Chapter 643 - Looking

This guy…

Do I want to use the time stop again? With the spectators watching now it’s bound to attract some trouble…

I don’t have much mana but I can probably negate one spell. 

Sofia did not slow down.

He’s casting!

She was on high alert, ready to use [Heat Death] at a moment’s notice to cancel the spell, but she never felt the possibility to use it. Ezerid was not casting a damaging spell. Long chains of mana formed around his staff.

Curse! 

With a bang, Sofia stopped herself, she collided against the floor, using her right arm’s dragon scale claws to kill her momentum right as the curse left Ezerid’s staff. The curse moved swiftly through the air, and as it neared Sofia, it warped around her, colliding a pillar further back. Non-damaging projectiles like curses were the easiest attacks for [DODGE-ME] to deflect, as long as Sofia was standing still.

Without losing a second, she started running again.

Stoic, Ezerid gave a forward thrust with his staff.

Sofia felt the attack coming, more than a million mana’s worth of concentrated power coming right at her in an instant cast. It was more than she could negate.

[Summon Self]

She summoned herself as far as she could to the left, barely avoiding the bright beam of light shooting from Ezerid’s staff. The attack was like a ray of primal destruction, it engulfed half the corridor, leaving only scorch marks behind. Much further back, both Pestle and the enemy she was facing were caught in the attack, there was nothing left of them.

Sofia dashed toward Ezerid again. He lifted his staff from the thrusting position, summoning a wave of fire that engulfed the entire corridor.

[Heat Death]

The flames disappeared, along with almost all of Sofia’s remaining mana.

Sofia was getting close, Ezerid would maybe be able to cast one more spell before she reached him, and she felt that she would have the advantage in close-combat against this mage.

For his final move, Ezerid waved his staff, and an array of electric arrows appeared in front of him.

Your own bolts, huh?

Sofia ignored the attack. The first arrow hit her left shoulder, penetrating deep into her bone armor, and sending electricity coursing through her body.

Ezerid smirked as Sofia flinched from the blow and all the other arrows collapsed on her, piercing her armor like a pin cushion. What he didn’t know was that [Singularity Edict] was completely negating all of the spell’s damage as Sofia had already been hit once.

With a shout, she powered through the elecrtical shock. I’m more than used to this shit!

She leapt forth, her dagger aimed at Ezerid’s throat.

The dagger collided with an invisible magic shield, it lost its momentum, but the shield burst.

Sofia readied her dagger again, feigning another attack aimed at the Andarian’s head. He had time to raise his staff to block, this time, but instead of a dagger thrust, Sofia kicked him.

Hit squarely in the chest, the mage was sent flying into the room he had been guarding. Using his staff, he stabilized himself mid-air, stopping in the middle of the room before he could collide with anything.

“Got you!” Sofia taunted as she also jumped in.

‘You have returned to your room, you may no longer participate in the second test.’

Pareth!

An instant later, Pareth appeared next to Sofia, holding Kuli in one hand and Mornn in the other.

“We made it!” Sofia rejoiced, rubbing it in the face of the fish-man floating in her room, looking absolutely broken.

“Perfect clear!” Mornn added, brandishing her weapons.

“How?” Ezerid mumbled.

Sofia looked up at him. “Huh?”

“How did you survive the storm arrows?!” he asked.

“Ahahah! You think I’m going to tell you?! Think again, fish man, that makes it the second time today you’ve tried to fuck with me! I’m not telling you shit!”

“You…! You necromancer freak! I won’t let you ruin my trial! This is not over!” Ezerid angrily spat back, before disappearing into nothing again, leaving the room.

“Nah, quite something, this guy,” Kuli commented, “Anger issues, much?”

I felt it this time. The strange teleportations. Mana was gathering in his eye necklace. I bet he must be warping through the gods’ realm. That’s why I could not follow it.

“I would be angry too if someone stoll all the tournament points five seconds into the test,” Mornn commented, jumping on her bed, “now we just gotta wait for the test to be over.”

“It’s supposed to last through the entire night,” Sofia pointed out, “it’s barely been a minute.”

“Heh, considering you just killed ninety percent of all participants, I doubt it will last that much longer,” Kuli said, “Still, that damn Tartaros really fought back, I had to blow my signature skill to avoid getting splattered… One month cooldown…” she complained with a sigh.

“At least we all survived, and look at those points!” Mornn excitedly said.

