Saintess Summons Skeletons

“I will keep this.” Sofia said as calmly as she could muster, pocketing the bead. The man reflexively raised his hand a bit to stop her, but in the end, decided to not object. “And he told you about the orphanage?” She kept pressing for answers.

“He did… Was his task… Refused to do it… Left… But when he reached his temple… Everyone was gone… The traces… in the direction of Verenha… Four weeks ago… Then found us.”

“Why would your God… order that? Tell me. EXPLAIN! YOUR GOD! TELL ME! TO FIND ME? TO GET BACK HIS ONE SAINT?! THIS?”

“G- Gerold… High-priest said… You bear essence. God needs. To be whole…”

The description of her latest skill opened under Sofia’s command. Specifically the part about divine essence.

‘Complete all steps and gather divine essence to unlock further realms.

Current divine essence (5) :

• Scripture (1)
• Aphenoreth (1)
• Dread (1)
• Sorrow (1)
• Ormoncleth (1)’

All… For that?

An essence?

YOU SHAMEFUL EXCUSE FOR A GOD!

I WILL WIPE YOUR DAMNED EXISTENCE FROM THIS REALM AND THE NEXT!

Sofia was called back to reality by the large hand of Pareth holding her shoulder. She did her best to suppress her rage. Screaming at the void helped nothing and she knew it. She controlled her breathing and kept asking her questions.

“I understand… Then I ask again, why summon me now? I have no reason to help you and you have no reason to help me. In fact I should kill you right here and now. Your goal had been to summon me and capture me again. Don’t act like that wasn’t the case. Why else would you choose to be a Magisterium?!”

The little energy that the potion had restored was fading. Jeb struggled to answer as he slid down, back against the wall.

“That… Is true. No longer. I summoned… To clear conscience… Before I go…”

The man started snoring loudly the second his butt hit the ground.

“That was it?”

Sofia looked down at Perenia, the previous Magisterium’s daughter, that hadn’t moved for a while now. She was no longer sobbing either.

She died?

[Protector - Lv. 178]

Guess not…

Sofia squatted down to be closer to Perenia. Like she did with the other, she grabbed her head.

The wave of notifications that came with it was even longer than the last. She took off her hands and did it again. Nothing.

Well, that’s all I can do.

Leaving two healing potions and some packed food on the crypt’s floor, Sofia left the premises.

“No harsh feelings…”

Poor god wants to be whole again uh. Gave me a piece of himself for his experiments and now he wants it back. Gonna put a huge bounty on my head to get it back, kill those I love, even turn against your own followers.

What a god.

No wonder Knowledge offered their blessing for the book. Knowing that you have Scripture as your equal must be an unbearable shame.

Oh I’m so glad I accepted this quest. Just wait, Scripture. I’m coming. Rejoice, your essence will be whole again. As nourishment for my skill.

She organized her thoughts, strolling through the forest, occasionally stumbling upon the crumbling remnants of the old capital.

“I should just go away. Go train in Couvauz or something, as far as I can. Scripture cannot reach me. If he could he would. But so far all he did was a pointlessly cruel ambush and issuing a bounty.”

What’s more, I doubt there’s many people like this Zerilda that are so high-level yet so useless as to be swayed by some gold.

The only thing that could prevent me from leaving would be if I had someone to protect.

But then who?

A dead sister?

The murdered orphans?

Astelia who can beat my ass and has a level 300 bodyguard?

Alith who probably isn’t even on the continent anymore?

“I cannot understand what this crumbly shit crust of a god was thinking…”

Chino is the only human left I care about in this country, and she’s safer if I don’t look for her.

“You won, Scripture, I’m leaving. You wanted me to come? Too bad. I’ll come back when I know I’m ready. Only one of us is gonna make it out alive.”

And it’s not you.

Sofia was still haphazardly walking in the forest, observing the new page in her book. “Fifty-thousand mana for one High-Priest. Expensive, but having a good healer for what’s coming next is great. That will speed up things a lot, the Paladins just aren’t that good at healing anyone other than themselves.”

She was taking a weird habit to talk out loud when Pareth was walking alongside her, when it was completely useless as he wouldn’t answer and could also essentially read her thoughts.

Maybe I’m not so good with being alone after all…

I wonder if Alith has been freaking out over the level-ups. I need to slow down now, it would be a waste to lose all the experience I could get while training my skills because I’m stuck at 199. How hard will the next trial be? Can’t be worse than the first...

I’m pretty sure now that Scripture interfered somehow to get me to do the ritual, and not only with the parasite. I would bet that’s the whole reason we were teleported to the safehouse. What if the Archangel was Scripture in disguise? That would be a pretty strong case for system corruption and disconnecting me for safety.

Will the trial even work if I’m disconnected?

Sofia had been following remnants of an old road lost under the forest’s soil, it wasn’t obvious but there were a few straight lines where no large trees grew. There were basically no buildings standing, not enough to even call ruins, at most she would find two or three stacked stone blocks and that was it.

She stopped because she found an actual ruin, old and decrepit, ravaged by time, but a ruin nonetheless, standing proud, lost in the thick trees and their dark-green foliage.

“No way, this wasn’t destroyed?”

The old Church.

The building was very damaged, some parts were completely missing, but overall the main structure was still standing, in some parts there were even remnants of the higher floors and ceiling.

It didn’t hold nearly that well during the trial.

If Sofia’s memory served her right, the old Church in her trial had been completely razed down to the ground by the Alphageid’s myriad tentacles.

What went differently? It’s pretty certain the Alphageid actually attacked. Nothing else could explain the disappearance of such a large city. And I’d say this does look like tentacle damage. There’s even some round holes through some walls, when they’re not completely collapsed.

Sofia walked through the ruins, lit by the rare rays of sunlight piercing through the canopy. Trees had grown in and out of the old edifice all the like, some even grew up on remnants of the higher floors, roots hanging all the way down to the forest ground.

This is like a scene out of a horror story.

No skeletons though. Would a skeleton have survived this long? Either way, the Alphageid probably ate everyone in reality too, that’s what it was there for. Can these abominations attack anywhere anytime? I guess it needed the eclipse…

When’s the next eclipse again?! I should look that up when I can…

Sofia walked straight through the ruins of the old church, she could see hints of the other side all the way from the entrance. This eventually led her to what little was left of a large prayer hall. It was mostly clean of vegetation and debris. In the far back was the headless statue of a tall man in light clothes holding a closed book in one hand and an open scroll in the other. Sofia’s eyes were strangely drawn to the statue.

“This is who I think this is, right, Mr scribe?”

[Effigy of Scriptures]: Tangible Representation of A Sovereign Hallowed.

“Woah this took me a good second to process. I thought you lost your mind for a bit. I see. Interesting that you can do that. Very accurate description, thanks.”

Now what is the best way to deal with this?

Rather than destroying the whole thing, Sofia took out her mithril dagger.

This wasn’t what I had in mind for this god, but it is a start.

On this fateful day, an old piece of art lost multiple arms.

Sofia left the forest to go north, she wasn’t too worried about Scripture as of now. If she were to believe the new Magisterium, he took over the Oracle a while ago. And despite that he hadn’t made a move in person.

She wouldn’t tempt fate and return to the capital, but Scripture not taking action must have meant he couldn’t move much. She would still leave the country and go far east soon, but not before finishing to train the first step of her new passive skill. She had to expose her body to high heat, and doing so with the bolt was inefficient and very tiring.

Why do things the hard way when she could let her skeletons do the work for her?

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