Chapter 982 - Sofia does not give fair fights

The attacks all landed on the leviathan’s head, but they barely left a mark. Even the two firmly planted skewering bolts seemed not to be doing much damage at all, meanwhile, the two new memory-copying tentacles had fully taken form.

Fucking mimics. Not good.

On one side, the maggot tentacle had taken the form of a tall burly beast of a man that could only be either the avatar of Victory or Saint Tartaros, and on the other it was someone whose fighting style Sofia had recently become very familiar with, Nolla.

Sofia dismissed the current skull choir, resummoning the destroyer skulls instead. She needed them to take care of the lesser tentacles so she could keep her attention on the two mimic ones. Feeling that this was probably still not enough, she also quickly severed her tail to cast [Grief], summoning her Hollow Grief demon to help out.

The two new mimics detached themselves from their tentacles and attacked Sofia, a punch on one side, a lightning-coated sword on the other. She managed to block the sword with her scepter, letting the Hollow Grief deal with the Tartaros mimic.

Instead of striking back, she let the force of the blow push her back and used that instant of free time to channel another skewering archangel’s bolt in one hand and fire a first shot of [Lightsoul curse] from the other, both aimed at the leviathan’s wrinkly head.

Another tentacle blocked the skewering bolt, but the [Lightsoul curse] shot landed and began eating away at the leviathan’s soul, assuming it had one.

I think it’s working. Sofia thought, getting sliced in half at the waist by the Nolla clone which had just teleported behind her. It was painful but Sofia’s healing was fast enough that her body’s two halves were reconnected before the motion of the sword’s swing was over.

When the blade moved in reverse to strike her again, she now managed to block, and again used that free time to shoot the lightsoul curse again, faster, now as each consecutive cast was faster than the last, and investing a lot more mana.

The fast-paced battle continued, Sofia getting sliced to bits while she almost completely ignored the mimic and gradually emptied absolutely all of her mana riddling the leviathan’s massive spiritual body with Lightsoul rot.

The price for this recklessness was losing the skulls of her choir one by one, and eventually the Hollow Grief too, obliterated by a single punch it had not managed to properly dodge. With her mana almost spent, it was hard to fight back, and before she could even try to use the [Nova Legacy Beacon] to buff herself upagain, the Tartaros mimic grabbed her from behind while the fake Nolla’s blade sliced her lower body away and plunged deep into her helmet from the neck up. It directly pierced through Sofia’s mana heart in her skull.

When she came to again three seconds later, she was still surrounded by the two mimics. She could not flee with [Regret] as her actions within the scope of the skills were just ‘being dead’, and with the maggot-hands of the fake Tartaros firmly clutching her helmet, she could not do much else either. Had she managed to flee his grasp, she also noticed a lightning cage surrounding her and the two mimics, which was sure to make escaping a lot harder.

The situation looked dire but Sofia’s mind was clear, rather than struggling to survive a bit longer, she spent the few instances she was brought back to life analysing the situation before the fake Nolla finished her off again.

The third out of six [False immortality] runes was already gone.

Three seconds later she was resurrected once more. Nolla’s blade immediately sliced off her lower body again but before she could go any further, the ghostly hands of the graveyard Nymphs pulled Sofia into the spiritual plane, freeing her from Tartaros’s grip. Immediately returning to the physical plane, Sofia slipped away from the two mimics, rushing directly for the monster’s head while they followed right behind her.

She forced her way through the lightning cage, taking some damage that she could mostly ignore with how high her lightning resistance was, and just barely reached the head before the mimics caught up. As she reached out, she focused all of her regeneration into reconstructing her armor instead of healing herself, the bone armor regrowing around a non-existent body.

The tip of her fingers touched the monstrous head.

Inquisitor’s mark.

A simplified illusory rune of Aphenoreth branded the leviathan’s head, and Sofia disappeared.

She reappeared just outside of the facility, in the strange wasteland of darkness that had replaced the real outdoors. She had left an effigy there for Quantic Transposition.

