Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 728 - GRAND FINALE: Sofia Vs [REDACTED] - Part 1

“Ack!” Pestle cried out as she fell into the water. The magic holding the group afloat had disappeared with Jin, and with no ambient mana whatsoever, Pestle couldn’t fly.

Sofia’s aura fished her out of the sea. “Wait in the hall for now, we’ll find a way to get you some earth leg, don’t worry.”

“Leg!”

Pestle disappeared into the painted halls. Meanwhile, Bookie was only floating because he held onto Sofia’s leg, and Pareth was using his air-steps, though they would not last long. “Everyone get inside for now, until I find land at least,” Sofia ordered.

With the skeletons out of the way, Sofia observed her surroundings, standing on the air above the ocean.

Looks like evening but it could be early morning too, hard to tell… Blue sky… My mana regen and Bookie’s blessing both work despite this not being the correct sun, just like during most of the trial, that is nice. The divine essences seem to work as well… I assume they wouldn’t on the real earth considering how far it is from Veliadren.

So really the only environmental issue is the lack of mana. Gravity feels fine…

Sofia bent over to scoop some sea water in her hands, tasting it with the tip of her tongue.

Definitely just salt water. Same as us.

Sofia looked up again. One sun, one moon. Huh their moon is quite small. Or is it just further away? Looks quite similar beyond that, though. It looks like there’s stuff on it… But I can’t quite tell even with the zoom. Ah, bones?

Sofia extended her hand, and a small fish surged from the depths to land into her palm.

Since there’s no mana anywhere I have to use my own mana for my aura to work… This is a bit bad.

She observed the fish. It looked like a fish, one she had never seen before, but nothing special.

“Not the tiniest speck of mana in there either… But my aura still reacts as long as my mana makes contact with the bones… Mana seems to go through it a little easier than a regular animal. Interesting.”

Throwing the choking fish back into the water, Sofia jumped up a few times.

“Oh woah. The horizon is so curved! And the atmosphere so thin! It’s getting slightly black already. Earth is tiny.”

She jumped up a few more times. “I’m around twenty kilometers up now I think? Can’t see many stars still with the sun in the way but there are a few… Wait, this one’s moving… No, most of them are moving, what… These must not be actual stars… And I can’t see land anywhere even from this high up… Hmm…”

Sofia took some time to think above the clouds. “So, we are the alien invaders… Escaping into space likely isn’t an option considering Jin’s final tip, though I wouldn't have done that anyway… Maybe those fake stars are the danger? It would make sense if they have protections in space if the enemy is supposed to come from there. In that sense starting already on the planet might be to my advantage. Also I’m supposed to find Jin, but surely the humans here will also try to find me, if Jin isn’t already sending them my way… I’d better start moving.”

Dropping back down to the sea level, Sofia tapped the book at her hip and grabbed the Saltwater Spinefish’s page. For once her aquatic mount was really going to shine.

Sitting on the back of her big fish skeleton, Sofia tried to remember her conversations with Alith about her world.

So, the sun rises from the east. They have cold regions at the north and south like we do, but here feels pretty hot, so I’m assuming I’m near the center. So I should just follow the sun. It gets me east or west but either way following the centerline is more likely to get me somewhere that wandering into the cold regions.

Alith’s kingdom had the sea to the west I think she said? So chances are I could find it by going east. Let’s go!

Sofia rode on the skeleton’s back for a good twenty minutes before stopping it, in the meantime, she used her extra mana to slowly charge an explosive bolt. By the time the bolt reached twenty five million mana, it started becoming unable to grow, Sofia just couldn’t feed it enough mana fast enough, so she only kept it stable with the mana she invested in it.

The heat of the bolt in her hand was creating a lot of steam so she could not see far anymore, which she found annoying, hence when Sofia sent her mount into the hall and started jumping upwards again. Surely I can see land now.

Ah, what’s that? A boat?

Using her left eye’s zoon, Sofia looked observed the thing she had just found, which looked like a floating hunk of metal.

Oh, it is, huge metal ship. That’s a lot of humans on there. All level one, right? I can’t underestimate them, though, considering the power the Sundial had. No one’s looking my way but they look panicked already, did they find me before I could see them?

Well I’m basically as bright as the sun now with that damn thing I’ve been channeling so it’s not too strange… I’m at war with them now so should I just bolt the boat? Feel like a waste of mana.

Let’s just…

Sofia crouched on the air, tensing her muscles, and jumped.

Like a meteor falling from the sky, she was aimed straight for the slow-moving ship. The humans on board seemed to panic even more so, and any suspicion Sofia might have had that this could possibly not be a war ship crumbled, as it opened fire. A volley of then metallic sticks flying up into the sky.

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What are these now?

Wait, can I?

[Anti-aircraft missile]: A technological flying weapon, follows targets through unknown means. Meant to strike down aerial targets.

Interesting. Let’s see what they’re worth.

Sofia waited until she was in range as she fell, and when she could, she stored half of the missiles in her eye, plucking them out of the sky, before summoning them one by one in front of the remaining five. It created a beautiful series of explosions that Sofia flew right through on her way down.

