Saintess Summons Skeletons

Chapter 898 - Polar Expedition

The beastmen continent continued north for a few thousand kilometers before one would meet the same sea that connected back to the human continent. The human peninsula was truly a minuscule part of the entire elbow-shaped ‘human continent’ of which the peninsula and the red-sand desert were barely specks of its entire surface. As one ventured further up, the weather would gradually become colder.

Sofia had already briefly experienced the northern reaches of the exidian continent, which were in large parts endless forests of conifer trees buried under deep snow, the human continent in comparison was a lot more mountainous. Sofia stopped a few times just to admire the strange monsters living around the mountain, many of which were rainbow-colored lizards and birds that were impossible to miss in the snow.

Even further north what awaited Sofia was the illusory ocean, which had a special mention on Erredis’ map saying to ‘Fly high, do not approach ‘islands’’.

Sofia heeded her advice, flying as high up as she could, but she was really curious as to why ‘islands’ was in quotation marks.

Island mimics?

Surely not…

But an hour in, she had yet to see any island, or anything other than regular blue water, for that matter. Not a single floating creature or ship, just an endless expanse of blue waves and sky.

Watching the horizon blend in with the sky made everything look surreal, like being trapped inside of a perfect blue sphere.

Wait, the sky?

How low–

Without even realising it, Sofia had been drifting down, from flying high up in the atmosphere where the sky faded to black she was now just a few kilometers off of the waves.

Shit, that could have gotten dangerous. How did I take that long to notice?

Flying straight up, Sofia returned to her maximum altitude. She couldn’t be sure how high Erredis meant by ‘Fly high’, so she couldn’t half-ass it. So weird how I didn’t notice, I should have been flying quite steadily forward…

After another half hour of flying, Sofia finally saw a first island appear, right in her path, far on the horizon, she immediately stopped and zoomed in. Between the helmet and her fake eye, her vision was ridiculous enough that what would only be a blurry dot on the horizon for most she could see almost as clearly as if she was a hundred meters away as long as she focused on it.

As long as it’s not a tree-colored tower in a forest of tall trees!

Looks normal enough for an island. Beaches, palm trees, a small mountain…

That’s weird, huh.

I don’t really feel it thanks to my cold immunity but it’s pretty chilly right now. Why the hell does this look like Phillip’s tropical island? There isn’t even any tiny bit of snow at the top of that mountain.

This IS definitely a mimic, isn’t it? A hot-blooded creature, maybe? The kind that would create a micro-climate just by existing in a cold environment?

… Or what I’m seeing is an illusion?

The storage eye’s supposed to help spot illusions but I don’t really see anything wrong here… Wait, the heat vision should work even from that far away, right?

Heat vision was something Sofia rarely used anymore considering just how far her mana senses extended, but for this case in particular, it worked quite well. The island showed as a singular bright red mass in an otherwise ice-blue ocean.

Sofia shivered watching how brightly the island shone.

Why couldn’t it be an illusion…

With an expression of disgust, Sofia flew east, and took a wide detour to keep the ‘island’ as far from her as possible as she continued north.

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The illusory ocean was truly vast, and even with Sofia flying in a straight line, it would be a multiple days’ trip. It was not lost time, though, as all she had to do was monitoring her surroundings for ‘islands’, while she could both repay her mana debt and spectate Alith and Astelia’s trial. Truth be told, she could have found a faster way to the Arege Union if she wanted, but she actually enjoyed the down time, and she was also aiming for a bonus objective on the way.

At some point along the way, Crowie somehow summoned himself from Bookie’s pages, which was an unexpected surprise; they flew together the rest of the way after that.

Some days later, Sofia spotted what she at first thought was yet another island on the horizon, but it turned out to be a gigantic wall of ice. She stopped, grabbing Crowie with both hands, “We’re here! Knight’s death, the northern pole!”

Crowie tilted his skull, which Sofia took as an invitation to explain more.

“Hmmhmm… With an ambient temperature nearing absolute zero, sparse ambient mana, and an extremely strong magnetic force pulling all metallic objects towards the ground, the continent was named Knight’s death because… Well, you get it,” she explained, sounding quite excited. “Anyways, the death part is the interesting one, because this place has two BIG BIG BIG upsides. First of all, the creatures here have evolved to survive the frost, so they tend to be MASSIVE. Not that I have anything against tiny skeletons, but you know, I already have the best ones I could ask for in that category so I don’t need more,” she said with a wink, “but also! They’re almost all undead, and all above level three hundred for the weakest of them! And the books I found couldn’t even say why, so for all we know there could be the legacy of another epoch’s necromancer just sitting under the ice somewhere here, waiting to be sto– discovered!”

Crowie stared at Sofia with palpable worry.

“Hey, hey, don’t look at me like that. I have frost immunity, Pareth does too if we need him to come help, and the monsters are all Undead, we couldn’t ask for a better matchup in our dreams. Not to mention, it’s the day, and days around here are supposed to last several months, so you and all of Bookie’s pages are almost just completely immortal here. I don’t know if you noticed but it’s been daytime for more than a day already.”

Crowie looked a bit less worried but still a bit dubious.

Sofia gave up with a shrug, “If it gets too bad I can always transpose away to the moon or something…”

Crowie nodded in approval.

“You worrywart crow. It’ll be fine,” Sofia reassured him, caressing his skull. “Not to mention, we’re only going through this time. I hope we find interesting things on the way but we can’t linger too much, we have to get to the Arege union in time for the appointment, even if they said they could be a bit flexible on the timing.”

I’m definitely leaving multiple effigies around to transpose here later, though.

Crowie stared at Sofia, who stared back at him.

“Yeah I do know you heard that.”

“CAAAAW!”

Sofia chuckled as she departed toward the tall wall of ice.

As they approached, she could already start to feel the magnetic attraction tugging down on her helmet and scepter, it would only get worse and quickly become a hindrance as they ventured further, so Sofia stored them for now. Her cursed ring was also getting slightly pulled, but it seemed to be weak enough that it wouldn’t be an issue.

Ambient mana also got sparser, making her wings unable to sustain a high altitude.

Got to go down anyway, I can stay up here and pull myself with my aura but it’s so slow…

A few minutes later, she stepped on the edge of the wall of ice. The terrain ahead could only be described as a desert of ice and snow, sculpted by constant glacial winds and reflecting the bright sunlight without retaining even a hint of heat.

“Whew, even with cold immunity this feels a bit frisky. How are you holding up, Crowie?”

The crow looked around, unphased by the cold.

“Alright, good. There are very high level monsters around so I don’t think it’s too wise to use the scouts and draw more attention. [Runeforged Overlord] should make them less hostile, but we’ll play it safe. You can stay on my shoulder if you want.”

Her bone armor turned fully white and covering her entire body, Sofia flew low to the ground, barely making a shadow. Her mana senses and aura focused on the ground ahead, she was on high alert trying to prevent getting ambushed by predators hiding under the thick layers of snow.

The endless expanse of snow and ice was silent, bright and peaceful.

Just as Sofia started to relax a bit, she noticed a standout flow of mana ahead. It was weak, but mana surged straight up toward the sky, something natural currents rarely ever did.

There’s something there…

Sofia tapped on the book at her side. Pestle, I need you here.

Pestle abandoned whatever she was doing in Ser’Extra and appeared in the second, claws bared.

Stay silent. Sofia ordered in her thoughts. No immediate danger, but you need to investigate, full stealth. Do you see the upward mana current out there? There’s something underground.

Pestle nodded and disappeared, leaving a small hole in the snow. She was back just a few seconds later.

“Big hole! Tystem is say is dungeon! Four hundred level!”