Saintess Summons Skeletons

Using the skill of her demon form that allowed her to ‘take a different decision a few seconds in the past’ she disappeared out of the attack’s way and reappeared directly in front of the other worm, ready to punch.

‘You have defeated [Adult Sandworm - lv. 220]’

In the meantime, both Pareth and Ihuarah managed to finish one of theirs leaving only three worms alive.

With the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] active, Sofia could fly despite the manaless environment, but her mana reserves wouldn’t hold for long. She flew directly to Ihuarah while the worm on him buried itself. Just as Sofia ran out of mana, being once again stuck at zero, she collided with the half-buried worm. Her hand pierced its skin and she turned the monster’s skeleton to dust, killing it on the spot.

‘You have defeated [Adult Sandworm - lv. 203]’

Her mana shot up again, absorbing 45% of whatever the worm had left, and she immediately reactivated the runes on her body, allowing her to fly in Pareth’s direction. Ihuarah and Alith had followed, the whole group collapsed onto the last two worms. Pareth dropped his weapon and grappled one before it could burrow, which Alith and Ihuarah focused on, while Sofia chased the last one, which had managed to hide underground.

Sofia could feel the monster’s movements through the sand, she chased it from the surface.

It’s about to emerge.

The worm was going to attack from under her, it seemed to be a common pattern of attack among the sandworms. Let’s see it try to swallow me. Sofia in her demon form had access to her bone armor now, which made a lot of difference, her defense was extremely tough to get through. Right then her mana ran out again.

Contrary to her expectation, the worm didn’t emerge, what came out of the desert’s depth was firstly a concentrated beam of energy which hit her directly. The bone armor was melting under the heat of the attack, and Sofia’s skin developed a nice char in the instant before she could move out of the beam. But the truth was, she barely felt it.

Health : 312 668 / 358 560

Stamina : 325 060 / 358 560

Mana : 0 / 358 560

That would have killed human-me though. If I didn’t have mana for [Heat death], or a rune up. It did manage to damage Pareth after all, so that wasn’t even the biggest beam these worms can do.

Sofia allowed herself to do nothing while the worm was coming back to the surface. The instant it showed its ugly head out of the sand, she rushed in. Using her claws, she sliced off every single one of the ‘feelers’. The worm thrashed in the air, but it couldn’t throw her off despite its best efforts. Its sensory organs compromised, it fell on the side. Sofia cut up chunks of the worm, preventing it from burrowing until it died exsanguinated.

‘You have defeated [Adult Sandworm - lv. 267]’

One more good skeleton to collect!

Sofia sat on the worm’s mangled corpse, only a few seconds before she turned back to a human did she remember the Domination map, which she hastily slathered in her Demon blood. Her demon form transformation ended and she could only wait in place for her body to recover slowly. She only threw one glance at the map but it depicted a region she had never heard of so she decided to worry about it later.

It’s interesting that the ones to die first while I was underground were the ones I had touched with the rot, all the ones I killed in demon form were free of rot.

Honestly, they were kind of weak for their level, weren’t they?

Or maybe we’re a bit too powerful for our level.

I don’t know. I feel more and more that the level for monsters isn’t a very accurate way to compare strength. I could beat a level 299 worm but Kuli is 299 too and I would still think if she wants to she can end me before I realize what’s happening to me.

It took a few minutes for the others to run up to her, the worm had been fleeing and she had chased it quite far.

The battle cleanup was nothing special. Besides their skeleton for necromancy, sandworm materials hardly were anything of value. Ihuarah had a lot of compliments to give on Sofia’s Apostle form and he apologized profusely about forgetting that worms were a threat in this desert.

Counting the last one that she had especially taken care of killing ‘cleanly’ a total of six skeletons were usable for the book of skeletons. Sofia made a page with one and a page five. Sandworms were 100 000 mana each.

She also salvaged an additional ‘skull’ for the skull choir. The worms’ skulls were originally some kind of collapsible tube. It became very small when summoned through the choir, barely larger than a human skull, to be exact. The bunch of small bone tubes did not even have teeth, they were apparently separate. The tubes were very cute as they floated up in the air, until they started spewing out energy beams.

Considerably weaker than the worms’ actual beams, but also much better than the human skulls’ air attacks. They can’t sing, though, so not all upsides.

