Chapter 401 - That’s my move! (Patreon)

Sofia flew closer to the suspicious cloud, an array of fifty seven miniature sandworm skulls flying beyond here like an organized squadron of scary tubes.

The skulls all charged their attack and when Sofia felt she was close enough, she launched the assault. A barrage of energy beams shot toward the slow drifting cloud. Before they could reach their target, Sofia felt something coming for her. Despite the space warping from [DODGE - ME] being active, the instincts that came with her [Heat Death] specialization told her she was about to take damage.

She activated [Heat Death] in return, fifteen thousand mana points disappearing from her reserves, shooting at the yet unseen projectile which came her way with a bang.

Lightning bolt?!

The enemy magic was dispelled before it could reach her, and the choir’s beams finally reached the cloud. The attack drilled many holes through the soft cloud, and left little space for the creature hidden within to move around. A few of the attacks touched it, whatever it was; it roared.

Health : 85 980 / 85 980

Stamina : 20 241 / 21 047

Mana : 346 500 / 417 100

I need to be careful with mana. The choir is a big drain.

Another lightning bolt made its way toward Sofia, which she dispelled without a second thought.

Not Angel Bolts. Regular lightning magic.

The creature’s form was slowly being revealed as the magical energies dispersed the cloud, but it looked like the cloud was also growing somehow. So far Sofia couldn’t make out much besides the gray-white skin of some long thing hiding in the cloud.

Identify finally reached it!

[Sirhellion - Lv. 293 - Imprint power : 100 - Effect : + 10 000 Mana]

‘A cloud-dwelling abomination with deadly strength and devastating long-range lightning magic. Despite their tendency to use ambush tactics, they are all but weak. Be careful not to get surrounded. Whatever you do, do not inhale the clouds.’

Crap.

Sofia pushed her mana senses, the Sirhellion in the nearby cloud was easy to detect now that she was so close, but the other clouds in the surrounding area were all too far for her to scan.

But close enough to attack me.

The choir attacked again as Sofia summoned Bookie and ripped one of its pages.

Bird squad out, check all the nearby clouds!

The skull choir’s beams reached the cloud and instead of the same result as before, were all deflected by an expanding magical shield, sending the rays of energy flying in all directions.

The magical shield also dispersed the cloud, revealing the roaring beast within. The Sirhellion looked like a big bloated snake with smooth pale skin and a deformed human-like face for a head. Two short arms near the head clutched small pulsating red lightning bolts as the creature’s long body twisted and turned in the sky. Small protrusions all over its body were opening and closing, releasing white smoke which was already starting to reform a cloud.

Fucking… It’s the same head Siren Queens have on their chest.

The Sirhellion’s body twirled, and it released both lightning bolts at the same time, digging even further into Sofia’s mana reserves, she decisively dispelled the choir to cut her consumption.

Mana : 284 634 / 417 100

How many of these can it still throw?

Sofia started charging a bolt of her own again now that she could see the creature’s body, she could actually hope to hit it.

The Sirhellion’s mouth opened, letting out a terrifying human-like scream, and electric mana gathered around it like a lightning cage which it then burst out of, sending hundreds of small electrical attacks flying, which spread out before all aiming straight at Sofia.

Sofia calmly kept channeling her bolt.

These are too weak to pierce [DODGE - ME]. As long as I don’t move, they will just be deviated. I can save some mana.

Just as all the countless small attacks washed over her like a huge volley of lightning arrows surrounding her and harmlessly curving around, Sofia felt a signal from the bird squad. Some birds had stopped moving suddenly. Only then did she feel the attack coming from behind.

While her senses were overwhelmed by the massive but harmless attack from the front another Sirhellion had attacked from afar, which she managed to dispel with [Heat Death] at the last moment.

Shit.

From another direction, one of her reconnaissance birds died.

There’s at least three!

A lightning attack came from the direction of the dead bird, and another one came from the Sirhellion in front of Sofia, which was already starting to disappear again inside of a small cloud of its own making.

