Saintess Summons Skeletons

“You still follow? Then, Gods are in their respective planes, and are an indirect byproduct of people’s emotions. The things that are loved become Gods…”

“And things that are hated become the Recessed!” Sofia completed. “That’s something I had been thinking about, it’s nice to know I was right.”

“It’s not that hard to find out when you get to know a lot of Gods’ names. Since it works like this, their power is also directly related to how loved or hated their concept is.”

“Does that mean if everyone starts hating Scriptures he will get weaker or even become a Recessed?” That’s a way! Still quite the ordeal but if I can use that to weaken Scriptures… I can’t only rely on that but it could be a way for the quest. If Astelia is right.

“Supposedly, yes. And Scriptures is already among the weaker Gods anyway. But I haven’t heard of a God ever switching sides.”

“Can you not ask Moon?”

“I can only receive visions when She sends them, there is no real agency on my part, and it should be the same for every Oracle. But I think she does listen to me from time to t-”

Astelia stopped mid sentence, completely still, her eyes shone white for just a second before she regained control. Sofia could see the girl’s cheeks turn bright red before she hid her face inside of her robe by pulling up her collar. “Are you alright? Was this a vision?” Turns out Moon was listening all this time? I wonder if Scriptures is listening too, can he do that? I'm his Saintess after all. If so, then fuck you, god.

“Yes…” the girl whispered from inside her white robe. “It… I had a vision, where we were taking a bath together… And I was cutting your hair with a huge pair of scissors…”

“Let’s forget about it! I don’t have to follow Her instructions! So…” the girl strengthened her resolve to come out of her ‘hiding place’ and she was surprisingly fast to get back in her serious mode. Though her cheeks were still red. “Can we change subjects, this is most of what you need to know about Gods… I’ll tell you about Scripture afterwards if you want, but, I would like to fight first!”

“Fight?”

“Yes! Rather than spend forever asking about our skills, and also because I really want to see how your skeletons work. That would be faster and more interesting.”

“Won’t it be bad if I hurt you?”

“Have you seen how much health I have? I would be impressed if you can really hurt me!” The vampire declared, standing up with her hands on her hips. “And, well… I'm... Tired of only training with Agran...”

“Sure then, be ready to face the strongest skeletons you’ve ever seen.”

“I look forward to it! Let's go, the arena is on a lower floor.”

Astelia guided Sofia through more rooms and corridors, but the real spectacle was when they stepped outside on the exterior parts of the castle. Seeing it from a foggy window wasn’t the same. This was, without a doubt, the largest structure Sofia had ever seen. Her head was spinning just trying to understand how high they were. It wasn’t quite as high as Valeure’s floating ruins of course, but this was a structure that used up all of that space from the sea to the clouds. The base was so huge she couldn’t see half of it at the same time despite being at the top.

How could anyone build that? How long did that take? Did they have an army of Orvods to make and cut all these stones?! And why make it so gigantic in the first place?! This could house all of Skyreach’s population!

Sofia had no idea how large exactly the population of Skyreach was, but she failed to see how they couldn’t fit here. In fact she had an inkling that it might not be impossible to fit every single human in the world right here, in this castle.

As they strolled to their destination, they exchanged more on the subject of the castle. Astelia had lived there all her life but even she still found it daunting and inspiring how massive it was.

“By the way, can I call you Astel?” Sofia couldn’t help but ask.

“I do not mind. My uncle calls me that too.”

“Cardinal?”

“Indeed. I haven’t seen him in a long time. I take it that you interacted with him? He wasn’t too intrusive I hope.”

“He certainly has a special personality. But he was helpful.”

“Good. I can make sure he does not bother you if you want.”

“It’s alright. Speaking of bothering… I have been wondering how you reached such a high level at your age. If you do not mind me asking. You do not exactly strike me as the very bloodthirsty type.” Sofia said without thinking. Before stopping in her tracks. A few steps ahead, Astelia stopped too. Shit, what am I saying to a vampire!