This will buy some time.

Pareth, more could come your way from my fight, be careful.

Having given her warning, Sofia took a deep breath and triggered her transformation.

[Avatar of Zeus]

The skewering bolts continuing to accrue damage even while she was dead had accumulated into enough lightning damage to charge the transformation up.

A lightning storm she could not see struck through the silent darkness around her while her demonic body took on a larger, more divine and muscular lightning-shrouded form.

For her next trick, Sofia swapped her scepter to her left hand, and started channeling an explosive bolt in her right. All the mana that the avatar form had helped her recover, she spent channeling an explosive bolt as fast as she could while checking out Pareth’s situation through his eyes.

He and the dream eater were locked in a continuous battle, surrounded by ice and shadows, Pareth’s weapon freely changing from one form to another as he fought back the countless hands of the shadowy form, slicing them up, piercing them with a spear and pulling his weapon back after it became a serrated blade.

So far the maggots were not on him.

Instead, the ground started shaking below Sofia again.

The maggot tentacles had found her even all the way out to the surface. Four massive tentacles accompanied by the fake Nolla emerged first.

Sofia continued her channeling.

[Unshackle the halls]

Tens of thousands of skeletons poured out from the painted halls into the surrounding darkness. All the forest animals Sofia had collected earlier during the trial were now as many enraged skeletal thralls. They did not even take the time to use [Bone Arsenal] and swarmed the tentacle maggots instead.

Thousands of skeletons died by the second, their bones becoming material for Sofia to use, wall of bone after wall of bone formed around her, protecting her from the tentacles’ assault.

The fake Nolla ignored all of this, striking Sofia directly instead, but with the Avatar form’s complete immunity to lightning and 50% increased healing, Nolla’s blade and lightning spells only served to give Sofia more mana on a silver platter in the form of mana petals everywhere. Sofia barely even tried to block, she only wanted to charge this bolt as fast as possible no matter what.

I imagine it kept the Tartaros mimic down there to defend itself.

What a big mistake.

More tentacles kept appearing, the swarm of maggots was absolutely endless, and the thralls were not going to be able to hold on for much longer, but it was already too late.

After about twenty seconds, the archangel’s bolt was already too strong, its blazing heat distorting the air around, melting the bone walls and burning any approaching maggot to ashes. Only the mimic Nolla seemed fine in the bolt’s proximity but its desperate attacks failed to ever bring Sofia’s health low enough to make her mana heart vulnerable.

A few seconds later, they gave up.

The tentacles and the mimic burrowed back into the ground, leaving Sofia alone in a field of ash and broken bones.

Pareth. I think they’re coming for you, abort everything, get Gabriela and return to me.

Pareth?

Not seeing Pareth return, Sofia switched to his vision to witness an unbelievable sight, drawing a perfect arc between two rising maggot tentacles, Pareth’s blade shot out a massive [Arclight] that struck the already weakened form of the shadowy man and split it cleanly in half. The creature shrieked as its form degenerated.

[You have successfully dispatched an Existential-level threat ‘Left hand of the Dream Eater’.]

Moments later, Pareth teleported back to Sofia holding the torn-up corpse of Gabriela.

There were maggots all over him, which he would have to deal with himself, as Sofia was finally ready. She first stored Gabriela’s body into her eye.

The bolt in her hand already held more than her total mana, almost three-hundred million, in fact, which had been highly helped but the regeneration provided by absorbing all the mana petals the negated attacks of Nolla had provided.

Time for some cleaning.

[Roaming Free]

Sofia’s hand holding the bolt reached out for the mark. Instead of opening a portal to step through, she only wanted to reach the target, and that she did. Piercing through space, her hand slammed the javelin-like explosive bolt directly into the ‘levianthan’ skull.

Now die!

The light coming from underground was so intense that just what escaped from the fissures the tentacles had left behind was blinding despite the place’s unnatural darkness.