It was not as bad as Sofia feared. For an instant she debated switching one of her skills for [Friendly fire]. However, it turned out that the recoil from unleashing the bolt had worked wonders to throw her far away. She had felt nothing, but the force had been strong enough that after just a second she had an external point of view to watch the giant ball of blue flames expand in the sky. She put two and two together and understood that she hadn’t felt the recoil like she usually did because of a single unassuming line of [Runeforged Overlord]’s third tier description: ‘Acceleration resistance’.
The giant ball of fire expanded toward the sky like a blazing mushroom, radiating so much heat that Sofia felt like she was getting cooked alive, even more than she was used to. She kept taking her distance, lost in a hazy, almost ethereal world of white and blue light.
Thankfully, Ihuarah and Alith were even further away, they had probably decided to take more distance when they saw how the bolt was taking shape; so there wasn’t much to worry about on that front. They were in fact still busy getting away.
Sofia’s health had taken a hit from the initial blast, but it was surprisingly tame. She was starting to have a lot of resistance stacked together. The 50% damage reduction from [Heat death] was one, then 20% from [Runeforged Overlord], VPPV also gave 50% resistance against explosions to which she could still add the protection from the armor of bones and even some protection coming from casting the bolt itself, although that part had never been mentioned in the skill’s description. In total this added up to more than 80% resistance against this giant fireball and the shockwave that came soon after.
The shockwave was much worse than the explosion, Sofia spat blood inside her helmet as she was sent flying even further away. The ground beneath shook, ripped apart by the tremor, columns of dirt sent flying in all directions, like erupting from the ground.
Finally she managed to stabilize her flight and watch the results of the blast unfold, her health steadily healed by the blessed constructs. She knew Pareth had left the storage at the start when she panicked, but he didn’t have to do anything and since she survived with a lot of leeway, he had simply teleported back to her then into the storage.
The azure flames kept rising, tearing through the sky, as the light of the explosion slowly lost in intensity.
I did this?
I did this.
Is there a world where I survive standing in the middle of this fireball? Probably not.
Well, no one died this time. I don’t know if the Dimmerion survived but I didn’t get any kill notification. Then again, it’s a plant, so who knows if it can even give experience.
Sofia lost herself staring at the flames. “Angels are even scarier than I gave them credit for.”
“I will reluctantly accept these words of praise.”
Sofia hadn’t felt or noticed the sudden appearance of the flickering being of light and mana beside her before it spoke. Now she was frozen in place, not by any kind of skill, but by sheer pressure. Like a prey paralyzed by the arrival of a predator.
“It- it is an Angelic weapon, a- after all,” she answered, stuttering, doing her best to keep looking forward.
“Barely. Mine is a spear meant to pierce, yours explodes. I might copy it in the future like you originally copied mine, should the situation call for it. Fair trade.”
Sofia didn’t know what she could even answer, her mind was blank. Below them the explosion cleared out, revealing the almost intact if a bit charred stalk of the Dimmerion, burning. Its innumerable roots were exposed by the explosion’s crater, bathing in a lake of lava.
“I came to issue a warning. Refrain from using such power in an inhabited area, or the System might send me to put you down. Rarely does someone receive this warning so early, consider it an honor.”
“Yes!”
“This is how I do it. Watch.”
Sofia couldn’t control her head as it turned to observe the shimmering being, it raised a flickering hand. Mana gathered under its control like silk threads, visible to the naked eye, weaving into hundreds of hovering ritual circles of different sizes that all aligned to form a single uneven line. Energy coursed through the magical construct from one end to the other and a blue line of light silently flickered, connecting the ritual circles and the still-closed flower of the Dimmerion.
The sound of a small-scale blast came a few seconds later as the ritual circles faded. Sofia looked at the source, the purple flower was shaken by an internal explosion, wafts of blue flames escaped from a newly appeared hole. When Sofia looked to her right again, the Angel had disappeared.
Ihuarah and Alith flew over to the flabbergasted Sofia.
“What was that thing? Are you unharmed?” Ihuarah asked as he drew closer.
