Chapter 79 – Archangel Sovereign Saint

The archangel had to have been born.

Darya zoomed back to take the fight to it rather than waiting for it to descend. She didn’t want to handle an unknown threat while Nerima, Lurim, and Emil’s lives were on the line.

The Dreagan had changed tactics. It didn’t acknowledge her with the same attention as before. The Shadows were flocking into a downward spiral, repositioning themselves along with the Dreagan. Based on their trajectory, their target seemed to be the merfolk castle on the island.

Darya didn’t meet any resistance from the Shadows this time. There were no Filvorans throwing any mana spears at her. No one left their spiraling flock formation to attack her.

Looks like everyone got new instructions. They’re clearing the way for the big one.

She couldn’t see the archangel anywhere, but she could almost feel a faint presence lingering in the air. Sarka could’ve told her definitively, but he wasn’t with her. After much deliberation, she left him with Nerima and Emil. Sarka was adamant that he needed to accompany her, but Darya knew he was better left coordinating the situation below, especially with how impulsive Nerima was. Those three children (she included Emil in this list) needed at least one adult with a straight head.

Darya had to rely on what she had. This was for the best. With everyone out of the way, she was free to do all the wild things without worrying.

Without a Manacer, the spells she could cast by hand were limited to utility, defense, or traversal. Her build was disjointed at best with all the new capabilities, but she still had everything she needed.

[Spell: Sense Sphere]

-3 MP/s • Sphere • 90s Duration

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Mana burst from her skin, forming a vapor sphere around her. The range of this spell hadn’t been enough for a Filvoran mana spear, and she knew it wouldn’t be enough for something stronger than them. Still, it felt better to have it than not.

Darya scanned the sky during free fall. The Dreagan had moved faster than her fall. It was below her now. That was too fast for something that huge.

As it performed this fast dive, she caught a glimpse of a dark dot detaching from the surface. It grew into a bizarre shape, unfurling a weird set of wings.

It opened two more wings.

And then, another two smaller ones below those.

[Vainfall: Termin—]

She wasn’t fast enough. The six-winged dot flickered off the Dreagan’s surface. Not many things had her worried about the activation window of her commands.

She finished it anyway. It had to be frozen, no matter where it vanished off to.

[Vainfall: Terminate]

Where the fuck is it?

Darya looked in every direction. Based on the speed it vanished, it had to have reached her altitude, or higher. She couldn’t see anything anywhere.

One.

She saw a six-winged silhouette at the tail end of the spiral flock. She leaned forward and almost used the Frame command. The shape looked weird. She checked with the telescope. It was just a gathering of Shadows.

Two.

If it was below, she wouldn’t find it in the mess of other Shadows. She would need unlimited Terminates to comb through everything.

Keeping the telescope in hand, she looked all over the sky above her. When the six-winged one flickered, it flickered vertically upwards.

Three. Did it fly, or was that a spell to disappear?

Her eyes brushed past a faint distortion in the sky above her. It looked like a thin strip of glass.

The Terminate was ending. She didn’t care if it was an entity or not. She targeted it right away.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

It was an entity.

She appeared a few feet away from the distortion. It was a smear across the sky, a vertical line that bent the light around it. She couldn’t see any wings or anything close to a humanoid shape.

As the monochrome world started fading, the line began to move faster than anything she had seen move during the tail end of a Terminate. It went straight past her.

As it did, a vague shape emerged from the distortion. A torso. The head snapped in her direction in slow motion.

Holy fuck, I need another Terminate!

[Vainfall: Terminate]

The torso had produced a bent set of wings by the time her command activated. Even a split-second gap would’ve given it too much time to do something. This thing was faster than anything she had fought before.

As the world flickered to monochrome again, she took a good look at the visible portion of the Shadow. It was tar-blackened as all shadows, but it had two unmistakable shapes that she couldn’t take her eyes off of, especially with the arched-back pose it was frozen in.

It had big breasts.

It wasn’t nude, not exactly, since the Shadow skin covered everything like a bodysuit made of tape. It was still absurd to witness. A woman-angel with an unfairly large pair. The true essence of Vainfall, the VRMMO meant for a mature audience.

They put an archangel with big tits in here. RLP has some explaining to do.

