Sofia reappeared inside of the mimic three seconds later, her lower body completely regenerated and already soaking in what remained of the corrosive liquid. The space inside of the mimic was very cramped now that it contained her entire body.
While Sofia was hastily covering her legs with her bone armor to try to prevent the liquid from harming her too much, she stopped.
The liquid was no longer hurting her or even her armor, it was just like smelly water.
It took a long second for Sofia to realize.
“[Singularity Edict]! The damage stopped because I was dead!
It’s a single attack so I’m immune now!
“GET FUCKED, MIMIC!”
No longer in any immediate danger, Sofia had time to get her hands wet and closely inspect her new cramped prison cell. While the walls felt like stone, they were much tougher, and now that most of the liquid was gone, she could feel small pin-sized holes on two opposite sides, from which a very slow trickle of liquid was refilling the vat, and some kind of cross-shaped seam on the bottom side.
That might be its mouth? Dissolve first then drink what’s left?
Sofia tried to activate some of her spells again, but [Bone dominus] was still the sole responder. It feels like the walls are sucking up all the mana as soon as it leaves my body… Infinity engine is supposed to protect my mana from being affected by enemy aura, but I guess it can still be absorbed directly like this?
After weighing her options, Sofia created a bone strand thin as a hair, and tried to send it through one of the tiny holes in the walls.
The mimic seemed to have quickly understood what was going on, as the bone strand was blocked after only going a few centimeters in, and when Sofia tried to ding them again, all the other holes had closed up.
So it’s not just a passive monster. Yet even when things are like this it’s not releasing me nor attacking in any other way? Is it hoping I will eventually suffocate to death or something? I guess most people would; but not me. Since I am not strong enough to break the walls, not many options left…
Well… It can only absorb the mana that’s already outside of my body. [Runeforged overlord] is the only skill I haven’t tried, and it should work, as it’s almost fully inside. The strength bonus is considerable, might be enough to get me out, but it might also make the mimic stronger if it’s an undead. Which it very well might be… Worth a try.
Sofia activated the second and third tier of [Runeforged overlord], gaining considerable strength.
Yet the walls stood perfectly undamaged from her punches, and the lid stayed tightly closed no matter how hard she pushed. As a last resort, she scratched the walls with her dragon claws right before she ran out of mana, trying to inflict the rarely-used [Confusion] effect from [Runeforged overlord]’s third tier, without any visible result.
Her mana reached zero and with a slight headache settling in, the magic faded.
Well… The Dragon scale armguard is tougher than the Mimic’s walls so even if it’s slow I could try to dig my way out. Feels like it’ll take weeks, though. And if the walls can heal, I’m screwed.
If only I had kept the dagger in my hand… Or stabbed the damn thing before trying to open it!
Hmm… Only the mana outside my body gets absorbed, and the armor is part of my body…
My bones have become a very good mana conductor, now that I’m a Lumian. That should make learning spells I can replicate the pattern much easier now, with the method I used to learn to summon the sprites.
But if that method can work to cast valid spells inside of my body…
Sofia started pulling a long and noodle-thick strand of bone from her armor, keeping it attached. She stuck her back and legs as close to the walls as she could, to give herself space to extend her left arm. Slowly, layer by layer, she recreated the out-of-body component of the exploding angel bolt mana pattern around her arm with the bone strands. The pattern was messy and complex, but if there was one singular mana pattern that Sofia was confident she could remember perfectly even without any system help and in this complete darkness, it was this one.
What was usually near instantaneous to draw with mana took her several hours of bone sculpting, but in the end, it was ready, the full mana structure of the original [Angel bolt].
Not wanting to risk breaking the bone structure, Sofia started channeling mana into it very slowly.
It felt completely natural, just like casting the spell as usual, except the external mana was entirely contained within her bone structure.
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It’s… It’s almost easier.
The crackling of lightning soon filled the interior of the mimic.
Sofia laughed.
She heard a strange sound, followed by the splashing of liquid. The corrosive liquid was being quickly drained, perhaps as an emergency measure by a panicking mimic to avoid electrocution.
Sofia pushed even more mana into the bolt. It soon started to burn her, but she did not care. She reveled in the burn, knowing that it meant she was going to be immune to the explosion.
When was such a bolt going to be ready?
There was no need to ask, Sofia kept pumping more mana into it, for as long as she could.
