Chapter 56: The real thing

Chapter 56: The real thing

The tremendous aftershock of the attack had knocked out most citizens. Even Sofia was shaken, it took her a good while to manage to stand up again amidst the debris and broken glass.

Whatever had just attacked the Phageid invader, it was in a realm of its own, far above even what a level 299 could do.

At least 500 I bet. Does it even go that high? How many towers is that

The [Alphageid] was a similar anomaly, it had sustained serious damage, a charred gaping hole had been pierced right through it from side to side, but even from a distance, everyone could see it closing back up at an alarming speed.

The scene from before played again. There was no annunciating rumbling this time, a simple trail of blue light appeared from the horizon, and collided with the crack, turning the whole world white a second time.

If Sofia had ears, they would have been bleeding.

This happened again and again. The massive tree monster upped the speed. Its roots split and split again, harvesting the lives of the capitals passed out citizens and destroying everything in their path at a deadly pace. Eventually the blue lightning attacks stopped, and the charred holes in the tree all disappeared, replaced by newly formed flawless ice blue crystal.

It gave up?

While this was worrisome, it was a welcome break. Under the shockwaves of the clash of titans, Sofia had been barely able to think. As she expected, soon enough, a golden figure appeared in the sky. It was so high, she could barely make out its shape. In cases like this, [Identify] never lied.

[Angel]

Thievery, uh?

All of this setup?

This whole story.

For this?

Fine.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñòv€l-B1n.

I think I get it by now.

The beak was restlessly opening and closing, it was even eating the roots feeding it, chomping off its own limbs, Sofia thought. Her instincts told her something was wrong.

She used [Identify].

[Alphageid]

[Alphageid]

Theres two of them! Its feeding a baby!

This new revelation did nothing to mitigate the horror of the massacre. Sofia couldnt dwell on it, still being chased by many roots, now she could only run around the trunk, getting the attention of more and more roots. The ten seconds' cooldown between each [Regret] use felt like an eternity. She had been grazed numerous times chipping away at her health pool, she tried to buy herself as much time as possible.

Two roots approached at the same time, she could only dodge one, [Regret] was down for another 4 seconds. She had to make a choice, avoiding the one going for her torso and letting the other one hit her arm. It severed her left arm above the elbow in a single strike, sending it flying into the distance. Her maximum and current health dropped by over nine thousand.

The roots had no coordination, they would often collide and get in the way of each other. So in a way, despite more and more of them pursuing her, it stopped getting harder to evade them past a certain point. There were so many around that she couldnt touch the ground anymore, jumping from the body of one root to the other, vaulting above and in between them. The body of the roots had some thorns too but they were insignificant compared to the damage the heads could inflict by stabbing.

In the black sky, the Angel backed out of the close quarters fight. He displaced himself to a point far enough that the roots couldnt reach him anymore. He was hovering in place like a singular star in the black sky. His appearance was quite similar to the towers Archangel despite a different silhouette and much less flickering. He raised his right hand.

Sofia felt her mana fighting her from the inside, it wanted to escape. The very air she breathed that had been so full of mana until then turned dry and lifeless. The mana from all around was gathering, traveling to and tightly packing itself in the Angels hand. There were such quantities that it became visible to the naked eye, like wisps of white light getting sucked by the Angels skill.

The roots around Sofia turned sluggish, they almost stopped moving.

In the angels palm shone a spark, then many others, followed by a burst of wild electricity. It expanded and compressed, getting bigger and brighter each time. It took the shape of an intimidating blue lightning spear that wouldnt stop growing.

Sofia smiled and jumped up, no longer dodging the roots, she would instead climb up the trunk, this was what she had been waiting for.

All this time, the trial had been leading up to this one single thing. Thiefs Commitment was the trial she chose for herself. This had to be the angel from her skills description, Acromegon. She had stolen his signature attack from him once, used it many times, and she was tasked to double down on it. But this time, she would have to 'steal' the honest-to-god, unaltered, fully powered original.

The real thing.

The [Angels bolt].