Saintess Summons Skeletons

Watch me kick the Kleptras’ nest, I wonder how they’ll react to this. Sofia thought as she fell.

That Er’Arch must be wondering if I’m living in their walls.

Sofia tried to access Pareth’s vision but that somehow failed, so she just grabbed Pestle from her head instead as she fell.

“Seriously, you could have gotten yourself killed, why would you insult him like that?” she asked the fairy.

“Kill? Not kill,” Pestle denied, “Sun! Pesle very not kill! Klepra stupid, deserve insult!”

“Ahah, true, I did forget about that for a moment. Let’s just agree not to insult the Kleptra anymore, alright? We have enough enemies as is don’t you think?”

“Deserve is deserve!” Pestle disagreed, crossing her arms as the duo fell through a thick layer of cloud that completely obscured whatever might be below.

After falling through the cloud, Sofia discovered that despite the removal of the ground, the contestants had not in fact been sent flying to an infinite void, as she had somehow entered some kind of giant cylinder, like the interior of a tower. The marble-ish white walls were smooth and with nothing to grab onto. She looked down, and it seemed there were things far down below, but despite Sofia’s incredible eyesight, they were still hard to make a sense of.

He could have explained the rules…

Let’s see, I still can’t fly or teleport…

Sofia altered her wings, filling up the space between the bones with more bone. If she couldn’t use them to truly fly at least this would give her more control of her fall.

Why she hadn’t been able to see things clearly started to make sense, as she could feel she was gradually picking up speed, meaning that she was falling tremendous distances, possibly affected by some kind of ever-increasing gravity. Soon she fell far down enough that she was able to see what the things below were, and it was much stranger than anticipated. It all started with a system-like warning written in transparent red letters on this air.

|SPLATTERFALL - LEVEL 1 - THE FOREST|

Alright I think I get the rules…

Beyond the warning was a forest of giant Mithril-leafed trees, growing from all around the cylinder. The middle was fully clogged by the concentrated canopy of leaves, and falling through this was a good way to end up a minced meat.

A falling game.

Sofia’s wings shifted, and she slowly fell closer to the border of the cylinder.

Just weave through the trunks on the way down. Easy enough.

As one would expect from the first level of anything, that was simple. Sofia thought as she fell by the last row of trees and found herself in an empty section again, still picking up more speed.

I can’t seem to slow the fall at all… Oh well, I should go back to the center for level 2.

|LEVEL 2 - THE CITY|

A sprawling city extended down, like the forest before built around the inside of the cylinder, or more accurately, bent to fit in, with the houses’ foundations being way large that their roof, making it look like a triangular city.

This time the center is safer… Kind of?

There were many towers and bridge-like structures that extended through the middle, leaving no clear way down. On the contrary, Sofia immediately noticed that some of the easier ways down seemed to be the small alleyways between the houses. But they are narrow so you really can’t afford to mess up the positioning even a little.

Quite confident in herself, Sofia positioned her wing parallel to her body and made her entrance into the city through one such narrow gap. They alleyway carried her a long way down before she needed to veer back toward the middle. She spent a bit of time swerving through the towers in the middle, encountering her first other contestant.

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Ouch. That looks painful.

They had ‘landed’ against one of the towers. The blood splatters painting a significant section of the city red. Even if it had been someone Sofia knew, she would have been unable to tell because there was so little left of them aside from a giant bloodstain.

Last time I fell this fast I created a magma crater on the moon…

Sofia continued to fall through the city, passing through a market section and a part with big noble mansions and garden statues. Finally came this level’s final enemy, the royal castle, which occupied the integrality of the cylinder’s width. Judging by the red splatters, at least one more person had died there.

Lots of broken windows, we’re supposed to go through the inside.

With very little time to decide where to go, Sofia steered her fall toward one of the already broken windows that seemed to lead into a wide open space.

Ballroom. Almost no obstacles.

Sofia tried to grab a plate on one of the banquet tables on her way down. The plates and the food on them defied gravity to stay on the sideways table so she was curious.

Instead of gaining a plate, she left the tip of three of her fingers behind, they got ripped off, stuck under the side of the plate as the rest of her body kept falling.

My curiosity got the best of me again…

She replaced the lost fingers with bone implants and focused on her fall, slipping through another broken window on the other side of the ballroom.

|LEVEL 3 - THE CAVERN|

This level was relatively simple, with stalagmites and crystals to avoid in almost complete darkness, which was not an issue to anyone capable of producing light. For Sofia she did not even need that, her dark vision being good enough to easily find her way through. A section of the cavern featured giant mushrooms and thorn-covered plants but Sofia fell through it at such speed that it barely even registered.

It’s hard to keep count but I think at least two people died here?

She barely had time to think as her speed was still increasing, meaning the fourth level came in a matter of seconds.

|LEVEL 4 - THE DUNGEON|

This fully indoors level featured falling through rotating blade, swinging axe traps, arrows being fired from the walls, spiked sprouting from the sides in safe-looking paths, and many such niceties. Sofia navigated through them without much trouble still, not even needing to activate the third level of [Runeforged Ovelord], in fact, she had to remind herself that this was supposed to be a dangerous event as she started to have a lot of fun narrowly falling in the tight gaps between deadly traps. Before she realized it, she zoomed past the final set of traps, and it was already over and she was in an empty section again.

Oh man, just when it was starting to be good!

Below, the cylinder was almost fully sealed with a single circular opening barely wide enough for a person to fit through.

This could clip my wings if I’m not careful.

Someone seemed to have missed the final hole, at least partly, as fleshy remains stained the lip of that entrance.

For Sofia, this was still easy even with the extreme speed, and she entered the final hole with Pestle latched onto her back.

The narrow tube she was now in filled with water as she fell, until she was fully submerged. After several violent uncontrolled turns, she was expelled from the tube, landing into an indoors pool.

The walls were all white tile with blue accents just like the changing room at the start of the event, and there seemed to be nothing there aside from these blank walls, the sound of running water, and randomly placed iron guardrails.

“Not what I expected,” Sofia commented, observing her surroundings as she sat in the pool.

[Eternal Lights - Times survived: 24]

Nice. Everyone made it through.

“Anyone there?” Sofia called out, but nobody answered. Spreading her mana senses, Sofia could find nothing but more and more randomly shaped similar rooms with pools of stagnant water. “We’re alone here, it seems,” she told Pestle who sat on her shoulder.

“Here more very kill, mana ugly like Klepra, no leg. Need escape.”

“Mana ugly?” Sofia repeated, having not noticed anything at first. Upon closer inspection, she realized what Pestle meant. “Ooooh, you’re right, the mana in the water is… Strange… Like a tiny curse? We should probably get out.”

Sofia walked out of the pool and molted out of the outermost layer of her bone armor to shake off the cursed water. Only then did she come to the realization that there were plenty of openings letting water into the strange rooms, but none letting it out.

There was a ‘flood’ toggle, huh… Makes sense.

Pareth can you hear me? I just got to the weird pools. I still have the link but can’t feel your position at all nor look through your eyes. You can try teleporting to me if you want, if not be on your way out, the place is getting flooded with cursed water.

You probably already knew that but it doesn’t hurt to make sure… See you soon.

Her message sent to the ether, she scanned around some more with her mana senses.

“I don’t see any obvious way out… Every room feels the same, goes several floors up and down too, any idea?”

Pestle shook her tiny skull, “Idea? No need idea. Kill wall! Escape!”