I need to charge a bit more…

Sofia dispelled four more red lightning bolts coming her way, and finally, she released her own attack as the Sirhellion was starting to become really hard to see.

The bolt hit a magical shield, and broke through. Piercing right through the monster’s ugly head from the side as it was moving within its cloud.

The Sirhellion fell from his cloud and started plummeting toward the ground.

Birds, come back!

Sofia quickly followed, flying forward and down until she was flying over the falling creature.

No use playing dead, cloud monster.

Your go, Pareth.

Sofia’s main preoccupation was to make sure the other cloud monsters weren’t following her. As the Sirhellion fell from the sky, Pareth appeared above it, falling much faster.

Right before Pareth hit the falling creature, it ‘woke up’ and unleashed another volley of target-seeking lightning attacks which rushed past Pareth to go toward Sofia.

Pareth used [Gravity Well], and the small lightning bolts all collapsed onto him, failing to harm him at all. It also attracted the falling monster against him. It had yet another magical shield up, faintly showing up as red motes of energy, but Pareth’s gigantic skeletal hands punched right through it, prompting the creature to scream again. Its pained cry reminded Sofia of the sound of an old lady screaming. Bad memories from her time in the Sovuln survivors caravan.

All Sofia did from then on was to keep monitoring both the other clouds they were falling further and further away from, and the landing site below, right in the swamp, just a few thousand meters away from the stone ruins.

It seemed no other monster was going to step forward to defend the struggling Sirhellion. A few more lightning attacks were thrown at Pareth’s face, but seeing no success, the creature started throwing punches back, actually breaking a few bones in the process. Finally, the Sirhellion crashed-landed into the swamp, while Pareth disappeared and reappeared at Sofia’s side, a hundred meters above.

Sofia fired a piercing bolt straight down at the creature trying to make it out of the swamp, sending it back into it, before Pareth fell onto it from above again. The brawl continued for a few seconds until Sofia had another bolt ready, and Pareth disappeared again, giving Sofia another free shot at the Sirhellion.

‘You have defeated [Sirhellion - Lv. 293 - Imprint Mostly intact]’

“That thing was a bit tough.”

Sofia checked the swamp with her heat-vision to make sure it was safe from the mosquito monster swarms before going down.

Looks mostly safe… The other cloud monsters haven’t followed at all for some reason.

It doesn’t look like these things are very fast or dangerous. The main danger is getting overwhelmed by too many lightning attacks and running out of mana… I should be able to hunt them down if I’m careful.

Sofia stepped on the air right above the swampy waters. The sky creature lay dead in the mud, still hot and steaming from the multiple Angel bolts it took straight on.

I’m shocked this thing survived so long after I pierced the head.

Sofia gave a weak kick to the corpse.

Looks pretty light.

Squatting over the dead thing, she plunged her hand inside, and ripped out a rib-looking bone.

Hollow bones. The body seems worthless. Skeleton mostly intact except for a few holes, but nothing missing.

Sofia stuck the rib back into the steaming corpse and brought her mana heart out to absorb the imprint.

Ninety seven out of a hundred imprint power collected. Not bad at all.

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

9 months, 32 days, 5 hours

Imprint progress : 220.18/ 250

Effects (Will be doubled) :

• All stats -5% (E rank base)
• Health + 561
• Mana + 11 457
• [Relocate Core]

I can see how it might take a year to get up to B rank if you cannot hunt these level 250+ monsters. I’ll probably reach it in a few days.

What’s more worrying is the Bonus task. I still have no idea. Investigating the moons could be a start if Micheal was onto something with the whole Alpha Beta thing. But I haven’t seen a sign of any other launch tower.

Haven’t seen a single way to go underground either, getting to the center of the planet might not be easy.

Let’s start by catching a few more Sirhellions while they’re here first. I can’t let all this mana go. They’ll make for a good snack for Bookie too.

Sofia looked up at the clouds with a smile.