Sophia pulled herself towards the feather Taika had indicated while it was still a foot and half above the ground. That was about the right height to smoothly shift back to her own shape.

When she did, she glanced around. She could get a lot of information from her aura, but it wasn't the same as seeing, even in the inadequate light of a poorly aimed magelight. In this case, what she could see but not otherwise sense was important: the bone remnant wasn't looking at her. It didn't seem to have any idea she was there.

That was the plan, and it was definitely nice that it worked. It gave her time. She might even be able to use the part of the plan she hadn't expected to work. It probably still wouldn't actually work, but there was a chance, since the "sneak behind the bone remnant" part went off without a hitch. She'd even managed to land far enough from the ruins apparitions that none of them had noticed her and charged on their own, though that would probably change soon.

The bone remnant was larger than she'd guessed. She'd have placed it at no more than four feet tall before she added the horns, because of its caution and the way it was hunched over. That was very wrong; it was closer to seven or maybe even eight feet tall at the top of its horns. Other than that, it didn't look very different from what she'd seen in the short glance she'd gotten of it the first time they fought.

She didn't expect much of its body; things that controlled other monsters tended to be physically weak. Its sheer size made her wonder a little; was it that size because it was sturdier than she thought or was that simply the size of the bones it was created from?

Sophia shook her head. The answer had to be that those were the original bones. In fact, that might even be why it was able to control ruins apparitions: it was linked to them because it incorporated bone that might have belonged to the apparitions in life.

Sophia tried to regather her scattered thoughts. As interesting as understanding the bone remnant was, what they needed to do right now was kill it. Once that was done, she could take all the time she wanted to examine its remains. Unlike the ruins apparitions, bone remnants were physically real.

Sophia's first step was to manifest her wings. They served two purposes; first, they were a handy way to supplement her Plumes, since every single feather counted. She couldn't separate them from herself and float them around her domain, but she could use them as Plumes. Second, the wings glowed. Everyone would be able to tell where she was, and there was no chance the bone remnant would miss her if it looked in her direction. It was cautious enough that being spectacular ought to allow her to herd it towards the others.

The bone remnant didn't notice her glow, but four of the ruins apparitions did. Three of them were small sheep skeletons, so they were easy enough to fry with a single spell each, but the fourth one was a ram. Fortunately, it was behind the others. That meant she could focus on the ram on its own.

The question was how to handle it. She could try a single Focused Piercing True Death Bolt, but she was pretty sure it wouldn't be enough. It worked on the smaller ruins apparitions, but they were notably weaker in both shield and body. No, she needed to hit it hard and fast. She didn't have time to try different things; it needed to go down in a single attack so that she could turn her attention to the bone remnant.

The four feathers closest to the ruins apparition lit up with the ominous glow of a True Death bolt momentarily before the massed attack shot towards the skeletal ram. Two of the bolts hit it in the head, more or less on the forehead, while the other two hit its chest bones, between the forelegs.

Two of the bolts splashed harmlessly off the ram's shield, but they destroyed it as they were resisted and the other two strikes kept going. The ram's skull shattered violently, sending pieces scattering away from Sophia, while its ribcage seemed to disintegrate. A moment later, the mana that formed the ruins apparition began to evaporate in the accelerated destruction of a ruins apparition killed with True Death.

It was not at all quiet. Sophia's True Death Bolts weren't quiet to begin with, while the pounding of hooves from the charging ruins apparitions was even louder. There was no chance the bone remnant didn't know she was here, now.

Sophia whipped around to face it instead of the skeletal sheep. Its misshapen head was turned towards her; behind it, she could see that the ruins apparitions it had been controlling that couldn't see their targets were slowing down. It might be able to control a lot of them at once, but it could be distracted. That was excellent news.

The next step was to try to restrain it. She still didn't expect that to work, but it wasn't like it would hurt.

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Sophia spread her wings and sent all of the feathers she could towards the bone remnant. She didn't have very many physical feathers, since she'd had to limit that for Ci'an, but they should still work. Whether she had a lot of actual feathers or not, Plush Bonds reinforced whatever she used with more feathers, feathers that were far more than the easily damaged mundane material they resembled. The quills created by Plush Bonds wouldn't bend or break with Dav's strength, though he could still cut them if his arms weren't restrained. They ought to be able to hold a creature made of bone.

