Chapter 61: Siginarugan

The war between the soldiers of the two sides ended in the overwhelming victory of Sophia's troops, thus all of them were supposed to be cheering, making merry with each other as they celebrated their victory on top of their enemies' corpses. However, in the first layer, instead of the shouts of victory and clamors of the monsters' heroic feat, the place was shut off from any kind of sound, a huge boulder was sealing the cave of the first layer while Eleanor's magic further strengthened the whole cave. Even the ever so noisy Mayor of the first layer Agilus was quietly resting at his "office".

The scene is the same in the Volcano, the only difference is that the volcano is much stronger than the cave so they did not need to reinforce the cave with anything like Eleanor, but still Wokung and Saru alongside all of the monkey tribe members had the same expression as the people of the first layer, they have solemn faces as if they just got slapped by an embarrassing defeat.

But that is not the reason that all of these people who made the oath of loyalty to Sophia look like a bunch of defeated soldiers. All of them sat down or went into their respective quarters as they continuously listened to the dreadful symphony of the fight between their master and her greatest adversary as of yet.

"When that explosion ended, a new era of this forest will begin."

[Sophia's POV]

"Well, that was a wrap."

I said as I stared at the now empty of soldiers direction in which the fight between Bakunawa and me is leading, it is just so convenient that I have the wolves, if I don't, my soldiers that I have so painstakingly cultivated will die by a stray storm of fire or a random frozen cannonball.

[A wrap? I wouldn't say that.]

Eh... I guess you're right, I looked around me as I continued to intercept, dodge attacks, and repeat. Well, the only thing that can be seen in my front is Bakunawa who seems to get agitated because she knew by instinct, that I still have something that can overwhelm her, she has an angrier face than before. In her back, the destroyed trees caused by our fight are visible.

[Note: In your back are the corpse of the Oni and the mantis on two different sides.]

I see, perfect then.

[Will you finally use "that".]

But of course, it would be a waste if I did not.

While we were having such conversations, Bakunawa who is using her meager repertoire of range attacks suddenly appeared in front of me, her fist was held into a spear and a layer of thick frost could be seen, the hand spear then was used to pierce my heart, however, before she can even attempt to do so, I put my hand on top of her head and shoved it down, making her bow to me.

But I could see her sneer and as she did so, a tentacle, blue appeared at the ground in which my arm was pointing and latched on it, pinning me down to the ground.

"Gah!" Now it was my turn to be surprised and be nailed to the ground, alongside my gasp of surprise, smaller frozen tentacles gripped their way all over my body. Now I would say that we have the same fighting style except that I cannot transform into a serpent and strictly speaking she's a better melee fighter than I am.

I, however, will not just stare at the incoming hand knife to impale my heart, plus I want to finally go all out, so I have to get out of her range to do so, I went and used [Flame  Charge] and [Incinerate] at the same time, Releasing fire breathe in my mouth and scorching flames all over my body, causing a gigantic torch of flame to manifest with me as the "fuel".

But of course, I will not burn away, anyway, Bakunawa's face was full of shock, after all, she did not expect me to have the ability that spit out the thing she hated the most. As obvious as it may be, Bakunawa is an Ice type, thus she cannot tolerate fire, she immediately was incinerated by my scorching flames and as she did, Bakunawa retreated several steps and breathed frozen breath at her burnt parts, those areas were originally covered in scales but now are scarred and fallen of because of our fight.

Just as she was about to put out the fire completely though, sand tentacles suddenly shot up from the ground and grabbed the neck of Bakunawa, and while the tentacles kept tightening, I shouted.

"That's how you use tentacles!"

After which her throat was pinned down to the ground alongside her body, blood gushing out of her mouth because of the severe injury to her throat and the immense pressure from her lungs,  however instead of following up with another attack, I vanished from her sight garnering her confused look.

I then appeared in front of the two corpses of the remaining leaders of the alliance and touched them both immediately.

"Time to become a true necromancer."

[3rd Person POV]

"GHK! KGH!"

Bakunawa continued coughing as she grabbed all the tentacles strangling her throat, she then ripped all of them apart and froze them with ice, she breathed a little and touched her now bloody throat as she looked at the direction in which Sophia went with her sharp eyes looking confused.

