While Sofia briefly considered the dwarf’s ceasefire, she still kept channeling her bolt.
Can I trust this guy?
Obviously not. Also, how is he going to survive the next bolt without his Asterite chest? I still have two runes up too, so I’m doing fine on that front.
I feel like Domination would be disappointed if I let that guy go. Not to mention the scroll saying that this is a fight to the death.
Perhaps he’s genuine about giving up if I give his chest back… But why would I take the risk?
You can be reunited with your precious chest when I feed you to Bookie.
Sofia’s current title was ‘Olympian’, which had been a great help in getting her agility and speed up to par with her strength so far. She gave her answer to the dwarf with a title change.
[Title changed to ‘THE GLORIOUS’]
Ghostly fire erupted all over the dwarf’s skin, and his mana regeneration slowed to a crawl.
“You demonic bitch!” the dwarf cursed as his mana swole up within him. Mana quickly swirled around his mana heart, and his body started changing, while Sofia ignored his shenanigans and continued to channel her bolt as fast as possible.
The dwarf became taller, enormous bulging muscles propping up his stature, his entire being slowly turned to gold.
Must be his signature skill.
Seeing as the dwarf was too busy transforming to avoid her attacks, Sofia casually threw an [Aberrant Sunlight] blast worth half a million mana points right at him before spraying him with a quick layer of rot. He did nothing to avoid them.
Finally the dwarf’s transformation ended, his mana started to stabilize. Without warning, the layer of rot he had been covered in was overcome by a tidal wave of strange cursed magic, turning it to a thin cocoon of gold, which the dwarf burst out of with a thunderous roar
Sofia followed her instinct to sidestep the rot-turned-gold chunks that were ejected in her direction, and she watched as the dwarf’s now massive body twice her height appeared right before her.
The dwarf punched, his arm thick like a log piercing the air with a bang, aimed at the glowing horns on Sofia’s head.
[Summon Self]
Sofia teleported behind the dwarf, her tail lashing out as she reappeared.
The tail ripped through the dwarf’s golden skin, opening a shallow wound that bled liquid gold. Sofia’s tail started turning to gold, spreading from where it had touched the dwarf and propagating at an alarming pace.
The massive dwarf turned around with a back kick, hitting Sofia squarely in the back, and sending her flying, without the speed boost from the Olympian title, she just was not nearly fast enough to avoid it. The dwarf’s transformation had made him much faster and stronger, but Sofia could tell he was rapidly running out of mana.
As she was flung away from the dwarf, Sofia used her left hand to grab the admin dagger from within her chest, and switch swift movements, sliced out her tail and the part of her back that were turning to gold, twenty percent of her health were gone just like that.
Sofia did some quick math as she butchered herself. Her remaining two million mana could sustain the bolt channeling and tier three [Runeforged Overlord] for about twenty five seconds if she used no other magic. She could also use [Regret] again. That would leave her with a final bolt worth around a million mana.
That’s enough.
The dwarf caught up to Sofia before she could even collide with the wall. She activated [Runeforged Overlord] at the last instant, spreading her wings and narrowly flying up right before the dwarf’s fist could reach her.
Sofia flew away as fast as she could, but she and the dwarf were about equally matched, she avoided punch after punch. Noticing that the dwarf was always aiming for either her head or scepter channeling the bolt.
The curse is working.
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After Sofia had already used [Regret] again to avoid a headbutt, when a strong punch she couldn’t avoid came, she blocked with her right arm. The blow broke the bones in half of her body, but the dwarf’s curse of gold failed to do anything to the dragon scale.
Sofia magically mended her bones and kept narrowly avoiding blow after blow. She had to thank Sun’s Oracle for her combat reflexes, as her close-combat training from back before going to the Sun station finally found some practical use.
Really wish I could use my storage and eat a mana pearl right now! Sofia internally screamed as she struggled to even think fast enough to dodge the endless tidal wave of golden kicks and punches which broke the sound barrier so often it sounded the world itself was screaming.
