Saintess Summons Skeletons

The warriors were all ready, and the participants were made to sit in a large amphitheater. After Mid gave one last short speech, explaining the simple rules of the fights, where the first warrior to die or leave the arena would lose, the craftsmen showdown began in earnest.

The amphitheater was large enough for several fights to happen at once, but Alith couldn’t bring herself to give a shit about the other fights, only eagerly waiting for her zombie to step up.

Then finally came its first round, against another zombie from a random fake.

“She’s against an armorsmith, it looks like,” Saria idly commented, munching on some snacks she had gotten from the common rooms.

The zombie in front of Alith’s held no weapon, but was covered from head to toe in spiky mithril armor.

“This is an instant loss against ranged weapons, isn’t it?” Sofia noted, “Then again I guess we might not see many of those. I think I saw one dwarf sculpting a shortbow during the preparation phase, but most people seemed to be going for blunt weapons.”

“It’s the most versatile after all,” Saria said, “Although I supposed a bladed weapon still wouldn’t do too bad even against the clay golems.”

“Too bad for that zombie anyway, I doubt the armor will protect against whatever Alith prepared.”

“D’you really have no idea what any of the things she made were?”

Sofia shrugged. “She’s the alchemist, I just leg.”

Saria chuckled, “Fair enough sis, fair enough…”

“LEG! WHERE LEG?!”

“Hah, look who you just woke up.”

Mid gave the go for the current five matches, and while the other four duels started quite noisily, the arena with the two zombies was quite calm. The armored zombie had his guard up, slowly circling around Alith’s, who just stood there like a dead tree, staring back at the other without blinking.

After a few seconds, the armored zombie charged with heavy footsteps. Alith’s zombie welcomed it with open arms.

The armored zombie collided heavily with the other, but was stopped cleanly as if it had hit a rock wall. Alith’s zombie was simply too heavy, having downed a deadly amount of [Iron skin] potion. Of course it was an undead so the minor inconveniences from this overconsumption like petrified lungs, and kidneys barely matter. To add insult to injury, the mithril spikes of the armor failed to even pierce the rags Alith’s zombie was wearing. His arms closed around the armored zombie’s neck in a tight embrace. By some miracle, all the potion vials strapped to his chest had survived the initial impact but as the armored zombie struggled to free itself, some shattered. The colorful liquids splashed against its armored chest, and fell to the ground at his feet mixing together into a fuming brown puddle.

The reaction was fast as all the potions mixed, the liquid bubbled as if spontaneously boiling, and heavy plumes of brown smoke quickly envelopped both zombies, fully hiding them from view.

It took a good twenty seconds for the smoke to dissipate enough to give everyone a clear view. Alith’s zombie had not moved an inch. It opened its arms, letting the spiked mithrill chestplate and helmet fall with a wet thud on what looked like a large steaming pile of feces with bits of green mithril spikes and yellowed bones poking out.

“It’s nice, yes? Isn’t it so nice? We worked together on this one,” Zerei told the other demons in the room.

“Huuuu… Was your thing not rituals and curses? How would you end up doing alchemy?” Ohoro asked back.

“Because she asked, yes! It’s made to copy the effects of one of my rituals.”

“It looks disgusting,” insomnia’s apostle commented with a puckered nose, slowly bringing the cookie she was holding away from her mouth.

The apostle of filth, on the other hand, nodded in approval, his semi-liquid body jiggling and producing disturbing sloshing noises. “Impressive work. Delightful.”

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“Eww…”

The competition continued, and Alith’s zombie faced human soldier warrior after human soldier, most of them falling to similar tricks, or getting blown to bits by a thrown handful of sticky explosive candy. It clearly still had some tricks up its sleeve, but just never had to use them, only ever getting injured once by a spear-wielding soldier that managed to pierce its throat, before the zombie grabbed the spear with one hand and slapped his entire strap of vials against the soldier’s face with the other.

Without much trouble, Alith made it to the semi-finals, and Mid announced the next matchups.

