Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 810 - Horizontal abyss

The tunnel was abuzz with the vibration of the giant insect wings. Each the size of an ogre, they flew over the group’s small bone bunker. Since all the bone had to be sourced from her armor directly, Sofia had only gotten time to build a small cube with no two doors on opposite sides and no windows. The [Blessing of permanent frame] made the cube quite sturdy, but it wouldn’t stop monsters of a filter above the group’s.

They all stood ready inside of the cube, dead silent. The rumbling of the big insects' wings came closer, and with the light noise of six chitinous legs touching bone, a ‘mosquito’ landed on top of the cube.

A loud tap echoed from above. The insect was trying to pierce through the bone. It banged against the bone a few more times, but the structure held. It moved around on top of the cube for a few seconds, and flew back up.

Close… If it was just a bit stronger…

Still, we should be able to fight those if they’re all that strong. But the range limitation we currently have could be an issue.

From the strange sounds coming from outside, it seemed the big mosquitoes were actually feeding on the crystals. For a few hours, the tunnel sounded like it had become a full blown mining operation. Curious insects checked the bone cube a few more times, but none of them managed to even crack the blessed bones.

The insects eventually left, indicating it was probably ‘day’ again. The group left the safety of their shelter, and started going deeper into the tunnel again. There were almost no traces left of the mosquito swarm, only a few holes in the crystals here and there that Sofia could now link to them.

Crystal-sucking mosquitoes. Were they actually trying to feed on the bone cube instead of trying to get in?

“Let’s up the pace,” Sonia said, “It looks like there are more crystals the deeper we go, best to run through as fast as we can. We can probably fight off the insects if need be.”

“Agreed. Should we fly?”

“It’s rarely a good idea, but in such a closed environment it might be fine, still, try to stay close to the ground,” Sonia advised.

“Noted. I’ll take the lead since I see the furthest, everyone after me. If someone notices anything, stop instantly, I'll notice and stop everyone else."

Like that the group started flying down the tunnel. Despite the ground being a perfectly flat surface ever since they entered, the slope got steeper the further they went. Now that they flew fast, it was almost to the point where Sofia could feel the change. The tunnel was not actually sloped, gravity was just getting wonky. When Sofia noticed another safe zone with few crystals to stop in and heal up, the tunnel was already at an angle steeper than most staircases. Pareth made his sword of light as big as he could and stabbed it into the ground at an angle as flat ground for everyone to stand on.

“At this rate we’ll be flying straight down soon if we want to keep going,” Sofia said, looking down the tunnel but not seeing much of anything.

“Sure is looking that way. I’m also starting to notice it being harder to fly, is it just me?”

“Something is resist,” Pestle chimed in, “Is pull, fly hard, think need fall later.”

“Hmmhmm, we aren’t actually going down, by the way. I suspect gravity magic is pulling us ‘down’ which makes it look that way,” Sofia explained, sharing her findings.

“Interesting, think the dragon skeleton can counteract that?” Sonia asked.

“Let’s find out. It’s just three quarters of my mana…”

Dragon Crowie appeared in the tunnel, barely fitting in the space, and almost tumbling down the tunnel, before shrinking down as much as he could until he was about the size of a horse, and flying up to the group.

“Can you do anything about the strange gravity here?” Sofia asked him.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

With a low caw, Crowie focused and cast a spell. Immediately, gravity shifted a little bit, and the tunnel felt less sloped, but it was only a slight improvement, and more critically, it only reached up to two meters out from Crowie’s mana core.

“It’s not nothing, but you can turn that off for now.”

“Could be a real advantage in a fight,” Sonia commented, “Night is still quite a while away, let’s keep going.”

The group continued flying down for about an hour, until the slope felt so steep they were almost going straight down. Again Pareth slammed his sword into the wall for everyone to stand on.

Sonia landed on the blade with a heavy breath, “Man, I’m spent. Any longer and I was going to fall.”

Sofia agreed, “It’s getting really hard to fly even with my passive skill effects, we can breathe for a bit but this is not a good place to stop.”

Sonia nodded along as she steadied her breathing, the deeper they went into the tunnel the more crystals there were around draining their health, now they even grew directly on the tunnel walls instead of the side-tunnels. In fact the crystals here were starting to get so big that there were no mosquito holes in them, as they were probably too sturdy for the monsters to stab through.

Just as Sofia was about to ask if Sonia was ready to go, watching her own health trickle down toward fifty percent, a sudden shockwave came from below. Instead of pushing the group away, it pulled them in. The pull was so strong the stone Pareth’s sword was stuck in shattered, and the group fell.

Only Sofia was left behind on her knees, as she had been standing on thin air this entire time.

Shit!

With not a second to lose, she plunged down.

She couldn’t control her fall at all, but Crowie came to her rescue. He could still steer his fall somewhat, she rode on his back, and together they gathered the others, Crowie managing the fall and Sofia catching their teammates. Crowie grew bigger to accommodate for everyone, and the uncontrolled fall turned into a dragon ride down into the depths of the forbidden layer.

There was no turning back now.

The crystals grew larger and larger as they fell, everyone’s health starting to drop down to dangerous levels, until, almost at death’s door, Sofia finally saw the ground. She half expected the open maws of a gigantic creature to be waiting for them, but instead saw a giant cube down under. The cube was what they were falling toward.

I HAVE TO BREAK THE FALL! Sofia yelled internally. The strange gravity pulled on the group so strongly, there was no telling just how fast they were falling, the impact could be deadly. Standing up on Crowie’s back, she plunged down in front of him.

Sofia fell toward the cube head-first.

I can’t mess up this timing!

Three, two–

REJECTION!

As she hit the strange floating cube head first, Sofia used [Mockery of the divine] behind her to push the others back up.

Concussed and in pain, Sofia survived the fall with a sliver of health, the force of the impact blasting away everything else that had been on top of the cube: moss, shrubs, and numerous dead giant mosquitos crushed to a paste.

The others landed softly after her, the divine power having perfectly negated the cube’s gravity for just long enough to counteract the fall..

Thankfully, the cube was floating in a perfectly empty space, as far as Sofia could see, at least, so there were no more crystals around, and her health shot back up in a matter of seconds.

“Are you good?” Sonia asked, helping Sofia up with Pareth, “Nice save.”

“I almost screwed it because of the two meter range limitation,” Sofia said, opening her visor and getting a hand inside to rub the sore top of her head.

I didn’t even know I could break my horns like this, fucking hurts!

“This cube is the source of the gravity,” Sonia observed, crouching down, scratching through a layer of roots and dirt, she revealed the actual form of the cube itself, a of blue-colored metal covered in softly glowing pink orichalcum lines.

“Dark epoch?” Sofia asked.

“Could be but I don’t think so. I’ve already seen this blue metal outside of Dark Epoch ruins, but the inlays are always golden alloys, never Orichalcum like this.”

“Good for us, then. No immediate danger either, it looks like the tunnel’s insects don’t survive the fall,” Sofia commented. She walked some fifty meters to the border of the cube and looked over the edge to the other sides, which were still littered with dead mosquitos and other strange giant insects all crushed to bits by the gravity. Getting a bit too close to the edge, she felt her gravity flip, and she hastily stepped forward to avoid falling, ending up on the side of the cube, which from her perspective now felt like the actual ground.

“Mana is move inside!” Pestle cried out, “Cube is live! Is danger!”