Saintess Summons Skeletons

A typhoon of blood formed above Sofia, red clouds creating strong winds out of nowhere, congregating into a swirling vortex. The calamity of blood formed amidst the winds, the red clouds a giant loom weaving its body into existence as it descended from the sky. With a loud gargled howl like a zombie’s, the destroyer briefly came into being, before crashing straight down into the fields, a tsunami of blood sweeping toward the rust creatures’ city on the horizon.

Crops blackened and withered at the touch of the caustic blood, and the rare few machines working the fields were swept away, as an alarm already rose in the city, many fires lighting up in an instant.

At the same time, from another side of the city, faintly glimmering golden figures erupted from a dense forest, a tiny chimera-mounted skeleton led the charge, followed by ten large leyline ants, an imposing army of spear-wielding human-like centipedes, and a giant lump of animated crystals that crushed the trees that could barely hide it at it lumbered forward.

Sofia sat down on a branch, watching the events unfold, she was out of mana and had done her part already, now she could only trust the others and the plan.

The rust creatures did not seem shocked by the situation, although it was really hard for Sofia to understand what these strange creatures really thought, but at the very least, they were very organized in their response to the sudden crisis. Two groups quickly formed under Sofia’s eyes, one of larger size with a lot of Mithril-composed individual departed from the city to intercept Bookie’s army in the fields, while what looked like an elite group of mainly orichalcum creatures were left behind to deal with the incoming wave of blood.

Is it still not enough to force the king to make a move?

So Sonia was right…

Then, any time, now.

Looking vaguely in the direction she knew Sonia was, Sofia failed to pinpoint her location even when she saw her attack depart. A light-green line struck through the dark sky, flying straight for the small wooden city. That was one of the few giant Mithril arrows Sonia carried around everywhere despite how heavy and impractical they were. Sofia knew firsthand from the last trial just how much destruction those could cause. With how much stronger Sonia was now after another filter, two of those would probably be enough to make this entire city a thing of the past, although most of its inhabitants might survive the attack they would be left with a pile of ruins in their hands.

Of course making these rust creatures’ life difficult wasn’t the goal here, but it had to be done.

As expected, the arrow never reached the city. A perfectly average looking rust creature suddenly shot out from the crowd that stood on the city ramparts, flying up toward the green line. It stopped the arrow in a bright collision.

So that’s the king. Looking at this individual carefully, it not only seemed to be unharmed from the collision just now, but parts of its body were clearly made of actual Mithrium. Compared to the other rust-covered creatures, this one only had an outer layer of rusty parts, its inner body mechanism being almost entirely made of precious metals.

In the same beat, the armies clashed, and the tsunami of blood finally reached the city after devastating many large fields. Many rust creatures banded together to create a mana barrier that kept the blood wave at bay, dispersing its accumulated momentum to the sides, and preventing its corrosion from reaching the walls.

They’re quite capable.

However, the barrier was only a temporary relief, as the spread out blood soon pooled back together, to reform a gigantic blood destroyer that loomed over the group of rust mages.

Meanwhile, the armies clashed in the fields, the rust creatures were fierce, despite being outnumbered by the skeletons, they clearly held the advantage in firepower. The Kidjikkik soldiers would burst into bone bits if they were touched at all, while even the leyline ants struggled under the heavy physical assaults. Only Bookie fared relatively well, the chimera too fast for the heavy rust creatures to pursue as it jumped from one side of the battlefield to the other. The giant gemite was slow and late to the fight, but its arrival changed the flow of battle. The rust creatures’ attacks barely chipped the legs of the crystalline giant, whose clumsy hands grabbed one of them and hurled it back at the city like a cannonball, hitting and destroying a cone-shaped building on the edges of the city.

The rust mages unleashed a rain of spells at the calamity of blood, who fought back, seemingly wholly unbothered by the constant rain of projectiles. Every time it attacked, the caustic blood would corrode the city walls more and more.

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The king had already left, after stopping a second mithril arrow while it tried to help the mages stop the destroyer, it had gone after the annoying archer instead.

