Chapter 801 - Critical roll

AN:

Hi; sorry for the lack of update yesterday, the road construction kicked up a notch and aside from waking me up at the early hours of the day, the damn road rollers are so loud I can barely hear myself think. It's really bad, they make the street vibrate so much that my screen shakes whenever they drive next to the apartment (which happens every few minutes...) (Seriously for how fucking long do they need to flatten that damned road?!)(I'm going crazy)

Anyway. With two days worth of writing struggle sessions, I managed to cobble up a chapter, enjoy.

As the pink skin of the Reviskiviel appeared under the canopy, time seemed to come to a halt as a surge of mana shocked Sofia’s brain.

[Sight of glory and madness]: 

I can see everything.

0.1 (4.9)% Chance to automatically activate in dangerous or key moments.

Processing atomic data, available EV, and entropy, briefly shows all possible futures of the immediate happenings, highlighting the single best and worst possible outcomes.

Thinking speed augmented to consciousness limit during activation.

Thousands of possible futures appeared to Sofia as if she were living them herself, from her point of view she tried many things one after the other. She fled, fought back, teleported, and used various divine powers. No matter what she and the others did, they died. All gobbled up by the pink monstrosity. Everyone would be definitely dead, and not even the unlife runes would save her from the creature’s stomach full of roiling mana.

Out of all the futures the helmet showed her at first, only in two cases were there survivors.

If she sacrificed herself alongside Pareth and Bookie, Sonia could escape by herself.

Or she could use quantic transposition to escape and leave everyone else to die.

Time began to very slowly seem to restart as Sofia’s thoughts slowed down, in that time, the helmet showed her the final two options.

In a desperate failed attempt to save everyone, she escaped with the transposition too late, surviving alone as just a torso and a head, her blueprint permanently altered, limbs impossible to regrow, allies forever lost.

The worst outcome…

The same worst future then played out in front of her eyes a second time. Ever so slightly different.

And the best one!

As Sofia’s thinking speed normalized, time for her regained its due course.

PARETH! Grab Sonia and flee north!

[Extinguish]!

Light disappeared from the universe. 

For a brief instant, Sofia was the only visible thing.

This sudden sight loss would slow the beast below just enough.

Reached for Bookie’s pages, Sofia tore off two of them.

PESTLE! CROWIE!

As the fairy and dragon skeletons formed in absolute darkness, Sofia had to deactivate her skill, as she could feel herself start to disappear. Light came back into existence, as if nothing strange had ever happened.

Instantly she felt the immense gravitational pull of the creature below pull on her. Pareth was already carrying Sonia away, yet he was also stopped by the force.

Crowie, lightness breath on Pareth.

Pestle, dig into my chest and enter my head from inside.

In an instant she issued her commands. Crowie started breathing out white fluff in Pareth’s direction before his bones were even fully formed.

Pestle did not even question the crazy orders, slashing her way into Sofia’s flesh as they were all getting sucked out of the canopy by the Reviskiviel’s gravity. Crowie’s breath helped Pareth resist the monster’s pull, but barely. Not nearly enough for him to be able to escape.

Crowie, unsummon.

Sofia waited patiently for the right moment, rearranging the divine cores inside of her as she fell toward the monster’s wide-open mouth. She could already feel her mana stop responding to her, leaving her completely powerless. Her wings and runeforged overlord flight were both much too weak to set her free. But divine essence still answered her command.

The Reviskiviel’s mouth did not even have real teeth, only wavy pink gums that helped it close shut. That was how useless the concepts of biting or chewing were to that thing. Sofia had to get the timing right, or the worst future was the one she was heading for.

As soon as the mouth shuts.

The monster’s throat was too wide for Sofia to even touch the borders as she was pulled further in. Her mana was completely out of her control already, she could no longer even feel her own aura.

Pestle. On my signal, stop time, pull my mana heart to my chest, and kill me. Do it as fast as you can.

Closing her eyes, Sofia focused on the sounds.

She counted the seconds.

Finally she heard it. The creature’s mouth had closed shut.

REJECTION!

Carefully controlling the output of her power, Sofia pushed all the nearby mana away with Rejection’s divine power. For just an instant, both Pestle and herself regained their magic.

Now!

Sofia did not even notice anything, she died, a smile on her face.

[Phageian void blast]

Nearby mana collapsed into Sofia’s helmet like a collapsing star. Sofia's health shot up as her death was reversed.

