Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia punched a frozen Sunless drone, smashing it to pieces.

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 233 - Imprint Intact]’

Before her, two Destroyer skulls from the skull choir were cutting up more drones, as long as it was just two skulls, she could maintain them indefinitely even in this dungeon with no ambient mana.

A dozen more Drones appeared from the fog.

Shit.

“More from my side!” she called out while putting her back to the wall.

Bookie turned around at Sofia’s call and launched a ray of frost with his new glove, completely freezing over the first three Sunless drones on the way and slowing down the ones behind.

They were currently very deep in the maze-like section of the dungeon, and the drones came as an almost continuous flow from all directions. Currently they were at a T shaped junction, with the Mimic Skeleton handling the drones from the back, Pareth from the left, and Sofia from the right. Bookie was standing in the middle giving support with his frost magic glove. They could not afford to stop culling the number of drones for a second. Drones themselves were not all that dangerous, they could not even hurt Sofia as long as she kept [The Impervious] title, but their potential to turn into amalgams was what made them a threat.

The frost rays could prevent that, giving them the time they needed in an emergency.

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 224 - Imprint Intact]’

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 212 - Imprint Intact]’

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 238 - Imprint Intact]’

The Sunless debris were already starting to pile up around them. Until now they had always managed to get the flow of drones to stop for a bit to grab the imprints and move on, but not this time. The more they killed, the more came out of the black fog like an endless stream.

“We can’t stay here, fuck the imprints, let’s go for Pareth’s side!”

Bookie froze the drones on his and Sofia’s side once more to gain some time, and the group all went for the path Pareth was fighting in. The corridor was too narrow for them to all go to the front, so Sofia and Bookie stayed back while the flying skull choir and the tall Mimic moved up to fight alongside Pareth. With its long and thin legs, the Mimic Skeleton was really great at fighting in these tall but narrow corridors, it could easily move around and maneuver through the group to help wherever they needed.

Sofia had realized that the skulls from the choir could still fly despite the dungeon’s restriction, just like she could still make bones levitate with [Bone dominus]. That could likely be useful later, but for now, they struggled to get through the maze.

Now in a single corridor instead of a three way junction, it was easier to handle the flow of drones, and the group managed to start making progress again.

Sofia was busy handling the rear guard when she heard someone start crying behind her.

Her first reflex was to look back at Bookie but he was still fighting alongside her. It was not his voice.

“Homunculus! Rotate!” she shouted as she activated the [Spine of the black Sun].

The Mimic and the skull choir rushed back to handle the back side with Bookie while Sofia ran to Pareth’s position. There, the small form of a humanoid Sunless homunculus walked out of the fog.

Thick vines started growing along the maze walls.

Plant magic?!

The homunculus was behind a large group of almost twenty drones, which Pareth was struggling to dispose of and keep away from each other with a long spear and his [Flying shields of light].

A flash of light from Sofia covered the drones and walls in rot. The plant magic of the homunculus was growing at the same rate the rot consumed it, rendering it completely useless. The homunculus itself had somehow escaped the rot. It dispelled the plant magic, stumbling at it suffered some backlash, and started channeling another spell.

Sofia could feel the mana but she did not see anything. Pareth was still killing the drones between them and the homunculus one by one, but there were still too many blocking the path. Sofia could jump over if she wanted, but she would be surrounded. Even if the drones’ attacks couldn’t harm her, they could still dogpile her until the homunculus finished her off with spells.

The homunculus finished channeling its spell. Sofie felt it coming, she activated [Heat Death]. Seventy thousand points of her own mana flew out and intercepted the invisible projectiles curving over the pack of drones. The attack was dispelled, and harmless fresh air currents displaced by the attack were all that reached Sofia and Pareth.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Was it wind magic? That would explain why I couldn’t see it.

Finally, the channeling of [Spine of the black Sun] was over, the sword-whip materialized on top of Sofia’s scepter, and she swung it while directing the whip past all the drones with [Bone dominus] directly hitting the homunculus in the back line.

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 202 - Imprint Intact]’

‘You have defeated [Sunless Drone - Lv. 223 - Imprint Intact]’

The solar burst killed a few of the closest drones, but the homunculus looked unharmed. It was already preparing its next spell.

Three balls of raging electricity appeared in the air above the homunculus.

