Saintess Summons Skeletons

Before long, the wide circular platform the crowned birdman was resting on got surrounded by a large group of skeletons. Although the skeletons did not directly show themselves, the birdman was no longer oblivious, the mana movements around him now were impossible to miss.

He stood up slowly, his blue feathers rustled by the layers of his bamboo armor. With his sharp-tipped bamboo spear, he adjusted the position of his crown on top of his giant spiral seashell hat. His large globulous eyes locked onto the closed door to his gated open-air platform, as if peering at the skeletons waiting behind.

Pestle and Bookie shared a quick glance.

Bookie gave the order. “Now!”

Pestle, Bookie, and the Chimera skeleton burst through the gate, while ten huge leyline ants climbed the surrounding branches and the tree trunk, and giant ice spider skeletons entered the gated platform, climbing over the walls.

“Finally, some fun!” the birdman unexpectedly squawked, preparing to throw his spear.

Pestle attacked from behind, but somehow crashed against the shoddy-looking bamboo cape that the bird was wearing, unable to easily tear through it.

The birdman threw his spear at the chimera. The skeletal beast jumped to the side, but too late, and lost a few ribs to the thin bamboo spear that continued its flight, tearing a huge hole through the platform’s wall and disappearing into the distance.

Shocked at the sight, Bookie moved back, casting a healing spell over the chimera, then preparing a long-channeling lightning spell from his fusion with the aura mages.

As the birdman produced a huge bamboo hammer out of nowhere, the chimera joined Pestle in a frontal assault. The spiders acted as quiet support from the walls, spewing acid blasts and freezing attacks at the birdman, which managed to dodge most of them without so much as taking a single step.

While the birdman’s hammer battled against the three heads of the chimera, Pestle kept circling around, but it was as though she was not fast nor invisible in the first place, as the birdman, distracted as he was by the other skeletons, always managed to stop her. Whatever angle Pestle tried to attack from, she would always find an elbow or a knee in her face, and the bamboo armor was like dragon scales, she struggled to even leave a dent.

Back! Bookie warned mentally.

Pestle and the chimera pulled back and instantly a lightning bolt tore through the sky from the storm clouds above, striking the birdman in a blinding flash.

To Bookie’s shock, his long channeling attack did no damage. The birdman shielded himself under his bamboo cape, which now barely bore a faint burn mark. Before Pestle and the Chimera could attack again, he took the opportunity to strike the ground with his bamboo hammer.

Thousands of bamboo spears erupted from the ground all over the platform. Only Pestle managed to fully avoid them. Bookie got impaled through his skull, and the chimera was still whole but pinned from below by a hundred spears due to how big it was.

The birdman raised his hammer high over the trapped Chimera.

No!

Bookie cast a shield spell around the Chimera. The chimera also defended itself with a spell of its own, its goat head casting while the snake tail spewed poison, and Pestle latched onto the birdman’s face.

Despite this chaos, the hammer still fell down, crushing the chimera’s roaring lion head to dust.

Pestle ripped out one of the birdman’s eyes.

The birdman’s head abruptly turned, his beak snapped. Pestle was crushed into scattered bone bits.

Bookie’s jaw dropped. He had suddenly lost his connection to Pestle, unable to believe what his senses were telling him, he even let go of his staff, and frantically flipped through his own pages.

Meanwhile, the battle continued. The chimera managed to free itself from the spears, and though it now lacked its main head, the goat head continued casting spell after spell, curses and negative status piling up on the birdman. The birdman spread his wings, now trying to take flight.

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Giant wooden ants dropped from above. The first three missed, and got right back up to climbing the branches. The fourth grabbed the soaring birdman’s cape. The fifth landed right on him, sending him crashing back down on the incredibly sturdy bamboo platform.

Bookie, his skull still impaled on a bamboo spear from below, stared at Pestle’s page in incomprehension, it was still there, but he could not feel her, and could not re-summon her either.

Now that the giant ants had brought the birdman back down, the ice spiders directly jumped in. They tied its limbs in strong glacial silk trying to fully pin him down.

