It was only a few minutes before the undercity became dark again. The Destroyer had returned to the hatchery to look over the Matriarchs.
It’s all up to you now.
Bookie must have been waiting for the right moment, as nothing happened for a few minutes before finally Sofia’s connection with the infiltrator was severed.
The caverns shook.
Did it work?
Did it eat the bait?
Concentrating on the position of Bookie’s skull, Sofia could feel it go up and down, shaking around.
It definitely worked!
The caverns shook more.
How do you like your meal, big worm? Is Dragon-scale a bit too tough for you? Or maybe it’s the poisons that are doing it. Whatever the case, it seems pissed.
Bookie being still alive meant the Dragon-scale arm was doing its job as skull armor, now all Sofia was waiting for was Bookie’s signal to proceed to the next step. She looked at her mana, she still had around three hundred thousand at the ready.
Thirty seconds should be a lot.
In Sofia’s hands, the book snapped closed.
Now!
From her safe place, hidden in a corner of the undercity, Sofia pumped all of her mana into activating and sustaining her most destructive passive, the [Erredian Rot].
She knew from her battle against Saria that her rot was not impossible to get rid of. A bit of her fake Dragon’s breath had been enough, so who knew what this huge worm might be able to do? Perhaps it could shed its shell and be rid of the annoying substance. So the solution was simple. Since the rot spread through Sofia’s holy light, she only needed to shine the light where the Destroyer could not get rid of it.
Directly from the inside.
With Bookie safely inside the Dragon-scale arm, being swallowed whole, he could now use his High-Priest spells to flood the insides of the Destroyer with Holy light.
The Destroyer had no mana, so the Rot would not last long, but it would dig directly at its flesh and bones from within, and with thirty seconds of sustained cast, the rot would be laid on thick. Even for a creature as gigantic as the hundred meters long Kidjikkik Destroyer, the damage would not be insignificant.
The ground shook like the cavern was a volcano ready to erupt. Looking outside the apartment’s window, Sofia could see many buildings of the undercity crashing down, unable to sustain the structural damage caused by the quaking.
She let her mana slowly be drained by the passive spell while she monitored Bookie’s position. The Destroyer was thrashing around violently in the hatchery.
‘You have defeated [Matriarch Kidjikkik - Lv. 89]’
Really?
‘You have defeated [Matriarch Kidjikkik - Lv. 73]’
‘You have defeated [Matriarch Kidjikkik - Lv. 58]’
‘You have defeated [Matriarch Kidjikkik - Lv. 92]’
Holy… The kills from the Destroyer’s rampage are getting attributed to me?
That was not a part of the plan, in fact Sofia had not even thought about the possibility of the Destroyer killing the Matriarchs, even if it was probably unintended.
Nevertheless, Sofia kept dumping her mana away into the rot. The quaking grew more and more violent, the location of Bookie was moving so fast that it was hard to keep track of it.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Crap!
The building Sofia was in cracked and collapsed. She barely had time to jump out the window and into the dark streets of the undercity. Then came another bad turn. The Destroyer left the hatchery. Its movements violent and erratic, it burst into the undercity, crawling upside-down on the cavern’s ceiling.
The red light escaping its eyes was stronger than ever. Worse yet, they were pointed at Sofia as if trying to burn a hole through her.
It already knew where I was?! It must have followed the mana trail between me and Bookie!
The Destroyer roared. Buildings were pulverized by the cry, Sofia could only brace for impact as she felt the attack wash over her, shaking the core of her very being, gnawing at her soul, trying to invade it by force.
[You have been affected by : Mind control. But your skills negated the status]
Then that pressure disappeared, as if erased from existence.
[You were subjected to a Soul-altering attack; but it was dismissed]
[The ‘Mark of Aphenoreth’ punishes the attacker]
The Destroyer spasmed like it had been hit by lightning. It fell from the ceiling and crashed into the destroyed buildings below.
Sofia had no time to admire the destruction.
