Chapter 542 - An unexpected turn

Sofia watched the bolt launch forward like a bright tear in reality as she was flung backward by the recoil. The moment stretched before her as time itself seemed to slow down. The instant before the bolt hit its target felt like it lasted forever.

A thunderous roar echoed through the entire palace as everything turned white, the blinding light from the explosion bright like a thousand suns, completely overwhelming whatever had been suppressing all non-candle-light throughout Sorrow’s palace. Sofia’s vision went momentarily blank from the sheer overload of her senses. The air stormed around her, a wall of heat and pressure like a dragon’s breath. Her sight started to return, the afterimage of the explosion a ghost of fire and energy imprinted on her vision. Then came the shockwave, an invisible fist slamming into her body with a force that would have reduced even her Lumian body to dust.

Sofia was flung back much further than the staircase should have allowed for, her muscles tensing reflexively against the onslaught though she knew it could do her no true harm. The sheer energy of the explosion tore at the air and everything in its path.

For an instant, she felt like she could hear a loud silence beyond the destruction, at the heart of the blast itself.

Then, as abruptly as it had come, the shockwave passed, continuing its path of destruction inside of the red-hot melting walls of the palace’s new immense underground chamber of Sofia’s creation.

Everything was on fire, and dust hung in the air like a thick shroud as Sofia spread her mana senses past the turbulent remains of the explosion, trying to locate the dwarf.  She had received a lot of dings from the system alerting her that she had killed Caveling Horrors and Zombies of the candle, but the lack of a single murder notification meant that the dwarf had survived.

She soon found out how, it was like a small bubble of calm amidst the chaos, a floating dark-gray chest, held still by some space magic at the very center of the crater, where the bolt had exploded.

An Asterite chest?!

Asterite was the stupidly hard white-speckled stone which the system used to create boundaries within the trials. Even Anna’s dagger could only scrape it with difficulty, yet this dwarf had an entire treasure chest made from the stuff to hide inside of.

The Asterite chest’s lid flung open, the dwarf standing up from within and throwing out the melting outer pieces of his once pristine armor.

“Didn’t buy my bluff, huh? You fucking ruthless cunt,” the dwarf cursed.

Even that was a trick. Sofia felt magic gather behind her as the dwarf yelled, and she used [Regret] to teleport behind the cursing invader. Appearing right behind the dwarf, her extended hand touched his back. [Hollow heart]

While a vast array of bleeding skulls appeared behind Sofia, her left arm imploded like a crushed fruit, destroyed by spatial magic that she failed to prevent. The dwarf teleported away, leaving his Asterite chest behind. But it was too late, Sofia’s demon magic had activated, her bloodlight allowing the spell to be cast even as Sofia's arm was shredded to bits. 

Sofia stole the Asterite chest while her acute mana senses followed the trail of teleportation. She had summoned the choir with her own skull at full power and they all copied her as she illuminated that spot with Heal Undead and the Erredian rot.

The dwarf appeared where Sofia had predicted, a hole in his chest, and instantly getting covered by layers upon layers of the Erredian magic, his form becoming that of a writhing mass of veiny black rot. That stunt drained a fifth of Sofia’s entire mana pool in an instant, before the skulls and Sofia’s head all exploded, each pierced by a gold coin that Sofia hadn’t even seen or felt coming before it was too late.

Sofia’s vision went dark, and she instead focused on her mana senses. That was the entire extent of the lost head’s inconvenience.

Letting her scepter go for an instant, Sofia tore off her tail with her remaining arm while the gold coins continued their course and hit the back wall of the underground chamber like a rain of thunderbolts, causing continuous explosions.

An array of countless magical circles appeared around Sofia, completely surrounding her. It was some kind of attack magic. It cost about a tenth of her total mana to cancel it with [Heat Death], dispelling the entire thing before it could fire, and just in time for Sofia to see the Dwarf’s next move.

A strange chest appeared far behind Sofia, in the midst of the gold coins’ explosions, but she instantly noticed it, her mana senses probing the thing all over, she understood that it was a mimic. A bloody hole appeared on the left side of the mimic before it suddenly became a perfectly healthy-looking dwarf, his hands empty but in position to throw a weapon. The mimic had taken on the dwarf’s injuries and also his place within the mass of rot.