[Global Group Point Rankings:

1 - Eternal lights - 93680 - (4 out)

2 - Obsidian Mountain - 1568 (2 dead, 1 out)

3 - Hero’s journey - 1480

4 - Executors - 728 (4 dead)

5 - Gods calling - 494 (3 dead)]

Obsidian Mountain climbed a lot, looks like Saria profited from most the other strong participants coming after us. Not surprising, no matter what I was still only worth ten points. We don’t know if the rankings have any significance yet, so she wouldn’t come just to cull my points. Unlike the others.

I wonder if Cinthia is their one out. I hope I didn’t kill her with the Winter movement, she does have some soul damage protection with [Lord VPN]...

“That really is a lot of points,” Kuli noted, “but now I got to wonder how it will be split between the four of us. Just a regular four ways?”

“Probably yeah,” Mornn commented.

“We will find out soon enough,” Sofia said walking to the skill optimization device on the side of the room.

[Your point balance is ‘0’, you do not have enough for guided optimization]

“It seems we have not received the points quite yet.”

“Just gotta wait until it’s over I bet,” Mornn said, “I wonder what the spectators thought of our performance. I bet Sun is cackling right now.”

“Ah right, about that… I forgot to tell you,” Sofia started, gathering everyone’s gaze, “we might get… A few… A lot more spectators than usual. You see…”

In an almost empty spectator room with a huge screen displaying several scenes at once, three gods were staring at the screen.

“AHAHAHAH! Look at this! Now this is what I call professionnal leeching! I’ll be able to make something out of this lazy Saintess after all!” Sun almost shouted, standing up from her seat when Mornn clashed with Tartaros.

Truly… Did she risk her life just to steal that poor goddess’ music?

“Ah! You’re funny Moon, that’s not it, she already had that. She got that spell from the key,” Sun commented, her eyes not leaving the screen, “Speaking of, weren’t you supposed to get her out?”

Easier said than done. I rarely offload my troubles, unlike a certain someone.

“You don’t know what’s good for you. Hey, look, that Hero’s looking for a fight again.”

Too late.

“True. Soul attacks really are nasty at these levels. Now even if he killed the entire group, first place is already guaranteed.”

The third god finally opened his mouth, “As it should. It’s only natural.” 

“No wonder you’d say that, Victory… Your honor’s on the line, after all. Don’t want anyone to think you just gave her the crown, huh? We all know you have an eye for human women,” Sun teased, her appearance subtly changing to a less pointy-eared one.

“Unlike you, I do, at least, have some honor,” Victory calmly struck back.

“You know what I think of that, I hope you enjoy your honor in the afterlife, weirdo.” 

[VIP user - ‘GOD HUNTER’ - has joined private room 3]

“SUN!” the new arrivant shouted, “That’s where you were hiding! You gas-brained intergalactic whore! You gave five essences to that thing?! Are you out of your fucking mind!”

Sun cocked her head back, looking at the fuming purple-robed man. “Oh, Stebby, long time no see. Wanna tango?”

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

In another spectator room, a few skeletons were sipping tea around a round table, watching the unfolding events on small screens.

“Are you sure she is not interested?” one of them asked another.

Richard shook his skull, “Not that I know of. In other circumstances, I might have pushed to convince her, but Erredis has already pledged to be her holder. Trying to recruit her is just asking for trouble now.”

“The moon guardian? Just our luck…” the first skeleton said with a sigh, “such a promising young necromancer, too.”

“And we just lost Anya. Our group isn’t growing any larger…” a third skeleton complained.

“She was unstable for a long time, Jo, we all knew she was going to end it sooner or later,” a female voice said next, “I sent someone to retrieve her phylactery, or what’s left of it, I’ll bring it for our next meeting. We can send her off together.”

“Thank you, Irina,” Richard said, “And actually, Joseph, I have some tentative good news. We might be getting a new member soon, though not the Saintess.”

“Really?! Who?! I’ve not seen anyone else promising recently,” Joseph answered, his bones shaking in anticipation.

“It’s not someone recent, if you see what I mean. We might have a sleeper on our hands. Someone from my era, actually. I thought he was dead, but now I’m not so sure.”

“From your era…”

“Ever heard of ‘The holy lich’?” Richard asked.

“Oh fuck, the nutcase? He’s still alive?!”

“Might just be,” Richard answered, “might just be…”