Chapter 780 - Still a long way up

Author note:

Hi! Wanted to post early today, so here you go, also note that due to the daylight saving time shenanigans, the usual release timing may have shifted for some, as it does every six months.

Secondly, as @Tejing pointed out to me, there were some issues with the archangel bolt mana cost math, so things have changed a bit, I haven't updated the previous chapter yet, but if you notice the difference in this one, that's why.

Lastly, there are a few ways the story could go right now, all valid in my opinion, so today's chapter comes with a poll :D

Happy reading!

Erredis stood in the grass, wearing a casual black sundress, looking up at Sofia floating a few meters above, “I’m telling you it’s fine, do you think I’m that weak?”

“That’s not…”

“I know, I know. Just forget about your worries and attack! You’re still a thousand years too young to injure a dragon, let alone this one! Get started already!”

Shaking her head, Sofia flew up.

She mentally ran some math, before when she had calculated her archangel bolt casting speed, she had forgotten to add the 20% additional cast speed from the Spine of the black sun Atlatl form.

Form 2: Archangel’s Explosive Bolts

Channel a single powerful plasma bolt that explodes on impact or when triggered.

Base channeling speed: 400 000 mana per second

With the staff’s 84% channeling time reduction and the cursed ring’s doubled cast speed, this goes up to five million mana a second.

So the Atlatl brings it up to six.

Hmm… Funnily enough the added casting speed makes the channeling outspeed my regeneration so much that the biggest bolt I can cast is smaller than without it.

If I’m not botching up the math the atlatl gives a 294 million bolt in 49 seconds before running out of mana while without it I get 340 million in 68 seconds. I guess I’m not using the Atlatl form today. Although the secondary light burst it gives might make up for the lost damage, I just want to see how big an explosion I can make.

After putting on her helmet, tightly gripping her scepter, Sofia started channeling.

The Archangel’s bolt channeling was different from the regular bolts; instead of a constant flow of mana, she had to send packets of exactly 400 thousand mana in quick succession. In this case, more than 12 of them a second. The bolt appeared like a regular charged bolt right away, a clean and straight javelin of sky-blue plasma, perfectly stable. If there was one major difference about it compared to the previous angel bolts, the light was a lot less blinding, which was definitely a plus. Then, as she channeled more and more, the bolt’s form started to shift, its point, forming above the scepter’s catalyst, started to become narrower while the back extended. The bolt took on an elongated conical shape, completely envelopping Sofia’s hand and half of her forearm. Clear mana currents showed within the plasma, like white snakes writhing around a conical piece of sky.

The heat was intense, but Sofia had good enough protection now that it was negligible, even if her bone armor started to melt, it reformed instantly.

When the bolt reached a hundred million mana, it seemed to grow in intensity, the cone becoming slightly narrower and brighter again, as if compressing the raging energy within.

At two hundred million mana, it happened again, the bolt became thinner and brighter for the second time. Loose filaments of electricity like miniature lightning, started to escape from it, grazing Sofia’s armor and leaving burned marks on the bone.

At three hundred million, the same thing happened, and the heat started to become suffocating, even for Sofia’s standards. Nevertheless, she kept going, starting to adjust her aim at the dragon far below.

Finally her mana hit zero.

The bolt departed, air ringing like a celestial gong as a trait of light descended from the heavens.

The aim was slightly off, but a smirking Erredis stepped right into the incoming attack.

For an instant, Sofia was blinded by the explosion’s immense light, not even her fake eye could see anything other than pure white.

Then she saw it, more than twenty kilometers in diameter, a gigantic ball of blue fire warping the air around it, a gigantic mushroom of fire growing from it, heading toward her.

She had to hastily fly away to avoid being engulfed, but couldn’t escape the shockwave shattering her bone armor and mangling her flesh from within.

Her health quickly climbed back up by itself while she watched fire spread through the grasslands. It engulfed the entire horizon, the lush green flat hills turned into a hellscape of fire and ash in the blink of an eye as the heatwave spread from the fireball.

Sofia was in a strange place between shock, fear of herself and what she was becoming, and pure raw excitement.

Erredis appeared next to Sofia, looking down at the fireworks with her. She had tanked the bolt head on, and looked absolutely unscathed, not a hint of a burn anywhere on her body, even the sundress had survived. “Hmmhmm. No two ways about it, when it comes to destructive magic, that human guy is up there among the best.”

“Ravaging Thunder?” Sofia asked, though it was obvious that this was who Erredis meant, the man who gave her the spell schematic.

Erredis snorted, looking amused, “Elven names… He’s not too old, just a little over five thousand, I think, but when it comes to creating new attack magic he’s quite something. Couldn’t escape the news even from the moon.”

“Not too old…” Sofia repeated, staring at her character sheet that still displayed her age as 21. “Who’s the oldest? Aside from Sun and Death?”

“Aside from the few remaining stragglers from the lost epoch supposedly hiding in outer space? There are rumors about one of the more well known fairies being from the lost epoch as well. If we’re talking current, the oldest is our dragon patriarch Avross. Even he is not sure about his exact date of birth, but it was around the time Sun formed, before the cataclysm that ravaged the world fully ended. He protected the other dragon eggs until they became our current epoch’s first generation.”

“What about Cecless?”

Erredis frowned a little, “Her again? Did she come to bother you, sweetie? She did, didn’t she?”

“She might have dropped by to say hi at some point…” Sofia admitted.

“You don’t sound too mad about it. I suppose she’s not always causing trouble. But she is terminally crazy. An oddity even among the older ones like myself. There must have been something wrong with her egg, I don’t know, but this is really all you need to know about her.”

“If you fought would you win?”

“Hmm… That… It’s a difficult question, actually.”

“Back then you told me people at your level know who they can fight and who they can’t,” Sofia innocently pointed out.

“Right? But Cecless is… She… If you saw how she fights you would understand. It’s really hard to know where she stands, but if I had to guess… I think we might be evenly matched.”

“Now I kind of want to see her fight.”

Erredis looked at Sofia like she was as crazy as Cecless, “Don’t wish for disasters.”

Sofia looked down at the ground, where the fireball was disappearing, showing a hole she had just exploded into the ‘continent’, ash covering the waves below. “Sure… What about the strongest three people alive?”

“People?”

“I guess omitting gods and things like the Leviathan.”

“Oh, that’s pretty easy,” Erredis said right away, “Er’Zgat takes first place without even a competition.”

“The seraph Kleptra? That much?!”

“Yeah. He’s just… I have a few of my horns, teeth and scales in storage. Want to guess who broke them? I could barely fight back. And that was just him bothering me at my castle’s door for a spar, not even a serious fight.”

“...”

“And the next two would be Stebron and saint Tartaros. About on the same level I would say.”

“... Beating his image in the trial was even bigger of a deal than I thought?”

“Not really? Your sister beat him too. He’s just kept improving at a fast pace even after ascending, while a lot of us just get complacent once we reach the top.”

“I think I can understand that somewhat… Which makes me think… Why had nobody dealt with the Leviathan? Surely it can’t be that much stronger, right?” Sofia asked, the mere memory of that thing sending shivers down her spine.

“Truthfully no, if a well-organized group of the strongest ascended were to fight it at our full strength, with adequate preparation, it would barely be a fight.”

“Then why not? Because it produces mana?”

“In part. But also, it’s not causing any trouble, as long as you stay away from it. Quite the opposite, it’s been quite proactive in snatching up Phageid when they invade, from what I’ve heard. Despite that, plenty of people think it’s an eyesore, but even then, we can’t get rid of it even if we wanted to. Yes we could kill it… But the planet wouldn’t survive the fight."