A strange shovel-shaped thing appeared in the dwarf’s hand as he swung his arm. The ‘shovel’ flew past Sofia’s cut tail, which was quickly becoming something else, and aimed straight for Sofia’s torso.

Sofia felt that there was some kind of trick to the shovel attack, she could see the mana within whirling and ready to unleash something. Unwilling to deal with it, she turned around and targeted the shovel with [Misfortune], and the thrown projectile spun unnaturally as it reached her. It spun perfectly as if to glide across her armor and behind her back before curving around and flying in the dwarf’s direction, all the while it unleashed multiple magical attacks at Sofia, which she effortlessly canceled with [Heat Death] before she even got a chance to see them. 

The hollow grief finally formed out of Sofia’s cut tail, to Sofia, it took the appearance of some kid, which she was grateful her mana-vision did not allow her to recognize.

The mana left within the dwarf surged as the hollow grief threw itself at him. Sofia barely got to see the mana trails as she felt the hollow grief and her own body explode. It was the same coin toss attack as before, that she was utterly unable to avoid. It had still failed to kill her, as only the first coin to hit her did any damage, pulverizing most of her waist and torso, while the following ones all harmlessly bounced off what remained of her. It still destroyed enough of her body that her health was under twenty percent, and her racial skill [Pillar of creation] activated, completely locking her in place.

As bad as being unable to move was, the racial skill activating also meant that her spellcasting range was multiplied by her remaining percentage of mana, or about 50 times.

This was enough range that Sofia could instantly summon several tonnes of bones all around the dwarf using her armor’s storage that normally could only summon the bones up to a dozen meters away from her.

The dwarf teleported to somewhere else, but no matter where he went, more and more bones appeared around him, until he clapped his hands together and Sofia was suddenly unable to access her bone storage anymore.

Though there was not much else left of her, Sofia’s right arm was still intact, flawlessly protected by the dragon scale armguard. She started to cast another exploding bolt.

The dwarf appeared right in front of her. Her torso almost nonexistent, only a few bones still intact, Sofia’s mana heart was exposed. Despite the mana heart trying to escape the dwarf’s grasp by itself, it was too slow. The dwarf extended a hand, and crushed Sofia’s mana heart. 

Sofia died.

Three seconds later, her body explosively regrew, and the dwarf, who had been furiously trying to pry away the dragon-scale armguard from her dead body cautiously teleported away.

The channeling of the angel bolt was uninterrupted even in death. Finally able to see again, Sofia could see that the palace’s darkness was starting to encroach onto the place once more, the borders of the giant crater already looking like a black void. 

For a second, Sofia and the dwarf both paused and stared at each other. They were each evaluating the situation, and thinking about their next steps. 

Finally able to afford the free time to do so, Sofia Identified the dwarf.

[Mage - Lv.349]

The dwarf’s armor and clothes were almost completely gone, and he was nearly out of mana, but regenerating quickly, yet, despite the level difference, just because she had a lot more, Sofia regenerated faster. Since she also took the opportunity of this to charge her bolt, Sofia felt that the stare down was to her advantage.

And, to Sofia’s surprise, the Dwarf threw up his hands.

He spoke with an annoyed voice, “I give up. This shit ain’t worth it. At this rate this fight’s gonna cost me more than what you’re worth. Give me back my chest and I’ll be gone before you know it.”

Although Sofia did not know whether to trust him, there was no surprise attack this time, and a long silence followed the dwarf’s proposal.

Author's note:

Hey! Happy to be back.

As some of the most observant ones might have noticed, book 3 still isn't out. I was up until 1 am today wrapping up the editing and proofreading X.x So much for hoping to rest during my 'break' couldn't get a single rest day lmao.

Still need to do the formatting and publishing stuff, but well, I'll get to it tonight, I guess...

Anyway, next break (real rest, this time) should be around Christmas, if I can hold until then.

I'm thinking maybe the Q&A chapter will be for Wednesday, not too sure yet, we'll see depending on how tomorrow's chapter goes.

Thank you for staying through my break, I really appreciate your support; happy reading to you all (｀• ω •´)b