Saintess Summons Skeletons

Before going further north, Sofia remembered that she had not finished her testing of [Skull Choir], she spent her last level up point on it instantly catapulting it all the way to level 200. This upped the number of skulls she could summon with it from 10 to 50, but most importantly, it unlocked more ‘Array Formations’. From the message that originally said ‘next array at level 50’, she expected to get four more, one every fifty levels but she only received two.

‘Currently known Array Formations:

• Ring system Array
• Sphere Array
• Wall Array

(Next Array unlocked at skill level 250)’

At least these are a bit easier to use than the ring.

The sphere was what one could expect from the name, if she was walking, it would form a dome over her, and if she flew up, it would become a sphere instead. The wall was a formation that she could move around semi-independently from herself, unlike the other two. When she used it, the skulls would arrange in a grid formation, which didn’t even have to be vertical. Its main and easiest use seemed to be to simply have them line up behind Sofia and blast whatever was in front of her. Speaking of, it was time to test the attacks these skulls could unleash.

Sofia started simple, flying out of the barren zone she had created to find a large tree. She had played around with the maximum number of skulls and the arrays for a few seconds, but the mana expenditure was high, now she waited out the three minute cooldown and only summoned five. She ordered a single of her skulls to attack the tree. Its jaw opened and the skull let out a war cry ‘AH!’. The tree exploded, sending shards of wood flying in every direction, some hit Sofia and bounced off of the bone armor.

Oh, okay. Yeah. That’s not bad.

Just to compare, Sofia walked up to a similar looking tree and punched it herself. Her punch pierced straight through, her hand barely coming out from the other side of the hole she just made.

“I don’t know if that’s better or worse…” she muttered as she pulled her arm out.

Sofia opened her helmet and looked back, seeking her Heroes’ opinion, but they were still busy gushing over the DImmerion seed and not paying any attention to her. Sighing, she closed her visor again. Using [Bone dominus], she made the gauntlet of her armor larger.

Then she activated the second and third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] and punched again with the 120% bonus in strength. The tree was no more.

I’m still stronger than a skull.

But there’s fifty of them.

Oh, and I can’t deactivate the runeforged passive. Forgot about that… Well, if I’m going to waste my mana anyway.

Sofia changed her skulls to a wall formation lining them up on her sides, and ordered them to all attack the tree stump one after the other. The first one finished blasting open the stump and the other four basically only created clouds of dirt with their attacks. They all had their own different small war-cry. Like that, she found out that the time it took for a skull to shout again was about three seconds. Lastly she ordered them to sing, they tried, each echoing a random note, which only resulted in a strange cacophony.

Not very impressive for a choir…

Maybe I need a singer skeleton to teach them? Perhaps they can’t sing because I don’t know music well enough?

Sofia remembered the music played by Victory’s ghostly musicians and as soon as she did, the skulls started harmonizing and singing to that tune. Then they disappointingly disappeared, because she ran out of mana.

Guh. So close!

Now I need to go listen to a real choir and shamelessly copy the performance. Maybe I could hire a musician troupe for a private concert…

“Are you done? We’re waiting for you, Sof.”

“Eh? Waiting? Weren’t you guys busy being mesmerized by some slimy seed?”

“Eww, Sofia. Eww. Stop playing with your bone bits and let’s go for a second round in the pyramid.”

Ihuarah stood at the border of the desert. “The red sand moved all the way south until it found the mountains…”

“What used to be there?”

“Plains. Nothing noteworthy but it was better than this. Your pyramid thing is deep in the desert?”

Alith pulled out her compass, “Should be a three day walk in this direction,” she confirmed, pointing north-northwest.

“That was when we were less than half our current level though, we can go much faster now.”

“How?” Alith asked.

“Well, I can run very fast. You get in my storage ring and Ihuarah in my shadow, so I can carry you both, simple.”

“That… Should work. Unless mister shadow has a better idea?”

“Not really?” he answered. “If the book had access to animals which specifically go fast on sand, then we could have them pull us on a sled. But I have no idea how many skeletons are recorded there besides the few I have seen. My flight does not rely exclusively on ambient mana so it would still work but it isn’t particularly fast.”

