Saintess Summons Skeletons

Pareth unleashed his gravity well, which now came with an additional frost explosion, pulling most of the worms toward him. Sofia’s bolts then carved through the mass of worms around him, making quick work of them, while those who hadn’t been pulled in were dealt with by Pestle and Sonia’s arrows.

“Looks like we’re done,” Sonia said, recalling all of her spent arrows to her hand with a single gesture, “follow me.” She jumped straight into a hole between two large roots.

Sofia and Pareth followed, although Pareth had to contort himself a bit to get through the narrow gap. Sonia rushed through the root forest, shooting any straggler worms around with mana arrows.

“Sonia,” Sofia called out, running right behind her, “Pareth is immune to explosions and ice, next time he pulls monsters in you can use your exploding arrows on him directly.”

“Noted,” Sonia answered, jumping from root to root, “Let’s get out of here quickly, our fight made a lot of noise, notice how all the worms we come around are heading in that direction.”

“Is the root forest wide?”

“No, we’ll reach more open terrain soon, and it’s all unknown from there.”

Just by watching Sonia move around, Sofia could already tell that the beastkin was going to be pulling her weight in the expedition. If not for Pareth benefiting from Sofia keeping tier 3 [Runeforged Overlord] active, he might have even struggled to follow.

Luckily with all the worms being attracted to the fight’s site, few were left on the outskirts of the root forest, letting the group escape without encountering much resistance. Sofia followed Sonia through the last layer of tangled roots, feeling the ambient mana go up a notch.

“I named this one the mirror valley,” Sonia announced, standing on the edge of an extended root of the Ur Ur tree, hanging some eight hundred meters above a dark forest below. The same forest also existed just above their heads, the canopy of the upside-down trees just a few meters away. “This is as far as I checked last time.”

Sofia looked around, observing the vast open vista that looked like mostly regular mountainous valleys, aside from the fact that everything was mirrored above it. The taller mountaintops even fused with the top of their upside-down mirrors, creating huge hourglass-shaped pillars. Streams and rivers coursed through the valleys, following the same paths on the ground and on the ceiling. Only the living creatures that roamed all over the valleys seemed to escape the mirroring, although there were just as many living on the ground as there were that walked on the ceiling as if ignoring gravity. Perhaps strangest of the lot was a large group of colorful birds flying upside down nearby, paying them no attention.

“You know,” Sofia said, “I believed you when you said it was going to be a strange trip, but this is already exceeding my expectations. It’s hard to believe we’re still on Veliadren.”

“Oh, this is just the beginning. Now we just need to decide what route to take, flying is out of the question, too hard to protect ourselves from ambushes from all directions.”

Sofia nodded, “It looks like there are more creatures below, but the monsters above can walk on the ceiling, they’ll be harder to fight.”

“We’re good with range though, if we walk from branch to branch staying away from the ceiling we can shoot down stuff hiding in the bushes on the ceiling. I say we stick with the top for now. It’s closer too.”

Pareth nodded, morphing his sword into a trident, and jumping up into the canopy first.

“Let him take the front,” Sofia said, ”I’ll protect the rear.”

“Fine by me,” Sonia answered, “If we feel anything wrong up there, we rush to the closest mountain and use it as cover to head down,” she said, jumping up after Pareth.

Sofia quickly assumed her demon form before following. Since there were no downsides to it anymore, there was no reason to hold back, and the 360 degrees vision was something she really needed now that her mana senses were completely stifled by the environment.

Sticking to the same direction, Pareth led the way, jumping cautiously from tree to tree. Most of the monsters above on the ceiling were rather small, and they rarely looked ‘up’ at the canopy, so the group went undetected for a while, until some kind of orange-furred monkey that laid on the branches spotted them from a distance. The trio also noticed; Sonia prepared an arrow, but instead of running toward them, the monkey hastily ran away, swinging from branch to branch to the north west.

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This one’s not upside down.

The mithril arrow still flew, but the monkey somehow caught it with his tail, not even looking back as he kept escaping, disappearing between the trees.

