Saintess Summons Skeletons

After Sofia’s explosive display of power, the trio kept moving forward without much trouble for a few hours until the sun started to set. Just then, they were starting to see the first floating islands appearing in the distance.

Nicet slowed down, “This is where we stop for today.”

Alith didn’t understand where this was coming from, “We need to stop?”

“Yes, it will be dusk soon, and the first islands are in sight, we need to get a shelter before the flying monsters fly out of their nests.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be weak while we’re near the coast?”

“They are, I think most of them would be under level 150 around here. But it’s the amount of them that’s an issue. Anyway, I will handle this part, you can watch and decide after if you still want to move at night.”

Sofia and Alith watched as Nicet burned down a clearing of Ebb grass with a flame producing artifact. The scene was a close recreation of Sofia’s first small angel bolt against the Ebb, just slower and less explosive. After that, he summoned out of his storage ring a bunch of stacked metal and glass panels covered in ritual circles. He rearranged the stacks with his spatial magic and after sending some mana to activate the rituals, everything came together to form a rectangular block of steel with a few windows and a steel hatch on the roof.

“This is the research team's anti-Ebb portable base. Won’t help against the windmills if they attack, but it doesn’t let the grass in and the flying monsters usually don’t pay it any mind as long as we don’t use light, come in.”

A storable compact house, that’s nice. I kinda want one too. I can make a house anytime with bones I guess, but this one has windows.

There was a slight echo inside the empty block of steel, and the four windows gave a 360 degrees view on the outside.

Nicet took out a few more things from his storage, all of very ingenious and compact designs, like foldable chairs and compressed rugs.

“So, a few rules to this, no light if you don’t want the flyers to swarm on us, and avoid using too much mana as well. Noise is fine, there are enchantments to dampen that. Now we just wait for the sun to come up again and the flyers to disperse.”

Sofia looked at the setting sun illuminating the floating islands through the window, there were quite a few clouds gathering in the east, “What if it rains?”

Nicet hissed at the idea. “If it rains at night… It’s going to be unpleasant. The thing to do is still the same, we need to fly up and away from the Ebb.”

“So straight into the flying monsters?”

“Yes. We’re in no huge danger as it is, even with their numbers the monsters here are too weak to be a mortal issue, but they will undoubtedly be a pain to deal with.”

Later, as the sun disappeared, the first monsters flew out from the flying islands. Thousands of them, covering the sky. Sofia was a bit shaken by the sight, it was just like in her memory. Alith was surprised too, she wondered out loud how so many monsters could even sustain themselves. There wasn’t even anything to eat on the ground, only the Ebb.

Nicet wasn’t watching, he was busy writing on a small paper notebook, but he answered nonetheless, “They don’t need to eat. They will swallow you alive given the occasion, and they feed on their dead, sometimes the different species also hunt each other. But in general, they can survive almost exclusively on the mana in the air.”

With not much to do, the trio spent the night casually chatting in the metal house until the sun rose again and the clouds of flying monsters returned to the flyings islands. There had been a lot of wind, but no rain.

“I don’t need to ask, but the island we’re looking for isn’t any of those right?” Nicet asked as the group kept flying north.

As if, these are so small. “No, think about a hundred times bigger.”

“That much? Well, let’s keep going. It seems there are fewer spatial anomalies around here, we can pick up some speed.”

The group flew past the first sets of flying islands; they were rather small, with the tiniest ones barely large enough for a house to fit in. From afar Sofia and Alith couldn’t see any trace of the monsters, so Nicet informed them that they dug tunnels to make their nests in. The flying islands were like giant ant nests, but full of skinny and leathery rapacious birds.

Some time later, it was Sofia who spotted something strange and stopped the group, pointing at the squirming pale pink thing in the distance. What the fuck is that thing?

“We have found our first mutated monster it seems. I can’t tell what it is exactly from here but there’s no need to worry about it as long as it hasn’t seen us, let’s continue.”

A while later, the first genuine flying mountain started showing its form among the clouds above. Sofia felt anxious, until she saw it from close enough to confirm it wasn’t the one. Nicet nodded and the search continued. They kept flying forward until a flying monster showed up during the day. It was some kind of long flying worm, it was still far away, but it was coming closer.

