Chapter 268: ‘dow-’

Chapter 268: ‘dow-’

It took Sofia a good while to locate her planet again, it was barely visible even with her unnaturally excellent eyesight, and she had to thank Aphenoreth for showing it to her before, or she wouldnt even have known what to look for. With her mana regeneration being only a quarter of what it would be in an environment with mana, a full refill took a bit more than an hour, so every hour, she would use her wings again, and go further from the sun in the direction of the planet. That was the plan anyway, it turned out that really escaping the suns gravity was a bit harder than she thought. Even more annoyingly, she was moving, and the planet was moving, it was horrendous to try to align the two, but she did her best.

I think Im about good right now. I can keep adjusting the trajectory every hour.

The sun is Not so far away Its been four days, am I not moving or what? This is so slow.. And why is everything so empty? I figured there would be stuff out there in the sky but I think the planet is actually the closest thing to the sun. Thats crazy, especially with all the glittering stars everywhere. Just how far are they then?

Sofia kept pushing with her wings every occasion she got. All in all, now that she was not at risk of falling into the sun anymore, this was pretty relaxing. Sure it was oddly silent, but her time in the temple had been enough for her to be used to that somewhat. Since she didnt have much to do, especially with all her mana going towards her flight, she trained her bone sculpting skills. She figured it might help give some experience to [Bone dominus] and if not, it would still be useful whenever she wanted to make something complex or detailed out of bones.

Eventually she got bored of that, and decided to spend some of her regeneration to progress with her customization of [Heal Undead] instead. This, she had no doubt, would keep her occupied for most of the trip.

About a week later, though keeping track of time wasnt exactly easy, Sofia realized that she seemed to be going quite fast. She felt like the planet was coming closer faster every day, which was still slow as all hells, but an interesting discovery. Especially interesting because she tried to slow down during her 80 seconds of [Runeforged Overlord] free flight once, which, from her observations, seemed to have done exactly nothing.

How does that work? Flying in the void here works that much differently? Is it going to take me as much time to slow back down to zero or something like that?

Wait, no, I didnt start at zero, I started at the speed of the broken-off pyramid, right?

So

If thats how it works I better not aim directly at the planet

Then Sofia tried to change her direction a bit, which, again, did not work nearly as well as she expected.

Am I doomed to actually become a meteorite?

I wonder if the crater would be bigger than the biggest bolts hole. Probably not, right? Im not sure. Meteorites are supposed to be quite dangerous, but Ive never seen one fall.

Just in case itd be better if I land somewhere where I wont hurt anybody But can I really aim from up here? Maybe if I try to target an ocean?

In the end, Sofia decided that she would try her best to fly past the planet but not actually crash on it, keep slowing down until she was not going too fast anymore, and turn back to actually land. But just to be safe, she was going to prepare three unlife runes when she drew close, because she heard that meteorites in the sky normally catch fire, and she would rather be a bit protected even if all she did was pass by.

Starting then, Sofia used her free flight to decelerate bit by bit, but, consciously or not, she did not slow down all that much. Space travel was just too boring, she dreaded making it slower.

In the end, she had completely lost track of time, she thought it had maybe been about a month or two. The planet was really starting to get bigger in her view. The closer she got, the more she realized just how huge it was. So big that she didnt manage to spot the human continent no matter how hard she looked.

I need to make sure to avoid the leviathan so I really ought to find it fast

Sofia had hit the moon, quite hard, hard enough that she did not even have the time to feel her body getting absolutely destroyed by the collision. Hard enough that her rune had revived her inside of a magma lake of her own making wherein she died again. But now she was safe.

That was actually great news, to her. She had been mentally preparing to spend another month decelerating and coming back, when instead, she had stopped instantly and supposedly not hurt anyone.

Well, mostly not anyone. But certainly not nothing

Its unbelievable. I really made this hole myself?

Sofia was at the bottom of a deep crater. Actually, calling it a crater was the best she could come up with, but to her it looked more like a hole the size of the entire human continent. Trying to look up to the borders of it made her dizzy. She could see not only the night-side of the planet below, but also the huge chunks of the moon that were currently drifting off, making it very obvious that the hole was her doing.

An avalanche of system windows appeared in front of Sofia, and she felt a wave of energy going through her body like an electric shock. Agh! Level ups? W- Wait

After her body calmed down, she hid the system messages without even looking at them, it was just a bunch of levels. She would go through it later, but not before getting back to a place with air and sound.

Although Now that Im here What about the hidden moon? I dont see it right now but Im on the wrong side. Its quite dark here, but I can see just fine, VPPV is doing good work.

Alright alright. Lets maybe explore the moon a bit? I'm all out of mana though. I can use the demon form if something bad shows up. Thanks for the help Pareth. Ill just add this to the long list of times where you saved me from myself

Pareth appeared next to Sofia, looking composed as usual.

Not disturbed by being on the moon, uh?

I wonder how many people have been here. Im probably the only one leaving gaping holes behind though

Its scary honestly.

Wouldnt I wipe out the entire human continent if I landed on it like this?

And anyone who can survive outside of the planet can do that?

Who cares about dragons and gods and shit at this point, this is much more of a threat!

Sofia saw something move in a corner of her vision. Something had entered her crater. Yet, no matter how good her vision, the thing was so far away, all she saw was a moving blur.

So there is someone coming to check out the new crater after all I kind of hoped this would go unnoticed.

I dont suppose its Sun coming to give me my reward