Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia and Sen both attacked, clashing near the center of the room. Sen was much faster. With a single blade, he blocked and deviated both of Sofia’s bolts, and slashed at her chest with the other.

She tried to break his bones with her aura, but despite getting the correct feedback, it seemed to do nothing to him, so she let herself get hit. Pareth appeared behind Sen as a struck. Sen stopped his hit early his sword barely reaching Sofia’s ribs, and spun around to slash at Pareth’s raised arms from below.

Pestle appeared to his right side, and that left him only one way to escape.

A released piercing bolt left a hole through Sen’s chest as he moved like Sofia predicted to avoid the encirclement. A spectral copy of the bolt shot right back at her, narrowly blocked by Pareth swinging his sword in the way, while Pestle chased after Sen, who moved around the room so fast it seemed like he was teleporting, leaving a trail of blue light behind him.

Copies!

When Sen stopped running, there were three of him, their attacks concentrated on Pareth from three different side.

Pestle tackled one of the copies mid air, leaving the other two for Pareth and Sofia to deal with, but instead of truly attacking Pareth, they changed course to all collapse on Pestle. Pareth managed to stop one with a well-time shield hit, but the other one would surely kill Pestle if he managed to hit her while she was killing the third copy.

Sofia’s only recourse was to [Regret] into his path, but Sen seemed to have predicted that, as he stopped right in front of where Sofia appeared, his sword pointed at her. The ghostly flame sword left his hand, pierced straight through Sofia’s chest, and hit the two fighting behind her, exploding in a very small but powerful bubble of blue magic. Sofia instantly lost her link to Pestle. The bubble whirled for an instant before collapsing onto itself and disappearing, leaving nothing behind.

He got us. Sofia thought as she took the opportunity to slice the neck of the copy in front of her with her dagger.

This Sen jumped back as his head was cut off and disappeared in a mist of blue mana, the headless body turned to attack Pareth with the other, while a ghostly hand struck at Sofia with a copy of her dagger.

Again, Sofia let herself get hit, carefully managing where the dagger sliced her to lose a lot of health while not cutting through any important muscle. I need more speed. I can’t believe these attacks don’t get him any Judgement.

Finally, Pareth’s sanctified grounds were ready and illuminated the room, giving Sofia the much needed stat boost she had been trying to get through [Crystallized suffering].

Even then, Pareth could hardly survive the two on one while taking double damage; despite the Sovereign’s healing, his health was quickly going down. The prior fights had used a lot of his cooldowns and mana, so he was having a tough time keeping up with the copies’ speed despite having vastly superior strength.

And Sofia had no opportunity to help him. Another Sen had just appeared behind her out of nowhere, she barely managed to [Heat Death] away his first attack without even seeing what it was as she turned around, unleashing her second bolt.

The real one!

Sen dodged the bolt aimed at his head simply by tilting it to the side, and jumped back as Sofia launched herself toward him.

Pulling on his bones as much as she could, she slowed him down enough to be able to [Regret] right next to him.

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Sen’s two swords sliced her into pieces, but she cared little about that, her mana heart hidden inside of her dragon scale armguard, she methodically detonated every bone in his body.

A copy of Sen appeared next to him, and all of his injuries seemed to be transmitted to it. The copy fell limp of the floor, its bones destroyed, while the real Sen destroyed Sofia’s body enough that it was obvious where the mana heart was. With only 4% of her health left, Sofia no longer even had a head to see anything anymore outside of her mana senses, but she felt the time was right. As Sen lined up his sword to strike inside of the armguard, the skeletal chimera appeared right behind him, ready to pounce. Somehow he managed to jump up out of the way, kicking away the biting snake tail of the skeleton at the same time.

Now.

Pareth teleported to Sofia, leaving the two Sen copies behind. With Sen in the air, Pareth’s sword sliced at him, while the chimera’s goat head unleashed a fireball, and Sofia kept all of his bones in place instead of destroying them.

Sen’s body was split in half and engulfed in the ball of flames.

Pareth then saw a spectral copy of his own sword crashing down on him. He barely managed to use his shield to block it, but the two fake Sens he had left behind attacked at the same time. Sofia felt them coming, but them having no real bones and her mana being quite low, she could do little besides warning him. Pareth’s four shields of light appeared behind him at the last second. They stopped the headless copy’s blow, but the other one’s sword shot right through the broken shields, through Pareth’s armor, and pierced his mana heart. The relocation hadn’t been fast enough to avoid the blow.

‘The hero : ‘Pareth’ has succumbed.’

The system notification was quite bad for Sofia’s mental state, but she stayed focused, monitoring the real Sen inside of the explosion while the Chimera had taken Pareth’s place in holding back the copies.

I can’t find his fucking mana heart! Sofia cursed internally as she broke all of his bones again. Despite that, Sen stayed perfectly healthy and whole, if still pinned in the air by the aura, while more mana copies appeared around the room to take the damage for him.

What should have been a brilliant duel had devolved into two fighters on the brink of death holding each other down while their summons fought. The Chimera struggled against the two copies, but their last all out-assault again Pareth had drained enough of their mana that they were manageable.

I can’t kill myself now… Giving him three seconds is too much…

Unable to move, Sen tried to send more attack spells Sofia’s way, but this was exactly why she was currently only using her aura. She saved mana to [Heat Death] all of that away, while she kept breaking his entire skeleton, over and over again.

Ah fuck it.

With few options left, Sofia started unloading bones from the painted halls. Tons and tons of bones, flooding the room like a tsunami. The Sen copies tried to fight back against the wave of bones, but they couldn’t, not with the Chimera taking every opportunity to pounce at them. By making it harder for the copies to access her, Sofia also made the Chimera’s task of protecting her easier. It did not take long to flood the entire room.

Sofia kept breaking Sen’s bones. Every time she did, she monitored where the copy taking the damage for him appeared, and she pushed out the bones to fill up this space. She could have tried something else, but this seemed like a good way to apply constant pressure. Every time Sen’s bones would have shattered, another copy of him appeared further and further away in the rooms above. They were ghosts, not pure spirits, so they needed empty space in the physical world to manifest.

Who has more range? My aura or your mana? Let’s see!

Slowly the entire mountain temple started to fill up with bones, until the little pocket of air where the copies and chimera were fighting at a standstill was the last place left Sen’s damage-taking ghosts could appear. With a last push of her aura, Sofia filled that space up, and broke Sen’s skeleton one last time. This entire time, he had been so close to her he could almost reach her, but just like her, he was stuck.

The bones shattered, and the violent injury sending Sen’s mana into disarray, it all but revealed his mana heart’s location to Sofia. The bones all around his body finally had an opportunity to get in, entering through every wound.

In a bone shell, slowly, a dagger had wormed its way through an ocean of bone, from the ground to Sen’s vicinity.

Sofia’s aura opened up a path. Held still by the foreign bones wriggling inside of his body, Sen’s mana heart could not move.

[ROUND 13/13 - WIN]