Chapter 787 S - A skeleton’s endless ripples

Potions appeared in Shaily’s hands one after the other, how much they could really help she wasn’t sure, but at least they gave her the temporary stamina boost she needed to move around. She still had a few sprites ready, but with her mana at rock bottom, those were really her last resort.

Victory’s arms extended, long filaments of eyes reaching up into the sky.

Thinking I could kill an avatar… How did Sofia even do this…

To test the god’s reaction, Shaily sent a light sprite to attack it.

She was half-expecting the sprite to be absorbed as the avatar was still sucking all mana from the air, but reality was even worse than her imagination, as the sprite turned into a flying eye midway through and joined the body of the abomination.

… Great.

Before she could lament the loss of her poor sprite, one of the avatar’s tentacular arms slammed down from the sky.

Jumping to the side, Shaily barely avoided the surprisingly fast whip of eyes.

It followed her like a snake chasing its prey.

Shaily ran to the side, the thing was fast, but not fast enough that she couldn’t avoid it. When she trained with Zerei, the seeking curses the Apostle sent after her were harder to avoid than that.

She successfully avoided the tentacle for a good thirty seconds, jumping over and sliding under it when she needed to, she was starting to form a plan.

He’s absorbing so much mana to sustain this. He’s sure to run out sooner or later, I just need to hold on!

The plan worked for another short while, until the avatar’s second tentacular arm started striking alongside the first. In a matter of seconds, avoiding their coordinated assault became too much.

Her movements limited, she jumped over one tentacle and kicked away the other tentacles to avoid being grabbed by it, bolting away with the mana she had slowly regenerated.

While she landed safely away from the two tentacles, she was losing feeling in her leg.

?!

Her leg was turning black, eyes sprouting over her skin one after the other.

HELL NO!

Detonating one of her handful of space sprites, the hardest ones to summon, she sliced off her own leg. A new leg regrew in an instant, but her maximum health further suffered from the constant regeneration.

Starting to run again, as the two eye tentacles were closing in on her again, Shaily observed the mana currents in the air. The avatar was still absorbing everything it could, and it did not seem to be slowing down, which made Shaily want to curse, but she had no time. All she could do was jump and tumble around like a gymnast to avoid the tentacles of eyes.

She held on, for as long as she could, not getting hit a second time, using her space sprites to teleport herself out of the encirclements a few times, noting that for some strange reason she could only teleport two meters away at most, much less than usual. It let her survive for now, but her stamina wasn’t infinite. She stumbled as it hit zero. 

The two tentacles slammed down towards her, she had nothing left, not a single space sprite remaining, not even enough mana to summon herself away.

She could only activate her bracer’s ability and hope it saved her.

[Commander’s cognisance]:

Anchor yourself in the physical realm, making you temporarily immune to aura and non-physical attacks.

Processing increased tenfold.

All healing received is halved.

Cost: 5% Max Health per second.

Minimum activation time is 1 full second.

Her mind became clear, her thoughts sharper, completely counteracting the effects of her depleted stamina. She managed to roll away from one of the tentacles, but the other one still violently slammed against her back.

The blow shattered her spine, activating the [Equal Reaction] passive that had just come off cooldown. All the remaining sprites in Shaily’s body sacrificed themselves, exploding in a bright shower of light that actually severed the attacking tentacle, blowing the other a few meters away.

The remaining sprites had mostly been the green plant sprites, whose death hastened Shaily’s healing and mana regeneration for a short while. Her spine fixed itself, even through the halved healing, and she got up.

Her back was not turning into a mess of eyes.

That gave Shaily a desperate idea.

Eyes fixed on the avatar, she charged at it.

The remaining tentacle tried to get in the way while the other one was limp on the ground, slowly regrowing. It continuously attacked Shaily, whose body was crumbling down, but her sheer willpower was pushing through even with her stamina starting to fall into the negatives.

She could block the tentacle without fear of becoming an eye monster now, so its damage was minimized. Because her maximum health had fallen so much, her passive regeneration was high enough to sustain her through both the attacks, the 5% max health loss per second of the bracer, and its halved healing. She was constantly taking damage yet always at full life.

Health: 1432 / 1432 (8980)

Stamina : -153 / 8980

Mana: 948 / 58500

But her maximum health was steadily falling. She was impossible to kill yet rapidly dying.

Like a zombie, she stumbled forward toward the avatar.

Her maximum health went under a thousand.

She did not even have the energy to block anymore, letting the tentacle continuously hit her while she pressed forward.

With only a sliver of health remaining, she reached the twisted body of the avatar of victory, that stood not too far from the edge of the platform.

“If I can’t win…”

“THEN WE’LL LOSE TOGETHER! MAIDEN BOLT!!!”

Shaily’s body was violently flung forward, slamming into the twisted pillar of eyes, and sending them both flying over the edge.

That was it. Her health was too low, so she deactivated the bracer after the impact, barely escaping the last tick of 5% damage that would have finished her off, and lost consciousness as her body fell toward the ground, getting engulfed by victory’s eyes.

A green orc flew back up to the tower’s top, an unconscious exidian in his arms.

Sen was waiting for him at the top.

“That was quite something,” he said, “you already healed her?”

Victory smiled at Sen, “and I fixed her clothes. I like her spirit.”

“So she passed?” Sen asked.

