Chapter 541 - Six hundred years later

Sofia walked in the dark tunnel past the graveyard, there was no light, and the tunnel had some stagnant water in the middle, which Sofia walked in with light steps. She found the sound of her footsteps in the shallow water relaxing.

“Oh right, I didn’t even Identify the shovel.”

[Skantar’s shovel]: A shovel sculpted out of some kind of unrecognizable dark chitin. The entire shovel is a spell catalyst with the following effect: Multiple target spells’ mana cost reduced for targets after the first.

The effect’s strength is variable.

“Not bad. That does explain how he could sustain such a big army… could I fit that on my scepter since it’s a catalyst? Not that I would, but… Well, my scepter is tall enough as is.”

Sofia kept going, her thoughts wandering to the divine item she was here to find, she wondered what it could be, and if it would be better than her current divine items. She figured the dagger would be hard to beat.

After a few turns, Sofia felt the tunnel growing wider, which was going to be an issue as it was still completely dark, and she was instantly on her guard when she heard something growling. She summoned the skull choir with Destroyer skulls in a dome formation around her, ordering them to spin around her as fast as they could.

Sofia heard footsteps, then she felt and heard one of her skulls impact something, and she was splattered with what she guessed was blood.

‘You have defeated [Lesser demon: Caveling Horror - lv.209]’

Demon?

Lesser demon?

I thought demons were just us Apostles. Are there different demons? What the hell?

It’s  also a defeat, not a murder, so it’s unlikely this had ever been any kind of person… I’ll have to ask Cinthia when I summon her for help.

Still, what…

Sofia probed around to find the remains of the thing she had just killed. It was not too hard, the thing was torn into two halves, one which had landed near her and one on the other side of her spinning skull dome of death. She stored both halves and looked at it inside of her ring, which she just now realized she could have done to check things up several times in this darkness already.

What the fuck is that thing.

The creature, whose middle body was missing, torn apart by the destroyer skull, looked like a mockery of humanoids. It was about human-sized, had shriveled pink-ish skin, two short and fat bloated legs, and a very long tubular chest. Its two spindly arms with stubby hands held sharp shards of obsidian, and it had a ‘head’ the size of a wash basin with a big mouth full of rotten teeth, no nose, and two protruding globulous eyes. Another part of its lower body was bloated and disgusting, but Sofia tried her best not to look at it.

It has a skeleton but I don’t want to feed Bookie this abomination.

Lesser demons imply higher demons, does it not? Are apostles higher demons? Are we middle demons? Are these demons different demons?

And maybe most importantly, what could have possibly birthed this thing? I refuse to believe Sorrow would create something this disgusting…

Sofia dumped the repulsive thing out of her storage and moved on, choosing to stick the cavernous place’s left wall as it opened up too much for her bone tendrils to keep in contact with both sides. She dismissed the choir but resummoned it as soon as she could, just with only ten skulls so that the upkeep cost was lower than her regeneration.

A few minutes later, she heard more growling. She raised her shield and scepter, and ordered her skulls to spin faster.

Sofia heard a wet sound, some blood splashed around, and one of her skulls was broken, but no kill message. The footsteps seemed to back away slightly, the creature was taking its distance but not fleeing.

This one is stronger.

Unable to see her target at all, Sofia started to channel an explosive bolt while summoning hundreds of small bubbles of blood outside of her dome of skulls to scout the area around where she felt the footsteps came from. Whenever a cast failed to use the mana, it meant the bubble failed to form because Sofia tried to summon it inside of something. This was pretty focus intensive, but it was the best workaround she had thought up to bypass the mana sense restriction of the palace’s darkness further than her bone tendrils could reach.

Having found her target about twenty meters away, Sofia threw the explosive bolt at the ground near it.

The explosion was quite weak as the channeling had been short, but to Sofia it was just a way to make sure the creature was as blind as she was, even if for just an instant as she rushed at its approximate location.

The thing received a violent shield bash, knocking it over before the skulls ripped it to shreds in seconds.

‘You have defeated [Lesser demon: Caveling Horror - lv.289]’

I have to search for the mana stone, don’t I?

Ewww.

Sofia used her bone tendrils exclusively to dig through the thing’s corpse, pulling out bones in one fell swoop with [Bone dominus], and leaving only one hard thing in the pile of flesh beside the teeth and claws, a small rock that identified as a normal Physikstone.

