. Though they were skeletons, calling them floor ghosts wouldn’t be wrong.

There had to be at least fifty skeletons holding the tentacle and they barely managed to pin it down. Sofia did her best to try spreading the skeletons wherever the free tentacle attacked them to mitigate the damage. They were quite sturdy inside Pareth’s [Sanctified grounds] but even then they couldn’t survive a single direct hit.

Under the sustained attacks from Alith’s mithril Kamas, and with [Heir of fire]’s damage bonus stacking up, the first tentacle was severed. White blood sprayed all over Alith, stopped near her skin by Dopple’s invisible armor.

The second tentacle instantly changed target, swishing toward Alith like a terrifying stone whip. Pareth that had gone back to Alith jumped up and used [Gravity well], the tentacle affected by a strong pulling force shifting its trajectory towards Pareth. It was too fast for him to finish using his teleport, he got hit before disappearing.

That was 80% of his life…

Remnants of a chicken carcass appeared in the air near Sofia, it was engulfed in a ray of healing light coming from above. Pareth’s life was high enough by the time he landed on the roof again and rushed in through the first hole the Squid had made during their previous tests.

During the time that the free tentacle spent attacking Alith, the graveyard skeletons buried another quarter of their assigned tentacle.

Pareth ran straight to the Phageid, launching an attack with his holy light coated talons. It scratched the giant Squid’s skin a few times, drawing some trickle of white blood, the free tentacle turned on him.

That was Alith’s opportunity to jump out of the window. Sofia caught her mid-air and flew her right down into the second floor through a window on another side of the mansion. That led them to the room full of graveyard skeletons holding for dear unlife on half a tentacle that kept twitching and stretching around to free itself.

It had been more than three seconds so Alith’s [Heir of fire]’s stacks had expired. It would take a few seconds to build them back up and chop off this tentacle in two halves. Sofia flew back up, she had to be above the roof to heal Pareth if need be.

Now that Pareth was near the Squid’s body, dodging the tentacle was easier as he could turn around the monster, forcing it to be very precise with its attacks, lest it hits itself. When Alith started attacking the tentacle on the floor below, the tentacle shifted to slamming the floor to free the other, it slammed down indiscriminately, only trying to destroy everything.

Each hit was a new tentacle shaped hole through the floor.

Sofia was still micromanaging the skeletons, she observed the situation through Pareth’s eyes, at this rate the whole third floor might collapse. Meanwhile Pareth was free to attack as much as he could, focusing on the main body.

Sofia’s mana hit the halfway mark.

The tentacle slammed into the floor again. Opening a large hole, through the projected debris and dust, it lunged at Alith, who dodged with a twirl, jumping out of the window again. Sofia wasn’t here to catch her this time so she softened her landing with the slow fall ring. It was hers now that Sofia had wings. Breaking her last bit of momentum with a roll, Alith jumped straight back up. Stepping on a balcony and then a windowsill, she reached the third floor again.

Now both remaining tentacles were free, though one had a few straggler skeletons still clutching it. Sofia was reforming skeletons as fast as she could. The skill could be managed with a lot more depth than the description suggested, and things like investing more mana to rebuild the half skeletons faster could be done. This time she would spread them equally to both tentacles.

Alith reached the Squid, side stepping a slam and a pierce from the two tentacles. By now the monster had completely given up attacking Pareth. Perhaps his damage was irrelevant.

Alith did her best to attack the tentacle she had already damaged. Since she had time to build up some momentum with [AvoiDance] this time, she managed to land a few hits. Then the Phageid managed to riposte with its other limb. The whip-like tentacle hit her, bursting through Dopple’s invisible armor without slowing. The clean hit went straight through her. It pulverized her body from the navel to the knees in an explosion of blood and gore.

Paralyzed by the pain, she couldn’t even scream.