Chapter 706 - Dumber than a Kleptra

“Should we turn back?” Kuli asked, a serious expression on her face.

“Wait for the ones without a map to jump into the maw of the beast for us?” Mornn asked, “Sofia did mention bait earlier…”

“We’d squander the little advance we currently have…” Sofia said, “I see two ways forward. Either we go as slow as possible, and pray that the ‘lulled’ in the checkpoint name means that we’re safe as long as don’t make too much ‘noise’. Or… We fly in circles here for a bit, wait for the other groups to go first, and use the charged Phoenix module speed boost to catch up or try to get past the leviathan, depending on what we see.”

Pestle jumped into the discussion out of nowhere, “Levatan?!” she asked, in shock. “Levatan no! Very very no!” she exclaimed, making an X with her arms.

“We all get that but it doesn’t change that we have to get past it somehow,” Sofia told her, “there must be a way or this wouldn’t be in the trial, right?”

“Yes way,” Pestle unexpectedly answered, “If dead, Levatan maybe no kill,” she explained.

“Does that mean it doesn’t target undead like you?” Kuli asked.

Pestle shook her tiny skull, “Pesle and Prett and Boki no dead! Levatan kill!”

Mornn started turning the ship around to avoid getting close, as the group continued to try to come up with a plan. “That’s not helping us much…” she added.

The gears were spinning in Sofia’s mind, she felt that she might have the solution already.

“I need to try something,” she said, grabbing a page from bookie at her waist without even looking. Crowie appeared on the deck in front of Sofia.

“Are you going to send the poor bird to its death?” Kuli asked.

“No send levatan!” Pestle cried out, standing in between Crowie and Sofia.

“I’m not sending Crowie to the Leviathan, don’t worry. Here’s what I need you to do, Crowie, fly out in this direction, go at about a third of your maximum speed. I’ll be monitoring what happens to you, you could die, we’ll see,” she said, pointing to the left. It was toward no checkpoint, just the sea.

Crowie did not hesitate to follow the instruction and took off from the flying galleon.

“What’re you trying to do?” Mornn asked, looking up at the second ship coming down from the canyon in the distance, huge dragon-like wings and a tail sprouting from the hull of their ship.

“I want to know how the penalty for leaving the ship applies. We saw the people die but it’s not clear to me how exactly. We could use the event rules to our advantage here,” Sofia explained, monitoring Crowie’s health from the ship. With the sun high in the sky, now that they were out of the canyon’s fog, Bookie’s skeletons were technically immune to damage.

And yet, as soon as Crowie was more than a hundred meters away from the ship his life started to go down. At first he lost 1% of his total health, then a second later 2%, then 3, then 4. 

Good enough, you can come back.

The damage continued to ramp up until Crowie entered the vicinity of the ship again, and it stopped completely.

Not instant death, but also not something that can be sustained for very long… Maybe [Singularity Edict] would trigger here, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s health percentage damage so Pareth can’t take it… I think… I think I can see a way.

As Sofia was lost in thought, Ezerid’s ship approached and turned around to fly next to Sofia’s group.

“Hey! Are you giving up?” the Andarian hero called out from behind the wheel on his side.

“As if!” Mornn answered.

“What’s the hold up then?!”

“Think we’d tell you?!” 

“No big deal if you don’t!” Ezerid answered, “We’ll just keep following you from here!”

“Really?! Where’s your honor, man?!”

“Our God only cares about progress!” he replied with a smug smile.

Sofia gave a glance to the spectator count, which was already at over thirty thousand and rising, and turned to Ezerid. “Guys! How about a formal alliance for this checkpoint?”

“You need our help?” Ezerid answered right away.

After some quick negotiations, as other groups were starting to emerge from the canyon, Sofia was ready to put her two plans to execution.

The new alliance would be split into two ‘teams’.The first group was comprised of the two ships and almost everyone aboard them, trying to get past the leviathan territory the Veliadren way. They would go for a long loop, completely avoiding the danger zone which was very kindly indicated on the event map. This would likely take several hours, but it was the safe and probably intended way.

And then, the second group was Sofia. The hero healer on Ezerid’s side had many very strong buff skills, which was why Sofia suggested the alliance to begin with. She hoped that with enough buffs, she could fly through the leviathan’s zone.

Thus, the healer and the skeleton high-priest gave Sofia all the buffs they could, and she herself prepared a few things.

“Are you really sure about this?” Kuli asked, as Sofia was preparing to go.

“If there are bonus points to be earned in this event, they must be here. If our triangulations with the arrow movement on the map are right, I’m confident I can cross that distance. With so many speed boosts, it should not take me long!” Sofia confidently said.

“You know full well this is not what I meant.”

“Worst case, you guys will have to finish the event without me. But I can hardly pass up such a chance to progress my mana heart anyway, so I just have to do it. Pretty sure everyone watching isn’t expecting me to go the long way either.”