Doesn’t tell me more about where these lesser demons come from.

These were the firsts of many, and Sofia killed hundreds of lesser demons by the time she found the light at the end of the tunnels. She started cautious, but by the end was confident enough to brawl the life out of them with a few punches and the occasional tail swipe when she was surrounded, no magic involved.

When she finally reached a tall iron grid gate, with lit candelabras on the other side, she hastily summoned herself through without a second thought, and shed the outer layer of her armor to rid herself of all the stinky purple blood she was covered in.

Sofia was at the bottom of a huge spiraling staircase, large enough for twenty people to walk up or down side to side with extended arms, going in a slight incline around a gigantic pillar. This place was very well lit with candles everywhere, even on the stairs, and as Sofia took her first step on the stairs, a glowing parchment appeared. This time, however, unlike the previous three, the letters were glowing red.

‘An interloper has entered Sorrow’s Sacred Palace

He has joined this trial as a hindrance to your progress

He has been selected as your fourth of nine trials of might

You will fight to the death

Helpers are forbidden from interfering’

To the death… Do my unlife runes count?

Ihuarah, it looks like someone did manage to get past your rituals.

There was someone else after all… I should have known…

This must be why there were so six doors for participants when we separated, the Guardian of Sorrows even explicitly said they could get an opportunity to ‘hinder’ my progress.

What do they stand to gain by killing me, though?

Could this be one of Scripture’s pawns?

This might just be the most dangerous of the nine trials…

Sofia stood at the bottom of the stairs as the parchment disappeared and started channeling an explosive bolt in preparation for the fight.

I’m not gonna take any chances.

Can you hear me Pareth? Bookie? Be ready to fight, but only come if I call you. I might be in real danger, and I’m ready to give up on the divine item if the situation turns sour. Will keep you informed. I love you guys.

She managed to channel about three million mana points worth of explosive plasma into her staff before she was forced to move, as the candles at the bottom of the stairs started going out one by one. She had to go up if she did not want to fight in the dark.

She was drawing it out, slowly channeling more and more, completely immune to the damage as she’d already perfected the art of cutting the mana supply for an instant when she started to take damage, not long enough for the spell to fail and backlash, but enough for the damage to stop temporarily and activate [Singularity edict]. The bolt kept growing steadily as Sofia climbed the steps, it would normally be blindingly bright, but thanks to the palace’s strange influence on light, the bolt looked just like a pure blue piece of sky in Sofia's hand. Whoever had invaded her trial was going to get an explosive surprise. Since it had to be a duel to the death, Sofia was not going to pull any punches, no matter who the person was on the other side.

Sofia lost count of the mana invested in the bolt as she walked up. The stairs were starting to melt under her feet from the sheer heat, yet the bolt looked calmer than ever. The plasma was tranquil and silent, strangely stable, growing slowly and getting hotter by the second.

Finally Sofia heard footsteps. Someone was walking down the stairs, judging from the sound, wearing heavy armor. Keeping multiple spells on the brink of activation, her mana ready, Sofia watched as the interloper appeared from the curve of the stairs.

It was just a dwarf, wearing expensive-looking enchanted armor and no helmet, carrying no weapons. Sofia instantly pointed her staff at him, but did not release the bolt yet.

The dwarf did not attack, he simply stopped when they noticed each other. He raised his empty hands, “I’m not looking for a fight,” he said in a jovial voice, his lips curving into a thin smile, “all I want is a certain piece of armor that’s somewhere in here. Nothing else! I’m sure we can help each other,” he explained, sounding genuine.

There was a second of silence as Sofia and the dwarf stared at each other.

Being flung back by the absurd power, Sofia released the bolt.

She recognized the voice.

She had recognized the dwarf.

It was a certain scammer whose death would very much please Domination.

Author note:

There we go, last chapter before the 'break', now I go lock myself up in the editing cave, and I'll only be left out when the damn book 3 is released!

As I said before, I will finally be working on the Sofia + Cinthia + Astelia Q&A chapter, but for obvious reasons, a lot of the previous questions are outdated, so you may ask them questions in the comments today as well, and if they're interesting or funny enough, they might appear in Cinthia's chat for them to answer. (The bonus chapter will take place in Vasperia just around the time Sofia went to the bar with Cinthia, instead of after the school arc as originally planned.)

Happy reading, and see you on October 7th (｀• ω •´)b