“I’m good. The explosion wasn’t so bad. Did you both manage to avoid it all?”
“We were far enough, Sof, don't worry, though I have to say I was a bit scared for a second when you disappeared inside of the explosion of light. Also was that an Angel? It looked like how you described the one in the tower.”
“Yes, to answer both of you, this was one of the system’s Angels. You know the Angel from ‘Angel’s bolt’? That would be this one. He came to warn me that he would personally come end me if I aimed that at a city,” Sofia answered as she pointed at the crater.
“Does the system really control such entities?” Ihuarah asked, surprised. “It must be a creation of the Gods, then. That or magic itself. This Angel, as you call it, could probably kill a Dragon by itself.”
Alith didn’t understand the issue, “Is that surprising? The Leviathan you spoke of can also do that, can’t it?”
“You have no concept of the strength of a Dragon… When we are done with your current affairs, I will try to arrange a meeting with one. The ones I knew should still be alive, even now. Then you can understand.”
“If Dragons are so impressive, why do you think that Angel can hold his own against one? I think his name is Acromegon, by the way. He was mentioned by name in my original [Angel’s bol] skill.“
“The way the mana of the world answers his call is something only Dragons should be able to do. That one spell he cast cost him nothing, he merely asked for it and the mana around him did all the work.”
Was that how it happened? I was too focused on the structure of the spell itself, I never paid attention to the mana source. I wonder now if I could use this experience to improve my bolts…
Sofia looked at the crater of desolation she had created again. Or maybe I don’t need to improve it. “Well, anyway, what did you think of my explosion?”
“I don’t know if I should be scared or impressed, but the blue flames look nice,” Alith said, giving Sofia a thumbs up.
“I expected to be surprised and you still outshone my expectations, my lady,” Ihuarah declared, “I have never seen a more direct conversion from magic to pure destructive power. You are definitely extremely talented at exploding things. I worry that my presence might be unneeded after all.”
“And yet the Dimmerion survived my attack… Your presence is appreciated. You haven’t had the occasion to help in battle yet but in such a short time you have already taught me and Alith plenty, that’s even more valuable.”
“I shall teach you plenty more. And once again, the name ‘Unstoppable Dimmerion’ is no overstatement. That you could affect it to this extent is already an achievement in itself. And I believe the Angel has finished the mission.”
“Let’s find out about that,” Alith said, already going down, ”I’m curious what I could brew from that thing’s core now!”
The group drew closer to the giant plant, finding it dead. The Angel’s attack had cleanly pierced the Dimmerion from the flower to the base of its stem, destroying it from the inside before finishing its course in the crater of lava which had since started to solidify. Ihuarah asked for a Mithril weapon, sighing when he saw the plated dagger Sofia handed him.
“We will need a better mithril tool than this going forward, mere plating isn’t sufficient to harvest precious material like this cleanly. I shall still do my best…” Ihuarah complained before he entered the hole in the flower, dagger in hand. Alith followed him inside.
Sofia wasn’t too interested in the inner anatomy of giant flowers, instead she replayed the memory of the Angel casting his spell in her mind countless times. She wanted to be certain not to forget it. She was given an opportunity to witness such an advanced spell construction, and she would not waste it. [Fast reading] had been crucial in memorizing as much of the mana patterns as possible, it had even gained a few levels from the experience which she only noticed now.
‘[Fast reading] reached level 59’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 60’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 61’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 62’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 63’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 64’
‘[Runeforged Overlord] reached level 201’
The two heroes came out of the plant a few minutes later, each bringing out a plant part covered in translucent sap. Alith seemed genuinely happy about the gooey purple thing she was holding.
[Dimmerion core] : The mana core of an Unstoppable Dimmerion, can be fashioned into a mana storage device to fuel rituals or serve as an ingredient to lengthen the effect of potions.
Item level : 400.
Grade : Precious.
That’s quite a high item-level…
The thing Ihuarah was holding looked more like a seed, except it was large like his torso, and similarly pierced by a black hole.
Sofia couldn’t hold back a light chuckle. It’s probably a seed of Sorrow.
