Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 834 - What a third specialization is like

“Siege tactics aren’t gonna work!” Sonia called out, already firing an arrow through the holes in the bone cage the group was in.

“I know! Use your soul damage protection!” Sofia warned her.

Since currently everything, with the exception of space magic, worked properly, Sofia was not going to hold back. A cold and harsh melody echoed through the night, drowning out the alarm bells and the cries of the Fublins. Her mana crashed as she used the melody of winter, and without ceremony, she dug her mana heart out of her own chest. With the protections she had, she could not kill herself in a single attack, and had to crush the stone containing her mana twice before it let her die.

A wave of dissonance spread through the spiritual realm, shattering the soul of the Fublins. Even with a spiritstone, making them more resilient to it, no Fublin under level 300 could survive such an attack. Thousands of creatures howled in pain as their souls were torn to shreds.

Sofia deactivated the melody as she revived three seconds later, her mana instantly filling back up from all the leftovers absorbed by [Heat Death]. Only Pareth was left with her in the now reformed bone cube, protecting her resurrection point, while the others had left to fight. The previously noisy castle had suddenly plunged into almost complete silence.

At the same time, faint sounds of clanking bones and torn flesh could be heard. In moments, the nasty noises of skin ripping and blood gushing came from every direction.

Sofia looked up at Pareth. Let’s join the fun.

Her aura carved a hole through the bone cube, and the two rushed out. It was complete chaos outside. Wild plants were starting to invade the castle grounds from the walls that the previous thunderstorm spell had struck, while Sonia, a tall bone dragon and a Templar-fused Bookie fought against three oversized Fublins amidst a sea of wriggling corpses.

Sofia, taking a few steps up in the air, could feel the bones rising, thousands of skeletal thralls. Immediately she partitioned a hundred of the closest ones, giving them the order to hold off the plants from invading the castle. The other ones received a much simpler command: Use [Bone Arsenal] and fight!

As Pareth left her behind to join the others, the corpses and rising skeletons everywhere suddenly started shining with an eerie glow.

It was like someone had paused the battle, even the three madly fighting giant Fublins showed a moment of surprise and hurriedly retreated toward a deeper part of the castle, the two mages among them casting a joint magic barrier.

But it was not an attack, it was a rare effect. The remaining intact corpses of nearby dead Fublins exploded in bursts of flesh as the bones were forcefully liberated, and all bones from every direction flew toward the castle’s courtyard, as if attracted by an irresistible invisible force.

Sofia even fumbled the Archangel’s bolt she had started channeling, entranced by the sight.

Piles of bones quickly formed and rose, merging and sticking together, rapidly forming into a singular pillar riddled with skulls. The pillar grew and grew, slowly morphing into a new shape, its base split into thick legs, two arms separated from the top as a ferocious skull formed at the very top. In a matter of seconds, there was not a single Fublin skeleton left anywhere else, they had all contributed to this new being. Towering above even the tallest roof of the castle, the bone Colossus slowly surveilled its environment.

The three Fublin leaders were enraged at the sight. They were two three-meters tall mages holding strange scepters, and one even bigger armored individual standing in front of them, brandishing a huge mithril hammer.

In a flash, the battle resumed. A volley of arrows crashed into the Fublins’ magical barrier, while the Fublin mages were visibly stacking buffs on their warrior, envelopping him in a myriad of colorful glows.

Sofia gave her skeletons an order. Fall back.

Then she looked at the gigantic colossus.

Do it.

The colossus’ hands rose and joined above its skull. It moved slowly, like a tall mountain, and after a painfully long windup, its two gigantic fists came falling down on the Fublin trio.

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The Fublin warrior jumped out of the barrier at the last second, its hammer ready to meet the colossus’ balled fists.

Pareth’s chains of light shot up from the ground before it could go too high, grabbing the head of the mithril hammer and pulling it back down. At the same time, one of the Fublin mages activated a spell, teleporting himself and his two allies away, breaking the chains. The Colossus’ fists finally slammed down, shattering the remaining barrier and an entire side of the castle.

While Pareth and the others were already pursuing the three Fublins, Sofia felt a strange ripple behind her. She did not move, but her demon vision showed her exactly what it was anyway, there was a fourth survivng Fublin, smaller and covered in pitch black fur, who had just teleported behind her.

