Chapter 268 - ‘dow-’

It took Sofia a good while to locate her planet again, it was barely visible even with her unnaturally excellent eyesight, and she had to thank Aphenoreth for showing it to her before, or she wouldn’t even have known what to look for. With her mana regeneration being only a quarter of what it would be in an environment with mana, a full refill took a bit more than an hour, so every hour, she would use her wings again, and go further from the sun in the direction of the planet. That was the plan anyway, it turned out that really escaping the sun’s gravity was a bit harder than she thought. Even more annoyingly, she was moving, and the planet was moving, it was horrendous to try to align the two, but she did her best.

I think… I’m about good right now. I can keep adjusting the trajectory every hour.

The sun is… Not so far away… It’s been four days, am I not moving or what? This is so slow.. And why is everything so empty? I figured there would be stuff out there in the sky but I think the planet is actually the closest thing to the sun. That’s crazy, especially with all the glittering stars everywhere. Just how far are they then?

Sofia kept pushing with her wings every occasion she got. All in all, now that she was not at risk of falling into the sun anymore, this was pretty relaxing. Sure it was oddly silent, but her time in the temple had been enough for her to be used to that somewhat. Since she didn’t have much to do, especially with all her mana going towards her flight, she trained her bone sculpting skills. She figured it might help give some experience to [Bone dominus] and if not, it would still be useful whenever she wanted to make something complex or detailed out of bones.

Eventually she got bored of that, and decided to spend some of her regeneration to progress with her customization of [Heal Undead] instead. This, she had no doubt, would keep her occupied for most of the trip.

Three weeks later. Sofia realized that she seemed to be going quite fast. She felt like the planet was coming closer faster every day, which was still slow as all hells, but an interesting discovery. Especially interesting because she tried to slow down during her 80 seconds of [Runeforged Overlord] free flight once, which, from her observations, seemed to have done exactly nothing.

How does that work? Flying in the void here works that much differently? Is it going to take me three weeks to slow back down to zero or something like that?

Wait, no, I didn’t start at zero, I started at the speed of the broken-off pyramid, right?

So…

If that’s how it works… I better not aim directly at the planet…

Then Sofia tried to change her direction a bit, which, again, did not work nearly as well as she expected.

Am I doomed to actually become a meteorite?

I wonder if the crater would be bigger than the biggest bolt’s hole. Probably not, right? I’m not sure. Meteorites are supposed to be quite dangerous, but I’ve never seen one fall.

Just in case it’d be better if I land somewhere where I won’t hurt anybody… But can I really aim from up here? Maybe if I try to target an ocean?

In the end, Sofia decided that she would try her best to fly past the planet but not actually crash on it, keep slowing down until she was not going too fast anymore, and turn back to actually land. But just to be safe, she was going to prepare three unlife runes when she drew close, because she heard that meteorites in the sky normally catch fire, and she would rather be a bit protected even if all she did was pass by.

Starting then, Sofia used her free flight to decelerate bit by bit, but, consciously or not, she did not slow down all that much. Space travel was just too boring, she dreaded making it slower.

In the end, she had completely lost track of time, she thought it had maybe been about two months. The planet was really starting to get bigger in her view. The closer she got, the more she realized just how huge it was. So big that she didn’t manage to spot the human continent no matter how hard she looked.

I need to make sure to avoid the leviathan so I really ought to find it fast…

The planet kept drawing closer. Sofia cast her three runes, and used the last bits of her mana to try to deviate her trajectory from the planet even more, because as she was currently, she feared that she might actually hit it.

On the bright side, I probably won’t even feel any pain. My fastest death ever, probably. Ah, not if I catch on fire first though.

Finally, she was close enough to spot a splash of red on the surface.

Damn! That’s the red desert?! It’s that small?

I take it back, the planet is not huge, it’s mindbreakingly huge! What?!

Sofia had to gulp when she understood how fast she was really going. Now that the planet was closer, she had a better frame of reference. Her current understanding of her speed was: she was going so fast, she would likely zip by the planet in no more than a few seconds and take forever to turn back.

Well. Shit.

I should have slowed more. At least I’m actually quite far off to the side, so no accidental collision, that’s at least one good point.

I don’t see the moons, they must be on the other side.

The planet came closer, and eventually, just like she had planned, Sofia flew by. It did not last long, but the view she got of the planet was truly incredible. She marveled at it going from light to dark as she started seeing the side not lit by the sun.

Then she noticed she seemed to be going in a curve instead of straight forward like she did until now. Her eyes were still transfixed on the planet that she was leaving behind. Is the planet slowing me dow-

Sofia’s thoughts stopped there.

She regained consciousness a mere three seconds later. Her first thought was ‘I died?’. Waking up after a rune activating was a peculiar feeling that she could recognize with how much she had experienced it. She did not really have an opportunity to ponder on it, as she died again after experiencing a searing heat worse than her usual bolts enveloping her entire body.

When she resurrected for the second time, she could finally actually open her eyes, she was currently flying above a lake of magma. How… Oh, Pareth got me out of there somehow? That must be it, I only have one rune left.

I don’t think I’ll make it out of the magma lake though, even if I’m falling very slowly.

As she thought that, Pareth appeared near her, pushed her, and re-entered the storage.

And that just works?!

When Sofia landed on the edge of the magma lake, she could finally relax. Kind of.

Hey. Ahah… Uhm. There’s a moon Goddess, right? I’m sorry.

Sofia had hit the moon, quite hard, hard enough that she did not even have the time to feel her body getting absolutely destroyed by the collision. Hard enough that her rune had revived her inside of a magma lake of her own making wherein she died again. But now she was safe.

That was actually great news, to her. She had been mentally preparing to spend another month decelerating and coming back, when instead, she had stopped instantly and supposedly not hurt anyone.

Well, mostly not anyone. But certainly not nothing…

It’s unbelievable. I really made this hole myself?

Sofia was at the bottom of a deep crater. Actually, calling it a crater was the best she could come up with, but to her it looked more like a hole the size of the entire human continent. Trying to look up to the borders of it made her dizzy. She could see not only the night-side of the planet below, but also the huge chunks of the moon that were currently drifting off, making it very obvious that the hole was her doing.

An avalanche of system windows appeared in front of Sofia, and she felt a wave of energy going through her body like an electric shock. Agh! Level ups? W- Wait…

After her body calmed down, she hid the system messages without even looking at them, it was just a bunch of levels. She would go through it later, but not before getting back to a place with air and sound.

Although… Now that I’m here… What about the hidden moon? I don’t see it right now but I’m on the wrong side. It’s quite dark here, but I can see just fine, VPPV is doing good work.

Alright alright. Let’s maybe explore the moon a bit? I'm all out of mana though. I can use the demon form if something bad shows up. Thanks for the help Pareth. I’ll just add this to the long list of times where you saved me from myself…

Pareth appeared next to Sofia, looking composed as usual.

Not disturbed by being on the moon, uh?

I wonder how many people have been here. I’m probably the only one leaving gaping holes behind though…

It’s scary honestly.

Wouldn’t I wipe out the entire human continent if I landed on it like this?

And anyone who can survive outside of the planet can do that?

Who cares about dragons and gods and shit at this point, this is much more of a threat!

Sofia saw something move in a corner of her vision. Something had entered her crater. Yet, no matter how good her vision, the thing was so far away, all she saw was a moving blur.

So there is someone coming to check out the new crater after all… I kind of hoped this would go unnoticed.

I don’t suppose it’s Sun coming to give me my reward…