Then, at around four million mana points invested, it became too much. Even her Lumian bones could no longer stand the heat. She could only do one thing, release the beast.
Despite the absolute violence of the explosion, not a single flash of light pierced Sorrow’s palace’s oppressive magical darkness.
Worse yet, Sofia got no kill notification.
She took no damage from the explosion and the heat, but was still shaken by the shockwave, so it took her a second to get a hold of herself.
No way, I’m still trapped?!
Sofia felt the walls around her, they were full of cracks, and some bits had fallen off, but they still kept her locked.
My strongest bolt ever yet and it got eaten just like that?!
Sofia punched the crackled lid of the mimic above her head. It was not quite as steady as it had once been, and shook a bit from her hit. This brought a smile to Sofia’s demonic face. With the mana she had left, she activated the second and third tier of [Runeforged overlord].
As I said before, mimic.
“Get fucked!”
With a single punch, Sofia’s right arm pierced through the mimic’s lid.
With access to the outside, she quickly extended her bone armor out and sent bone tendrils everywhere to probe for her lost lower body. In just a few seconds, the tentacle-like bone tendrils found the admin dagger and sent it back to Sofia’s hand, which she pulled back into the mimic.
Going out through the lid is dangerous. It cut me in half once, It could do it again. No, you wanted me inside of you? Well, it’s only fair that I take the extra step and try to reach your real insides, isn’t it?
Sofia stabbed the dagger around the place where she found the holes previously. She quickly cut a circular piece out of that wall, passed the dagger back to her left hand to be safe, and plunged her right arm elbow deep in the hole. No matter what shenanigans awaited on the other side, she was protected by the dragon scale armguard either way.
The other side felt meaty and slimy. Sofia grabbed the first thing she found that stood out and pulled it out of the hole which made a disturbing tearing sound.
Oh! This is just gutting a fish.
A big, land bound, tomb-shaped fish.
Sofia kept digging around and ripping the mimic’s flesh off from the inside, while it was trying to flood her compartment with corrosive liquid again, which did not help it much. When she could no longer find anything resembling a full organ on that side, she turned around and dug into the opposite wall. Eventually fully scrambling the monster’s insides on that side too.
Yet it was still not dead.
That thing is almost as tough as me.
Sorry but you made me drink this disgusting shit, I’m not getting out until you’re dead. There was that seam on the bottom…
Sofia carved another hole in the bottom side of her small prison and was not too surprised to find more slimy flesh beneath. She dug around for a bit until she felt something different from everything else. Something hard and mostly round.
“I win.”
Sofia pulled on the hard thing. Ripping it out from the monster’s insides.
‘You have defeated [Gravedigger’s bane Mimic - lv. 344]’
With the thing dead, Sofia could now effortlessly push open the lid from inside and step out.
“What a mess.”
Sofia gave the rock a quick Identify as she searched for her lost old lower-body in the dark.
[Scrambled Mana-Heart]: The Mana-heart of a Gravedigger’s bane Mimic. Its sudden removal from its heavily-injured host has scrambled the many mana pathways inside, resulting in useless but pretty circular patterns (supposedly). It will probably look nice when we eventually get to actually look at it. Might actually be worth a bit of money.
Should I take it to a jeweler?
Dismissing the notification, Sofia grabbed the bone armor on the ground, with her sliced-up pants still inside. Her actual previous waist and legs were nowhere to be found.
Did my previous body disappear when the unlife rune resurrected me? That’s… Convenient, actually. Undressing and disposing of my leftover corpses has never been something that I particularly liked to do…
Thank you Clint, I guess.
After sorting out her things, Sofia went to leave the room. As she opened the door to the spiders’ room again, she heard the ringing of a bell behind her.
She turned around, ready to defend herself, but nothing came.
Where the hell did that even come from?
There was nothing in there except the dead tomb. I checked thrice!
Staying where she was, she sent her armor’s bone tendrils to search. As they were part of her own ‘skeleton’, they had a nine meter range, enough to cover the entire room. She found something on the ground, which was about where she had heard the bell ring from. Although it was hard to tell while just feeling the shape with bone tendrils, Sofia quickly understood what the thing was: a small chest.
Sofia walked up to the small chest and touched the lid. It was without a doubt nice and smooth varnished wood, just like the hidden chest she had found the Acceleratium potions in previously.
She stabbed it with her dagger.
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