Sofia intended to stop it with her aura, but to her surprise, she was too slow, and the aura failed to properly grasp the enemy’s bones. Its long black-bladed curved dagger slid directly into her back, effortlessly piercing her bone armor.

A demon-tail strike slapped the Fublin and his dagger away, Sofia feeling a cold substance spread through her flesh. The dagger was poisoned, but the philosopher’s stone completely negated any effect it might have, leaving only a mildly cool sensation from the contact of the liquid.

Sofia did not move from her spot or even turn her head, she followed the others’ fight intently, commanding the colossus. For the assassin, it had failed to really harm her even with a successful ambush, so she simply summoned the five large Destroyer skulls of the Skull Choir to deal with it. Channeling a piercing bolt over her staff, she waited for an opportunity.

The opportunity did not take long to come. The two Fublin mages stopped moving around and flinging weak spells, one cast a new barrier while mana gathered around the other’s staff. The warrior tried to join them, but was pinned down by Pareth, Crowie and Bookie, unable to easily move out of their encirclement.

A strange purple streak started appearing in the air above the slow-moving colossus’ skull.

Sofia adjusted her aim, glancing at Sonia.

Sonia released a Mithrium arrow.

The magical barrier instantly burst. It still deviated the arrow, which pierced an enormous hole through an entire side of the castle, decimating the overgrown plant life for hundreds of meters beyond it.

Just when the barrier burst, three attacks were released at once, the Fublins’s artillery magic activated, Sofia’s bolt launched, and an invisible fairy rushed in.

The artillery Fublin mage’s head was vaporized by the piercing bolt, and its limping body was immediately riddled with arrows, exploding inside it. That was one Fublin leader down. The other mage managed to teleport away, only losing an arm to Pestle’s surprise attack. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Simultaneously, the artillery magic still went off, a torrential flow of purple goo pouring down on the colossus, melting its bones and everything it touched into colorful sludge.

How can they still use space magic so freely?

Sofia, from her vintage point, relayed the arrival position of the teleporting mage to Pestle, bitterly biting her lip at the sight of the melting colossus. It was dying faster than her aura could heal it, and there really wasn’t anything she could do to get rid of the countless liters of purple goo that slowly flowed through the entire castle, melting everything. Seeing this, she could only pray that whatever relic Sonia was looking for wasn’t anywhere nearby, because even the normally magic resistant mithril armor the dead Fublins were wearing showed no resistance to this disturbing magic’s corrosive power.

Sonia flew up, intending to follow the remaining mage with Pestle, while Sofia could finally turn her attention back to the Assassins that kept trying to get to her through the Skull choir.

To its credit, it had managed to reach her a second time when she was distracted releasing her piercing bolt, but it had made the mistake of striking her neck, not even leaving a dent in the mithrium helmet’s gorget before the destroyer skulls chased it off.

She purposely controlled the choir to give the assassin a small opening.

In an instant, the Fublins’ black dagger made contact with her back again, striking precisely where her mana heart would have been, were it not for her helmet passively relocating it to her head.

Her tail, wings and armor moved together, latching onto and swallowing the Fublin’s dagger-holding arm, then its entire body in an instant. Stuck between two layers of bones, whatever protected the Fublin from Sofia’s aura couldn’t resist it anymore. It was fully immobilized and imprisoned in a coffin of bones stuck to Sofia’s back.

For an instant, she considered letting it live.

After all, they had only attacked the Fublins because there was a good chance they possessed the lost epoch relic, and would not happily let them search through their possessions no matter what they tried.

But all things considered, this was an assassin class monster over level 300, and the grudge it would bear toward the group now wasn’t something that could be easily resolved. Controlling the Fublins’s spine to grab and spew its Spiritstone out of its body, she gave it a quick and mostly painless death.

In other parts of the crumbling castle, Pareth smashed the Fublin warrior’s head in with the Phoenix Ire, ending its life, while the last Fublin survivor madly teleported away from Pestle, only to get struck by magical arrows every time he reappeared somewhere new. The last mage did not last long.

And now… We have to hope this purple goo disappears sooner rather than later.