Before the feathers reached the bone remnant, it did something Sophia didn't expect: it leapt in the air, easily clearing the height of the feathers she was using for Plush Bonds, and closed the distance between the two of them in a single bound. Sophia barely had time to throw her wings between the monster and her face before it backhanded her. Much of the force was deflected by her Plumed Aura Armor and even more stopped at her shield, but it still somehow knocked her onto her butt.

She felt a little shaken, but it didn't feel like she was hurt. She didn't make the time to check on her shield; it was clearly still intact, and that was all that mattered. The plan she'd expected to use, even though it was supposed to be the backup, was clearly off the table; there was no way she was going to scare the monster towards Dav now. It was far too aggressive. She was going to have to go with either of the first two options, binding it or killing it outright, and she doubted it would die easily or quickly.

On the other hand, she could use her wings as Plumes, and more feathers did make Plush Bonds stronger. She'd never used her wings for it, but now that the idea had occurred to her, she knew it was one she'd use again in the future. One of Plush Bonds greatest weaknesses was the fact that using it locked so many of her feathers into a single maintained Ability and prevented her from using them for anything else. Using her wings meant she'd be unable to fly, but all of her other Plumes would still be usable.

Sophia launched herself at the bone remnant, leading with her wings so that they could both protect her and hopefully grab her enemy. That seemed to surprise it; it wasn't braced at all, so when she smacked into it with her wings, it skidded and fell.

Sophia didn't give it time to recover. She triggered Plush Bonds using the wings that still touched the bone remnant. They warped painfully and twisted to wrap around the monsters.

She hadn't expected the pain. Using her wings as Plumes wasn't normally painful, and neither was Plush Bonds. She could feel her wings when they were manifested, but she'd never felt pain from them, only the pressure and position she needed to be able to fly. She'd assumed they were an energy manifestation, rather than real wings, because of their appearance. It seemed like she was wrong.

An incoherent shout in Sophia's head drew her attention back to the other part of the battlefield. Everything seemed to be under control there; in fact, with all the space they had to work in, Lan'ti's team was having more success than the first time, even without Horus's protection.

Admittedly, a lot of that was probably because there was no mind organizing the other side. Sophia didn't have time to look for differences, but even a glance showed that the ruins apparitions were fighting as single dumb monsters, and individual dumb monsters were easy to deal with.

One of the two Davs was running towards her, but he seemed to be having issues with all of the ruins apparitions the bone remnant had pulled close to itself. They weren't hard to kill, but there were a lot of them. More than that, Dav couldn't kill them as quickly as Sophia could and he was trying to close the distance between them; that meant he couldn't just retreat while he killed a few ruins apparitions. He had to fight them the hard way.

Sophia had no doubt he was going to win. This was Dav; he'd be fine.

Sophia welcomed the distraction, but it didn't last long before she had to look at the bone remnant she was trying to restrain. Her wings no longer looked like wings; instead, they were now long feathered ropes that wrapped around the bone remnant, tying them together as they outlined each individual bone that made up its body. She couldn't hurt the bone remnant with her wings, but she could hold it in place.

That belief was almost immediately challenged. The bone remnant surged to its feet, painfully yanking Sophia's sore wings as it moved. It straightened as much as it could and lifted Sophia off the ground by her wings. All she could do for an entirely too long moment was swear.

After that moment, it became clear that while the bone remnant could, in fact, easily lift Sophia, that was all it could do physically. It tried to walk, but the best it could manage was a stagger that made the bone remnant trip over itself. It climbed to its feet almost immediately and the materials they'd gained seemed fine, but Sophia wanted to get out of the fight before she stopped to figure out anything that would take her away from the fight.

Sophia's wings strained and pain flared as the bone remnant flexed and tried to tear the Plush Bonds open with its strength. It was stronger than any opponent Sophia had met before, including Dav, but it was still not enough to simply tear the feathers. Even so, it hurt, and Sophia resolved that she wouldn't use this again after all. It just wasn't worth it, even if it did work.

Sophia's wings immobilized her almost as effectively as they immobilized the bone remnant, even though they weren't deliberately wrapped around her limbs. They didn't, however, stop her from using her feathers, the same way they probably didn't stop the bone remnant from controlling the surrounding ruins apparitions. No matter what else she did, Sophia needed to keep the monster distracted.

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