Mornn
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Chapter 786 S - Summit of contradictions
🕑 Added 2025-11-04 15:21:00 +0000 UTCIt was Shaily’s first time losing her head.
Her mind was clear.
Attack now. She ordered her water elemental.
A chain of multicolored sprites sprouted from her cut spine, following her head like a loose thread, before pulling it back to its rightful place with a bang. Fire sprites erupted from the wound as it closed, causing fiery explosions all around her.
Her health bar went from nearly zero to nearly full in an instant, a water shot from the elemental just barely cut through the flames, stopping another beheading swing of Victory’s blade.
The piercing bolt still searing Victory’s insides, Shaily hoped to seize this moment to inflict a fatal blow, her free hand reaching for the god’s chest. But Victory was still fast, way too fast. Before she could unleash any sprite through direct contact, a knee strike sent her flying. In addition to the direct damage, Shaily lost control of her piercing bolt, suffering the backlash as well.
The water elemental rushed in between them, to stop a follow up attack. Victory’s sword diced up the water creature blocking his way, and dashed through the watery mist that remained.
Shaily was starting to become a bit nervous. She could still regenerate a lot, but her reserve of Sprites was melting like ice on a hot summer day and the crazy orc she was fighting still looked perfectly healthy. Even the wound from the bolt was already healed, if not for him discarding his frozen armor by himself earlier, she would doubt if she had even made any progress.
At least when she was close, she had confirmed one thing through her mana vision, the crown on the god’s head wasn’t linked to him by mana like his sword was.
If I can just weaken him a bit…
A god’s regeneration against mine…
She had accumulated enough elemental energy with the last fiery explosion, so with the time her water elemental had bought her, Shaily toggled her passive specialization [Elemental Order]. All the fire sprites remaining inside her ignited, and her body was engulfed in pure elemental flames, burning hotter than even the piercing bolt from before.
Victory reached her, his sword splitting her from her to toe. It was like striking at the fire in a chimney, sparks flew everywhere, the stone of the arena catching fire, and the twenty percent health Shaily had just lost recovered in an instant as the fire from her two halves became a single flame again.
Shaily was not just standing still, she landed a fiery uppercut against Victory’s chin, a torrent of flames engulfing his head. Victory still grinned through his scorched skin. The two attacked each other again and again, with no regard for defense. Victory’s sword slowly dispersed the flames as Shaily’s burning fists and kicks left dark marks all over his skin.
But Shaily’s flames were not infinite. Her transformation ran out with a whimper, the flames disappearing and her body becoming fully tangible again. Each one of Victory’s previous sword strikes having left a bloody gash across her skin, she looked like a bloody piece of patchwork. Worse, she would need a second or two to fully regain control, her body tired from the strain of the fire form.
Victory’s muscles swelled as he prepared a final strike.
A sword of water erupted from his face. The water elemental had gotten sufficient time to reform, and had ambushed him like Victory had ambushed Shaily before.
Shaily let her legs give out and dropped to the ground.
[Elemental Extraction]!
The stone platform cracked from her magic, the large stone blocks shattering and crumbling, as dozens of Stone sprites emerged from the cracks.
[Elemental Extraction]!
More of the platform shattered while Victory turned around, water sword still imbued in his skull, and annihilated the water elemental with a punch. It had already reformed once, and wouldn’t be able to do it again.
[Elemental Order]!
All the stone sprites Shaily had just created rushed into her, filling up the empty space the burned out fire sprites had left, and Shaily’s body turned into a massive crystalline structure like a golem of diamond.
Victory’s sword viciously struck down.
Shaily punched the incoming sword with a closed fist. Cracks spread all over her crystalline arm, and more crystals sprouted from inside to fill up those cracks before Victory even pulled his sword back up.
To Shaily’s surprise, Victory jumped back, giving her time to stand up.
With a snort, he threw his sword behind him, letting it land blade first into the ground. With rough movements, he used that time to get rid of some of his burned skin, letting perfectly healthy green skin regrow under.
It’s like I did nothing…
Meanwhile, her own max health was starting to suffer temporary debuffs due to the constant healing, from 8980, it had already dwindled down to 8200.
Unwilling to give the god more time to heal, Shaily [Maiden bolt]ed herself into his face. Victory barely side-stepped the incoming stone golem’s, and when Shaily bolted herself at him a second time mid-flight, he was ready to meet her bolt-propelled fist with his own.
Now the fight turned to the polar opposite of what it was before, not only Shaily used her tough diamond-like skin to block Victory’s blow, but he had also switched to a more defensive style. It seemed that just like her his regeneration wasn’t quite infinite, though he still looked in better shape than she did, the hole in his head already almost gone.
The difference in strength and speed was hard to overcome. For every two punches that Shialy threw, Victory could unleash a third one. If not for consent [Maiden bolt]ing around, that quickly depleted her remaining mana, Shaily would have been knocked out of the platform several times.
With not long left on her transformation, she let one of Victory’s kicks send her flying all the way to the border of the platform.
She hoped to lure him into following her, teleport behind him with [Summon Self] that she used so little that not even the system included it in her wildcasts, and bolt into him to knock him out. After all, the seemingly immortal orc had shown no signs of being able to fly.
But her plan failed before she could even attempt it. Instead of following, Victory picked up and raised his sword.
Shaily saw the sword start glowing, filling up with divine energy.
