Saintess Summons Skeletons

The affliction from the light element of [Saintess madness] was one of the weakest, it only allowed Sofia to always know where the afflicted opponent was, for sixty seconds. Useless to her in demon form, when she could already see in all directions at once. The power of the Light element was more so in the direct attack than the affliction.

The skill was ready, Sofia had to use every bit of her concentration to hold her body back from moving on its own. The skeleton throw needed to happen fast, or the magic would backlash.

Three eternally long seconds later, a majestic blue dragon erupted from the surface of the sea. Sofias arm came down, pulling on the sandworm at a speed so inhumane it was a mystery how it did not break. The long skeleton curled down, a shockwave running through its bones. With a bang so loud it sent Sofia reeling, the sandworm was launched, flying as fast as an Angels bolt to meet the emerging Dragon.

Pareth!

Appearing mid-air, Pareth grabbed Sofia, enveloping her in his arms, summoning his armor to cover them both.

The worm collided with the Dragon. Exploding in another loud but harmless bang, sending millions of bone shards flying in all directions. Sofia did her best to close and cover her many eyes.

Saria might have felt it coming, as Sofia felt strange movements in her mana. Too late.

Intense streams of light poured out of the bone fragments, connecting them all and spreading everywhere with violent lasers. The remains of the sandworm were the catalyst that became a deathly cloud of concentrated light.

Despite her best efforts Sofia was still blinded, and her health slowly trickled down every time a stray beam of light cut through Pareths armor and touched her. At least Pareth was unaffected and still healing. He was almost back to full.

Sofia and Pareth had fallen hundreds of meters by the time the light died down, and through Pareths eyes, Sofia saw Saria. Her Dragon body riddled with holes, she fell toward the ocean, inert.

Was it over, Sofia wondered, but she dared not think it out loud even in her mind.

Before hitting the water, Sarias slitted eyes opened, and so did her wings. With a fast turn, she was flying up again, and as she brandished one of her front legs, hundreds of giant moving columns of red light illuminated the sky.

In her moment of sentimentality, Sofia had missed a precious attack opportunity, and now, she had to deal with this. How many points of mana must be needed to illuminate so much of the sky?

Millions.

Pareth disappeared and Sofia flew away as fast as she could, she had to swerve around in the sky to avoid the moving columns of light that surrounded her. Saria was pursuing her, and gaining speed. When the magic finally activated, Sofia was just exiting one of the columns of light. The tip of her tail was charred by the giant stream of flames replacing the light. So the armor instantly melts, noted.

The second the flames disappeared, Sofia let go of her scepter and activated one of her Apostle spells, [Regret].

[Regret] : alter the past to make a different decision in the previous five seconds, costs 10000 mana per cast, 10 seconds cooldown. Left leg blood vessels must be undamaged for the skill to correctly resolve.

Sofias body disappeared from where it was, instead reappearing right behind Saria, close enough to instantly grab her tail with both arms and legs. Pareth appeared next to her, simply dropping down like a rock. Weak scales, Sofia thought, now that she could see them from up close.Saria was still riddled with holes from the laser attack, and Sofia managed to directly grab the bone tail by plunging her hand in a wound.

Sarias hind legs kicked at Sofia, killing her on the spot.

But that was part of the plan, or rather, a possibility that had been accounted for. Sofia had gotten what she wanted out of this move, spending almost all of her remaining mana on this attack. The tailbone and lower half of Sarias spine exploded. Turning into bone shrapnel inside of her body, while the mana circles in Sofias left arm had successfully activated.

[Hollow heart] : Hollows out the targets heart. Requires direct physical contact. Costs 10000 mana per cast. Left arm blood vessels must be undamaged for the skill to correctly resolve.

Sofia woke up three seconds later underwater within Pareths arms. He had used the momentum of his fall to teleport above her after she died and help her fall faster.

Hopefully the water can help protect against all the flames. Only one rune left.

Even if the combination resulted in steam explosions like it did in the boss room before, Sofia was much more confident about her resilience when it came to explosions rather than direct heat.

Sofia let Pareth help her sink further and further down. Sofia looked at her twelve thousand last points of mana, then at her tail.

No. Lets not.

Im getting pretty strong thanks to [One with suffering], but thats not enough. I still got killed in a single hit If only the light beams hadnt reached me I could have survived the kick with VPPV.

This life is a throwaway, isnt it? Still not strong enough, no mana and cant regene- Ah, shes here. Sofia noticed the mana movements, along with the continued presence of the illusory red crown above her head. This damn thing followed me in the afterlife.

Sofia summoned bookie, only to realize it was still all out of fog, there wasnt even enough to summon the cheapest of the small skeletons. Choir is in cooldown too, hmm. Come back inside, Pareth.

Sofia changed course. It was time for an underwater fight.

The Dragon appeared, swimming down, the water fluidly flowed against her scales. Clearly Saria had sustained a lot of damage, and yet she was still moving like someone who feels no pain or tiredness. Sofia swam up to meet her.

Underwater, she was ever so slightly faster. She avoided a first clawed striked, then a second, moving in the water like in the air, and yet she couldnt see any way to safely land a hit. Now matter how fast she moved, Saria always followed. It was hard to get away, and impossible to get closer.

Locked in a deadly spiral toward the abyss, both kept sinking further and further down.

Saria always prevented Sofia from going up, blocking her path with tail swipes and her Dragon breath. She wanted to force Sofia all the way down to the seafloor. There, she would no longer be able to escape.

I can still use [Regret] once.

The sandy bottom of the abyss made its appearance, and Sofia no longer had a choice, using almost all of her remaining mana, she reappeared several dozen meters above the Dragon and swam up.

I need t-

Sofia felt a wave of mana hit her. Suddenly she was back at the very bottom of the sea, and Saria was where she had been. Crap. Without a better solution, Sofia discarded her armor and swam away as fast as she could. Using her claws to dig into her own abdomen, she lowered her life as much as she could without hindering her movements.[One with suffering] converted each percent of lost life to agility, strength, and speed. This gave her the edge she needed to start pulling away for Sarias pursuit. Finally she had some crumbs of breathing space.

Until she didnt. Even underwater, she heard Saria roar, and Sofias mana senses indicated that she had just been isolated. To be more exact, a mana barrier had appeared with Saria at its center, and Sofia was against a border. All the while, the seafloor started quaking, something else was happening as a result of the mana barrier spell. Probing it with [Heat Death] told Sofia that it was not something that would damage her. It seemed Saria couldnt move while she channeled the spell, but Sofia knew that coming closer to attack was just asking for Saria to cancel it and kill her again with a slap.

Considering the thickness of the mana barrier, breaking through before the end of the spellcast wasnt an option. Then all thats left

Sofia grabbed her right wing, detached it from her back with bone dominus, and tried to throw it. The skill didnt activate.

But the armor counts as a skeleton!

Right, the armor!

Summoning her armor, Sofia did the same again, grabbing her own wing, she activated the [Saintess madness]. And with the lowest mana usage she could invest into it, threw herself into the barrier.

Sofia collided against the manna barrier and her armor and wings exploded into a burst of wind blades. The whole process had taken about a second. Saria was still channeling.

Again!