The arena was no longer quite as empty, Bookie’s fog rolled down, spreading like a tidal wave summoning a small army of skeletons. From the fog came the twenty five paladins, three templars, and the high-priest.

Countless heads and hands clawed their way out of the ground, the graveyard skeletons wouldn’t be able to stop the giant, but they could allow the other skeletons to dive into the ground and safely move around the battlefield.

Mana : 331 750 / 417 100

Next is the [Skull Choir]!

A wall of fifty one sandworm skulls appeared around Sofia, as waved her staff around, they moved to aim where she pointed.

I can maintain that for almost three minutes. That’s plenty, I only need to immobilize it.

The colossus of crystal just now realized it had been surrounded, it started walking in Sofia’s direction.

Pareth take agro. Paladins spread around the arena, coordinated [Slash of light] on the left leg. Templars, start channeling [Holy Smite]. Priest, keep the templars alive.

When Pareth charged, the colossus answered with a surprisingly fast right-handed punch. His feet planted into the arena’s ground, Pareth blocked the hit, losing about fifteen percent of his health. The Paladins used their skill, and a flurry of swords of light impacted the monster’s left leg on the same spot. The damage was minimal, barely denting the crystal, but it was a start.

“Attack!”

The sandworm skulls had been charging up, light building inside of their tubular structures, under Sofia’s command, they followed the aim of her staff, and unleashed their energy beams in unison. The attack rays hit the place the paladins had damaged. Again, the damage was underwhelming, but present. The energy beams would last for three seconds before the skulls needed to stop and charge up again.

Meanwhile, Pareth jumped as high as he could to avoid the follow-up hit coming from the second hand. Yet, again, the monster was much faster than his massive figure would make one believe, and Pareth was hit again. This time, however, he took no damage, and was propelled toward the ceiling.

The paladins were charging their second wave of [Slash of light]. Temporarily rid of Pareth, the Gemite changed its target to the closest paladin, crushing it underfoot. Taking another step forward, it tried to crush another, but found nothing to crush once its giant crystalline leg touched ground. The graveyard skeletons, given sufficient time by the death of the first paladin, had brought this one and all the nearest ones underground.

Pareth had hit the ceiling of the arena feet first and sprung back down, his huge sword aiming for the Gemite’s massive hexagonal head. Half of the sword penetrated into the flat top of the head, prompting the monster to try to crush the pesky skeleton on its head. It was too fast for pareth to move safely out of the way, he could only teleport to Sofia or brace himself and try to absorb the impact of this mountain of crystal coming his way.

To Sofia’s surprise, he stood there, a foot against his large sword mimicking Mornn’s to prevent it from disappearing. Taking a low stance he arms rose up to intercept the giant’s hand coming from above.

Still directing the choir’s attack, Sofia observed as Pareth squashed under the immense weight, his health dwindling in ten percent chunks as his bones started giving out one by one. The lower the hand forced him, the deeper it pushed Pareth’s sword inside the crystal like a big nail stuck in a log.

Pareth disappeared right before the final moment, reappearing right behind Sofia. As he fell, he used [Greater Heal] on himself, instantly repairing his entire skeleton and ready to charge forward the second he touched ground. The big hand of the crystal giant feel on its own head in a loud bang.

In this time, the paladins launched another wave of ranged attacks right as the choir’s beams faded, further damaging the left leg, which started to have a visible dent.

The fight continued like this for a few rounds, with Pareth being more careful, only attacking from behind, using the graveyard skeletons to his advantage to force the colossus to turn around to follow him. He led the Gemite around the arena, giving clear shots to the paladins when he could, while Sofia micro managed the paladins’ positionment from above while directing the skull choir.

Beligenus silently watched the battle unfold.

Eventually, as Sofia’s mana dwindled, she canceled the choir. The templars’ [Holy Smite] was ready. She activated the third level of [Runeforged Overlord] right as she ordered the coordinated attack to activate. For the first time she was going to witness the renowned signature attack of the Templars.