“Alright Sofia, your choice. Good luck.”

“Sofia is Klepra…” Pestle said with a sigh, lying flat on Pareth’s head. Pareth, unlike the others seemed to be quite confident in Sofia pulling off another stupid feat, although he could not express it with words.

“I gave you everything I could!” the woman from Ezerid’s team told Sofia after casting a last buff.

“Thank you. I’m going, you guys be quick Tatartos’ ship is already pulling away.”

Having left most of her belongings to Pareth aside from her crown and the dagger she needed to bolster her stats, as well as Sorrow’s shroud, Sofia deployed her wings, and jumped off, alone.

She flew straight toward the next checkpoint, while the two allied ships started to go for the long way around.

Let’s see what this Leviathan is all about.

There was nothing at first, aside from the faint wind that could still be felt at her current high altitude far above the clouds. With Speed’s rune carved in her armor, and all the buffs she currently had, including [Runeforged Overlord] at full blast, Sofia was pretty much the fastest she had ever been outside of space. She flew so fast, the ships behind her disappeared in an instant, and the clouds were nothing but a grey blur, until they disappeared altogether, letting her appreciate the calm blue sea far below.

Her health started disappearing in chunks. She had it displayed directly in a percentage for this.

It ticked down every second.

99%

97%

94%

90%

Would have been too easy if the edict worked, huh. As if the Leviathan wasn’t an issue enough by itself.

On the bright side, every passing second gave Sofia more speed through [Crystallized Suffering].

I should prepare the thing now.

85%

As her health went down, Sofia started moving around the bones inside of her forming a small bone shell around her mana heart, which she then stabbed with her dagger. The key was lodged into the bone right next to the mana heart, without touching it.

79%

Sofia checked her map again. It’s really not that far!

72%

The water down below started to look strange.

Oh shit. Here we go.

64%

Sofia was suddenly hit by something she had not even felt coming, her head starting to spin and her body to convulse. In insurmountable pain, she could barely catch a glimpse of the system notifications popping up in front of her eyes.

[You have been affected by : Instant Death. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Disorientation.]

[You have been affected by : Confusion. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Mana reversal.]

[You have been affected by : Insanity. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Agony.]

[You have been affected by : Mind control. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Complete organ failure.]

[You have been affected by : Hypnosis. But your skills negated the status]

[You have been affected by : Unidentified curse or status *52. But your buffs negated their effects]

[You have been affected by : Unidentified curse or status *184]

[You have been affected by : Existential dread.]

[You have been affected by : Overconfidence.]

[You have been affected by : Foolishness.]

[You have been affected by : Shame.]

[You have been affected by : Ego death.]

[You ha aa a av 

Like having hit an invisible wall of death, Sofia started plummeting toward the ocean, her stat counters showing nothing but errors. Her consciousness was fading rapidly.

With the last bit of willpower she had, she activated her first contingency plan. With her essence cores drawing Rejection’s divine rune, she rejected her own mana heart, sending it flying, far into the distance.

Won’t target… The dead…

Sofia died.

Her body reformed around the bone shell containing her dagger and mana heart, three whole seconds later.

She had crossed several kilometers while dead, her heart having flown terribly far with both her initial momentum and the Rejection. She was more than halfway through the marked leviathan territory on the map.

The death-inducing package of status effects hit her again before she could even fully regain her senses, only to get completely negated by the edict.

HUH?!

Only then did she have time to understand what exactly the actual wall she had hit was.

WAIT… IT’S THE LEVIATHAN’S AURA?!

A CONTINUOUS SINGULAR ATTACK?!

Sofia laughed as she sped up.

BAHAHAHAH! GET BONED!

Her health started ticking down again, but as it started from 1% damage again after her death, it was no longer much of an issue. That being said, as her mana was near zero, her speed was lesser than what it had been, she took that opportunity to start her demon-form transformation, eating her heart mid-flight.

She heard a strange sound as she transformed, and just like that, she died, not even realizing it before she woke up again three seconds later, farther away along her flight path, but also much closer to the water.

As her transformation had been completed while she was dead, Sofia immediately activated one of her skills as she awakened.

Damn thing kills me so fast my racial skill doesn’t even have time to work!

She died once more as she cast her skill. [Regret] resolved as she died. She used it with the intent of having used [Summon Self] instead. So she reappeared a few meters away, just in time to see what had almost killed her disappear.

What the hell…

It was like a tentacle of stacked ritual circles, traced mid-air in pure concentrated mana, quickly sinking back into the sea, leaving disturbed space behind, as if reality struggled to even stay coherent near such a thing.

When it struck a third time, Sofia finally managed to feel it coming somewhat. She froze the toybox as she died.

In the frozen world of mana revealing the inner workings of the trial, Sofia looked around, catching a glimpse of the creature hiding under the waves.

Lords…