Saintess Summons Skeletons

More lightning formed around Sofia, the bolt in her hand grew larger. She was not trying to do anything, but the sight of Pareth and Alith had triggered something. She needed to attack, to fight, and with a lack of enemies in sight, she instinctively turned to the other targets. She had the imperious need to destroy and kill, to massacre and devour. The divine lightning in her veins was steadily fading, and the avatar had only one goal, to survive, even for a second longer.

The avatar raised its hand, the bolt aimed at Alith, Sofia could barely understand what she was doing.

A searing pain assaulted her mind. The scribe was straining himself to send a message. It was brief, but pain brought Sofia some clarity, and an intense sense of dread at what she had been about to do.

Sofia’s hand clutched the lightning bolt so hard that the wild plasma dug into the avatar’s lightning-immune flesh. She fought to close her eyes. Focusing on her breathing and her heartbeat, on the strange, fake divine energy that coursed around her body and mind alike. She progressively calmed her overflowing emotions, the thunderstorm surrounding her started to wane, and she regained her ability to form coherent thoughts.

Yet still she felt a pull, an attraction. It was not toward the pleasure of the flesh, as one might guess from the name, although it was part of it, but this emotion, this lust, was all encompassing. A want, a need for something greater, to indulge in all the primal instincts, survival, hunger, curiosity, control; an unending thirst for life itself.

So this is Zeus’ lust.

To become an avatar is to embody a god. It comes with one’s powers but also its flaws, its personality and ambitions.

But what of a god who does not exist?

Sofia could feel the answer very clearly.

They want to become real.

What the dagger has created… This skill is dangerous.

Sofia kept her eyes closed, she counted the seconds as the ichor faded. The less she had, the more she was overcome by a sense of urgency, the avatar’s instincts fought against their looming end. But Sofia was very familiar with that sense of incoming death. She had already died countless times. With the knowledge that it was but a temporary end, it was easy to brush it off. Finally, after about thirty seconds, the last drop of Ichor faded, turning back into the wild and volatile mana it had originally been, and the avatar’s godly flesh faded, like any other invoked mana construct without its fuel.

Sofia dispelled the bolt she was still holding and fell to her knees, breathing heavily.

Alith and Pareth were already by her side. Only now did Sofia’s distorted hearing come back to normal.

“Sofia?! Are you back to your senses?! Hey!” Alith asked, worry and guilt clear to see in her eyes.

It took Sofia a second to regain her breath, random arcs of electricity still appeared out of nowhere all over her body. She felt weak, and like caged in a small bubble her senses were all faint, the after-effects of the skill were more debilitating than she had expected them to be, but she forced herself to give an answer.

“I’m… Good.”

“You don’t look it! Do you remember what happened? It was like you were hypnotised!” Alith told her, placing a hand on her shoulder, completely ignoring the leftover electricity assaulting her arm.

“I… Yes. It was not like that and more like… Like Zeus took over my body for a second.”

“Zeus doesn’t even exist!” Alith worriedly refuted, “I might have made a mistake telling you to choose this…”

“No, no. It’s fine. I can work with this. I just need to be careful about when and where I use it,” Sofia tried to reassure her, grabbing Pareth’s extended hand to hoist herself up. “The power is worth the risk.”

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Is it? I really didn’t like seeing you like this. You almost shot a bolt at Pareth, you know!”

“Ahah… Sorry about that. I just wasn’t ready,” Sofia apologized, feeling quite shameful, “I’ll know how to handle this skill now. It’s a good thing that we tried it out before I tried to use it in a real fight…” ṙÄꞐȏʙƐṩ

Alith sighed. “Just be careful…”

Sofia, Alith, Pareth and Bookie were patiently waiting in Erredis’ castle on the moon.

“It really feels weird to be here,” Alith commented, looking at Veliadren through the window, “Do you think Earth looks the same from space?”

“Earth?” Bookie repeated.

“The name of Alith’s old planet,” Sofia explained, “I imagine it’s pretty similar? Blue seas, green grass and white clouds… But didn’t you already get to see that on your way to the third trial?”

“I wasn’t in the right mindset to appreciate it back then,” Alith explained, “Not to mention how I could barely hold onto my incomplete mana heart, I could hear faint whispers from all around me. It was a weird time.”

“Right… I wonder how else the Orator’s essence influenced your heart. You no longer have it, right?”

“I don’t,” Alith confirmed, turning around, “but it feels like it’s not completely gone. Sometimes It’s as if it were still there, but that is only a fleeting feeling… It happened when you tried the new skill the other day, actually, but it was quite faint.”

“Strange. I can’t say I feel anything like that with the two I have… I wonder when Aphenoreth will show up again.”

Alith shrugged, “Who knows, maybe he will soon? You said the hidden moon had something to do with the Deep after all, right?”

“That’s what Erredis implied, at least. And one of my false lord skills should be there, so I’d tend to believe her.”

“Right… But we have no clue where exactly to find it,” Alith continued.

“Indeed. That’s why we are going to retrieve the dead god first. I know exactly what to look for, the shape of the building I saw in the vision is burned into my memory, I’ll know the moment I see it on the horizon.”

“Hopefully it’s that easy, but things always go in a crazy direction when I’m with you.”

Sofia laughed lightly, “I think that’s just my fault. Reflecting on the things I’ve done since the orphanage days makes me numb just thinking about it, but I keep just jumping into the next situation by myself every time.”

“Hey hey now, don’t take all the credit. It was me who decided to explore Zangdar the first time. It was also me who had us embark on a pirate ship. But still,” Alith said, turning back around to look at the void outside, “I never expected that this is where we would end up.”

“You sound nostalgic.”

“That’s just what the night sky does to me. Looking at the stars…” Alith’s voice trailed off. After a few seconds of silence, she tore her eyes from the window again, shook her head as if to wake herself up, and started stretching. “Well, let’s get stranded together again!”

“Sure thing,” Sofia approved, “And we’ve got one more team member this time.”

“Right, I’m happy I finally get to go on an adventure with Bookie!”

“Adventure!” Bookie repeated enthusiastically, brandishing a wooden sword the engineer skeleton had made for him a few days prior.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen my living room so lively”, a voice commented from the door.

“You’re already back?” Sofia asked as she turned around, Erredis had said she needed some time to prepare, but she had only been gone for a few minutes.

“Yes, just the time to make a small thing for you all, I only had enough to make one so use it well,” the dragon-bunny told everyone, handing a rune-covered orb of an unknown material to Sofia.

“What is it?” Sofia asked, accepting the fist-sized orb that she instantly noticed she couldn’t identify nor store in her ring.

“Your emergency exit. Where you’re going, nobody will be able to come save you if something goes wrong, and spatial magic is greatly restricted. If you use this… Just blast it with a lot of mana and It should give you a few seconds to activate your teleportation to the Margin castle. Single use, sadly, so don’t waste it,” Erredis explained.

“Oh… Thank you. Is the original plan still a thing, though?”

“Of course,” Erredis confirmed, “just come back to the place I left you and I will be able to bring you out of there. But if you’re unable to make it back…”

“You warned us plenty already,” Alith said with a shrug, “part of the deal, don’t worry about it. If we die we die, but thank you for the help, though.”

“The recklessness of youth…” Erredis said, turning around to leave, “Try to all make it back in one piece, will you? Now follow me, It’s time to go.”