Pareth’s [Chains of the four seals] locked onto the weakened leg of the monster as a tumultuous vortex of mana gathered above its head.

[Holy Smite] is the trump card of the Church which calls down the overwhelming light of the Gods above. Despite all the movement of the Gemite and the skeletons, the arena became void of any sound.

In this fleeting moment of eerie silence on the battlefield, Sofia wondered for the first time; which God?

It should be the skeletons’ God.

Scripture?

Surely not.

Orator?

Unlikely.

Then who?

An uncanny, lumpy wave of sticky magic crashed down from the vortex. It was invisible to the naked eye, but Sofia could see it through her mana senses. It instantly washed over the entire arena, filling it from top to bottom like the sudden appearance of an ocean trying to fit into a small vase.

It was cold, suffocating, nauseating. It attacked Sofia’s health, reducing it by thousands every instant until Pareth caught her and shielded her inside of his armor. All of the book’s skeletons fell to this wave of mana miasma, but the damage was low enough that Pareth’s damage reduction effect completely negated it for him.

The Gemite crumbled under its own weight, his massive body crumbling and dissociating into a gigantic messy pile of quartz crystal.

Sofia missed the message alerting her of its death, her notification log was going too fast. In the few instants she had been in contact with the cold mana, she had received thousands of alerts.

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

…

The vortex was already visibly weakening, but it would be a while until it stopped.

Beligenus snapped, and all mana in the surroundings disappeared.

“Well, this was certainly something,” Beligenus said, sounding pleasantly surprised. “I did not expect you to actually kill it, dumb as it was, it still had over fifty million health. But opening a pathway directly to Death’s domain certainly would do it.”

Ah, yes, exactly what I meant to do. NOT.

I almost died as well! I couldn’t do shit to escape this weird mana wave except to rely on Pareth’s help. Even the ring of Zar wouldn’t have saved me, its area of effect isn’t nearly large enough to cleanse the whole arena like he did, it would have just collapsed on me again!

“To be perfectly honest, this is not exactly what I had expected either.” And thank the Lords he has protection against [instant Death]. I mean, of course he does, but what if he didn’t?!

“The result is the same anyway, I believe your talents have proved to be sufficient for the job. Let us clean this up and we can set you up for the start of the school year in four days.”

“Ah! Can I… Can I take the crystals?”

Beligenus raised an eyebrow. “Is your storage item that wide? This is several hundred tons.”

“Oh, I won’t store it. I will use it for necromancy.”

“Cryst-... Please do, teacher Vakaria. I am curious to see that.”

Ah right, this is the name Zephir used in the introductory letter. Aphenoreth felt a bit too dangerous to use. Even if thanks to my mistake with the receptionist I know for sure it’s fine, now.

Sofia didn’t move, she summoned Bookie who she could feel was begging for the crystals, and threw it at the humongous pile of shiny rocks.

The book of skeletons opened and its flight stopped right above the remains of the Gemite. Its pages facing down, it sucked in the crystals. Their matter was dilated and stretched into a thin filament that spiraled into the open pages. The speed kept going up for a few seconds until nothing was left of the thousand tons of quartz. The book closed, and fell to the ground.

Then it opened slightly and its pages rustled before it closed back down.

It burped.

“I am at a loss for words,” Beligenus admitted.

Even an old Dragon is amazed by Orator’s handiwork. As it should!

Sofia unsummoned Bookie and summoned it back from her hand.

On the new page was a large drawing of the Gemite, though it seemed to lack most of the small crystals, there were only nine big chunks of quartz, a giant one for the main body, and two smaller ones for each limb. Above it was etched an outrageous number: ‘10 000 000’.

Nodding to herself, Sofia turned the book for Beligenus to see. She held it up with a smile.

“Thank you for your generosity, Headmaster. Look, this is my new skeleton!”

“Remarkable.”

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