It was not as bad as Sofia feared. For an instant she debated switching one of her skills for [Friendly fire]. However, it turned out that the recoil from unleashing the bolt had worked wonders to throw her far away. She had felt nothing, but the force had been strong enough that after just a second she had an external point of view to watch the giant ball of blue flames expand in the sky. She put two and two together and understood that she hadn’t felt the recoil like she usually did because of a single unassuming line of [Runeforged Overlord]’s third tier description: ‘Acceleration resistance’.
The giant ball of fire expanded toward the sky like a blazing mushroom, radiating so much heat that Sofia felt like she was getting cooked alive, even more than she was used to. She kept taking her distance, lost in a hazy, almost ethereal world of white and blue light.
Thankfully, Ihuarah and Alith were even further away, they had probably decided to take more distance when they saw how the bolt was taking shape; so there wasn’t much to worry about on that front. They were in fact still busy getting away.
Sofia’s health had taken a hit from the initial blast, but it was surprisingly tame. She was starting to have a lot of resistance stacked together. The 50% damage reduction from [Heat death] was one, then 20% from [Runeforged Overlord], VPPV also gave 50% resistance against explosions to which she could still add the protection from the armor of bones and even some protection coming from casting the bolt itself, although that part had never been mentioned in the skill’s description. In total this added up to more than 80% resistance against this giant fireball and the shockwave that came soon after.
The shockwave was much worse than the explosion, Sofia spat blood inside her helmet as she was sent flying even further away. The ground beneath shook, ripped apart by the tremor, columns of dirt sent flying in all directions, like erupting from the ground.
Finally she managed to stabilize her flight and watch the results of the blast unfold, her health steadily healed by the blessed constructs. She knew Pareth had left the storage at the start when she panicked, but he didn’t have to do anything and since she survived with a lot of leeway, he had simply teleported back to her then into the storage.
The azure flames kept rising, tearing through the sky, as the light of the explosion slowly lost in intensity.
I did this?
I did this.
Is there a world where I survive standing in the middle of this fireball? Probably not.
Well, no one died this time. I don’t know if the Dimmerion survived but I didn’t get any kill notification. Then again, it’s a plant, so who knows if it can even give experience.
Sofia lost herself staring at the flames. “Angels are even scarier than I gave them credit for.”
“I will reluctantly accept these words of praise.”
Sofia hadn’t felt or noticed the sudden appearance of the flickering being of light and mana beside her before it spoke. Now she was frozen in place, not by any kind of skill, but by sheer pressure. Like a prey paralyzed by the arrival of a predator.
“It- it is an Angelic weapon, a- after all,” she answered, stuttering, doing her best to keep looking forward.
“Barely. Mine is a spear meant to pierce, yours explodes. I might copy it in the future like you originally copied mine, should the situation call for it. Fair trade.”
Sofia didn’t know what she could even answer, her mind was blank. Below them the explosion cleared out, revealing the almost intact if a bit charred stalk of the Dimmerion, burning. Its innumerable roots were exposed by the explosion’s crater, bathing in a lake of lava.
“I came to issue a warning. Refrain from using such power in an inhabited area, or the System might send me to put you down. Rarely does someone receive this warning so early, consider it an honor.”
“Yes!”
“This is how I do it. Watch.”
Sofia couldn’t control her head as it turned to observe the shimmering being, it raised a flickering hand. Mana gathered under its control like silk threads, visible to the naked eye, weaving into hundreds of hovering ritual circles of different sizes that all aligned to form a single uneven line. Energy coursed through the magical construct from one end to the other and a blue line of light silently flickered, connecting the ritual circles and the still-closed flower of the Dimmerion.
The sound of a small-scale blast came a few seconds later as the ritual circles faded. Sofia looked at the source, the purple flower was shaken by an internal explosion, wafts of blue flames escaped from a newly appeared hole. When Sofia looked to her right again, the Angel had disappeared.
Ihuarah and Alith flew over to the flabbergasted Sofia.
“What was that thing? Are you unharmed?” Ihuarah asked as he drew closer.