“My idea it is, then. Take a seat on the Sofia express carriage.”

“Wait, wait. We almost forgot. Shouldn’t we clear the other dungeon first?”

“It wasn’t far from the pyramid anyway, I’ll just aim for the bigger one first. The exact order doesn’t really matter.”

“If you say so. Well, have fun running,” Alith said as she turned into her ghostly form.

Ihuarah wordlessly fused with Sofia’s shadow on the ground, she could barely feel his presence.

A few hours later, the night had fallen on the red desert. Sofia was happy to see a few [Sprint] level ups, and the pyramid appeared on the horizon.

‘[Sprint] reached level 39’

‘[Sprint] reached level 40’

‘[Sprint] reached level 41’

[You have been affected by : Domination. But your skills negated the status]

Sofia dismissed the notifications, “Looks like the failed Apostles are still there. By the way, Ihuarah, any explanation on the whole mutated demon thing?”

The shade popped out of Sofia’s shadow, “Yes. Call out Alith, she might be interested as well.”

Sofia nodded and sent some mana into her ring, which prompted the tiny ghost form Alith to come out.

“To explain an Apostle’s mutation into a mindless beast, it is extremely simple. This occurs when the soul of the Apostle rejects the divine essence. This most often is the result of a botched ritual. Ones like these are beyond saving. In cases where the soul has accepted the essence, it might still happen later, if the body also starts rejecting the essence for whatever reason. This is easily fixed, however, usually through a good and thorough physical beating.”

So this is what happened to Zerei, I beat the curse essence back into her body? Then the Apostle of Dread might not have been possible to cure, depending on why it had mutated.

“What if I steal the divine essence from the mutated Apostle?” Pretty sure the Angel bolts can do that now. I don’t see how else I could have stolen Victory’s otherwise.

“That would not accomplish anything of note besides adding one more essence to your soul. You already have a lot, in my opinion.”

“I need more, both for VPPV and [Quintessential].”

“If this edifice really hosts two such Apostles, then there are two essences to be had. However, considering their supposed level, we cannot risk anything of the sort at the moment.”

Yeah, of course… Still, now that I know the power of my charged bolts, it’s tempting to just try blasting the pyramid open. But then again, that giant bird in Sovuln was certainly weaker than the Apostles and it ripped my head clean off my shoulders.

Sofia walked near the pyramid and started to scout the underground with [Graveyard of the righteous], it had a range of three hundred meters now. The black primus resin bricks that the black pyramid was made of prevented them from going inside, but the group thought there might be an underground layer not made of the same bricks.

“No luck, there are several underground layers, which form an inverted pyramid under the real one; the issue is it’s all the same kind of bricks, as far as I can tell. Besides that, no caverns or anything like that.”

“Of course…” Alith sighed.

Sofia gave Alith a tap on the back. “That level 349 dwarf gave up on the armor so it wouldn’t be easy. Oh, right, wasn’t there a key he left with the message.”

“I still have it, small stone key, look.”

Who knows what this might be for…

Sofia went on to scout the three other sides of the pyramid with the graveyard just in case, but the only places the skeletons could enter through were the main entrance and the escape hole Sofia and Alith had made before.

The group contemplated on a way to enter the pyramid and steal the armor that would be safe like sending a swarm of undead rats inside to map out the place and then digging straight into the place the armor was from the outside. But there were always the problems of the primus resin blocking teleportation and going through walls, as well as the demons’ presence. Then, Ihuarah said something unexpected.

“I think I have an idea. But, it is risky. And lady Sofia will have to go alone.”

“What? How would that help? I’m the only one who can use the compass,” Alith retorted.

Ihuarah crossed his arms, he sounded confident, “Compass or not, what you seek is in there, is it not? Then she will find it.”

Alith kept arguing, she was still against the idea, but Sofia interrupted her.

“I’ll do it. Tell me how.”

“Grandiose! First of all, I require a few ingredients…”

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