“Shit. He might call for reinforcements!” Sonia cursed.

“Keep going,” Sofia ordered, prompting Pareth to resume movement. “Pestle.”

The fairy rushed after the fleeing monkey while the group ignored the disturbance, trying to cover as much distance as possible.

About a minute later, Sofia felt Pestle dying, she could hardly keep track of her position in this environment, but she could still notice the link being severed. Did she die or unsummon herself? She hastily tore Pestle’s page again.

“Are you alright? Did you get it?” Sofia asked the fairy on her shoulder.

“Monkey is kill but almost kill Pesle also, hit strong. Not see more monkey.”

“Good. Sonia, don’t waste your arrows, Pestle will handle any lone monster that tries to flee.”

“The monkeys look dangerous, if there’s a group of more than five we turn back,” Sonia answered.

Making strategic decisions on the fly, Sofia watched Pareth throw his trident and kill some kind of twin-headed snake in one hit, continuing forward without stopping.

At this pace we might be in and out in a day or two. Sofia naively thought, considering they had already crossed a few kilometers in under half an hour with no major scares.

An unexpected humming in the distance soon pulled her back to reality; it was so loud that the leaves and bushes trembled.

“Hide!” Sonia said in a hurry.

Pareth reached into a pouch he wore at his waist, pulling out a small round candy. Opening his bone armor’s visor, he chomped down on the candy, its crushed bits falling right on his mana heart. He turned invisible on the spot. Sofia already had the [Master thief] title equipped, knowing in advance that it would come in handy in an environment where even monsters were forced to rely mainly on sight. She stood still for three seconds and also turned invisible. Meanwhile, Sonia had draped herself into her wings, which changed colors, making her almost impossible to spot in between the branches.

Not as good as invisibility but can’t be seen through by things like my fake eye without close observation. Interesting skill.

After giving Sonia a quick glance, Sofia looked down through the canopy, trying to spot the source of the deafening sound that had shaken the forest.

The creature hummed again, and Sofia managed to see it floating over the lower forest below. The size of a small hill, the creature had a long neck and a round and plump purple and pink body, with no limbs aside for six triangular fins or flippers on the sides. It floated slowly, its fins swaying around while its tiny head kept swivelling on top of its neck. It would repeatedly stop, staring in one direction, and from there, helpless creatures from the forest would magically be pulled into the air and gobbled up, without even being able to resist.

Orange monkeys like the one from before were swallowed by the dozen like handfuls of nuts. Sofia watched in amazement as a much larger monkey, at least ten times the size of the other ones, was still picked up in the same way. It struggled, and punched the creature’s head as it was pulled in, but it was like a regular human hitting a brick wall. The monster’s mouth grew larger in a flash, and swallowed the large monkey in one bite without even chewing.

Luckily, it seemed the pink and purple monster was more interested in the creatures from below than the ones above as it barely looked up, only catching some fearless birds out of the air whenever they flew a bit too close.

This has to be at least level 400. Maybe 450. Its skin looks like a shark’s, the big monkey didn’t even leave a scratch.

Nobody in the group dared to move or make a sound until the monster was completely out of sight, its distant hums still shook the forest every so often.

Sonia broke the silence, “We’re lucky we decided to go up.”

“Do you know what that thing was?” Sofia asked.

“First time seeing it,” Sonia answered, “We have to name it for communication’s sake. How about Gobbler?”

Sofia stared at Sonia, who peeked back at her, still hidden behind her wings. “Your naming senses are as terrible as mine. I suggest Reviskiviel.”

“Reviskiviel?”

“Pink shark in draconic,” Sofia explained.

“... Reviskiviel it is. Let’s not go anywhere near that thing, ever.”

“We also have to be careful not to run into one of the big monkeys.”

“They look like physical fighters so if we do run into one try to keep it at a distance at all costs,” Sonia said, “But yes, better to avoid them too if we can. Now let’s get going before that thing comes back.”