Chapter 673 - Skeleton calling the bones white

The golden statue of Tartaros was already showing cracks, he would be out shortly.

Sofia’s first reflex seeing this was to summon one of her mana pearls from [Crystallized] and quickly gulp it down along with her own heart, the faster the could think the better against such a fast opponent. While she did this, she also unloaded large bone slates all around her.

As Sofia transformed, Pareth appeared a bit further away, fully healed, he grew in size as much as he could, and he immediately prepared to strike the saint again, this time with an absurdly large mallet, wide enough to flatten a house.

The statue cracked open, a bloody and skinless Tartaros emerging from inside, he punched up at the incoming mallet.

I think not!

Still mid transformation, Sofia took control of Tartaros’s bones, freezing him in place and bending his punching arm in an unnatural way.

The oversized mallet of light crashed down onto the defenseless Saint, reducing him to no more than a flesh paste on the coliseum grounds. Yet, somehow, Sofia still had not gotten a murder notification.

Pareth’s mallet morphed into a spear while Sofia’s demonic transformation was finally complete. 

A small black bead shot out from the fleshy remains of Tartaros toward the opposite end of the coliseum. His mana heart!

Sofia wanted to [Regret] her way to it and grab the damn thing, but she had yet to even recover the 10000 mana points to do that, as the start her mana regeneration lagged a bit behind when she transformed. It was a matter of half a second but she hadn’t even had that long. Pareth, however was very reactive and threw his spear at it, perfectly predicting the heart’s trajectory.

Not wanting this time to go to waste, Sofia endeavored to do something else, growing a bone hand from bone slates on the ground to recover the admin dagger which had flow off when she died pried. The hand flicked the dagger in Pareth’s direction, and it embedded itself at an angle into the back of his armor, right where Sofia wanted it.

Black light shone from the mana heart as it escaped, and with a shockwave, magic expanded from it, explosively creating a new body for Tartaros. He reappeared in foetal position in the air, his body being reconstructed around the heart in an instant.

It was fast enough that Tartaros had time to stretch out and grab the incoming spear before spinning around and sending it back toward Sofia, incurring a second stack of [Judgement].

Sofia could have reacted in time to avoid the spear, but she had a second of absence, forcing Pareth to urgently unsummon it before it could crash into her.

She had been destabilized by Tartaros’ reapparance, for his body had been rebuilt without clothes. Fortunately for Sofia and everyone else watching, due to the special nature of this trial, private bits were automatically censored with black bars. Yet the vision of them had reminded Sofia of a conversation with her sister, and all she could think at the time was that Tartaros must have a very high Charisma stat.

After that momentary lapse in concentration, she [Regret]ed her way to Tataros’ back.

Tartaros immediately noticed and tried to turn around, but he was stopped not only by Sofia freezing his bones in place, but also by Pareth teleporting to Sofia and instantly attacking him with a kick.

Faced with a tough decision, he decided to first do what he did prior, freeing one of his arms from Sofia’s control to punch back against Pareth’s kick. The punch erased Pareth’s leg from existence, but it left Tartaros unguarded again Sofia. His spine burst open creating a hole in his back, and Sofia’s draconic armguard plunged inside.

With direct touch, the speed at which Sofia could influence his bones was a lot faster. Sofia fused all of Tartaros’ bones together into one big piece before warping it full of spikes like a cactus. The saint of strength was pierced from the inside by his own bones. Sofia specifically tried to have the bones pierce or entrap his mana heart, but it was too small and moved around too fast for her to catch with the bones.

Pareth sized himself down while his leg quickly regrew, and he summoned a replica of Sofia’s scale arguard as his new weapon of light.

Meanwhile, Sofia closely monitored Tartaros’ attempts to free himself from her control. Whenever she felt his mana moving around and his muscles flexing, she transformed said muscle into a pin cushion with the nearby bones and prevented it from exerting any force. This would not work for long, though, as Sofia was quickly running out of bone to work with.

Pareth copied Sofia and plunged his hand into Tartaros’ body. His strike was fast, precise, and deadly, the clawed fingers of the armguard closed around the tiny black bead and crushed it.

Still no murder?!

Scanning the insides of Tartaros’ body, Sofia few a new source of mana that wasn’t there before.

He’s got two fucking mana hearts?!

Wait, no-

Sofia understood what the ‘second mana heart’ was, a bit too late, as its energy swole up and sent her flying. She hit the mana barrier surrounding the coliseum’s arena, while Pareth stumbled back a few steps.

It was Strength’s essence that Sofia had felt. Sofia could easily tell what the skill Tartatos just used was.

[Avatar of Strength]

Mana flesh envelopped Tartaros’ bloody body, making him taller and stronger, much like the [Avatar of Zeus]. He laughed as he transformed.

Sofia decided to use this time to tear off her tail and summon the [Hollow Grief], that was the best she could do with the little mana she had regenerated. The undead grew from the discarded tail, to Sofia, it looked like a weak and sickly blonde woman weaning a happy smile and a purple-flower hairpin.

Sofia internally sighed seeing the undead to the guise of her biological mother.

This skill isn’t getting any easier to use, huh…

At the same time, Pareth and the newly transformed Tartaros exchanged their first blow. They did not block each other, both strikes landing. Pareth’s sword landed first, severing the avatar down diagonally from his left shoulder, but it was futile, as the wound instantly closed back up. Then Tartaros’s punch hit the skeleton’s armor.

The simple punch was devastating, like a black hole it sucked in all the air in the coliseum, the entire casino shook, and Sofia lost a quarter of her health just from the shockwave.

Everything in front of Tartaros was gone, even the ground. Pareth’s skeleton was completely obliterated, yet he had survived. His mana heart had been hiding behind the blade of the admin dagger stuck in his armor. It was not sufficient to fully protect it, but enough that he had survived, since the dagger was completely undamaged.

Sofia activated [Runeforged Overlord]’s third level with the tiny amount of mana she had, and grabbed the [Hollow Grief]’s hand and [Regret]ed her way to Tartaros’ back once again. They punched his spine in unison, right before [Runeforged Overlord] wore off due to Sofia’s mana hitting zero again.

Taratos fought back by pulling back his extended fist, throwing a backward elbow strike to Sofia and the Hollow Grief. At the same time, the ground of the arena under his feet collapsed, destabilized by his previous punch. Sofia’s strike landed while the elbow strike sent a shockwave toward the ceiling as Tartaros slightly fell forward.

Taking doubled damage due to the [Judgment] stacks, Tartaros’ avatar form was instantly mangled by the two punches, his mana heart barely escaped the blow by moving up inside of his body.

A white streak flew off of from Sofia’s location as she reeled back from her own punch; a tiny crow of bones, flying off and entering the Avatar’s body as it reconstructed in an instant. 

One should not underestimate the capabilities of a level 299 crow spotting a valuable shiny thing. The avatar’s form wavered, and a skeletal crow holding a tiny black bead in his beak burst out from its belly.

Crowie tried to crush the mana heart with his beak, but he failed. Behind him, the increasingly unstable form of the avatar readied itself for another punch.

Sofia wanted to help but she was too far and completely out of mana, so Crowie did the only logical thing, and turned back to throw himself at the incoming fist.

Crowie was instantly pulverized by the attack, and so was the tiny bead held in his beak.

‘You have murdered [Tartaros - Saint of Strength Lv. 299EX], they have lost half of held winnings, resulting in a 0 TP loss’

Sofia stored Pareth’s mana heart with her eye from a distance as her knees gave out beneath her, and she collapsed to the crumbling ground of the arena floor.

What a monster.