Sofia was strangely calm as she advanced on the back of the Nightbringer. The white stripe she followed meant there was only one way she could go, and she was so used to the casting time and velocity of the black lances that avoiding them in her demon form was almost too easy. It reminded her of the Alphageid’s tentacles, if anything it was a bit tougher in that she couldn’t step on the lances. She constantly scanned everywhere with her mana senses to try to find anything that stood out. A few times, the black lances did almost get her, when there were too many at once, but the demon form skills allowed her to avoid getting touched at all.
How many kilometers had she run for? She could not tell, but there was no end in sight.
Then the white stripe spread into a Y shape. The mana to the right was slightly denser than it was on the left, so Sofia turned right. Then the path split again, and Sofia kept following the paths with the most mana. Amalgams kept appearing all around her in ever-increasing numbers.
Eventually the odds stacked against her, and a black lance came that she could not possibly avoid, both [Regret] and [Misfortune] were already on cooldown, so Sofia did what she could: block with the dragon scale.
Her health took a very slight dip as the shock of the impact ran through her body, and Sofia got ejected from the white path. Immediately the thundering winds hit her and sent her flying high in the sky.
While upside down, she used [Dodge - Me] and stopped her flight by stepping on air, and jumped off of it, propelling herself back onto the Sunless’ back. She landed in the black zone, with amalgams immediately starting to form around her, but they were left behind as the wind kept pushing her back, her right arm leaving long claw trails on her path as she fought the momentum not to get sent flying again.
In just a few seconds, the wind pushed her back into one of the white stripes, and quickly finding her footing, Sofia started running again. She breathed in as much mana as she could, while she kept count of how long of her transformation remained.
I need to go faster.
But she was already at her maximum speed, running so fast that it was hard to even adjust her direction in time when the Y intersections came without warning, hidden by the constant amalgam-spawning ebullition of the Nightbringer’s black skin. That was, her maximum speed with no mana cost. When she managed to bring her mana back over fifty thousand, she could comfortably activate the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] for an extra 149% speed boost.
Finally, when it looked like she was going to run out of time with only twenty seconds left on the counter, Sofia reached the end of the white lines, a giant white circle where several lines converged. There was a black cross-shaped mark in the middle.The Sunless eye!
Pareth appeared in the middle of the circle before Sofia, activating his armor and raising two greatshields of light. Amalgams were rising around the circle faster than ever.
With a final jump, Sofia landed in between Pareth’s legs. Pulling the Key out her bone armor, she carved a deep hole in the middle of the black cross in a single swipe. Black lances were forming by the hundreds around them, like a deathly cocoon about to close. Blinding white light erupted from the hole Sofia had just carved. Hastily digging into her own flesh, Sofia ripped her mana heart from under her armpit with the Dragon claws and thrust it into the hole, her arm sinking down to the shoulder.
The resulting explosion of light was even more blinding than the most powerful Angel’s Bolt Sofia had ever cast. More blindingly white than the sun itself, it carved a giant hole through the Nightbringer, and all the nearby amalgams and their attacks disappeared, vaporized back into the volatile mana they had always been made of. The Nightbringer’s core was as a piece of ‘Sunless Debris’ larger than Sofia’s head, and it was being sucked into her mana heart like it was a liquid rather than a solid, attracted by an inescapable force.
Another pulse of blinding white light escaped Sofia’s mana heart when the Nightbringer core’s last remnants disappeared. The light chased away everything, air, mana, there was nothing left but an empty void, violently destroying everything hundreds of kilometers across. It was so absolute that it even pushed Sofia and Pareth’s mana straight out of them.
The titan started falling from the sky.
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Sofia could feel her mana heart’s power pulsating even through the Dragon claw, she clenched it tightly as she fell with the titan’s lifeless corpse.
Her body was quickly turning back to bone as she fell, she looked up.
Pareth was right above her, reaching out to grab her but being just shy of actually reaching her, completely out of mana, he could not even teleport to her. It reminded Sofia of her old recurring nightmare, where she hopelessly extended a hand to catch Saria as she was getting swept away by the waves.
In the nightmare, she could never catch Saria’s hand.
But there were no more nightmares.
Sofia caught Pareth’s hand. We win!
Now all that remained to truly call this a glorious victory was to stop the fall. Sofia doubted that she could survive a fall of several kilometers with her measly 128 remaining health points.
Oh, if only a glorious Hero blessed by light could save our poor souls!
Bookie finally made his appearance. Safely hidden deep within Sofia’s soul, the light wave had not reached him. Adjusting his two black gloves, Bookie produced his book form between his hands, it was brimming with mana fog, Bookie slowly turned the pages, and he finally grabbed the one with the High-Priest skeleton. The High-Priest’s scepter appeared in Bookie’s hand, and, seconds before the group hit the ground, a bubble of mana enveloped Sofia and her two mighty heroes. The High-Priest’s slow fall.
The gargantuan body of the Nightbringer hit the ground before them, the force of the impact so violent Sofia and her group were engulfed in a giant dirt cloud.
Her feet touching the ground a few seconds later, Sofia had to keep holding Pareth to stay up as the ground was still madly shaking from the impact, though the actual Nightbringer’s corpse was nowhere to be seen anymore. When the dust settled, Sofia understood why, the giant Sunless had so much forward momentum that it had kept sliding forward even after colliding against the ground, creating a giant trench which Sofia, Pareth, and Bookie were currently inside of. Sofia could not even see the end of the trench as it extended beyond the horizon.
Well, I don’t think it will be bringing night again anytime soon.
Sofia dispelled her bone helmet, her face showing a bright smile despite its current lack of functioning muscles. She held up her mana heart, and picked the [Infinity engine] level 3 card before she could even read the heart’s new description.
Third trial: DESTROYED!
[Transcendent Saintomancer’s heart]: /ULTIMATE tier/
‘Striving for perfection’
Effects (Stats will be doubled) :
- All stats + 350%
- Health + 67 381
- Stamina + 17 900
- Mana + 834 719
- Slashing resistance + 25%
- Explosion resistance + 25%
- [Relocate Core]
- Destroyer Signature Skill Modifier
- Speed shard (5)
- Strength shard (2)
- [Infinity Engine] Lv.3
Another fifty percent to the all stats bonus. I don’t even want to calculate how much mana that will end up being, I might pass out again.
In Sofia’s hand, the mana heart was changing form again after she picked the last card, its golden glow became even stronger, and its shape twisted into strange geometric objects, until it stabilized in its final form. It floated over Sofia’s palm, looking like a solid shard of light.
It’s a bit like a tiny Angel bolt, but golden? It’s hard to see where it begins and where it ends.
To the touch, as far as Sofia could tell with her bone hands, it was not actually really a solid, and more of a constant force pushing back against her fingers. She tried to gently squeeze it, and the repulsive force became stronger the more she tightened her grip.
I don’t think I can damage it but I should stop messing with it just in case…
All that’s left is to go find Clint, right? We have about ten to twelve days. Should be easy enough.
Before leaving, Sofia went to check on what remained of the Nightbringer; it had slid on the ground for tens of kilometers before stopping when it impacted a large mountain range. Sofia was flying with Bookie in her arms, observing the Sunless from above. It was very much dead, that much was certain, but even after its death, and after carving a giant new scar on the planet’s surface, it was still very much a danger for the environment. Hundreds of kilometers of land and mountains were covered in Sofia’s Erredian rot.
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