_Why did she suddenly retreat deep?_

As someone old enough to be called a veteran, Bakunawa has fought many people, mostly humans that has the same fighting style as Sophia, first, she will close in and engage in close combat, after which she will find an opportunity to cheap shot the opponent and will retreat to bombard Bakunawa with magic, and with Bakunawa being an ice-dependent creature, most of the attacks were fire based. This loop will continue because Bakunawa doesn't have a choice to counter a magical attack with a Physical attack and by physical attack means a melee range fight.

The only difference is that Sophia can use an advanced technique that fuses two elements at the same time without any delay in casting speed, which means Bakunawa will receive super hot wind blades or balls of steamed water that are just a bunch of normal attacks, will have little to no effects to Bakunawa, but because it was infused with the fire element, she received damages that were combined with her weakness with fire and the unique features of the base element.

For example, the wind caused the supposed tough scales of hers to fall off and be destroyed, exposing her skin and diminishing her defense. This pattern continued again and again.

_Except for now that she retreated instead of continuing her assault._

Bakunawa pondered with her eyes squinting into the place in which her nemesis fell back, suddenly, she sneered.

_I see, so that's what she's up to! She's finally going all out!_

She then bared her claws as she thought of one thing.

_I have to stop her magic circle!_

Bakunawa had waited all this time for Sophia to use her ace, at first she thought that the magic circle might as well not exist, after all, it was already the whole day, and still no signs of the circle, but indeed a mage would always be a mage.

_I WILL END HER!_

She said so in her mind, however, just as she was about to sprint, at the front of her already bloodied throat appeared a katana and scythe, Bakunawa stared at it with wide eyes as she used her right foot to stop her momentum, and stared at the two owners of the deadly weapons. He saw an Oni with stitches on his neck, whilst she on the other side was a mantis that had a huge hole in his chest.

Her stupor though only lasted for a fraction of a second, she immediately clenched her fist and punched both of the undeads in the face, however, she still could not help but curse as she finally realized why the alliance failed(Except for the fact that she is not very cooperative).

"THAT SPIDER LIED TO ME!"

At first Arachne, or for Bakunawa the spider queen said that Sophia can bring back the dead as long as she is the one who killed the said individual, of course, such a power was never heard before, but because she suddenly changed from a water serpent into a frost serpent, she is not the one to judge, thus she accepted the information gracefully, after all, that means Sophia has to focus her attention to other people to create undeads that will be a little too much even for someone such as Sophia considering her opponent is Bakunawa herself.

_Plus her undead will most probably needed at the other sites of the war, even after the battle, they will have to reinforce their guard against the potential malevolent desires of other races._

At least when Arachne told her that information, she was not lying and that Sophia could not do such a thing.

Bakunawa finally recovered from her anger as she faced the two leaders, she knew that the two of them could not normally compare against herself given that she was a hero prospect and they were mere leaders of some community-type monsters, but now they were undeads and was probably named by her fellow hero prospect, she have to be more careful on the power up that the names might give them.

She just has to be careful about the lurking person in her back named Sophia, wait, and intercept what might be brewing in the back of her head.

However, before she can even attack the two undeads or before she can even circle them out for her to face the direction in which Sophia retreated, the whole forest rumbled causing  Bakunawa to stagger a little, when she finally regained her footing, she saw something out of her wildest dream.

A giant as gigantic or maybe more than her serpent form can be seen from the sky, it has four arms and no face, as if to announce the golem's conception into this world, cracks showed all over its rocky body, and ravaging flames suddenly erupted out of them, causing some of the rock body of the giant to melt and become lava, but the body of the burning abomination's body is too dense for the lava to damage its size.

And in that grand display of power from the golem, a chant was heard.

