Mornn
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Chapter 730 - GRAND FINALE: Sofia Vs Earth - Part 3
🕑 Added 2025-08-04 14:12:37 +0000 UTCStill quite high in the air over the city, the missile exploded with a sharp crack. What followed was the brightest flash of light Sofia had ever witnessed, it completely overwhelmed her vision. The explosion also emitted a high-pitched screech, so loud it felt like it was digging into her skull. Electrical shocks course through Sofia’s body that she couldn’t avoid, and as the light started to die down, a strange spicy smell assaulted her nostrils and her throat. The entire city was suddenly engulfed in a smelly red mist.
With a few quick jumps, Sofia left the city, escaping the red cloud.
Coughing a few times, she spat out some red goo on the sandy ground.
The hell is this?!
[Neuroveil]: I only have the name, some kind of non-lethal poison gas, I think.
Non-lethal? They’re trying to spare the civilians at least… But then their goal must be to get me away from the city!
Sofia looked up, still slightly disoriented, but it did not take her long to spot several planes hiding among the clouds, even if the sound they made was still covered by the previous missile’s violent screeching that hadn’t yet stopped.
Do I get rid of those?
Charging two weak explosive bolts, Sofia took down two planes with ease, targeting those who were north of her. Seeing this, the others immediately retreated. Sofia still managed to shoot down one more, her fourth bolt barely missing its target because she couldn’t predict its sudden turn.
Lucky you. But now none’s going the way I’m going, I should be able to loose them. Let’s go!
Sofia started running toward what she guessed was the north east, she tried to follow the map the soldier had drawn for her. Whether it would truly lead her to Jin, Sofia had her doubts, but at least she was going somewhere now, instead of searching randomly.
After running for a few minutes, she couldn’t see any planes anymore, and she sneezed out more red goo a few times as she ran.
Regular poisons are pretty useless on me at this point… The area is turning more desertic by the minute… The perfect place to explode me with no civilian victims, but I think they lost me, for now.
Running for long minutes, getting further into the desert, Sofia was starting to relax a bit when she heard a sudden pop, a blue-white flash of light illuminated the corner of her vision as she dashed forward.
Huh?!
She turned around mid-air during her jump, the flash had actually happened right behind her, it still glowed, hot sand and hot particles creating a glittering cloud above the point of impact. Her feet hitting the sand, Sofia jumped back to investigate.
So they did not lose me.
Something had struck the ground, had she been a bit slower, it would have hit her. The place where Sofia had seen the flash was now a small crater in the sand, about a meter deep and wide, still glowing hot, a large area around it charred brown.
But what was that attack even? Nothing entered my mana senses at all. I don’t see any remnants of a projectile either…
Considering the shape of the crater… The angle of impact… It’s almost perfectly vertical.
Sofia looked up, not seeing anything above. Nothing…
Did they drop something from the fake stars I saw earlier? Seems plausible, but then how did I not feel it, I was careful in monitoring the sky…
LIGHT!
It must be that. Light that I can’t see. I might be able to see it with the heat detection from my fake eye! Hmm… Not that I would be able to avoid it. They missed this time but…
Sofia immediately started running again. I can’t stay still. And even then…
Yeah screw it. Too bad for Olympian but I need to survive this. That kind of a weapon is too dangerous.
[Title changed to ‘Madman’]
[Title change function is locked for the next 24 hours]
[Sense Mortal Danger] will help. It’s from a unique title, it can’t be bad!
Some time passed, with Sofia running in a straight line, hyper vigilant, ready to react to a feedback from the title any second.
I wonder why they’re not striking again. Maybe they need time to channel the energy first?
If I could get close enough to strike down one of those fake stars… But then I’d leave myself wide open. Cowardice is not an opt– Sofia felt a strange sensation coming from above. She felt the danger, and immediately used [Summon Self] to warp herself several meters sideways.
A silent flash pierced the desert just where she had summed herself from, creating another crater.
As I thought… Its aim was even better this time. This thing might have pierced me from top to bottom if not for the title, and even then that was a close call!
It’s been what, a minute and a half? That’s long enough for me to be able to teleport out every time. But I need to keep it pre-cast and stay hyper aware, this is a matter of a tenth of a second.
I knew already, but light is a damn scary weapon… Ah, the planes are back… Well, whatever. Clearly they don’t need that to know where I am.