Sonia sounded pretty confident but I hope she will be fine…

While she had her own thoughts, Sofia was constantly relaying the situation to Pestle. Thanks to her, the fairy knew exactly when to strike.

Sofia even missed the moment it happened. She looked back at the throne room, and the artifact just was not there anymore.

Good. Bookie, continue, press the offensive, we retreat soon.

It was essential that the distraction continued until Pestle safely made it back.

Seconds seemed to stretch as Sofia watched her destroyer start to weaken. It had held for a long time but the concentrated attacks of more than thirty level 300 mages was no laughing matter, even for a magic-resistant summon. Similarly, Bookie’s army was soon reduced to a meager battalion of the gemite, three ants, and a handful of the more skillful or lucky kidjikkik soldiers. The rust creatures in comparison had not suffered many loses, and had the skeletons almost surrounded.

Finally the signal she was waiting for came. A skeletal fairy gracefully landed on the branch next to Sofia.

“Lady Sodia, the target has been safely retrieved.”

“How is Sonia?”

“As of my departure she had not returned yet.”

Sofia sighed, “Alright, let’s stick to the plan, hopefully she knows what she’s doing.”

Elsep nodded, quickly climbing into a hole Sofia just opened up in her armor. The two disappeared from the branch, their image fading without a sound as if they had never been there.

They both reappeared in the lower layer, the dry sea, in an outpost they had prepared not far from the hole in the crystal ceiling leading to the rust creatures’ main zone. Pareth was already here, as his job had been to make sure this retreat path stayed safe, and he had been joined by Pestle and Crowie. Pestle sat on the artefact that was bigger than herself like it was no big deal.

“No issues on this side?” Sofia quickly asked Pareth as she looked around and let Elsep out of her armor.

Pareth gave her a faint sign, and Sofia nodded.

I’ll order the destroyer to go out with a suicide attacke. Bookie, you can retreat.

Bookie’s book form was already there with Pareth, seconds later his skeleton form arrived too.

“Job done!” he proudly announced as he reappeared.

“You held out well. Good job out there,” Sofia praised him, “Everyone else too, everything went perfectly to plan. Now we’re just waiting for Sonia…”

Minutes passed, the group waiting in the outpost under several layers of invisibility and camouflage rituals Sonia had set up beforehand. Bookie was starting to get a bit restless.

“What… What if something happened to her… Can I send a few birds?”

Sofia shook her head. “Anything we do could give out our position, we have to trust Sonia. She was confident, we would only be hindering her if we tried to help now.”

“But if she gets caught and we’re not helping…”

Sofia gave Bookie a few headpats, “Everyone is worried… Well. Maybe not Pestle. But Sonia knows what she’s doing. She’s more experienced than all of us combined. Why don’t you store that thing instead of stressing yourself out? Do you have enough space?”

“I- uh… I might need to take out a few things,” Bookie answered after giving the strange artifact a good look.

“Do you still have your old clothes in there? I can hold onto that for you.”

“I left those in the city…” Bookie mumbled, starting to take out dolls and wooden toys from his personal pockets one after the other to make space for the artifact.

“I never knew you had such a collection,” Sofia muttered, “I’ll take care of them until we’re out of here, alright?”

“N- no need, it’s not worth taking up space…” Bookie mumbled under his breath, shyly looking away.

“It is. Those are your precious things after all, hmm? I’ve got space in my bone backpack anyway. It’s just that the artifact will be safer with you.”

Just as Sofia finished carefully packing Bookie’s things, Sonia tumbled into the outpost out of nowhere, almost getting cut down by Pareth who’d reflexively drawn his sword. She was disheveled, with empty quivers and a few nasty looking injuries, but overall still in one piece.

“Do we have it?!” she immediately asked.

“In Bookie’s pockets,” Sofia answered, “Did you manage to lose the king?”

“I did. But I think he’ll still be searching. We need to get the hell out of here.”

“Got it. Heal up first. Pestle, go out make sure it’s safe. Everyone, get ready to depart.”