Chapter 143: Sculpted

Chapter 143: Sculpted

Sofia had been lost in her thoughts for a second and Pareth had killed another of the shades in the meantime.

You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 199]

Taking another empty jar out of her ring, she prepared another Silverwater projectile, handing it to a Vampire. Im going to be out of jars soon at this rateThe debut release of this chapter happened at Ñòv€l-B1n.

A second shade was revealed by the projectile, looking very much like the first, and another round of merciless whipping ensued. While Pareth disposed of the last monster a bit further.

You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 167]

You have defeated [True Shade - lv. 211]

No bonus this time.

While Pareth was waiting for his mana to regenerate, Sofia took a look at the new, shinier powder from her whip kills.

[Solar Shade Dust]: The remains of a destroyed True Shade killed by Solar light. Can be used to fuel rituals or dye clothing and armor. Scatters all light. This powder is the whitest object in existence!

Sir Scribe, are you claiming you know of every object in existence?

Also, no brewing potions with this one? Interesting that the type of dust changes depending on how these die. Are there other types of light to kill them with that will give different results? What about the light from the Silverwater? It does hurt them so Anyway, Im taking all of this too.

Waiting for Pareths mana to be full, Sofia prepared more Silverwater jars with all that she had, almost emptying the barrel. Since she had extra time she also did a round trip to refill the barrel.

Thats less than I thought, and I need to keep a few for emergencies. Lets see where this gets me.

The cavern split into three branches a bit further. Sofia went with the left one first. Fighting more Shades on the way. It wasnt her lucky day, this was a dead end, the only thing waiting for her in the last portion of it was more and more Shades. She kind of stopped keeping track of the kills and level-ups, deciding to completely hide the distracting menus until they were done with the Shade party.

Next, she explored the tunnel on the right, thinking that the correct way couldnt possibly be straight forward. She had good hope as she and Pareth got better at dealing with the Shades, even though a slip-up cost her a rune and one of the Vampires at one point. The passive effect of her venerable physique had saved her from death with a few health points but the Shade hadn't given her any time to recover and a rune was gone. Soon after, the killer Shade was gone too, reduced to dust by Pareth's vengeful fury.

Reaching another dead end after fighting for a long time, and as her mana was close to zero, Sofia despaired to have done all that for so little results. But she did at least find the remains of the cut-up piece of the backpack from earlier. It turned out the unlucky adventurer hadnt been Xeros, and they hadnt survived. In fact, the skeleton was cut up in many pieces beyond recognition, Sofia might have not even known it was a skeleton if not for her familiarity with bones.

There was nothing worth taking.

She was almost back at the Silverwater pond, ready to erase the marks and wait for her mana, when her vision suddenly changed. It was subtle, but she could see now, barely, only blurry outlines, but she could see where before her vision had been a perfect black void.

Sofia felt the air clear up. Its a curse! Are all these statues The weird mana fog was gone in a large sphere around her. But it was slowly closing back in. Pareth grabbed her petrified foot and used [Purification] again. It failed to reverse the process, the stone was rapidly spreading along Sofias leg.

Cut it off, she ordered, giving Pareth the Mithril dagger.

He had to cut the leg at the thigh to be certain to cut off the curses progress. Sofia clenched her teeth as the blade ran through her flesh and bone, it bled like a fountain. Pareth helped her retreat.

Fuck, Im lucky that my foot was further in the tunnel and got affected first! What if that started with my face?!

Lucky was relative, as she was now missing a leg and rapidly bleeding out, with no way to heal herself because of [False immortality]. Just finish me off, I still have two runes up.

Pareth refused.

Oh. Well. You know, thats fair. Give back the dagger, then.

She wanted to finish the job, but once the dagger was in her hands, she couldn't do it. By the time she gathered her resolve, she was too weak to even injure herself.

Just Bring me back to the pond Ill-... I'll sleep this death off

Sofia had no idea how much time had passed but she woke up on the ground near the pond, with Pareth sitting cross-legged on the side. She wasnt in a big pool of her own blood, which was better than she had expected, but she could smell it clearly. Looking around, said pool of blood wasnt far, only that Pareth had taken her out after the rune healed her.

She dispelled the other rune and relaxed on the ground while her mana came back.

A curse that turns people to stone.

Pareth wasnt affected.

And [Purification] seemed to work at cleaning up the air from it. But there must be something fueling it since it was building back up after that. Cant be a simple unattended ritual circle, not if its been running like that for who knows how many hundreds of years. It would have long ran out of mana.

I can probably get through if Pareth purifies the way forward. But thats dangerous. Alternatively, Im pretty sure it is an airborne curse, so going through the ground with the graveyard skeletons might work but not if the zone of influence of the curse is larger than my skills range.

Im mostly worried about what would happen if Im fully turned to stone by this. Will the rune still save me? It does save me when Im exploded out of existence, but what if the curse persists in my body after the healing?

I shouldn't take any risks with this Ill send the rat scout first. I can do that right now.

The book appeared above Sofias extended hands, already showcasing the rats page for her to tear off.