The planes started attacking. One by one, they unleashed a single missile each, that split into several more, then into several more again, until hundreds of small missiles flew at Sofia from every direction. Sofia did not stop running, she simply took out her staff, invoked the spine whip onto it, and latched out at the closest missile once it was in range. The impact caused the usual burst of sunlight, engulfing and detonating a bunch of the missiles, creating a chain reaction. Sofia ran through the explosions and their dust cloud, as long as she avoided a direct impact, she was confident in her ability to resist such small-scale explosions.
Dealing with the planes’ attacks was easy enough, and their weak missiles did not activate [Sense Mortal Danger] at all, so they did not prevent Sofia from perfectly avoiding the next light attack from the sky either. After a bit, the planes retreated, having fired all their munitions, only to be instantly replaced by another fleet, starting the same pattern of attacks again.
This circus continued for a few minutes, Sofia running through the desert, doing flips around waves of missiles, jumping through explosions, and teleporting away from deadly strikes of invisible light. Until suddenly all the planes left.
All out of bang?
The answer came a few seconds later. They were, in fact, just retreating from the actual bang. [Sense Mortal Danger] ringed all the alarms in Sofia’s mind as she saw the huge metallic ball fall from the sky.
Not Sundial. Sofia noted, as she quickly summoned the asterite chest around her, filled and surrounded it with bones, and gave the thing the permanent frame blessing. The bomb exploded in the air above the desert.
In the medicalized bunker under a certain high-profile hospital, a young woman was sitting on top of a robotized medical unit, watching the live feed projector with other non-communicable disease patients and some of the medical personnel.
A different presenter from the earlier was on, wearing a military uniform. He commented the situation, showing images of a city under a red cloud.
‘As you can see, the Neuroveil nanobot swarm had no effect of the Carcinan. The stun bomb has nonetheless managed to chase the intruder out of the city of Touba, with reports of minimal civilians casualties so far, likely caused by the aftereffects of the creature’s initial strike on New-Dakar.’
The image changed to that of Sofia in her bone armor, running through the desert. The image was relatively clear, but got interrupted by clouds every so often.
‘Preliminary scans of the solar system show that this might be an isolated attack. It seems the Carcinans have sent a single elite, perhaps to test the limits of our weaponry. The EDF leadership has yet to make an official statement but spokesperson Hermann assures that they have the situation well under control.’
The image changed to the surveillance feed from an underground garage.
‘As you can see in this footage, this monster is capable of advanced mimicry. Despite this Carcinan’s uncanny ability to disguise itself as one of us, it is clear to anyone with eyes that this monster is not human. EDF’s Hermann announced just now on FBX ‘These tactics are not outside of what we have prepared for, and we will soon deploy worldwide means to make sure no disguised Carcinans is ever able to hide amongst the population.’ No more detail has been given has to what these countermeasures are at this time.’
The footage then cut back to the alien running through the desert.
‘We have a new clip being reviewed right now, give out teams a second to prepare… There.’
The presenter silently watched the screen along the audience, as a flash of light hit the ground where the alien was, only for the alien to be perfectly safe, several meters away from the crater in the sand.
‘Play this at 10x slow,’ the presenter asked. There was some noise on the plateau, but the clip soon played again, slowed tremendously. ‘As many had theorized, the eastern block’s contribution to this war included a high potential laser weapon… The orbital laser program has been operational for almost two months now. Though it is primarily meant to defend us from threats in space, it still has sufficient power to strike through bunkers and armored vehicles… But it seems the Carcinans are able to… Teleport? We will need better footage to understand whether it is true teleportation or a simple burst of extreme speed, I expect more news to…’
The presenter suddenly stopped, nodding to someone talking to him from offscreen the the public could not hear. ‘WHAT?! HAVE THEY LOST THEIR MIND?!’ the presenter screamed at the person offscreen, which everyone could still hear despite him grabbing his tie-microphone to muffle the sound.
‘We will now switch back to the live satellite feed,’ the presenter then announced, looking significantly less at ease than before. After hesitating for a few seconds, he continued, his voice lower than before, ‘We have received official intel that the EDF has launched the yet-untested Goliath warhead at the invader.’
The already tense atmosphere in the hospital’s underground bunker immediately turned worse. Some people started sobbing, everybody already knew exactly what the Goliath was.
