Chapter 730 - GRAND FINALE: Sofia Vs Earth - Part 3

Still quite high in the air over the city, the missile exploded with a sharp crack. What followed was the brightest flash of light Sofia had ever witnessed, it completely overwhelmed her vision. The explosion also emitted a high-pitched screech, so loud it felt like it was digging into her skull. Electrical shocks course through Sofia’s body that she couldn’t avoid, and as the light started to die down, a strange spicy smell assaulted her nostrils and her throat. The entire city was suddenly engulfed in a smelly red mist.

With a few quick jumps, Sofia left the city, escaping the red cloud.

Coughing a few times, she spat out some red goo on the sandy ground.

The hell is this?!

[Neuroveil]: I only have the name, some kind of non-lethal poison gas, I think.

Non-lethal? They’re trying to spare the civilians at least… But then their goal must be to get me away from the city!

Sofia looked up, still slightly disoriented, but it did not take her long to spot several planes hiding among the clouds, even if the sound they made was still covered by the previous missile’s violent screeching that hadn’t yet stopped.

Do I get rid of those? 

Charging two weak explosive bolts, Sofia took down two planes with ease, targeting those who were north of her. Seeing this, the others immediately retreated. Sofia still managed to shoot down one more, her fourth bolt barely missing its target because she couldn’t predict its sudden turn.

Lucky you. But now none’s going the way I’m going, I should be able to loose them. Let’s go!

Sofia started running toward what she guessed was the north east, she tried to follow the map the soldier had drawn for her. Whether it would truly lead her to Jin, Sofia had her doubts, but at least she was going somewhere now, instead of searching randomly.

After running for a few minutes, she couldn’t see any planes anymore, and she sneezed out more red goo a few times as she ran.

Regular poisons are pretty useless on me at this point… The area is turning more desertic by the minute… The perfect place to explode me with no civilian victims, but I think they lost me, for now.

Running for long minutes, getting further into the desert, Sofia was starting to relax a bit when she heard a sudden pop, a blue-white flash of light illuminated the corner of her vision as she dashed forward.

Huh?!

She turned around mid-air during her jump, the flash had actually happened right behind her, it still glowed, hot sand and hot particles creating a glittering cloud above the point of impact. Her feet hitting the sand, Sofia jumped back to investigate.

So they did not lose me.

Something had struck the ground, had she been a bit slower, it would have hit her. The place where Sofia had seen the flash was now a small crater in the sand, about a meter deep and wide, still glowing hot, a large area around it charred brown.

But what was that attack even? Nothing entered my mana senses at all. I don’t see any remnants of a projectile either…

Considering the shape of the crater… The angle of impact… It’s almost perfectly vertical.

Sofia looked up, not seeing anything above. Nothing…

Did they drop something from the fake stars I saw earlier? Seems plausible, but then how did I not feel it, I was careful in monitoring the sky…

LIGHT!

It must be that. Light that I can’t see. I might be able to see it with the heat detection from my fake eye! Hmm… Not that I would be able to avoid it. They missed this time but…

Sofia immediately started running again. I can’t stay still. And even then…

Yeah screw it. Too bad for Olympian but I need to survive this. That kind of a weapon is too dangerous.

[Title changed to ‘Madman’]

[Title change function is locked for the next 24 hours]

[Sense Mortal Danger] will help. It’s from a unique title, it can’t be bad!

Some time passed, with Sofia running in a straight line, hyper vigilant, ready to react to a feedback from the title any second.

I wonder why they’re not striking again. Maybe they need time to channel the energy first?

If I could get close enough to strike down one of those fake stars… But then I’d leave myself wide open. Cowardice is not an opt– Sofia felt a strange sensation coming from above. She felt the danger, and immediately used [Summon Self] to warp herself several meters sideways.

A silent flash pierced the desert just where she had summed herself from, creating another crater.

As I thought… Its aim was even better this time. This thing might have pierced me from top to bottom if not for the title, and even then that was a close call!

It’s been what, a minute and a half? That’s long enough for me to be able to teleport out every time. But I need to keep it pre-cast and stay hyper aware, this is a matter of a tenth of a second.

I knew already, but light is a damn scary weapon… Ah, the planes are back… Well, whatever. Clearly they don’t need that to know where I am.

The planes started attacking. One by one, they unleashed a single missile each, that split into several more, then into several more again, until hundreds of small missiles flew at Sofia from every direction. Sofia did not stop running, she simply took out her staff, invoked the spine whip onto it, and latched out at the closest missile once it was in range. The impact caused the usual burst of sunlight, engulfing and detonating a bunch of the missiles, creating a chain reaction. Sofia ran through the explosions and their dust cloud, as long as she avoided a direct impact, she was confident in her ability to resist such small-scale explosions.