Pareth, back!

Sofia stuck to the side to allow Pareth to step back as she dispelled the spine and started casting an angel’s bolt instead, then she took her place in front of him.

Streams of lightning struck out from the homunculus’ magic, destroying even the drones in their path, and hitting Sofia with loud thunderclaps.

The lightning storm lasted for a good five seconds, the lightning resistance that casting angel’s bolt offered coupled with [The Impervious] completely negated the damage, although Sofia couldn’t move under the constant assault. She kept channeling her bolt through the storm.

Finally the balls of electricity ran out of juice, and the lightning died down. Already, the homunculus started channeling something else, but by now, Sofia’s bolt had grown enough.

My turn!

It was a thirty thousand mana explosive bolt. Not the most powerful by a long shot, but Sofia knew enough about the power of explosions in enclosed spaces.

The bolt flew straight at the creature, hit an invisible magic shield that was surrounding the homunculus, and exploded.

Sofia brandished her shield.

It didn’t matter if she was in the explosion radius, that kind of bolt couldn’t hurt her, she was more worried about Bookie and his Mimic in the back, so she did her best to reduce what would reach them.

The heat and shockwave washed over her.

When the light died down, the homunculus was struggling to stand up, his mana shield broken.

With nothing in the way anymore, Sofia rushed forward and slammed the creature with her scepter, sending sparks of electricity flying. The creature struck back but its stretchy black arms rebounded against her [Bone dominus]-blessed armor.

The scepter came down again and again until it landed a solid hit on the homunculus’ core.

‘You have defeated [Sunless homunculus - Lv. 278 - Imprint intact]’

Sofia couldn’t even celebrate her victory, as more drones stepped out of the fog, Pareth yanked Sofia back by the wings and took her place, his saber cutting the drones to pieces.

Three hours of constant fighting later, and after mapping out almost the entire place, they found the exit of the maze: a hole in the ceiling in a random dead end.

As she climbed out of the hole into a new room of the dungeon, Sofia immediately felt a difference in the air, ambient mana.

Finally a resting area? About time…

Pareth helped pull her up, then Bookie, and once they were all there, the hole in the ground disappeared.

Sofia eyed her stats and grumbled.

Health : 73 200 / 85 980

Stamina : 3152 / 21 047

Mana : 38 556 / 417 100

Losing five thousand health to a dumb trap. Seriously…

Despite all the constant fighting, what had eventually bested her was a very simple trap: a big block of stone fell from the ceiling, right on top of her head. The bone armor’s helmet had limited the damage to a broken skull and neck, which she had been able to easily fix with [Bone Dominus] in spite of the no healing restriction of her mana heart, but her health hadn’t climbed back up.

The worst part was, she had felt it coming, but had decided not to move because she had been protecting Pareth from a Sunless homunculus’ freezing ice spears attack. She thought she could shrug the hit off, but it turned out that gravity was still a strong foe.

They had dealt with five homunculi in total and one amalgam, but aside from the trap incident, these battles had all gone well for them.

As the group sat down to rest, a nice and relaxing background music started playing.

“Good going! I didn’t expect you to find the secret exit, you know?”

Sofia took off her helmet before she answered. “Secret exit? What secret exit? The hole? You mean there was a regular exit?”

“Yeah, you missed it, though. You were supposed to go through the paths with the fewer enemies to find it, not the paths with more… But no matter, I’m glad you’re here already. You just skipped the middle third of the dungeon basically, welcome to the end game!”

“Just like that? Music to my ears.”

“Heh, you know, if I had a say in it, the Dungeon would be a single room with the boss and that’s it. What’s the point of putting your strongest fighter at the very end? There’s a reason people normally lock the front door of their house and not the door to their bedroom. Anyway, how’d you like my property until now? There’s some nice challenges to be had, wouldn’t you say?”

“I have plenty of things to say but mainly I would like a word with whoever designed that falling rock trap.”

“Ahah, it’s a good one, isn’t it? Actually has a few kills, believe it or not. Speaking of which, you could’ve climbed the hole it fell through too, that also led here.”

Sofia sighed at the revelation. There had been a good hour of non-stop fighting between the rock incident and now. “At least it’s over. Done with this giant headache of a maze.”

Everelle was silent.

“Hoy? Everelle? You better not be serious.”