Chapter 400 - Everything is an enemy (Patreon)

How much can I push without losing any health?

I remember that around 200 000 the heat was starting to get pretty bad. Maybe if I made heat shields with bones…

I can charge much faster now at least. About five thousand a second.

After about forty seconds of channeling, the bolt on Sofia’s scepter started changing appearance, becoming smooth and glossy. The waves of heat were not nearly as bad as she remembered, and the dragon-scale arm perfectly protected her hand.

VPPV went through all of realm 2 since last time, that must be why I’m not feeling it as much.

She had flown a bit further from the stone ruins, and watched as more and more underground swamp creatures gathered beneath her, hiding below the mud. She still had no idea what they even looked like. What little she saw of them through the heat vision of her left eye was a blurry mess at best. I should ask Richard if he can make it clearer.

220 000… this should be enough.

Sofia simply released the bolt, letting it fly straight down below her as she herself flew up.

The bolt hit the swamp with an almost metallic ring, and the world became halfway white, Sofia’s fake eye let her see right through the burst of light, as an explosion of wild blue flames engulfed the swamp. A rain of notifications started spamming Sofia’s system feed.

Oh god, collapse all the ones without an imprint, please.

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 103 to 199]*342’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 208 - Imprint Damaged]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 248 - Imprint Mostly intact]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 239 - Imprint Badly Damaged]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 207 - Imprint Intact]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 212 - Imprint Intact]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 240 - Imprint Damaged]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 233 - Imprint Mostly intact]’

‘You have defeated [Skitrill - Lv. 224 - Imprint Damaged]’

As the explosion died down, Sofia kept flying, her heat vision was as good as useless now with the waves of heat of her own making washing over the swamp. She couldn’t feel a trace of the monsters. All she ‘could’ see within the swamp were bits of bloody brown flesh sticking out of the mud.

No way did that kill them all. There had to be more than that. But that has probably killed all those near the center of the explosion.

If I had to guess, the closer to the center the more damaged the imprint, while the intact ones probably died to the shockwave only.

That left quite a crater. It’s already filling back up with water though. I still don’t really know what these ‘Skitrills’ look like. Is it safe to say the survivors probably escaped?

How do I get the imprints, though?

Oh, I think I know.

Go down first to check if it’s safe.

Pareth appeared in the air near Sofia and plummeted down to the swamp, activating his float ring right before hitting the water.

Just like the old slow-fall ring. Really convenient magic.

Pareth walked around in the swamp, his legs sinking deep into the muddy waters even with the float ring on. Nothing seemed to move around him.

Yeah the bolt definitely scared away any survivors. I wonder if they dug deeper or to the sides.

Sofia flew down and landed in between Pareth’s three heads. Walk closer to the crater.

She observed the bits of charred flesh she could see in the mud, to Sofia they looked somewhat insect-like, with some kind of chitinous shell. No skeleton, so I can’t even try to fish them out myself.

Graveyard crew, it’s your turn! Dig them out!

Sofia made an ugly face as the first Skitrill was dug out by a ghostly skeleton. The beast was best described as a burrowing mosquito, with large conical digging claws in place of wings and a long spike-shaped mouth. The sight of it made her shiver.

Do these things also suck blood? It would only take two of those to dry me out I’m sure… Maybe just one. If I still had any blood left, that is.

I wonder what they usually feed on.

The skeletons brought the dead insect to Pareth who grabbed it and held it up to Sofia.

No imprint on this one. We’re going to have to sift through the 350 of them just to find the eight good ones, aren’t we? And I don’t even know what the imprint actually is.

Well.

Sofia ordered a few of the graveyard skeletons to stay on the extremities of her range to warn her in case the rest of the swarm came back, while the majority of the crew was busy bringing back charred or squashed bodies of giant dead insects covered in smelly mud.

Finally, as a pile of corpses had started accumulating on the side, Sofia got an imprint from a particularly messed up bloody insect corpse.

[Nascent mana heart of Aphenoreth]: /E tier/

9 months, 32 days, 6 hours

Imprint progress : 117.60/ 250

Effects (Will be doubled) :

• All stats -5% (E rank base)
• Health + 3
• Mana + 1757
• [Relocate Core]

“Woah. A whole three health. That better have been the ‘badly damaged’ one.”

As Sofia was contemplating whether she should keep absorbing the other Skitrills, give them to Pareth, or just skip digging for them altogether and get back to hunting something better, a couple of graveyard skeletons brought up something new.

Oh, a live specimen. In bad shape, but alive.

[Skitrill - Lv. 198]

‘A blood-sucking insect traveling in swarms underground. Their presence usually indicates loose soil and a high likelihood of finding herds of large land animals nearby. They tend to be attracted by any cluster of mana they can locate.’

Herds of large land animals? I might need to fly higher ,see if I can see anything.

No point in finishing this one off, toss it to the side.

The creature weakly burrowed in the mud after the skeletons let it go.

The graveyard skeletons took about fifteen minutes to fish out all the dead bugs, and Sofia managed to confirm that their intact imprint was ‘+100 Health’, and the total she collected was 561 Health points.

Barely worth the time.

Leaving a charred bit of swamp and a mountain of bug corpses behind, she quickly went to check up on the stone fort. She landed in the middle of the half-collapsed fort.

Not made by a skill, this is real stone, quite old. The size of the entrance and stairs is too small to be human, and looks too shoddy for dwarves. Conclusion… I have no idea who might have built this. There isn’t much left but this feels like a military outpost of some kind.

The floor has three layers of stone so they clearly knew about the Skitrills. In comparison, the walls are quite thin.

Why build an outpost like this on the border of a swamp? This must have taken a long time, too, when we’re only here for a year. Even for me it would take a few days to set up something like this out of bones, let alone stone.

Well, whatever, at least it makes for a nice landmark to find my way back to the tower if ever needed.

Not lingering in the ruins any longer, Sofia flew straight up until she hit the layer of turbulent mana and was forced to stop. Today was a bit cloudy, which made looking around not as easy as before. She looked for the potential herd of land animals the Skitrill’s description had mentioned.

Hmm no. Nothing this way either… A few flying monsters but nothing big… Huh? I could have sworn…

Sofia had seen something, not on the ground, but in one of the clouds. An eye.

Am I seeing things?

Using her enhanced eye, she zoomed on the thick white cloud in question, failing to spot anything.

I’ve seen how well hidden some of the monsters here are. No way I’m not going to check.

Sofia quick-charged a low mana piercing bolt and threw it at the cloud. The lightning bolt pierced a hole through the fluffy white cloud and kept flying.

Nothing?

She almost gave up and returned to looking at the ground, but just to feel safe, she brought Bookie out and summoned a Firebird skeleton for 35 000 mana. The skeleton came out with its wings covered in flames just like the monster, and Sofia sent it into the suspicious cloud.

Suddenly, as the skeleton’s flames disappeared into the cloud, Sofia lost her connection to it.

Huh?!

She saw bits of bones fall from the cloud and dissipate into a thin mana mist.

There was actually something… And the cloud blocked sunlight enough for the blessing not to work. Crap.

I’ve been flying up and down through the clouds without a care in the world…

I need to draw that thing out. How does one dissipate a cloud?

Rot? No, if Sunlight doesn’t reach through the thick cloud, the holy light won’t either. And it won’t stick to the cloud itself.

I see. Well, I have no lack of long range weapons. Skull Choir! Maximum skulls, Sandworm form!