Chapter 485 - Heaven’s call

In the main hall of the castle, Bookie summoned a single Kidjikkik Guardian. “Do we need to shackle him, Sofia?” Bookie asked, looking up at the tall worm skeleton he had just summoned.

“No need, this one is quite weak, you should know.”

“I know, but curses are a bit scary…”

“Don’t worry about it, just let him do whatever, don’t give any orders, alright? Let's proceed with the test, Pareth, light!”

Pareth summoned a bright shield of light and held it up above his head. Giving him a nod, Sofia used [Aberrant sunlight] for the first time. 

The skill came with very little information but it really felt quite instinctive, Sofia pointed a finger at the skeleton and activated the skill, when she felt the magic formation pull on her mana, she let about one thousand out to begin with.

A small puff of mana left Sofia’s finger like a weak fart of cursed mana, almost invisible to the naked eye, which slowly floated in the direction of the Kidjikkik.

Before it could collide, Sofia ordered the Kidjikkik to sidestep, and the curse pathetically missed, and dispersed after it hit the back wall of the hall.

“Were you able to see it?” Sofia asked.

“I felt the mana move but I didn’t see anything,” Bookie reported, while Pareth held out his right thumb and index close to each other in response.

“You did see it a bit, Pareth? Even with the augmented eye I had a hard time. Well, let’s try with more mana now. The skill doesn’t have any cooldown, it feels like. It’s almost like just a filter to convert my mana to cursed mana,” she explained while she aimed her right index at the Kidjikkik skeleton again. 

It’s quite complex but the cast is still instantaneous, just like Summon Blood. I wonder if I just created another theoretical anomaly.

This time, Sofia fired a packet of ten thousand mana. It was not the same. It fired like a cannonball, quite easily visible even to the naked eye as it flew through the hall, as if she had invoked a ball of translucent-white jumbled noodles and thrown it at the skeleton’s face.

The ball of cursed mana hit the skeleton and, instead of exploding and disappearing like when the first shot hit the wall, the cursed mana was absorbed into the skeleton’s bones entirely like water sucked in by a dry cloth.

Carefully observing with her mana vision, Sofia saw the curse latch onto the Kidjikkik’s mana, and rapidly turn it into cursed mana structures.

It spreads fast!

“I lost control!” Bookie exclaimed, shocked, when the curse had spread to about half of the Kidjikkik’s mana.

The skeleton’s head snapped to a different position, its eye sockets locked onto Pareth’s shield. 

Stop looking. Turn around.

Despite Sofia’s orders, which she could tell reached the skeleton, the skeleton kept looking. Quickly, as the curse spread more, the Kidjikkik shambled forward, taking a few steps toward Pareth with its many legs. All the legs not touching the ground were reaching out for Pareth’s shield. As the curse finally spread to every last bit of the skeleton’s mana, it broke into a sprint, jumping and throwing itself a Pareth’s shield.

CHAINS! Do not touch him! Sofia mentally warned Pareth.

Pareth jumped back and his chains of light shot from the floor, latching tightly onto the airborne skeleton’s spine, and yanking it to the floor. Even bound to the hall’s floor, the Kidjikkik kept struggling like a mindless insect to try to grab Pareth’s shield.

“Bookie, rat! We need to check if it is contagious.”

Bookie nodded and hurriedly summoned a skeleton rat, sending it to bite the Kidjikkik skeleton. The cute skeleton rat gingerly followed its orders, and as it bit down onto one of the Kidjikkik’s legs, as soon as they made contact, the curse started to spread from the Kijikkik’s mana to the rat’s.

The rat’s skull snapped in Pareth’s direction.

Dismissed.

The rat evaporated in the usual puff of mana fog. It seemed the sudden process of vaporizing the summon also cleansed the mana of the curse.

So it spreads by direct contact, but not through spells, good to know. The Kidjikkik’s mana is starting to un-curse itself already, the curse formations are breaking, but the process is a bit slow.