The Destroyer was still alive, and it had seen her.
Pareth appeared near Sofia, and helped her up. As soon as she was back on her feet, she bit-off her heart and transformed. Now was not the time to hesitate over a small level debt. Then she turned to the collapsed building beside her, her extra skeletons had been trapped inside it as it collapsed but were not dead yet. She dismissed them and her unlife rune to absorb their mana through [Heat Death].
Mana : 21 569 / 417 100
Better than nothing.
Pareth disappeared back into her storage, ready to be out in case of an emergency, and Sofia ran.
There was not much she was confident in doing against an opponent this strong, but running was becoming somewhat of a specialty of hers. In two jumps, Sofia ran across the city, and up into the tunnel the Destroyer used to get from the undercity to the upper city. Jumping up from wall to wall, she flew into the sleeping upper city. The Destroyer got back up and followed right after her.
Sofia barely had time to jump out of the way as the Destroyer erupted from the hole behind her.
Sofia made a quick turn, getting out of the creature’s field of vision by hiding in the city’s streets.
The streets were just large enough for the Destroyer to navigate them. It followed Sofia, but it avoided destroying the buildings, instead slithering between them. That slowed it considerably.
Sofia ran dashing through the streets and taking every turn she could, but she could see behind her, and the horrific insectoid head of the Destroyer was never far.
Switching strategy, Sofia started jumping through windows, over the sleeping Kidjikkiks, and running through buildings to try to escape the creature, but she could never get away from it, whatever she did, every time she stepped out, the Destroyer’s head was closer and closer, until the point where she entered a building, and the Destroyer’s gaping maws were waiting for her outside of the opposite window.
Sofia managed a last second turn as the maws closed in on her, destroying the building’s wall. Trying to exit from where she entered, Sofia discovered that the Destroyed had wrapped itself around the building. Its many legs stabbed at her through the windows and the walls. Barely managing to avoid them, as the creature was striking blindly, Sofia could only move up, in the building. Barely avoiding the chomps of the giant head several times.
The creature was still shaken by violent spasms that shook the building. It made its attacks sloppy. Sofia could tell, as it was made of her own mana, the rot was eating it from inside.
Unfortunately, she ran out of vertical space to run. When she burst through the ceiling of the building’s last floor, the open mouth of the Destroyer was waiting for her.
[Regret]
Sofia reappeared in the street next to the collapsing building she had been in a second prior. The Destroyed was still wrapped around it. At the top, it bit at nothing.
Awakened by the commotion, many Kidjikkik were starting to gather in the streets. Sofia paid them no mind, going as fast as she could she ran straight through the city. The guardian Kidjikkiks tried to stop her from entering the mining facilities, but she ignored them, ducking under their spears and punching her way through the door and into the place she had entered the city through.
Monitoring the Destroyer’s movements by tracking Bookie’s position, Sofia felt it coming. She jumped in place, bursting through several ceilings, barely avoiding a lunge attack from the destroyer, which had crashed through the mining facility like a meteorite.
As she soared through the floors, she bit down on the [Crystallized] skill’s mana pearl she had been keeping in her mouth the entire time, just in case the situation was getting desperate. It was her first time using one, and she instantly felt her thoughts and mana regeneration speed up.
The mining facilities were collapsing, but Sofia ran forward, weaving between the chunks of falling debris. She made her way deeper and deeper inside them, followed closely by the Destroyer which now paid no mind to anything around it, and only lunged at Sofia again and again, trying to swallow her whole, and when that missed, to impale her with its uncountable legs. The accelerated thoughts and demon body allowing her to dodge attacks far past the normal capabilities of someone her level were the only thing keeping Sofia alive through the unrelenting assault.
Finally, she reached the depths of the mining facilities, the actual mining tunnels. There was nowhere else left to go.
The tunnels were not large enough for the Destroyed to follow her, but it followed anyway, mercilessly crushing through the stone layers of the moon.
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