“Pfft-”

Is she… laughing?

“Ahahah!” The young girl’s crystalline laughter echoed through castle's alleyways. She turned, a bright smile on her face, and pointed at Sofia, “This is a terrible insult to a noble Vampire such as myself!” Crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes she continued, “I shall invite you to one of my family banquets someday. You will learn of a vampire’s bloodthirst’s true meaning!” she proudly declared with a wide smile. Satisfied with her performance, she spun on her heels and got back to walking. A light skip in her steps.

Was this an elaborate way to invite me to a meal?

“To answer your question, I actually rarely fought outside of training with my tutors. I was born at level 173 and it has been slowly going up until about two years ago. Now I’m stuck at the filter, but I should shoot up again when I get through.”

“You skipped the second filter entirely?”

“Hmmhmm. I never visited the towers. This isn’t only me, most Vampires are born at or slightly above level 100, and most reach 150 by adulthood when it stops going up. But I am a slight outlier. Our Queen says she was born directly at level 300, if you want to take her word for it.”

“Do you not believe her?”

“Not a single word out of her mouth. If unreliability was a God she would be the Oracle.”

The discussion meandered up until they reached their destination, a few floors lower.

Astelia introduced Sofia to ‘the arena’ which was nothing but a very wide ritual circle atop a tower. According to the vampire, this was a highly secure place to train in, with magic in place to prevent destruction and alleviate pain. There were even safeguards to teleport the fighters to safety if their life was endangered.

Sofia was still a bit concerned, “Are you certain it’s fine? Not to brag but I can hit very hard.”

“Even Uncle and Agran train here, there’s nothing to worry about,” the girl waved her off.

“If you say so. How do we do this then?”

“I only see two ways,” Astelia started, taking some distance from Sofia, “Either we just test our skills on each other one by one the boring way, see what they do and how we react to them…”

I can tell where this is going.

“Or we go all out!” Sofia finished with a smile.

A fancy black and gold light plate armor appeared on the vampire girl’s body, it had plenty of openings and mainly protected her head and torso.

The arena instantly became bathed in strong moonlight. Sofia’s health was ticking down, losing around ten health points per second. While Astelia was busy channeling this, which was in all likelihood [Lunar Realm], the spine sword appeared in Sofia’s right hand and the bone book in her left as her armor covered her.

Your time to shine, Templars, you better be worth half of my mana!

Tearing a page from the book, the fog coalesced into three large Templars. It was essentially impossible to tell these were skeletons with how complete their armor sets were.

[Solar Templar - Lv. 142]

Health : 28380/28400

Stamina : 14200/14200

Mana : 14200/14200

Lifetime : 8518s/8520s

Totally worth it. They had less total stats than the Paladins, but three powerhouses were better than countless pawns.

“First to be teleported out loses!” the little girl shouted with a smirk as she started floating up a few meters, observing the forming Templars.

“Bring it on!” Sofia flew up as well. The arena allowed for about fifty meters of verticality and she would take advantage of it.

Two Templars spread out to encircle Astelia while the third went for a [Light Severance], it would take a few seconds to charge up. The book disappeared from Sofia’s left hand and she started preparing an [Angel’s bolt], the skill version. She has thirty five times my health…

Astelia slammed down with her left hand. The two Templars that were running fell to their knees, Sofia almost crashed down to the ground, pushed down by a massive wave of mana, but Pareth appeared under to catch her and help her land on her feet. Couldn’t hide him any longer, no matter then, get the [Sanctified grounds] running quick! Despite the disturbance Sofia managed to keep her channeling going.

Nine seconds.

Astelia made a grabbing motion toward the kneeling Templar skeleton at her left, which was helplessly sent flying toward her. As the Templar was about to impact the vampire, she punched the air in front of him. The Templar’s armor caved in and with a loud bang, he got ejected at an incredible speed, hitting the arena’s wall like a cannonball.

Health : 28340/28400

…

Health : 7550/28400

Holy shit!

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