High-pitched screeches of unimaginable pain cut through the ambient chaos as tiny midenicite bones reformed from nothing in the air above the downed birdman.

Pestle!

Too distracted by Pestle’s sudden revival, neither Bookie nor his other summons reacted in time to the birdman’s next move. His big seashell hat suddenly came alive. A few orange crab legs and a pair of elongated orange claws sprung out of the bottom opening, and snipped through all the cursed mana and the glacial silk like they were nothing.

The birdman got back up, instantly forced into a wrestle by the surrounding leyline ants, while his seashell hat crawled away. It rushed toward Bookie.

Bookie blasted the fast-approaching monster with mana bullets, only to see them ricochet off of the nacreous shell. He switched to another type of magic– only to notice that he was fully out of mist. Still impaled in place, all he could do was close his eyes in fear.

But instead of getting assaulted by a scary shell creature, all he heard was a bang, followed by muffled gargling.

“Sea leg good leg! Fight Bokie, fight!”

Pestle had pierced through the shell like it was nothing and consumed its inhabitant. That being the case, Bookie could still feel mana in the shell and visibly saw the crab pincers regrow.

We’re winning!

He hurriedly climbed up the spear piercing his skull to free himself, and still lacking mana, took it upon himself to keep the shell monster dead. His mana might have been lacking, but his physical stats, boosted by all of his pages, were not as low as one might imagine seeing his frail figure.

“I’m sorry!” He apologized before pulling the resurrecting crab-thing out of its shell and stomping it into a mushy seafood paste.

On the other hand, the birdman, now injured and without his ‘hat’ for protection, was fighting back fiercely. His bamboo attacks were devastating and his martial skills were refined enough that even Pareth would have met his match here, but ultimately, he could only dispose of three leyline ants and two ice spiders before getting overwhelmed by the skeletons. Pestle constantly harassed him while he tried to fend off the sturdier skeletons, and she eventually got the kill, paying him back in kind, somehow chomping his whole head off in a single bite, beak included.

She quickly stripped the dead birdman of all of his bamboo armor and possessions while getting the remaining spiders to fully tie him down as his skull started to regrow.

Bookie and the others surrounded the captured immortal birdman, a single leyline ant left to deal with the seashell.

“Bokie leg! Sofia make happy!”

“But… This one can speak…” Bookie argued, uncertain. Despite everything, he was still a big softie, and they were the aggressors here, not the birdman. He even felt a little bad for all the other ones he had eaten, although just a little.

“Not hesitate!” Pestle insisted, “Pity only danger.”

Meanwhile the birdman’s skull and head grew back, and with them came not the usual screams of agony, but a scary, guttural laugh.

“Yes!” The birdman shouted, “Kill me! Free me from this nightmare! My time has come! Our god’s blessing is all yours! The end I sought… Finally…”

The birdman did not struggle to free himself from the silk binding him. He only held his head up high, closing his eyes, and suddenly, retched out a small crystal, before falling limp.

He spewed his mana heart????!!!

That was the end of Bookie’s hesitation. He had to admit that this birdman was a worthy meal enough to make him salivate. The birdman was devoured.

His mana heart, on the other hand, was quietly snatched up by the creepy dark tendrils of an ominous spinning pillar-like object. Just like that, the birdman village fell silent.

Now that it was all over, Pestle’s first idea was checking on the birdman’s weapons and armor. They looked like worthless pieces of bamboo but she had seen firsthand just how tough they were so she picked one up and– “Agack?!” The piece of armor just snapped like a twig in between her fingers.

Confused, she tested more pieces of the armor. She felt not even a speck of magic from them or the weapons. It was all just old carved bamboo, and nothing more.

On the other hand, being done with his meal, Bookie walked right up to the ‘mirror’, the tall and ancient-looking stone stele covered in words he could not read that the birdman had been guarding.

He touched it. A feeling like lightning coursing through his bones made him step back in a panic.

The stone stele crumbled.

Bookie’s jaw touched the floor in a short delay.