Chapter 983 - Which side are you on?

The ground collapsed as the entire mountain the ECA facility was built into caved-in due to the underground explosion. While the explosion’s light chased away the darkness, Sofia looked around.

Whatever this place was, it certainly was not the trial’s ‘real world’. It looked more like a barren wasteland taking the general topology of the real world, with alien-looking stone structures here and there, smooth geometric shapes, inhuman faces carved atop long necks sprouting out of the ground.

After a bit, the explosion died out, and so did the light, the dust settled, but nothing else changed.

Pareth, who now shared Sofia’s Avatar form, looking much like how Alith had described what the actual ‘Zeus’ god was supposed to look like, looked at Sofia, a questioning expression on his face.

“It’s not dead.”

Pareth tapped the spot where she had previously marked him.

“The mark is still active down there, yes. I can try another bolt, but by the time I’ve regenerated that much mana, the avatar form will be on the brink of running out. Let’s run first, in case a second shot isn’t enough. The mark doesn’t have a range limit anyway.”

The holy light constantly pouring from Pareth’s halo was good enough to push back the darkness for about a hundred meters, so the two decided to leave while flying near the ground, picking a random direction.

Sofia started to slowly channel a second bolt as they flew.

For the short time they spent fleeing, the dark wasteland was unexpectedly peaceful. Strange stone sculptures aside, there were no signs of life or hostility anywhere.

But when they temporarily stopped, Sofia almost ready to deliver another attack, the Inquisitor’s mark on the leviathan suddenly disappeared.

What?

Sofia stood there, bolt in hand, completely stunned.

As far as she knew, there was no way to get rid of the mark, it was magic upheld by Aphenoreth’s power, not even an ascended could possibly remove it.

The only possibility was that the Leviathan was dead, truly dead, beyond salvation.

She did believe that it might have finally breathed its last, after just barely surviving the first bolt.

But in that case… Where is the kill notification?

The system stayed silent.

Moments earlier, deep underground.

A giant fake Tartaros steadily held up the ceiling of the underground chamber on his back to prevent it from collapsing. Heavily injured, the ‘leviathan’ struggled to purge itself from all the black maggots the bolt had turned to ashes, it aggressively cut off parts of its body, still crackling with electricity.

At the moment it had lost all will to fight. The enemy was just too unpredictable, and the more it tried peering through the memories it had copied, the more terrified it became.

The memories held horrors beyond comprehension. Visions of truths that should not be told. Corpses of beings that should not die. Secrets of the universe. Nightmares of a scale that made its own puny powers seem trivial.

Even the semi-human being it had copied, which held the ceiling above its own head, the creature looked at in horror.

Words it had never once uttered now cluttered its mind.

I need to flee.

The thoughts were short-lived, interrupted by another being’s sudden appearance, a cloaked figure, silently materializing out of nowhere. He looked at the leviathan with contempt.

“What a pitiful state you are in.”

The leviathan’s distorted voices rose in response, “No! Why are you here?! I can still–”

“Silence. Even after calling for help, you still lost to a mere worm. You are not worthy.”

“No! Please! Anything but that! It’s not my fault! The necromancer! They are too dangerous! You need to–”

The figure lightly moved, just enough to create a ripple on the cloak’s soft fabric.

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The leviathan and all of its remaining dark maggots crumbled into an explosion of flesh.

“Looking for excuses. Pathetic.”

Walking through the scrambled flesh, the cloaked being bent over to pick a large white stone that looked like a fossilised ball of maggots feasting on a skull.

Soon the figure disappeared, and the room finished to collapsed

Since there was no upside to dispelling her bolt, Sofia sent it toward the sky instead. It flew straight up, quickly leaving her effective range for remote detonation, and continued for a good while before becoming too unstable

The bolt bloomed like a miniature sun in the sky, illuminating the dark realm, bathing it in gentle warmth.

Once again, Sofia used the opportunity to look around, but her thoughts were still on the leviathan.

Very few possibilities.

Either this trial has rules that supersede a lord’s power; or it’s dead.

But if it is in fact dead, I received no notification.

So…

Either it killed itself… Or someone stole my kill.

The real dream eater?

There was just nobody else around…

Either way it must be buried under a literal mountain of debris now, it is impossible to go check.

Leaving these thoughts behind, Sofia focused on the situation at hand. In this dark world, there were ruins in the distance, they were probably worth exploring. But her avatar form was about to end, leaving her severely weakened.

We also need to take the pills and try to revive Gabriela… Let’s not linger here for now.

From what she could tell, [Roaming Free] could not reach this place from outside, but she was fairly certain she could use it to leave.

Sofia decided to just leave her mark there, that way she could come back. Pareth entered her eye, and Sofia tore space to jump back into the physical plane.

Moments after their departure, a cloaked figure appeared right where they left.

Sofia and Pareth reappeared in a field amidst germinating crops. It was still early in the morning, the sun just beginning to peek over the horizon, coloring the sky soft gradients of blue, orange and pink.

The first thing Sofia did was check her mark.

Just like when Pareth first disappeared, kidnapped by the doors monster, the mark was both right where she stood, and somewhere else. As for where that somewhere else was, she could reach it if she wanted, but she could not pinpoint it, like it was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

How strange…

Not wasting any more time on these questions, Sofia summoned some bones, quickly making a low table for Pareth to place Gabriela on.

Her body was in a very bad state, torn up and frozen solid, but her soul was still around, faint, growing weaker by the second.

With not a moment to waste, Sofia quickly cancelled her transformation before its remaining time was fully over, fighting through the sudden wave of fatigue that came with that, took her armguard off, and pressed her glove against Gabriela’s forehead.

The stone glimmered faintly as the torn up corpse quickly fixed itself, discarding the broken limbs, frozen skin and torn flesh, like a snake emerging its moult, regrowing everything.

With a sharp inhale, Gabriela opened her eyes.

Sofia crouched in front of her to be eye level.

“Welcome back from the dead. How do you feel?”

“... Am I an undead now?” the woman asked, observing her own hands.

“No. I can make you a lich if you want, but you will have to look like a skeleton.”

“N- n-... I will be fine, thank you.”

“Pffft. You’re taking your first death rather well,” Sofia commented, watching Gabriela look around at the fields and at the sky. “Not going to ask any question?”

Gabriela’s eyes met Sofia’s.

“Am I even qualified to ask anything? I just want to thank you for saving me from this hell…”

“You should not be like that. Asking plenty of questions I had no business asking is arguably how I made it this far in life. But never mind that… Do you know if the rest of the ECA is compromised? What do we do now?”

Gabriela scratched her head.

“I am not too sure… We have many security protocols in place for incidents like this one or worse. But ultimately it depends on how much information has reached Central, and what they do with it,” she answered. “In the best case scenario, I re-join one of the region’s labs, will have to go through some questioning, and our ‘partnership’ with you can continue…”

“And worst case?”

“Worst case…”

Gabriela was silent for a moment, looking at her hands again, and finally decided to speak.

“They would decide you are responsible for this, dig into my memories to try to find a way to restrain you, and nuke the entire region to get rid of any traces of this failure.”

“Nuke?” Sofia repeated.

“Nuclear bomb. Something like the explosion you were supposedly the source of…”

“Oh. One of those. That would be pretty bad.”

They’re dying out fast enough as it is without killing themselves!

“So what do you suggest?” Sofia continued to ask.

“Is your goal really to cleanse the world of other dangerous entities?” Gabriela asked.

“I was human once. I wish for nothing but the survival of humanity.”

Gabriela nodded, clenching her fists. “Then, if you would trust me… Let me guide you somewhere.”