“It looks like it can last for maybe a minute?” Sofia noted as she observed the uncursing rate. “It is nice that the curse is not permanent. It seems pretty potent considering Bookie lost control…”

What if…

Sofia pointed at the Kidjikkik still spasming on the floor, and activated the skill, putting in ten times the amount of mana. With 100 000 mana, the attack was no longer a single shot but a powerful ray of white cursed mana blasting directly into the skeleton. The skeleton’s mana which had started to free itself from the curse was converted back into cursed formation in an instant, and its struggle to free itself from the chains intensified greatly.

Interesting.

Sofia sent another ray of cursed mana at the skeleton. Despite all of the Kidjikkik’s mana being converted, his bones still absorbed more of the curse Sofia sent at it, guzzling the cursed mana like a thirsty Soguva. The skeleton’s squirming intensified yet again, it spasmed and pulled so strongly against the chain that its bones started cracking and falling apart. After a few more seconds of this, it died, its crumbling bones evaporating into a thin mana mist.

Huh huh. This is an attack spell. A gruesome one. Anyone I can pump full of cursed mana…

I wonder if this is a worse fate than the rot.

And does one hinder the other? I feel like the rot will eat the curse with no issue, so it might actually help cure it faster. Not the greatest of synergies but it might open up interesting possibilities…

Well…

Sofia conducted another test on the rat, making sure that the curse would end up disappearing by itself, which it did quite quickly when the initial blast was weak. In fact when Sofia tried sending just a single string of cursed mana worth 10 points of mana to the rat, it failed to even infect it despite being absorbed.

“Then. Considering the skill description… The next step is to try that on myself.”

Pareth buried his main skull’s face in one of his big skeletal hands.

“Hey, aren’t you being a bit too dramatic? This is mostly safe, here we go.”

She did not even have to raise a finger this time, she just activated the skill directly inside of her body, converting about five thousand of her own mana into cursed mana. There was no system warning or notification, Sofia just started to feel an intense need to look in the direction of the shield of light.

Oh, that’s slightly unsettling, I guess.

She tried to look away, but no matter how hard she tried, her eyes just happened to keep turning in Pareth’s direction. She turned her head away, only to feel it start turning back slowly without her being able to really do anything about it. She could see the curse spreading out inside of her body, and quickly starting to convert more of her mana. The cursed mana latched onto her nerves of light, her muscles, her soul, and it forced them to move. To move toward the light.  

Despite her sight being locked in on Pareth’s shield, she could still manage to stand still, and she could still observe her surroundings with her mana sight, but even that started to falter, as her attention kept being distracted by the light. 

She could not even close her eyes if she tried.

Then, when about a quarter of her mana was infected, she started hearing a voice, her voice. Like sweet whispers right into the deepest parts of her ears, like her internal voice decided to stop broadcasting her own thoughts, and instead, started worshiping the light.

The light!

We need… The light!

Oh, NOW this is disturbing COME TO THE LIGHT!

The blissful light! It will be our salva-

Stop!

Sofia ejected all of her mana at once, spreading a thin wave of slightly visible mana through the castle, washing over everything. Free of cursed mana, the voices and the strange attraction stopped instantly. 

Worrying that her expelled cursed mana might have infected Bookie and Pareth, she fought against the intense dizziness and nausea from the mana loss and looked at their mana, thankfully finding them curse-free.

“I still think this is scary,” Bookie shily chimed in.

Sofia cleared her throat. “I agree. Great spell to have, though. And according to Zerei, we can build tolerance to specific curse patterns through repeated exposure, so all of us can slowly work on that until we have nothing to worry about!” 

“Hnn! What about the other skill, Sofia?”

“It’s still not ready, but I can actually feel my mana circuits moving a bit, the shock from the sudden expulsion made them a bit sensitive. That’s an interesting find… Anyway, any second now, I think.”

It took ten more minutes for the passive skill to arrive, during which Sofia started creating new bone furniture for the main hall, since she and Alith had pilfered most of the original appliances the last time before they left.

Finally the new passive went live, the mana already making its way into the newly formed pathways.

[Sixth melody]: Olden tales tell of a Goddess of music and arts long gone from this world, but their craft is not entirely gone. Lock a portion of your maximum mana to play different movements of Remia’s sixth great symphony in a large area around you.

More total mana expands the music’s reach.

Expand description for a detailed movement breakdown.