Health : 2 570 625 443 002 / 2 570 658 211 020

The resulting explosion would explode with that much power in an area equal to Sofia’s aura range. With the careful timing, her aura range, which had been increasingly suppressed both by the environment and the creature’s power, had recovered a bit from the current absence of mana. Just enough.

Black light erupted from the helmet like the sudden appearance of a black hole surging with bright strands of white mana.

The sound of the burst was loud enough to overwhelm the Abereth’s aura of silence.

The explosion died down after a short time.

Sofia was still in the creature’s throat, its insides blackened and scarred. In moments, its mana would surge again, and Sofia would be powerless once more.

She clung to the throat, slicing her way through with her dagger. The flesh, even without mana, was even tougher than Asterite, but with all her buffs, the demon form’s strength, and switching her title back to [Olympian], Sofia was able to slash through. She carved herself a hole to crawl out of as the Reviskiviel woke up from its stupor.

Outside light hit her body, and that was all she needed. As the creature’s mana tried to envelope her again, starting from her legs, she was already gone.

With no divinity left, and barely any mana, Sofia transposed herself as far as her light could reach, landing in a river, dozens of kilometers away, her massive temporary health pool diminishing by tens of billions every second.

Now Pareth and Sonia were safe. The creature was not dead but it had suffered a permanent injury. It would come for her. That was as far as her vision of the best future had guided her.

“Fucking hell…”

Pestle dug her way out of Sofia’s chest, flying next to her.

“Pesle almost is die too! All mana is escape! See the other side! Don’t even know how Pesle is still live,” the fairy blabbered, in shock.

“The forbidden layer goes by its own rules,” Sofia answered with a smirk, “Now, as much as I’d like to rest in the stream, that thing is going to be heading our way shortly.”

“Argh. And still night!”

Sofia nodded, spraying some bone dust in the air, revealing nearby invisible death bubbles floating around.

“The helmet was 100% of the reason we even survived that…” Sofia muttered as she stood up, avoiding a bubble coming her way.

“Pink leg is almost is ascended!” Pestle quipped, jumping on Sofia’s shoulder, “We is not kill it even in dream! Escape miracle miracle!”

“Almost ascended? You can tell that?”

“Pesle can tell! Inside aura, very clear, strong as adult dragon!”

“... If the helmet’s skill hadn’t activated…”

“We am die then,” Pestle said with a few nods.

“... Let’s hide first, we’ll worry about rejoining Pareth later. I can still tell his approximate direction.”

“How is we hide?” Pestle asked.

“When I stopped the light, even though I was still visible, that thing was so disoriented that it didn’t attack me right away,” Sofia explained, “Perhaps because it’s too strong to need anything else, but that stupid thing seems to rely entirely on vision and most of its skills should be what it uses to seal its prey’s powers. Infinity engine would have protected my mana from its aura, and the philosopher's stone negated a bunch of debilitating effects. Yet despite that almost all my skills were still suppressed somehow. I don’t think it has any advanced tracking abilities. If it did, wouldn’t it already be here?”

“Hmm… What is we do then? Hide in water? Hide in ground? It going search!”

Sofia didn’t explain, walking up to a large tree. Her dagger carved out a door in the trunk, she placed the carveout to the side, and with hasty movements, she emptied the tree’s insides. Dumping the sap covered wood in the stream behind her, she and Pestle entered the trunk, and Sofia pulled the bark door back, sealing the tree with some bone glue.

“There we go. As simple as that, I doubt it’ll find us in there, we can just hide here and hope it stops looking for me after a while.”

“Is that really work?”

“That’s our best bet. If it does have an actual tracking skill, we’re dead either way.”

“... Pesle dead already, rather not be two dead.”

“Right? I think we’re fine, though it might be an idea to stop talking.”

“Pesle is stop, but worry, how is Sofia avoid death bubble?”

Sofia giggled lightly, “Don’t worry, if it’s just us, you can be resummoned, and me? As long as I’m not in that thing’s mouth, my runes will bring me back.”

“Sure rune is work?!”

“Sure sure,” Sofia nodded. Anywhere else in the forbidden layer, she would have to be careful again, but in the mirror valley, at least, her visions of the future had shown her more than enough examples on how her runes would still work here. They would always get her eaten, but that wasn’t an issue anymore, for now.