Chapter 466 - For science

The large flying Sunless collided with the Engineer skeleton, and they broke through the tower’s ceiling, falling toward the altar. The ground under Sofia’s feet also broke and fell, but her ability to step on air kicked in at that moment, she watched the Sunless and the skeleton dive.

Bookie, send the book!

The book of skeletons appeared in Sofia’s left hand, unlike the usual, it was closed, Bookie was too busy to search for the page she wanted. Sofia opened it and flipped the pages directly to the Mimic’s. She pulled on the page, only for it to slip through her fingers, turning into mist. 

Shit! Not enough fog! Who else?

Sofia tried the page right before, one significantly less expensive but also decent for the situation, the four withered vampires. That worked; the skeletons quickly formed near her while she turned her attention back to trying to stop the deluge of black lances assaulting the walls below. The vampire skeletons jumped down the hole as soon as they took shape, their only job was to protect the mana heart from the Sunless the Engineer was still falling with.

Trusting her skeletons, Sofia kept blocking as many black lances as she could, but many were starting to get through, and this created opportunities for the homonculi’s spells to strike closer to the heart. The paladins on the roof were also starting to get overwhelmed by the flying Sunless, which were a lot harder to take down without ranged weapons. The multi-headed amalgams were also starting to throw clumps of Drones up on the fortress’ roof, which had forced about half of the Kidjikkik soldiers to come up as reinforcements. The situation was becoming so bad that Bookie himself was fighting, slicing up drones with his mithril dagger.

Sofia felt the engineer skeleton and one of the vampires die, but the three other vampires were climbing back up, which meant the heart was still safe. Pareth had been going against her orders and kept pushing his luck outside the walls, killing one more homunculus before he got surrounded by three two-headed amalgams and teleported back to Sofia, most of his bones damaged or broken.

TEMPLARS!

The channeling time of [Holy smite] could not end soon enough.

With nine minutes left on the clock, a vortex of mana formed above the bone fortress.

The wave of cold mana of Death washed over the fortress and spread far and wide on the plains, killing countless Sunless. Only some of the flying ones gliding too high to be sweeped survived. This gave the skeletons some breathing room to heal, and the holes in the fortress walls could finally all be closed up, but already, the army of Sunless was reforming in the distance.

Sofia looked at the new Sunless wave with dread, the Templars could only cast once. Bookie’s skeletons were not able to regenerate mana, they needed to be resummoned, as their mana was actually just Bookie’s fog. But Bookie was all out.

Until they reach us again, this buys us two minutes at best.

I can’t even transform and fight this time, it’s way too dangerous. The Sirhellions are out of mana, the Paladins and the Templars too.

With all of its protections down, the fortress would hold for maybe two minutes when the Sunless started to blast it with Black lances again. And if a single amalgam managed to make it through the bone spikes and get in, everything was basically over.

How the fuck do we survive for seven more minutes?!

There has to be a way!

Come one Sofia, THINK!

Sofia’s thoughts raced, all her skills, all her possessions, all her knowledge, she ran through everything, trying to find a wa y out. Things were not looking good at all, but she still managed to find two possible ways.

Pareth, go grab Bookie right now!

Pareth jumped down from the tower while Sofia fixed the floor underneath her feet, and started carving the Sun’s generosity ritual on it, which she quickly activated. Pareth teleported back holding Bookie’s arm.

“Quickly sit in there! And eat this!” Sofia ordered Bookie, shoving her second mana pearl between his jaws.

Bookie was stunned by the sudden orders, but nevertheless, he started biting down on the mana pearl, the fragments of which fell down his empty ribcage before turning back into mana and seeping into his bones.

That works!

“You unsummon the Templars and bring them back as soon as you have the fog for it!”

This will buy us some time. But it’s still not enough.

Sofia walked to be behind Bookie’s back. “Whatever you hear, don’t turn back, alright, Bookie?”

“Y- Yes…”

“Sorry Pareth, but I’m going to need your help on this one. Give me a view of the back of my head, please.”

Pareth already knew what Sofia was about to do, and Sofia could tell that it made him uncomfortable, but she was going to do it anyway.

Health : 6432 / 85 980

Sofia grabbed the Admin dagger, and slowly, she started cutting the back of her head open from top to bottom. Her jaws clenched, she did her best to keep the dagger steady to not make a mess. The cleaner the cut, the lower the health loss.