[Inspect]

Character: Saint Elorane Taurmiel

Role: Archangel Sovereign

Level: 321

EXP: 33,661,612 (34%)

HP: 81,220

MAX HP: 81,220

MP: 38,942

MAX MP: 38,942

SP: 58,474

MAX SP: 58,474

STR: 12,359

DEX: 52,559

CON: 22,352

RES: 10,109

Darya’s gleeful smile vanished. This was a situation and a half. Thirty-three million EXP, level 300, and a Sovereign title. It—or rather, she—would’ve been a nation-level power. Exactly how she became a Shadow was anyone’s guess at this point. There was a time when Darya wouldn’t have been affected at all by these numbers. This would’ve been a regular enemy when she was playing as her level 4,500+ autistically optimized Archdemon character.

As Darya Altazark, this was an insurmountable gap. She didn’t even want to check her numbers. She was just a human Archmage with small breasts. At this point, she felt checking on her numbers would actually be detrimental.

She had no chance to win a mana-based battle with this thing. Good thing she had developer commands, but this looked like a nightmare even with all the things she could do. The Dreagan had gone above and beyond this time.

Escape? But this one’s fast. The only escape would be…underwater. Yes. Nerima and Lurim can be safe if they dive down. Emil and I are screwed.

If it came down to a retreat situation, she had to keep it occupied while letting others escape. She wasn’t sure if she should let this thing roam outside either. If a Filvoran could sink her ship, this thing could turn it into toothpicks.

One. What to do now?

She had to know more about the enemy, and her old instincts kicked in. At high levels, EXP number by itself was meaningless. It could be millions or trillions, balanced that way simply to make players feel good about themselves. The real information was axis mastery. The five axes that any amount of EXP was distributed on.

For her, it was Unezilo, energy. She almost knew what this Archangel might be, but she wanted to see it for herself.

[Inspect: Axis Mastery]

Axis:

Rilomar: 16,983,446

Unezilo: 9,768,396

Aenthune: 2,608,278

Runthur: 2,298,020

Lomiez: 2,003,472

It was just as she thought. Rilomar. Movement. This Archangel had mastered movement above all things. It was nearly half its EXP. That meant she had done feats that rewarded her for it. A six-winged speedster with big breasts. It sounded like a fever dream now.

Two. It also has more Unezilo than I do. Several times more, in fact. So, I really couldn’t fight it with mana.

If the Dreagan that killed Darya Altazark had met this instead of Sarka, the whole party would’ve been vaporized.

The strategy was clear.

Darya had to break her wings. It looked easy enough to do with Terminate and a good whack with a Collider stick, but she knew it wasn’t going to be that simple. A character could never reach this level of mastery without accounting for its weaknesses.

Three.

She needed another Terminate, but she also needed to get away. She couldn’t create her collider weapon standing here with the most dangerous target ever.

In addition to the already active Sense Sphere, she activated two rarely used skills, just to be safe.

[Skill: Warding of Alta]

-30 SP • 250s Cooldown

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This was her only defensive layer, although it would be slightly better than being naked against a level 300 character.

[Skill: Diamond Eyes]

-65 SP • 400s Cooldown

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She had used it against Sarka once. That seemed silly now, because it really wouldn’t be enough to track this six-winged harlot.

Both of those were ‘better than nothing’ options. The whole fight would hinge on her Developer abilities, activation times, and strategy.

Another fucking headache. Here we go.

Sighing to herself, she targeted a random Shadow below her.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

The last half-second passed during travel. She let the Terminate fade this time, since she was hopping a long distance. She wanted to see if the Archangel would catch up or notice. It was all the better if she couldn’t perceive Darya’s speed.

This experiment yielded both good and bad news. The Archangel turned into an unnoticeable blur. She couldn’t see where it would approach her from. On the other hand, it was definitely slower than her, because it hadn’t caught up to her right away.

Darya counted the seconds until it did. She knew it was coming from somewhere.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five… More than five? That’s good. Maybe terminate’s refreshed now! Oh wait, there it is—

Darya caught a glimpse just in time with her Diamond Eyes and Sense Sphere. The Archangel came from above in a distortion line. Slowing down, she flared her six wings as white mana erupted from her forehead. Glowing irises were already set upon Darya.

[Vainfall: Terminate Twice]

The world flickered around Darya, Visual artifacts from activating Terminates too close to each other. It didn’t matter. She had seven seconds total now.

Darya grabbed a stick. She had to work fast.

[Vainfall: Edit Collider Wireframe]

She didn’t even have time to come up with ideas. The only thought in her head was:

Make something to fuck up those wings.