Chapter 202 - No Defeat (Patreon)

Pareth could hardly fight without legs, Sofia stored him along with the blessed construct shield. She would lose the effects of both [Sanctified grounds] and the blessing, but in the safety of her storage, Pareth could recover. It would take two full minutes for him to be fully healed. It was impossible for Sofia and the High-Priest skeleton to hold out for this long, but if she could recover his broken off lower body, she could speed up the process. His health wouldn’t fully come back but with legs, he could fight.

Sofia flew up as fast as she could, the ambient mana had recovered enough to allow her to do so. The High-Priest had a control spell which he used to slow Victory.

Health : 7010 / 10995

Stamina : 2755 / 3662

Mana : 46532 / 94000

Just enough for a full power bolt. Charging it would take too long, to speed it up, Sofia cast one in each hand. This would prevent her from doing anything else, but she only had to channel them for fifteen seconds.

Sofia was getting ready to flee another magic-guided flying sword, but Victory had other plans this time. His armor’s different parts rearranged, it left parts of his arms and legs exposed, but gave him armored wings. The High-Priest cast his movement restricting spell on Victory again and again, but it only slowed the God for a second each time before he forcefully broke the magic.

With his wings ready, Victory flew straight to the skeleton. Sofia could only keep flying up into space as she watched the High-Priest get helplessly thrown out of the platform, like the Templars, he would be stuck at the bottom of the spire.

Ten more seconds. Sofia felt the mana quickly becoming thinner and thinner as she flew away from the top of the tower. I cannot go any further…

Victory flew straight for her. He was faster than Sofia. In two seconds, he crossed the distance she had in five. His first attack was a stab with his sword. Sofia barely managed to hit the sword with her lightning coated scepter. She was the one to be expulsed to the side from the collision as Victory sped past her.

She took as much distance as she could, but Victory was too fast, he turned around and charged again, this time coming with an horizontal swipe. Sofia was slower but her wings had much more maneuverability, thrice, she narrowly avoided the sword strikes. But the unrelenting aerial assault of the God paid off, Sofia couldn’t focus well while also channeling both her bolts. Her legs fell, cut clean through at the thighs.

Overwhelmed by the sudden pain, she lost control of her flight and started crashing down, on the bright side, that allowed her to barely escape the next attack of the flying Orc.

Only six seconds!

Health : 4122 / 10995

Stamina : 1330 / 3662

Mana : 18606 / 94000

She could lose sight of everything else, but she needed the bolts to keep growing at all costs.

Victory plunged down, he intended to execute Sofia with a final magically enhanced sword strike.

Sofia folded her wings. She added more and more bone to her bone armor, making her fall even faster, Victory was hot on her tail, his sword glowing with an intense Godly light. Just as she was about to hit the ground, she summoned the Orichalcum egg around her. With both bolts raging in her hands now enclosed in the small space, Sofia was getting cooked alive. At least it cauterized the bleeding from her lost legs, she thought, trying to find the good in her situation. The shock of her impact with the platform made her dizzy, but it was her signal to empty the entirety of her bone storage. Ten tonnes of bones appeared, covering her egg in a last ditch protective layer. She wanted to also take out the blessed construct to help improve her defenses but it was too much to handle all at once.

Victory’s strike came. Sofia didn’t need to see it to feel it coming.

The God’s strike cut reality in half. There was no defending from such a blow.

Sofia’s orichalcum egg was split open, the giant pile of bone did not even help. Sofia was split into two equal parts down the middle. She saw her health jump from 1147 points to -9738. Only the battle platform had been unaffected.

Victory was spent, landing right next to Sofia, he was panting, trying to catch his breath as he used his sword as a crutch.

The first rune activated, slowly bringing Sofia’s split halves back together, regrowing her lost legs. Even in death, she only had a single thought, from the moment the attack came to the instant the rune finished to revive her. To keep channeling her skill.

Even as her health was in the negative, her clenched hands fed mana top the bolt. Even in death, her magic did not stop.

Three seconds later, the rune finished to revive her. Victory had been recovering, he only now understood what was happening.

Sofia’s first thought was : One second.

Pareth, still legless, appeared behind Victory. The god tried to fly away, he was held back by Pareth’s giant hands.

Still on the ground, Sofia slammed the two fully grown bolts to her sides, twenty three thousand mana each, bolstered by the [Ringed arms of Zar]. This would be Sofia’s largest explosion yet. The world turned white. The pain was so intense that it didn’t hurt. Overwhelmed, Sofia’s senses gave up.

‘The hero : ‘Pareth’ has succumbed.’

When the explosion died down, Sofia stood up, nothing but a charred corpse, she was still alive. For the first time, the first passive effect of [Venerable physique of the primeval void] had saved her,

‘Starting step : A single hit cannot take away more than 99% of your maximum health.’

She didn’t see how exactly her two bolts and their aftermath counted as one hit, but the system had its ways, and she wouldn’t complain if she was the one to benefit from it.

Pareth had died, and her eyes were not functional, she had to focus and look around with her mana senses. The mana around her was still in a storm, bubbling, churning in the aftermath of two extremely powerful attacks.

Did I win?

The only system message she had gotten was the announcement of Pareth’s demise.

Through the torrents of mana around her, her mana senses finally found the God. He was immobile, but plenty of mana still coursed through his massive body, much more than Sofia ever held.

Health : 110 / 10995

Stamina : 3654 / 3662

Mana : 12 / 94000

Sofia sighed. Sofia dumped a pile of stuff from her storage ring on the ground to potentially use later, and her mana hit 0.

She was ready to catch her heart as it escaped her chest, black and pulsating. As she had done in the past, she took a bite.

Horns, hide, tail. The transformation was as exhilarating as she remembered. She felt power surge through her body. The remaining rune prevented the transformation from healing her, but she felt that it was an unimportant detail.

Health : 1793 / 179 280

Stamina : 178 888 / 179 280

Mana : 0 / 179 280

Health is a useless number in the face of a God. If nothing else, at least her vision recovered from the transformation.

Victory was in a bad state, similar to how Sofia had been, a charred corpse, some bones were even visible. However, still standing, all his weight on his sword, he was alive.

Sofia dashed forward. With [Sprint] now in her passive skills, the speed of her demon form was unmatched. It was almost like teleportation, but Victory still reacted in time.

His body reacted by itself. Sofia had only time to process this when she saw the God’s mana come to life by itself to prop him up and aim his sword. Sofia was impaled on the God’s sword, but her clawed hands reached the God’s head too. As her last breath escaped her, she clenched Victory’s skull.

[Bone dominus]

First, the Orc’s skull exploded, Sofia saw a system message as her consciousness faded.

‘[Bone dominus] reached level 2’

She knew something had changed, but she didn’t know what, as the second rune activated she felt [Bone dominus] go wild.

The skill’s dominion could now spread from one bone to the other. Sofia’s demon body limped on the sword. In a chain reaction, the entirety of the God’s skeleton was turned to shrapnel, one bone at a time.

Sofia’s dead body slid off the sword. Three seconds later, she woke up again.

Even burned to a crisp and without bones, defying all common sense, the God was still standing. It was siphoning all nearby mana so much so that Sofia could sense it without trying.

A gargled cry escaped his ravaged throat.

“I am Victory!”

Sofia sprung up, in a flurry of fists, she battered the immortal Orc to a mush.

And yet, he kept roaring, his body was healing, faster than she could destroy it, still, she managed to at least damage the arms enough to steal his sword, and at the last second, she also grabbed the golden crown from atop the God’s head.

“I WILL SEE NO DEFEAT!”

Sofia was sent flying by the enraged shout.