“Looks like we have entered the second circle, we need to fight this one.”

“Want me to give it the windmill treatment?” Sofia asked innocently.

“You really don’t need to go that hard, it’s probably barely above level 200 with this kind of size…”

“Understood, I’ll go with a third of the power then.”

Sofia brandished her scepter and the flying worm couldn’t even reach the group before becoming a rain of blue fiery gore.

‘You have defeated [Blue sky wire wyrm - lv. 208]’

“I have no time for this. Let’s get going, after you, Nicet.” Being able to throw around thirty thousand mana in one attack and still be almost full sure is convenient.

I never noticed but my aim is really good with these. Did I even miss once? Maybe there’s a part of the spell I’m not even aware of that helps track the target? I should really take the time to fully analyze the mana patterns of Angel’s bolt at some point. That would take years though…

A few more diurnal flying monsters showed up during the day as Nicet guided them deeper and deeper into the Ebb infested lands.

‘You have defeated [Blue sky wire wyrm - lv. 192]’

‘You have defeated [Blue sky wire wyrm - lv. 233]’

‘You gained a level!’

‘Remaining debt : 131 Levels’

‘You have defeated [Red sky wire wyrm - lv. 240]’

‘You have defeated [Blue sky wire wyrm - lv. 207]’

‘You have defeated [Red sky wire wyrm - lv. 249]’

‘You gained a level!’

‘Remaining debt : 130 Levels’

The sun rolled over and once again dusk came.

“Nicet, can you find me a large space in the sky with no spatial anomalies?”

“Right now? We need to put down the shelter…”

“Yes, now. The swarms of flyers at night are weaker than the ones out during the day, correct?”

“Yes… But what do you intend to do, exactly?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Harvesting.”

“This is a really dumb idea. But if it’s you… Then maybe. I’m going to find you a safe zone, don’t stray from it until morning. Be careful, it’s easy to lose your boundaries when you’re flying with no landmarks…”

“Don’t worry about me. Just don’t put the base anywhere under, the Ebb reacts to blood, right? There will be lots.”

“I won’t be joining you on this one, Sof.”

“It’s my debt that needs repayment anyway, not yours, just watch the show from afar. If the swarm is like last night, even if a bit stronger, then I’ll be fine. I just need to watch my mana consumption.”

“Good luck then, don’t get eaten. Oh, do you need more healing candies?”

“I still have enough, but thank you. Alright, show me the way, Nicet, we have oversized birds to slaughter.”

I can regenerate up to 17640 mana points a minute without the sun ritual. Or about a million per hour.

The rot and the blots are expensive, but I also get some mana back from my kills with [Heat Death]. The night will last about eleven hours, considering that I start with a full mana reserve… That’s twelve million mana points to spend during the night. Staggering.

Considering the gains from [Heat Death], I estimate I should be able to sustain about five to ten seconds of rot per minute. I’ll spend the rest of the time mostly fighting with the mithril dagger and [Bone dominus]. If a stronger monster appears, I bolt it. If something I can’t handle shows up, I plunge to the ground while showering it with rot to calm the ebb, and bury myself with the graveyard while Pareth stays up to keep it busy.

Seems like a solid plan. I only need to be wary of how I move because of the spatial anomalies, but the area around here should be mostly clear, so as long as I don’t move much, it’ll be fine.

No wait, there’s a fatal error in my calculations. Monsters killed by the rot have their mana consumed, so I won’t get any of it back with [Heat Death]. So the more rot uptime I have, the less rot uptime I have?

Oh, they’re coming. Too late to go back now.

Sofia readied her armor, she wore the two dominus-blessed rings to augment her defense and passive regeneration, and took out the scepter and the mithril dagger.

As the sun disappeared below the horizon, the uncountable monsters left their nests and invaded the sky, coming from all directions.

Sofia was calm. These monsters were the symbol of the tide that took away her sister, but they had also been her opportunity to escape slavery. She wouldn’t fight them out of hatred, she only wanted two things out of this; to quell the visions in her nightmares… And to amass ludicrous amounts of juicy exp.

“Come. I’ve been dreaming of doing this for years.”

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