She could tell without even knowing that she wouldn’t be able to just casually regenerate off of this one. If it killed her in one strike, no extreme regeneration would bring her back from the dead.
HELL NO!
Weakly raising a cracked diamond-like arm Shaily used her longest cooldown skill.
“DENIED!”
A plethora of shadow sprites flew out of her hand, forming a giant divine rune in the air. A simplified lord’s rune, to be exact. The regulator.
The sprite formation shone with dark light, as the threads of reality itself sealed Victory’s skill. Divine essences backlash running down his sword and into his mortal avatar.
Shaily saw the opportunity she needed. She summoned herself a few meters closer to Victory and directly in the air, allowing her to [Maiden bolt] toward him without any friction. The backlash wouldn’t stun him for long, she had to seize this chance! Summoning one of every sprite type she was missing, she used her last active skill the instant she was in range.
[Containment Zone]!
Ten sprites of different colors flew out to encircle Victory, before closing in on him like a chain rope. Their elemental magic tied him down.
Shialy knew it wasn’t going to last long. Bolting the last meters to him as her stone transformation ran out, she grabbed his crown mid-flight, putting it on and her own spell sent her tumbling far away. She landed right in the middle of the platform, struggling to even move a muscle.
Heart pounding in her chest, she watched in horror as Victory started to absorb all the ambient mana. Her mana was already at rock bottom, and now her already slow regeneration was suddenly divided by four as all the mana went to the roaring God instead.
Health: 2240 / 2240 (8980)
Stamina : 452 / 8980
Mana: 34 / 58500
This might be the end…
Even the poor sprites forming a chain around him were absorbed while Shaily forced herself to stand, aided by a sudden surge of strength she couldn’t quite explain.
“I am Victory!” the god shouted in the distance.
His body started to bloat and morph strangely, his green skin taking a darker and darker tone, slowly turning to black.
In Shaily’s eyes, it felt like a nightmare. The tall orc became even taller, a tall black spindly figure of black strands of divine energy.
His mouth disappeared last, a blood-curdling scream echoing through space as myriad unsettling eyes opened all at once all over the strange creature he had become.
“I WILL SEE NO DEFEAT!”
Comments
DX
Typo: her to toe -> head to toe?
NerdyFellow
Little know Recessed Defeated: “Damn right!”
Joshua Nutter
It seems to be part of Shaily's class, specifically the skill [Deny], so I don't think Sofia can do similar without a skill to go with it.
Mánalėikr
i think the first one's alright
April
Loving the Shaily chapters! She's so cool. I would love to get a skill description for Kleptran Influence.
Cyclone001
Having both Aphenoreth sisters hold top spot for such a short time compared to Sen would be unexpectded. Still, I don't see how Shaily can get awat unless her ormoncleth skill somehow prevent the petrification. As much as I do want to see Shaily be the second crown wearer, I also wonder how the emergency bail out process works - we have never seen that described.
Phsteven
no the fish hero was there before her
KazukiNero
Student having the same ideal as her teacher.
Tom Asciola
"I will see no defeat!" -Victory, right before his second defeat in as many challengers
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Dan N
Trading pointers with that Sprite Dancer alien Sofia met, maybe earning a racial evolution that let's her permanently integrate sprites into herself and be able to manifest them at will? Idk but there are some neat stories and advancement opportunities there.
Dan N
Shaily's trials are always such fun asides. Thanks for indulging us! I'm excited to hear about her adventures on Cerberus in another year or so.
JHD
Thanks for the chapter. "water sword still imbued in his skull" => "water sword still embedded in his skull" "If not for consent [Maiden bolt]ing around" => "If not for constant [Maiden bolt]ing around"
Tsorov
not for consent [Maiden bolt]ing around -> I think you meant constant?
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter. It is interesting how Shaily can use a simplified Lord rune. I’m curious if Sofia could pull off the same, or seeing how the other runes might work
Mánalėikr
Mornn:) surelyy Sofia will draw Aphenoreth's rune laterr >///< that would be so amazing thankyouu!
Tejing
Oh... The immunity to non-physical attacks from the bracer's active effect might make his divine form unable to hurt her? That could let her get away, maybe.
Tejing
Shaily's kit is pretty great. Definitely loving the fight. Feels just as awesome as the first time with Sofia, honestly. Ironically, she's in better shape at this point than Sofia was, but getting away safely at this point will be hard. I doubt she can shut down his incarnation by messing with his mana intake like Sofia did, unless she can do more with mana sprites than I suspect. Maybe Maiden Bolt makes her fast enough to sneak past the tentacles? I kind of doubt it, though. I'm predicting a narrow loss for Shaily here, I think.
Mornn
It is a thing but unless you regen more than a hundred times your max health during a fight you don't really have to deal with it x.x
OmniGlitcher
Thanks for the chapter! It is very funny to see Victory go back through his original lines like a video game boss :P Not just out of pure frustration. It probably feels quite weird to be writing backlash, considering Sofia rarely experiences it. Shaily's skill set is really cool. Drawing Orm's rune was unexpected, absolute cinema. >Meanwhile, her own max health was starting to suffer temporary debuffs due to the constant healing Is this a thing? I feel like this has never been a thing before, and Sofia probably should have experienced it if so.
Mánalėikr
TFTC!! STAY SAFE:P
Mornn
I'm just having way too much fun writing this not to publish it right away x.x