Doubt that would damage me.

Another volley was fired at Sofia as she fell, while down below the humans seemed busy getting people to climb into large triangular vessels while loud sirens blared.

Then let’s see how well they follow.

Sofia just let herself fall, watching the new volley of missiles collapse onto her, predicting where she was going to fall.

That’s some impressive tracking for a projectile without mana. Sofia thought as they crashed into her. Neither the impact not the explosions were strong enough to pierce through her armor. Some humans jumped off of the ship as she drew closer, and finally, she hit the deck with a bang.

She barely felt herself pierce through several layers of steel before she found herself swimming in boiling sea water.

Getting the fish mount of of the halls to bring her back up to the surface, Sofia couldn’t help but feel a bit surprised that the ship had opposed so little resistance.

Surely this extra difficult grand finale can’t be this easy?

Back to the surface, Sofia watched the ship she had pierced through start to sink. People screamed in a language she had never heard, they were definitely low level human, seeing how helpless they all were. Sofia almost felt bad for them, but she had no time to waste on them, she had spotted land while she was up in the sky, so she ordered her fish skeleton to quickly start swimming.

A noise came from above, Sofia looked up, seeing one of the triangular vessels similar to the ones on the ship, flying in the sky.

Fast. Maybe about my speed at level 200?

This thing… Those are more missiles strapped at the bottom. Doesn’t look like it’s attacking for now.

As Sofia made her way to the shore, the flyer kept hanging out in the sky behind her.

Is it following me? Can’t have that.

A piercing bolt appeared in Sofia’s left hand.

Here’s my own anti aircraft, enjoy.

The low charge piercing bolt flew straight for the aircraft, hitting the middle of its left wing. Get full chapters from NoveI~Fire.net

It’s still flying?!

Sofia wanted to try identifying the aircraft but it was too far away, with a frown she prepared another bolt, standing up on the back of her skeleton fish. She aimed at where she knew the person controlling the aircraft was seated, since it was the same design she had seen on the ship. The aircraft was turning around after the first hit, but Sofia decided not to let it get away. The second bolt hit its target, and the aircraft immediately started to fly erratically.

Dead. Alright.

Just a minute later, Sofia finally made it to the shore.

Is that a village? Looks like ruins. Desertic area… Still no good target for that bolt… How long do I need to keep this in hand, it’s getting really hot.

Once again Sofia jumped up a few time to get a better view.

Oh there’s a port city that way! More ships like the one I just sunk. Alright, good enough. I should be far enough, I hope? If the first one didn’t get the human armies after me, this definitely will.

Since searching through an entire planet was a bit of a stretch, Sofia thought that provoking earth into a full on assault was probably the best way to draw out generals who might know where the ‘supreme commander’ is hiding. She was going to have to go through it sooner or later if she wanted to kill him, so she saw no reason to wait. Taking a second to ensure proper aim, Sofia released her explosive bolt, targeting the large coastal city.

How many people lived there? It was hard to tell, Sofia thought this looked big enough to be a capital city, so she guessed maybe fifty thousand.

The bolt was too fast for her to see it fly. One second it was in her hand, the next there was a flash of light so intense it blinded her even after she closed her eyes.

The blue fireball engulfed the entire city.

A tv played, its sound loud in the sanitized hospital room.

‘Draw your last pathetic card so I can end this, Yugi!’

‘My grandpa’s deck has no pathetic cards, Kaiba; but it does contain… THE UNSTOPP-’

The tv suddenly froze.

“Come on! Right now?! It’s the best part!” a young woman complained, grabbing the remote next to her bed. She was about to push a button when the image on the filmscreen changed to a black screen with a text banner roll at the bottom.

‘Due to an emergency, EarlyCenturyTV is temporarily unavailable, we apologize for any inconvenience.’

“What the…”

Suddenly, the tv started blaring with a loud alarm siren that could be heard coming from all the other rooms.

The channel automatically changed to the main national tv, which was broadcasting the same black screen and alarm for a few seconds, until finally the ear-piercing sound stopped, and and image came back. It showed a stressed-looking man in front of a green screen, that Eve recognised as the country’s most famous news anchor. A black bar with yellow text appeared at the bottom of the screen with him ‘emergency broadcast’.

The news anchor loudly swallowed before reading the words of a prompter in front of him, which was strangely halfway into view.

‘Th- The Carcinans have launched their attack,’ he somberly announced, his voice trembling.

Behind him the green screen lit up, showing a satellite view of a coastal city. The image showed the date and time, the video was from the same day, forty seconds ago.

There was a flash of light, like lightning. And by the time it died down, there was no longer a city to be seen, only a gigantic sphere of blue hellfire.

‘They have st- struck the military city of New-Dakar, of the United African Council. Early reports suggest… No possible survivors. All citizens must report to the closest shelter as soon as possible. Military personnel follow protocol doomsday. Additional instructions will follow in the continuous emergency broadcast… Stay safe.’

The news anchor left the scene, struggling to even walk straight, leaving in view only the continuous feed showing the bone-chilling explosion from space.