Chapter 203 - What is Victory?

[Way of the fool] prevented Sofia from falling off of the platform as she was blown away from the God. She quickly stabilized herself with her wings. She took no damage but it gave the God the space he needed to heal much faster. The things she had taken out of her storage were on the other side of the God when he shouted. They had been sent far, but were still on the platform because they went in a direction where the edge was further away.

With no mana, she couldn’t [Identify] the items she had just stolen, not that it mattered. These were a God’s items. Sofia wore the crown and readied the sword.

The effects of the crown were immediately obvious, in her Demon form, Sofia had incredible control over her body and strength, and the crown had instantly bolstered that. That means He’s also gotten weaker!

That was quite timely, because with no runes left, Sofia was internally debating whether she should give up now and not risk a real death. But this could make a difference, she was stronger, and the God was weaker.

The ghostly Orchestra had been stifled by the attacks and the roars, but it now started playing again. Their music took darker tones as it accompanied the God’s transformation. The Orc’s body twisted and turned, inflating like it was about to burst, it no longer looked like anything coherent and it got weirder by the second as it absorbed more and more mana.

Sofia flew to the thing as fast as she could, she struck Victory using his own sword, leaving a big open wound in the twisting abomination. She turned around only to see the hole carved by the sword be filled by a large, soulless eye. Since the transforming God wasn’t hitting back, she landed and unleashed a storm of sword strikes, cutting off as much matter from the thing as she could. It was like trying to cut an infinitely growing bush, no matter how much dead twisted flesh piled up around her, the flesh cocoon the God had become didn’t stop expanding, and every wound turned into yet another unblinking eye.

I hate Gods.

Whoever labeled the Recessed plane as hell got it all wrong!

She cut and cut again trying to prevent Victory from becoming whatever it tried to become. She clearly got the feeling that what she was doing was working, even if only a little.

The sword broke.

Sofia cursed. She did not want to touch whatever that thing was, her instincts told her it was dangerous. She flew back, the maximum time for her transformation was five minutes, the fight needed to end fast.

The God’s form imploded, it collapsed inwards all at once, giving birth to an impossibly thin but tall humanoid figure covered in a myriad of small eyes constantly shrinking and replaced by new ones.

The thing raised an arm, it extended and bent around to reach Sofia like a flying snake. Without any idea what she could even do, or if it was safe to let this thing touch her by striking back, she evaded. She found that this was not unlike evading the Alphageid’s roots.. This eye tentacle was much faster than the Alphageid’s roots had been in the first trial, but there was only one, and she could fly.

Because things could never be simple, the God raised his other arm. After a few seconds, one of the tentacles grabbed Sofia’s left wing. She saw in horror the eyes spread along her wing’s bones; she broke the wing off. No touching, then.

Now with only one wing, Sofia had to run around the platform to avoid the repeated grabs of the long eye tentacles, while the thin main body of the God did not move from its spot.

What can I even do?!

I have no mana, no ranged attacks, no weapons… I think this is my loss. The Mithril dagger is in the pile of stuff I took out but I do not think it will help…

How is this Victory? It’s more like a walking curse!

The God was now like a beacon shining brightly in Sofia’s mana senses, it kept sucking and burning the mana from all around. Even if Sofia still had both her wings she probably wouldn’t be able to fly anyway. It seemed that the God’s current nightmarish form was very expensive to maintain, and that gave Sofia an idea.

If I cannot defeat Victory…

Sofia ran. Unexpectedly, the eye tentacles were a bit easier to evade while on the ground, because they could come from fewer directions. She first tried to damage the platform with her tail, only to realize this was pointless. The platform had survived the God’s blows without suffering as much as a scratch, what could her tail do? Instead, she stabbed her own back with the bony spikes of her tail, and left traces on the platform ground with her blood, using her tail as a brush.

The process was tedious and exhausting because of the eye tentacles, but at least, they seemed oblivious to what was going on. Thrice, the eye tentacles caught Sofia in a bad spot. First she sacrificed her other wing to block before breaking it. Her left arm was next, she tore it off to stop the eyes already growing on it to reach the rest of her body. Then she had to block with her right arm, and had to cut it off with her tail, slowing her painting even more.

Sofia kept running around the platform, leaving very deliberate blood trails behind. Her health and stamina had taken a hit, but the most worrying part was the twenty seconds timer left of her transformation. The eye tentacles were unrelenting, but thankfully, there were still only two of them, and the slender form of the God was immobile otherwise, busy consuming mana currents in droves.