“And now, the two semi-finals will take place. In the north arena, Zuluk Amok’ok Rayra’s golem against… Morom-Et Thu’ul Nak’s Zombie! A rare confrontation between allied families! And on the other side, we have Alith’s zombie against Ora’s soldier, the two warriors who have endured the least amount of damage throughout the entire event so far, suffering a single clean hit each in eight rounds! Time to place your bets!”

Alith nervously tapped her foot against the ground as she watched her zombie clamber up to his side of the arena. She had watched the other top competitors fight during the previous rounds, and she had to admit that the armor and weapons the Odon had forged in the short span of two hours were impressive not only in regular craftsmanship but also in their enchanting. Though the enchantments themselves were pretty basic, enchanting every single piece of armor and weaponry in such a short time was no small feat, and added up to a very sizable power increase.

If that mithrium sword lands a single clean hit… There’s a lot my guy hasn’t used yet… What if he doesn’t actually understand how to combine the candy?!

Surely not… It’s just that he never needed to use them… I hope.

And the potions too… He’s only used the melting pot mix so far…

Get your fingers out of your ass, man! I didn’t make all those modular reagents for you to lose to a lame-ass sword!

As if feeling Alith’s nervousness, her zombie looked a bit livelier than usual as it stood to face the heavily armored soldier.

Unlike with the enemies before, he actually prepared before the duel. He reached into his pouch of rock candy grabbing a few sap-colored chunks, and held one of his potion vials directly in his left hand. Since the soldier’s sword was already drawn due to a lack of a scabbard, such preparations were fair game.

The warriors observed each other, and as silence fell in the amphitheater, Mid’s magic fireworks that he had no doubt stolen from Love’s spellbook signaled the beginning of the semi-finals.

For the first time the duel looked like a proper high-level battle. The soldier lunged straight at the zombie, faster than all his counterparts before despite his heavy-looking crude plate armor. Heavily slowed by the Iron skin potions Alith had forced down his throat, the zombie could hardly dodge such a strike. He hurled a potion vial at the soldier, forcing it to avoid it with a sidestep to his left, only to be struck by the shotgun-like blast of sap-colored ‘self-propelled’ candy the zombie had thrown right after, predicting the side-step.

Not enough! Use something else! The neurotoxin!

The soldier still managed to protect his vitals with his sword at the last second, while most of the candy ended up embedded into the armor. Nevertheless, it barely lost any momentum from the attack, rushing back into the offensive and closing the distance in the blink of an eye, his sword ready for a strike.

The zombie hurriedly threw two potion vials at his own feet. The soldier had to jump back mid-strike to avoid the splash, the tip of his sword still leaving a deep laceration in the zombie’s right arm, cutting straight through his reinforced rags and iron skin.

Smokescreen?!

The combination of potions the zombie had just used resulted in a thick, but harmless fog, which was something Alith had prepared for him to be able to deal with archers and the like.

What are you trying to do?!

As expected, noticing the non-magic nature of the fog, the soldier approached again and dispersed it with a single slash of his sword, only a thin veil of smoke still lingering above the ground.

Surprisingly, the zombie was nowhere to be seen.

What the– DID YOU EAT THE FUCKING REFRACTIC CANDY?!

It’s not for eating ,you Pestler! You’re really gonna die!!!

The soldier retreated while slashed the air around him with his sword, on the lookout for the invisible enemy, but his sword did not catch anything but air.

Colorful rock candy and the zombies’s remaining potions fell from the sky one by one, shattering aimlessly in random spots with the constant sound of breaking glass, some outside of the arena. The panicked soldier still had to run around to avoid the falling potions and candy, until one of his steps produced a loud crunch.

Alith understood. Not a single one of all the falling candy had exploded. When he ate the refractic orchid candy, the zombie had spilled all of the explosive candy on the ground, fully obscured by the fog.

The soldier was engulfed in a bright white explosion and dying on the spot, its organs shredded inside of his armor, he collapsed to the ground.

“And the winner going to the final is Alith’s potion-wielding zombie!” Mid loudly announced, hovering above the arena, right as a chunk of rotten flesh loudly fell on his head, blood dripping on his face.

The zombie had reappeared in the arena, and chunks of his body disappeared one by one, as he stumbled forward, randomly teleported around the amphitheater, like pieces of a broken mirror being scattered around.

This is why you don’t eat it…