As she had about ten seconds of mana left, another blow she couldn’t avoid came after Sofia misread one of the dwarf’s feints. It was an overhead blow, and would likely crush her entire body, killing her on the spot. She had the option to take it and be revived by her runes, but she feared that she might be turned to gold as she reappeared and be stuck, so she used her only other option left instead, and let the explosive bolt out. At around 600k mana, it was already a strong blast. It shot straight up and collided directly with the dwarf’s chin.
Sofia had not yet taken any damage from this bolt to activate [Singularity Edict], so the explosion ravaged her as she was blown away from the dwarf.
As she saw her health go dangerously low, which would leave her stuck in place later due to her racial skill, Sofia grabbed the admin dagger and pierced her own mana heart.
She resurrected three seconds later, before the light of the bolt’s explosion could even die down. Since the dwarf was afflicted with the curse, he was forced to chase the light, and had been unable to capitalize on Sofia’s death.
She let herself fall into the palace’s magical darkness which was encroaching into more and more of the wide hole her first bolt had created. Her death had deactivated [Runeforged Overlord] so she just counted the seconds as her mana came back.
He should be out of mana… Now.
Sofia kicked the still half-molten ground and flew up. The dwarf was stuck mid-air, his transformation reversing, and he was scrambling to drink some kind of potion.
Sofia covered him in rot. He was out of mana so the rot instantly started to eat at his flesh.
His beard had blocked enough light that his face was mostly free of rot, but his hands were fully covered. The potion flask broke in the dwarf’s hand, its magical contents instantly consumed by the rot.
“W- Wait, we can talk this out!” The dwarf begged with a raspy voice as he haphazardly flew away with mid-air backsteps. “I’ll pay you,” he continued, “how much do you wan-”
Weakened and without mana, he couldn’t avoid Sofia when she activated [Runeforged Overlord] again.
Sofia’s right hand plunged deep inside the dwarf’s unprotected chest. She knew exactly where his mana heart was, her fingers started to close.
The dwarf flashed a wicked smile. A silent wisp of mana emerged from the magical darkness. The dwarf’s shovel. Shooting out like a comet, it burst through the dwarf’s back and shot right into Sofia’s mana heart before she could even react.
It failed to pierce through.
The look on the dwarf’s face turned to one of utter shock. It was Sofia’s turn to smile. After she had stabbed her own mana heart previously, her body had reformed around the dagger. Her mana heart was hiding right behind it.
Sofia viciously pulled the dwarf’s mana heart out of his body.
Get what you deserve.
‘You have murdered [Edmondo Fus - Fortune lv. 349]’
Before Sofia could do anything, as soon as she got the murder notification, the dwarf’s possessions all crumbled. His rings, his few remaining pieces of armor, and even the shovel all broke and turned to dust.
“Ah shit! All his items were soulbound?!”
Sofia collected the dwarf’s corpse nonetheless, his body was almost completely intact, and would make for a great addition to Bookie’s pages. She also stored his mana heart, which was certain to be worth a good something, and checked her storage, letting out a sigh of relief seeing that at least the Asterite chest was intact.
“Thank me later, Domination.”
Such a pitiful death. I still had a rune up and VPPV’s one hit kill protection anyway even if his stupid trick had worked.
It was surprising that [Singularity Edict] let the gold curse through after the punches touched, but I suppose they were technically two different attacks?
His damned gold coin toss attack was really the scariest thing. It was so fast and strong for a ‘physical’ attack, that was crazy. He killed the hollow grief in a single cast!
Well. that’s that done. I’m gonna use your skeleton well, Edmondo.
Done analyzing the fight in her head, Sofia flew down into the darkness in search of the tail she had cut off previously. If that thing was now a solid chunk of gold there was no way she was going to leave it behind.
Sadly all she found was a warm lump of demon flesh, the gold curse had been reversed, perhaps due to the dwarf’s skill ending or his death.
Unlucky.
Sofia bit into her own discarded tail.
Holy… Lumian meat tastes awful.
Storing the thing to dispose of later, Sofia flew up in search of whatever might remain of the staircase she had initially been climbing before encountering the interloper.
Five fights left before the divine item is mine.
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