Finally done, Sofia evaded the tentacles one last time, she had them attack in one direction and rushed in the other. The next second, she used [Sprint] to its full potential and beelined for her pile of stuff that was to the far end of the platform. She made it in time, grabbed a heavy rucksack with her tail and threw it behind her without even looking.

The eye tentacles threw themselves on the projectile, the bag was mercilessly pierced and covered in staring eyes while the bag’s contents rained down on the ground. Gold coins.

That was Sofia’s final act, her transformation ending in exactly one second, it would leave her manaless and powerless to defend herself in any way, too weak to even walk. She threw one last look at the eye monster that Victory had become and jumped off of the tower.

You wanted mana, Victory?

Have a taste of the [Generosity of Sun]!

The ritual Sofia had drawn in blood activated, fuelled by the gold sacrifice. To the nightmarishly mutated Victory who had been siphoning ambient mana at a speed so fast it could barely keep up with his spending, the 200% increase in mana regeneration really meant that he would now be absorbing much more.

Sofia knew exactly how the ritual worked. She had wondered if there was any way to speed up the absorption of ambient mana in the past, and it turned out the Sun’s ritual was the way.

The 20% regeneration increase without sunlight worked anywhere. The 200% with sunlight, however, helped draw mana from the environment, it wouldn’t help if there was no more mana around.

I would have liked to see what happens next, but staying up there was too dangerous. But technically, I didn’t give up and haven’t lost yet, so…

As she fell, Sofia saw that more eye tentacles had sprouted from the sides of the tower, she almost panicked but realized they seemed inert.

Sofia stirred her fall the best she could while her Demonification ended and she returned to her human body. She needed to avoid touching the eye tentacles, even if they weren’t moving, and she was aiming for something on the ground below.

Ready to catch me?

She wasn’t dumb enough to jump to her death, the High-Priest’s control magic worked by slowing down a target. She could feel his location and the Templars’ at the foot of the tower.

The fall was agonizingly long, and away from the top of the tower, the mana density at such an altitude was low enough to be extremely unpleasant. There wasn’t much air either, and the temperatures were very cold, especially since Sofia had no more clothes, but VPPV’s passives helped to mitigate all of that.

Finally, she reached the bottom of the tower, with no arms, about a tenth of her health left, even less stamina, no mana, and only a golden crown to show for it. The High-Priest skeleton slowed her fall to a crawl and instantly showered her in healing spells, and the Templars caught her, one of them even bringing a large woolen cape it had gotten from who knows where to cover her with.

Sofia could only wait, she tried to hide in a corner for the time being, she really didn’t know what to do.

I couldn’t do it… The difficulty was honestly ridiculous. I don’t think anyone at level 199 can do it. We’re talking about defeating a God here. Well, a level 199 incarnation of a god, but still.

Also the scepter is still up there in my right hand, and Aphenoreth’s glove too, and my two rings…

I lost all my bones, Alpha Ogre Pareth is dead, most of my valuables are still on the ground up there, my Orichalcum armor is utterly destroyed and so is the Orichalcum egg.

What a complete loss.

Defeat, uh?

What a fitting floor name…

Sofia was replaying the fight in her head, trying to see what she did wrong, what could have gone better, trying to understand what she could have done. Whether or not there was a way.

She felt that her fight couldn’t have gone much better. If anything, she could have taken Pareth out the second she came out of the stairs to hopefully have [Sanctified grounds] activate a bit earlier. But she knew it wouldn’t have helped after the God’s transformation.

“What’s done is done… I’ll do better next time. I might still be first place even, wouldn’t be too bad. The rewards from 99 floors are sure to be good… Also I have the crown. So it’s not a complete loss; the way Victory spoke about it made it look like it was meant to be the reward so I just kinda took it. It’s just… A disappointing ending.”

I’ll Identify the crown when I have mana. I know what it does though, it gives strength, I could feel that clearly.

Sofia was petrified by the sound of a new system notification. She dreaded looking at it.

[Objectives completed!]

[The second trial has ended, congratulations on rank: 1! You will be contacted by an administrator or high-operator shortly, please wait.]

“Did… DID I WIN?!”

“I can’t believe it either, but as far as the spire is concerned… You did,” Sen answered as he seamlessly appeared next to Sofia as if he had always been there. “You sure did… Ah… Where do we even start? Obviously the incarnation of Victory is still alive, but …

You’re a headache from start to finish, miss Aphenoreth. A massive one. But I’m glad to have been your examiner. I will teleport you back to the top and explain things in detail, ready?”