Health : 5622 / 85 980

Fuck me that hurts… And that was the easy part.

Carefully sliding the dagger along her skull, like skinning an animal for its hide, Sofia peeled the skin of her head off.

Out of all the messed up things she had done to her body, to date, this was without a doubt the worst offender. She had been putting it off for a long time, but she long knew that either by curiosity or desperation, she would end up doing it one day or another.

Health : 462 / 85 980

Stamina : ERROR / 21 047

Mana : 245 629 / 417 100

Sofia extracted her skull to feed it to the skull choir.

She made a fake bone skull to re-wrap her skin around, and encased most of her head into more bone to hide the damage. The only things left visible were her two eyes which she could no longer move due to the severed muscles, and her golden blonde hair falling down her back, separated into two halves by a bone clamp holding her skin together in the middle.

Sofia wanted to lie down and rest after the self-imposed ordeal, her mind screamed at her that it did not want to even think anymore, but she had to tough it up and endure at least until the end of the ritual.

A new line appeared at the end of the [Skull Choir] description.

[Skull Choir] 

Stored skulls:

• Human (Air, chorus)

• Sandworm (Energy beam)

• Boar (Intercept)

• Destroyer (Rip and tear)

• ????? (Bloodlight echoes)

Because the skull choir had a long three minute cooldown between activations, if she tried the new skull now, she had to keep it up until the end of the night if she wanted to use it. With fifty mana of upkeep per skull per second, and her regeneration currently barely above a hundred points per second, she had to carefully consider how many she wanted to summon, while the army of Sunless was approaching fast.

It would cost about twenty two thousand to keep one skull up until the end of the night. My regen offsets the cost of two. If I summon five that leaves me just shy of two hundred thousand left to spend on everything else.

It’s my own skull. It has to be good.

Five human skulls appeared around Sofia. It was perhaps the first time that a summoned skeleton really made Sofia uncomfortable. The skulls were all staring at her, dripping with red blood. Slowly, veins of light appeared from under the skulls, gradually building up to mimic Sofia’s entire network of bloodlight which she hid inside of her bone body. 

They were all in the exact same position.

Bloodlight Echoes.

Sofia raised a hand and the Echoes followed without any delay.

From creepy and disturbing, the skull choir’s new addition became fascinating. 

Can those…

A spark of blue electricity appeared in Sofia’s hand. The lowest possible power output of the Angel’s bolt spell. The Echoes hands also produced blue sparks.

Holy fucking shit.

That cost me six times the usual amount of mana. They’re using my reserves. But still.

Sofia used Heal Undead to summon a thin pillar of holy light in front of her. Each echo summoned a similar one on their position.

This can work!

Pareth, back to the frontlines! Bookie you stay here and summon the Templars as soon as you can, get them to prepare another smite.

Unlike the destroyer skulls, the echoes are confined by the usual Choir formations… 

Currently known Array Formations:

• Ring system Array

• Sphere Array

• Wall Array

(Next Array unlocked at skill level 250)

Ring is good, Skulls, take place!

The echoes spread around, in a circular formation, they moved up to the borders of the platform. Sofia cast as large a beam of light she could over the plains down below, it was pitifully small by itself considering the size of the plains, but it was soon joined by five more beams of light illuminating all sides of the fortress.

The timing could not have been more perfect, as the legions of Sunless started crossing into the beams of light.

Shower them with rot!

With five echoes, the upkeep of [Erredian rot] was of 60 000 mana a second, and each beam of light applied six layers of rot in an instant.

Sofia immediately stopped the rot to keep some mana for later, but already, this simple move had applied six times more rot than usual for the same amount of mana. This renewed rot wave helped slow the Sunless, and bookie eventually managed to get the Templars out again, casting another [Holy Smite], which ended up being much weaker than the first one but still enough to buy them some time before the Sunless reached them again. 

The last minutes of defense were messy and each incoming black lance put the altar at risk. Bookie’s skeletons were almost all dead, and Sunless drones were infiltrating the fortress, when, finally, the last pillar’s flame burned out.

After a bright explosion of light came silence, and Sofia passed out on the spot, alive but completely drained, barely getting caught by a teleporting Pareth.

Unaware, Bookie jumped up in joy, “We did it!”