S̴̛̪̞͖̱̬̮̫̙͕͍̞̰͓͇̲̝͉̫͐̃̀͊̽̕͜ị̴̡̡̡̣̱̮͙͍͚̹̰̣͎̼͖̿̆̽̉̌̅̑͜ḡ̵̢̤͕̞̪̠͈͖̯͇̣̼͙͈̠̰̭̝̯̯̝͒̀̈̂̑͗̽͐̋͆̈́͌̀͂̚͘͝i̴̡̛̤̻̦̺̘̫̙͙̠̗̲͈͉̒̈́͑̑͆́̇́͊͂͛̆̾̑̓̔͋͛̿̕n̷̙̭͍̾͆͗͌̽̎͂͊̏̕͘̚͝͝ą̵̨̘̪̣̥͈̣͚̗̗͍̜͖̲̙͕̹͍̖̑͒̈͜ŗ̴̡̢͉͙̲̯̬͈̮̳̝͍̰̟̣̘̦̱͚̝̟̽̐̀͒̊͌͗͒̉̆͆͋̓̈́̊͗̓͝͝ư̸̢̧̢̜͇̦̤̗̼̼̞̱̝̗͎̗̾͂́́͘g̴̢̡̨̧̼̲̙̠͉͎͙͔̤̈͒̍̿̿̃̕a̵̢̛͓̣̝̺̱͕͙͕͇̘͓͖̩̤͂́́̔̌̐́͆͐͐̃̿́̽̇̔͐͂̊̾̈́͘͜ͅn̶̖͍̫̪̻͌̎̃͌̅̂̈̾̆͛̔̂͛̊̑̌̾͘̚̕͝͠ (Siginarugan) (1)

The golem did not even wait nor did anything to announce its presence, after all the bursting flames earlier was already enough declaration of its might. Bakunawa instinctively knew one thing.

_I have to go back to my serpent form!_

But even before her body could enact what her brain had commanded her, one of the four gigantic arms of the golem descended on her.

[Sophia's POV]

I looked at the golem with a contended face, the exp. from the bat queen helped a lot, and now my mana is enough to sustain such a huge creature, well, we don't exactly have the time to analyze my stats, so I will make it fast. Of course, the main question is, how did the restriction from the [Necromancy] unique skill disappear, well here is the notification.

Notice [ Requirements for the conquering of the fourth point have been completed.

Hero's test progress has been recorded. Two more conquer points and you will officially become the hero of the god of the undead.

Reward: Evolution, [Necromancy] skill upgrade

Note: Killing the leader personally has gained you a reward, "Turn Undead" ability of the unique skill [Necromancy] has been upgraded, the restriction was removed and from now on, you can turn any corpse into your undead depending on their level.

Note: When the prospect evolves during the hero's test, it will only be considered a single level up because the point will "evolve" the taker of the test and not level him or her until she evolved.]

So that's how I get it.

Anyway, as I expected the two new subordinates of mine died as I saw smoke swelling up in front of me and materialized a mantis and an Oni, the two of them were kneeling in front of me, not minding their death, and were just waiting for my orders. They didn't have any names at the moment, so I am still calling them Mantis and Oni.

I don't want my soldiers to have boring ass names after all, and I am pretty sure I have Bakunawa in my bag right now so it's not a big deal whether they have names or not.

[...What are you planning to do with Bakunawa?]

What's with the pause?

Ahem, I just ignored the creepy guy in my head as I ordered my two undead soldiers to harass Bakunawa once again, when they finally left, a circle suddenly appeared in my right hand, on this circle appeared several letters I am so sure are from the baybayin(2) alphabet, this came as a shock because normally, runes are the symbol of magic in any fantasy worlds.

I stretched my hand until the magic was finished forming, after which, sand started to clump in front of me as I jumped on it and sneakily hovered toward the location of my golem and my undeads.

______

Siginarugan (1)-the god of the underworld of the Visayan Mythology.

Baybayin (2)- Baybayin is one of the precolonial writing systems used by early Filipinos. The term "baybayin" comes from the Tagalog root word baybay, which means "to spell." It is a Philippine script. The script is an abugida belonging to the family of the Brahmic scripts. Widely used in Luzon for personal communication during the pre-Hispanic period.

Here is a photo of the Baybayin Alphabet (Its level of complexion is just at the hiragana level, but I think it still permits one):

And I think you know what will be the role of the Baybayin alphabet in Sophia right? If you don't comment on your guesses here.