He was technically the manager here, but for a situation like this where Shaily both successfully escaped with the crown, yet would have died if not for their intervention, the final judgement was Victory’s.

“Had she died falling by herself, that would have been her loss,” Victory answered, “But taking me down with her? That has to be worth something!"

Sen smiled back at Victory, “Ranking?”

“Second place. She dealt less damage, and I had to heal her at the end. A praiseworthy prowess nonetheless!”

“Noted. This is going to make waves again.”

A few system windows appeared above the unconscious woman.

[Objectives completed!]

[The second trial has ended, congratulations on rank: 2! You will be contacted by an administrator or high-operator shortly, please wait.]

“Are there already people waiting in line for that one?” Victory asked.

“Cecless, Zgat, Tartaros and Beligenus.”

Victory laughed, “It’s truly incredible how much more lively that one skeleton girl has made our little world, “And now another has come to shake up the board.”

“Indeed. I can hardly wait to see her get to the Ark.”

A miniature-sized white dragon appeared on top of the tower next to the Seraph and God.

“I missed the show again!” the dragon cursed, shaking off a layer of white dust from his scales. “Tssk. You guys, stop chatting and give her the rewards before the scribes blow my ears off with their update requests. And Sen, send me the cleaned replay before tonight!”

Nex disappeared as abruptly as he’d come, leaving Sen and Victory to stare at each other awkwardly.

“Well… Let’s get to it,” Sen said.

The post ‘victory’ confusion cleared, and after a short discussion with Victory and Sen, Shaily was given her crown, and presented a choice from the remaining six gems.

[Sprite Regulator’s Golden crown of Victory] :

Gain a cumulative speed buff from your every Valiant Victories.

Upon losing against a Valiant Victory target, lose related bonus.

This is only active while you wear the crown.

Lesser Victories:

Revor Bluehand +2%

Alpha Rivermane Wolf +2%

Corrupted Nature Sprite +2%

Valiant Victories:

Dwarven Discipline Golem +5%

Kleptran Ensnaring Nightmare +5%

Glorious Victories:

Incarnation of Victory +15%

Current total speed bonus : 31%

Item level : 199.

Grade : Flawless.

Restriction : wearer must be Shaily Ormoncleth. Soulbound. System item.

“And here are the gems. There were nine originally, but Sofia had her pick before you, so you can get three of the remaining six. Take your time.”

Shaily nodded and scanned the six gems spread on the tea table.

[Nigredo] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides the special skill [Spell Decay].

Grade : Legendary.

[Albedo] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides a random skill with an immunity effect.

Grade : Legendary.

[Emerald Cypher] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides knowledge of all system-registered languages.

Grade : Legendary.

[Adamian Core] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides doubled health and health recovery.

Grade : Legendary.

[Chaos Stone] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides a random special skill of extreme power.

Grade : Legendary.

[Mithrium Glass] : When worn on the Crown of Victory, provides a temporary mana shield worth 33% of spent mana.

Grade : Legendary.

“Can you tell me what the options Sofia picked were?” Shaily asked.

“No, but you can ask her,” Sen answered with a smile.

“Hmm… Well, it’s not going to be too hard to pick the first one. I have to take [Adamian Core] no matter what, I’m all about health regeneration… For the rest, it’s a bit… No information on Spell decay or the random skill?”

“Not much information,” Sen confirmed, “Spell decay is a defensive skill, the random skill is random. It is powerful, but random.”

“The chances of it being an elemental skill should be pretty high… As for a second defensive option, I’d rather take the immunity. The mana shield should be pretty strong but I don’t mind losing some health since I’m all about regeneration. It’s a bit of a shot in the dark but… Let’s go with [Albedo] and [Chaos Stone].”

“The two random options,” Victory noted, “You fancy a good gamble?”

Shaily shrugged, “I came all this way, the rewards cannot possibly be subpar, right?” she said, staring at Sen.

“Ah, I’m not in charge. The moment you slot those in the crown, your destiny is in the high-scribes’ hands. Even I have no idea what is going to come out of it.”

“Well, only one way to find out!”

Shaily slotted the three gems in her crown.

System notifications dinged twice for her two new skills.

You have acquired the Passive skill : ‘Darklight mana progenitor’

♢[Darklight mana progenitor]♢:

Becoming a living test subject of the unscrupulous DATABASE high-scribe, who is not sorry, your mana is warped into a strange darklight.

Immunity to light damage.

Immunity to dark damage.

(More effects unlocked at skill level 2 and above)

You have acquired the Special skill : ‘Armageddon Starblade’

♢[Armageddon Starblade]♢:

Becoming a living test subject of the unscrupulous DATABASE high-scribe, who is a little bit sorry, your random skill is not too random.

Invoke the Armageddon Starblade from your extended fingers.

No cost.

Each swing of the Armageddon Starblade can be empowered by sacrificing 20% of your Max Health, Stamina, and Mana, to create a devastating Starfield Collapse following the path of the blade, dealing light and dark damage.

The damage of the Armageddon Starblade and Starfield Collapse is increased by the following parameters:

-Maximum Health

-Maximum Stamina

-Maximum Mana

-Class Level

-Skill Level

-Core Rank

-Number of Light and Dark Sprite inhabiting the starblade.

-Number of nearby Light and Dark elementals.

An awkward silence reigned atop the trial tower.