Sofia proceeded to create a large and empty bone cone. Due to the lack of ambient mana slowing down her regeneration to only a quarter of what it should be, it took Sofia a good minute to get back up to a hundred-thousand mana, but she was finally able to summon her first giant skeleton.

As she watched the forty-and-some meters long skeleton form out of the mist, she only had one word come to mind.

Magnificent.

[Solar Sandworm - Lv. 226]

Health : 226 000/ 226 000

Stamina : 226 000/ 226 000

Mana : 45 200/ 45 200

Lifetime : 13 557s/13 560s

She latched the cone inside of the worm’s strange interlocking dual rib cages, let everyone in, closed it back up, and the group now had a much faster mode of desert transportation. It can even go underground!

They were now headed at full speed toward the Elven capital city in the desert, Herzal.

The underground ride in the Sandworm skeleton was a bit shaky, but much better than walking. At some point, Sofia noticed her mana regeneration going up, and Ihuarah explained that the northern part of the desert was just regular sand. This meant the elven capital should not be too far away.

Sitting inside of the bone shuttle, Sofia felt equal parts excitement and dread. This city was older than the system itself, and the diviner might help her find Saria. But he also might not.

The inside of the conical shuttle was actually a square room with a bench on two opposite sides. Alith and Ihuarah were on one side, lost in an unending discussion about plants, while Sofia was toying with a ball of bone, sculpting it into many different shapes then back into a ball. It did wonders to calm her down.

However, any superfluous feelings were thrown out the window anyway when a fourth person appeared uninvited inside of the worm-shuttle, sitting right beside Sofia.

The first person to react was Ihuarah, prostrating himself on the ground.

What in the w- HOLY SHIT.

[SUN]

Perhaps even more than the [Archangel] prompt she had once seen, the result of the [Identify] she instinctively threw at the intruder might have been the scariest thing Sofia had ever witnessed.

The meaning of these three characters was very clear.

The tall blonde elf which had appeared out of nowhere was a God in the flesh. Her mere presence was radiating so much mana that it was almost suffocating. She was wearing black and gold tight fitting clothes just like Her saintess did, and She looked almost normal, if not for Her pure white and softly glowing left arm.

She looked rather joyful as she looked around, observing the three travelers.

“Do I look that scary?” She said in a playful voice, giggling as She hid Her mouth with Her normal hand.

YES! But- I, uh… Where is [Poker face] when I need it?! “N- no. Thank you. For the blessing, and the ritual.”

“It is my pleasure. After all, I had been watching your group since long before.”

“What? When…”

Sun pointed at Alith, “You were the one I had my eyes on. A soul fetched from another world by the Deep itself. I was curious enough to give you a blessing. Do you like it?”

Alith’s blessing… The SSS rank ‘Blessing of Phoenix lineage’, giving absolute heat immunity that might even allow one to survive were they to be thrown into…

The Sun.

And fetched by the Deep?!!!

Alith had been too stunned to speak, but being asked a direct question, she answered without thinking, “I love it. I only wish it synergized with my class a bit more.” After saying this, she froze with a tense face, realizing she might have committed a grave mistake.

But Sun seemed not to be bothered by the impetuous words, in fact, Her smile only deepened. “I can fix that if you want. In fact I came to see you three because I felt a bit playful today, and since you came so close to me, I might as well have a bit of light-hearted fun, shouldn’t I? You all owe me at least this much. I love giving out quests, so I’ve prepared one for each of you! You have to take them!”

Ihuarah was still prostrate on the floor, yet his voice could be heard, it was oozing dread, shaky, broken, “Q- Quests…”

“Yes, yes! Smile!” Sun exclaimed, pointing Her index fingers at Her radiant smile. “I even have one just for you, I hope you will give me a better show this time, Velanihuarahton of Sorrow!”

“Please, God, no… Merciful Mother, save this wretched Apostle…”

The more Sofia observed Sun’s smile, the more she felt like Ihuarah’s dread was contagious. So far, Sun had been nothing but helpful, and Sofia had a relatively good opinion of Her.

[Congratulations. You have received a quest!]

In the flurry of system windows that appeared at once, one line in particular made Sofia reconsider her opinion on the lively smiling Goddess.

[Penalty for failure : Death]

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