Dealing with the planes’ attacks was easy enough, and their weak missiles did not activate [Sense Mortal Danger] at all, so they did not prevent Sofia from perfectly avoiding the next light attack from the sky either. After a bit, the planes retreated, having fired all their munitions, only to be instantly replaced by another fleet, starting the same pattern of attacks again.

This circus continued for a few minutes, Sofia running through the desert, doing flips around waves of missiles, jumping through explosions, and teleporting away from deadly strikes of invisible light. Until suddenly all the planes left.

All out of bang?

The answer came a few seconds later. They were, in fact, just retreating from the actual bang. [Sense Mortal Danger] ringed all the alarms in Sofia’s mind as she saw the huge metallic ball fall from the sky.

Not Sundial. Sofia noted, as she quickly summoned the asterite chest around her, filled and surrounded it with bones, and gave the thing the permanent frame blessing. The bomb exploded in the air above the desert.

In the medicalized bunker under a certain high-profile hospital, a young woman was sitting on top of a robotized medical unit, watching the live feed projector with other non-communicable disease patients and some of the medical personnel. 

A different presenter from the earlier was on, wearing a military uniform. He commented the situation, showing images of a city under a red cloud.

‘As you can see, the Neuroveil nanobot swarm had no effect of the Carcinan. The stun bomb has nonetheless managed to chase the intruder out of the city of Touba, with reports of minimal civilians casualties so far, likely caused by the aftereffects of the creature’s initial strike on New-Dakar.’

The image changed to that of Sofia in her bone armor, running through the desert. The image was relatively clear, but got interrupted by clouds every so often.

‘Preliminary scans of the solar system show that this might be an isolated attack. It seems the Carcinans have sent a single elite, perhaps to test the limits of our weaponry. The EDF leadership has yet to make an official statement but spokesperson Hermann assures that they have the situation well under control.’

The image changed to the surveillance feed from an underground garage.

‘As you can see in this footage, this monster is capable of advanced mimicry. Despite this Carcinan’s uncanny ability to disguise itself as one of us, it is clear to anyone with eyes that this monster is not human. EDF’s Hermann announced just now on FBX ‘These tactics are not outside of what we have prepared for, and we will soon deploy worldwide means to make sure no disguised Carcinans is ever able to hide amongst the population.’ No more detail has been given has to what these countermeasures are at this time.’

The footage then cut back to the alien running through the desert.

‘We have a new clip being reviewed right now, give out teams a second to prepare… There.’

The presenter silently watched the screen along the audience, as a flash of light hit the ground where the alien was, only for the alien to be perfectly safe, several meters away from the crater in the sand.

‘Play this at 10x slow,’ the presenter asked. There was some noise on the plateau, but the clip soon played again, slowed tremendously. ‘As many had theorized, the eastern block’s contribution to this war included a high potential laser weapon… The orbital laser program has been operational for almost two months now. Though it is primarily meant to defend us from threats in space, it still has sufficient power to strike through bunkers and armored vehicles… But it seems the Carcinans are able to… Teleport? We will need better footage to understand whether it is true teleportation or a simple burst of extreme speed, I expect more news to…’

The presenter suddenly stopped, nodding to someone talking to him from offscreen the the public could not hear. ‘WHAT?! HAVE THEY LOST THEIR MIND?!’ the presenter screamed at the person offscreen, which everyone could still hear despite him grabbing his tie-microphone to muffle the sound.

‘We will now switch back to the live satellite feed,’ the presenter then announced, looking significantly less at ease than before. After hesitating for a few seconds, he continued, his voice lower than before, ‘We have received official intel that the EDF has launched the yet-untested Goliath warhead at the invader.’ 

The already tense atmosphere in the hospital’s underground bunker immediately turned worse. Some people started sobbing, everybody already knew exactly what the Goliath was.

‘Thanks to our latest advancements, there should be no risks of nuclear winter or radioactive fallout, but speaker Hermann— warns that the 1 Gigaton bomb will most likely trigger major tsunamis and seismic events. The shockwave will be felt worldwide and circle the planet several times. Do not leave your bunker under any circumstance, if for whatever reason you have failed to join one, you are advised to lay down face against the ground, feet toward the Sahara desert, preferably with something to cover your head and ears. All relevant personnel has already been evacuated. The impact is expected… In under ten seconds. May God have mercy.’

In a dark room illuminated only by the faint glow of two dozen screens arranged in a semicircle, Jin looked at one satellite feed in particular, which followed a long range missile launched straight from the nearest EDF Silo in the middle-east.

“Railguns are ready… Orbital charging…  ME3 being assembled… Drones almost good to launch…”

Mumbling to himself, he watched the missile cut through the clouds.

Hands joined under his chin, he stared at the screen.

“Just like back then… But it’s not the crabs, this time. Can you survive this, Challenger?”