“I’m good. The explosion wasn’t so bad. Did you both manage to avoid it all?”
“We were far enough, Sof, don't worry, though I have to say I was a bit scared for a second when you disappeared inside of the explosion of light. Also was that an Angel? It looked like how you described the one in the tower.”
“Yes, to answer both of you, this was one of the system’s Angels. You know the Angel from ‘Angel’s bolt’? That would be this one. He came to warn me that he would personally come end me if I aimed that at a city,” Sofia answered as she pointed at the crater.
“Does the system really control such entities?” Ihuarah asked, surprised. “It must be a creation of the Gods, then. That or magic itself. This Angel, as you call it, could probably kill a Dragon by itself.”
Alith didn’t understand the issue, “Is that surprising? The Leviathan you spoke of can also do that, can’t it?”
“You have no concept of the strength of a Dragon… When we are done with your current affairs, I will try to arrange a meeting with one. The ones I knew should still be alive, even now. Then you can understand.”
“If Dragons are so impressive, why do you think that Angel can hold his own against one? I think his name is Acromegon, by the way. He was mentioned by name in my original [Angel’s bol] skill.“
“The way the mana of the world answers his call is something only Dragons should be able to do. That one spell he cast cost him nothing, he merely asked for it and the mana around him did all the work.”
Was that how it happened? I was too focused on the structure of the spell itself, I never paid attention to the mana source. I wonder now if I could use this experience to improve my bolts…
Sofia looked at the crater of desolation she had created again. Or maybe I don’t need to improve it. “Well, anyway, what did you think of my explosion?”
“I don’t know if I should be scared or impressed, but the blue flames look nice,” Alith said, giving Sofia a thumbs up.
“I expected to be surprised and you still outshone my expectations, my lady,” Ihuarah declared, “I have never seen a more direct conversion from magic to pure destructive power. You are definitely extremely talented at exploding things. I worry that my presence might be unneeded after all.”
“And yet the Dimmerion survived my attack… Your presence is appreciated. You haven’t had the occasion to help in battle yet but in such a short time you have already taught me and Alith plenty, that’s even more valuable.”
“I shall teach you plenty more. And once again, the name ‘Unstoppable Dimmerion’ is no overstatement. That you could affect it to this extent is already an achievement in itself. And I believe the Angel has finished the mission.”
“Let’s find out about that,” Alith said, already going down, ”I’m curious what I could brew from that thing’s core now!”
The group drew closer to the giant plant, finding it dead. The Angel’s attack had cleanly pierced the Dimmerion from the flower to the base of its stem, destroying it from the inside before finishing its course in the crater of lava which had since started to solidify. Ihuarah asked for a Mithril weapon, sighing when he saw the plated dagger Sofia handed him.
“We will need a better mithril tool than this going forward, mere plating isn’t sufficient to harvest precious material like this cleanly. I shall still do my best…” Ihuarah complained before he entered the hole in the flower, dagger in hand. Alith followed him inside.
Sofia wasn’t too interested in the inner anatomy of giant flowers, instead she replayed the memory of the Angel casting his spell in her mind countless times. She wanted to be certain not to forget it. She was given an opportunity to witness such an advanced spell construction, and she would not waste it. [Fast reading] had been crucial in memorizing as much of the mana patterns as possible, it had even gained a few levels from the experience which she only noticed now.
‘[Fast reading] reached level 59’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 60’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 61’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 62’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 63’
‘[Fast reading] reached level 64’
‘[Runeforged Overlord] reached level 201’
The two heroes came out of the plant a few minutes later, each bringing out a plant part covered in translucent sap. Alith seemed genuinely happy about the gooey purple thing she was holding.
[Dimmerion core] : The mana core of an Unstoppable Dimmerion, can be fashioned into a mana storage device to fuel rituals or serve as an ingredient to lengthen the effect of potions.
Item level : 400.
Grade : Precious.
That’s quite a high item-level…
The thing Ihuarah was holding looked more like a seed, except it was large like his torso, and similarly pierced by a black hole.
Sofia couldn’t hold back a light chuckle. It’s probably a seed of Sorrow.
