Saintess Summons Skeletons

The wave of hot air was well on its way. Pareth's shields of light appeared in between her and the steam, then broke one by one, failing to block it at all.

Sofia’s mana had still been quite high. It took a deep plunge. The only thing she could do in so little time was using instantaneous skills. [Summon blood]

The skill had gone all the way up to level 62 from all the training after and during their digging sessions.

[Summon blood] : Summons liquid human blood anywhere in a 62 meters (1*Skill Level) radius from the Saintomancer (Must be free space). The quantity of blood summoned this way is : (1*Skill Level*Mana Spent) Milliliters.

She summoned for twenty thousand mana of blood, spreading it all between her and the steam burst. But this was nothing but a bit of blood, it wouldn’t be enough on its own. Inside the blood, she emptied some of the bones from the storage of her armor.

A wall of blood and bone appeared in between her and the attack. It was already collapsing, but that didn’t matter, the mana-charged steam hit it. Everything melted down, the blood vaporized, creating even more steam. When the blast actually reached her, it was only an uncomfortably hot air wave. Her health still took a hit as her skin burned, she lost about four hundred health points.

Have to thank Orvod for this storage trick.

Her health however climbed back up by sixty, it was the lifesteal from her weapon. Since it was level 100 it would heal her for 10% of the damage dealt. That means the light burst right then was 600 damage? It was the first time she could know exactly how effective an attack of hers was. Considering it had hit three cables, that was 200 Health Points per severed cable.

Sofia retreated, she backed up near a small section of the wall that had no machinery on it, and looked to be in a blind spot. No steam attack should be able to reach her there.

Pareth had switched his goal to severing more cables for now, but Sofia knew he was ready to teleport to her anytime. She canceled [Graveyard of the righteous]. As things were it would only be a load on her already dwindling mana.

Health : 5204 / 5565

Mana : 24752 / 46000

She could pull this wall stunt a second time but that would be it for her in that fight if she did, unless she wanted to lose ten levels to activate her demon form. I need to create a safe zone.

Since the machines on the wall were so dangerous, she wanted to cut the cables of all those around her, it would make it easier to deal with whatever the thing tried to do next.

Alith and Pareth were already downing cables on her left, so she attacked those on the right. Her aim with the bone whip was downright terrible. Yet there were so many cables that even when she missed, it would still touch something else, triggering a bright explosion.

The battle had gone on for about eight or nine seconds total but Sofia felt like it had already been forever.

More cables were severed. Another two steam attacks targeted Alith and Pareth. Alith ignored it, and the skeleton took part of the hit before he managed to teleport back to Sofia. Between his [Higher magical damage negation] and [Shapeless armor of light], he only lost about a third of his health. He might have survived without teleporting.

The skeleton chicken went right back on the offensive, and Sofia launched another whip attack on the hanging cables. Alith had snapped twelve cables total, Pareth five and Sofia ten. There had to be at least two hundred cables still going through the room, so that was maybe about a tenth of them. It was enough that the shielded half-machine half-phageid in the center had to directly evacuate some of the surplus it couldn’t redirect to other cables. It didn’t leak any of the white fluid or mana but it let out a lot of steam that had nowhere to go because of the dome-shaped shield. So the machine damaged itself.

By now Sofia had understood that the underground cables fed the machine that spread its resources around the whole room through the hanging cables.

Maybe the self damage from the excess steam was what triggered it, but the machine in the middle moved. What had looked like a haphazard pile of brass machinery pieces and Phageid flesh morphed and rearranged itself.

The whole room started heating up. Walls of fire soaring from floor vents divided it into four quarters. The machines on the walls exploded in flames and steam bursts one by one in a clockwise fashion, starting from the one furthest away from Sofia in her quarter of the room. The many contraptions hanging from the ceiling became bright red from their interior heat. There would also be a massive attack coming from above soon.

This is fucked. Do I transform now? She wanted to keep her Apostle transformation as a last resort especially since she wasn’t sure how good it actually was compared to the original. Or how long it would take her to transform.

She didn’t need to formulate a plan, Alith appeared, walking straight through the wall of flames.

“Go through!” Alith exclaimed, dropping down into a push up position, lined up with the fire wall. She was clogging the vent.

Sofia rushed to jump over her and Pareth followed. Then Alith sprang up and ran for the next wall, like this they went around the whole room. The wall-mounted steam machines exploded one by one in their wake, as if chasing them, always a step behind. Sofia’s dress should have protected her from the heat somewhat but now the whole room was like the inside of a volcano. The crystal walls were melting from the heat all the way until the only part of it that was left was a second layer behind the mana shield that enveloped the whole room. Sofia dispelled her bone whip as she ran around the room, need to save mana.

To have a mana shield sandwiched between wall layers was an interesting design Sofia couldn’t help but notice, even though it was absolutely not the time for that.

Next the ceiling machines launched their attacks. This time it was not a clockwise motion but a sweeping shower of fireballs, raining straight down from the ceiling like a meteor shower. Sofia and Alith were at about the midway point of the trajectory.

Sofia gave Alith and Pareth an order, “Cover me!”. She curled up into a ball against the outer wall’s mana shield, stepping right into the melted Midenicite that used to be the room’s walls. Her forearms and lower legs were directly against the floor. So they were submerged in molten blue crystal. Despite the bone armor, it burned, her health was slowly going down. I’m getting cooked.

Alith sprawled over her, trying to cover Sofia’s head and torso as much as possible. Pareth stood a bit on the side.

Sofia looked through Pareth’s vision. Although she would be hit by at most four of the fireballs as she was against the wall, each of them exploded as they touched ground in a worrying display of firepower. And every ceiling machine exploded after firing, because why not add some more heat and shrapnel to the mix. At least that meant they couldn't fire twice.

Some of the ceiling machines straight up exploded without firing. Each of these shook the whole castle and added even more heat to the room as they bathed the ceiling in waves of flames. Misfires?

The fireballs that would reach Sofia were fired as half of the room was already engulfed in the fiery explosions.

She ordered Pareth to jump away and start channeling [Gravity well], somewhat diverting the fireballs away from her and Alith. Then he would cancel the skill and teleport back.

But he never teleported back. Channeling [Gravity well] at full power as the fireballs from all around collapsed toward him. Just before they hit him, he used a last [Greater Heal] on Sofia, restoring her to full health. All the fireballs compounded as they hit Pareth, creating a greater explosion.

‘The hero : ‘Pareth’ has succumbed.’

You smooth skulled skeleton! Who told you to die?!

Most of the shockwave of the massive explosion was contained by the remaining effects of [Gravity Well] but nothing could stop the heat. She couldn’t do the blood-bones wall trick this time, the attack was too much. She needed every gram of bones to refresh the armor. She would fare way better if it didn’t run out like it had when she was hit by the explosion of her own attack during the Siren Queen fight. With Alith body blocking some of the attack, the bone armor had much less to deal with. It burned down and reformed, as many times as needed.