‘Thanks to our latest advancements, there should be no risks of nuclear winter or radioactive fallout, but speaker Hermann— warns that the 1 Gigaton bomb will most likely trigger major tsunamis and seismic events. The shockwave will be felt worldwide and circle the planet several times. Do not leave your bunker under any circumstance, if for whatever reason you have failed to join one, you are advised to lay down face against the ground, feet toward the Sahara desert, preferably with something to cover your head and ears. All relevant personnel has already been evacuated. The impact is expected… In under ten seconds. May God have mercy.’
In a dark room illuminated only by the faint glow of two dozen screens arranged in a semicircle, Jin looked at one satellite feed in particular, which followed a long range missile launched straight from the nearest EDF Silo in the middle-east.
“Railguns are ready… Orbital charging… ME3 being assembled… Drones almost good to launch…”
Mumbling to himself, he watched the missile cut through the clouds.
Hands joined under his chin, he stared at the screen.
“Just like back then… But it’s not the crabs, this time. Can you survive this, Challenger?”
Comments
Tejing
Yeah, it seems highly likely she can lose their tracking if she spends time in the spirit plane underground.
Tejing
Looks like things are going to escalate quickly, now. It's an interesting match-up. Earth humans don't even know to do stuff like target the mana heart, but they have a huge amount of resources to throw at the problem, and Sofia doesn't know what they're capable of either. With the way it's escalating so quickly, though, it's going to be quite hard to get to Jin... I look forward to seeing where you take this. :-) Corrections: Electrical shocks course through Sofia’s body course -> coursed But now none’s going the way I’m going, I should be able to loose them. none's -> no one's loose -> lose The area is turning more desertic by the minute… desertic -> desert-like (a few other options here, like "arid", or maybe "desert-ish", but definitely not "desertic") ready to react to a feedback from the title any second. a feedback -> feedback ("feedback" is a substance noun, no discrete units, so no "a" either) Clearly they don’t need that to know where I am. that -> them and latched out at the closest missile once it was in range. latches -> lashed [Sense Mortal Danger] ringed all the alarms in Sofia’s mind ringed -> rang the Neuroveil nanobot swarm had no effect of the Carcinan. of -> on with reports of minimal civilians casualties so far, civilians -> civilian to make sure no disguised Carcinans is ever able to hide amongst the population.’ Carcinans -> Carcinan give out teams a second to prepare… out -> our The presenter silently watched the screen along the audience, along the -> along with the All relevant personnel has already been evacuated. has -> have
Cyclone001
Northeast from the coastal Sahara... that rules out Washington DC... so I'm assuming Brussells or some kind of new NATO headquarters?
jonathan
Well... presumably, the commander is aware of her ability to survive explosions... ya know... cause he had that whole conversation with her before the trial. "Come and kill me" basically. maybe not. :3
Robinn57
Thank you o Thank you for making this reference
No Name
"But I need to keep it pre-cast and stay hyper aware, this is a matter of a tenth of a second." -> You're not really keeping the timescale of Sofias reaction time consistent here... Sofia can catch a bullet between her fingers (having never seen a handgun used before), yet a tenth of a second is a narrow reaction time? Also, a gigaton nuke? No matter how far into the Sahara she is at this point, whatever city she was in just earlier is now rubble. There was no reason to drive her out of said city in the first place, with this kind of force. Also also, why would they resort to this right off the bat, targeting something on the surface of earth? Surely they would start with something more proportional, and importantly, less devastating to Earth itself?
Kennyevilmonkey
The crab people shall finally reign supreme! *Click claws furiously* 🦀 🦀 🦀 ~Crab people. Crab people~ Taste like crab, talk like people. ~Crab people. Crab people!~ 🦀 🦀 🦀
Songy
Welp. Now our favorite blonde cockroach even has access to a dangersense/precog ability. May the Lords have mercy ^^'
Cinnamon Toast
Yeah it probably is overkill for a single invader early on, but Sofia is being more destructive and daring due to this being a simulation, so I figure Jin as the leader of the EDF is probably pulling out the real fun military toys for the same reason without making it completely impossible
Chance Rose
Jeeeze all these accidental early releases are messing with my schedule mornn!
Alexander Andrews
Honestly after Sofia tanks the Giga bomb I don't expect morale to be super high... Also now I want the actual Crab People to invade mid challenge...
OmniGlitcher
Ah yes, 1 gigaton bomb :P One such bomb was apparently part of the Sundial project. Also, thanks for the chapter!
Lazy Monster
TFTC! On to the big guns lol
Mornn
I think you're not ready, this is going to last longer than just three or four chapters :p
Emily Gurnavage
NO SPOILERS - is now a good time to catch up? I took a break 3 chapters ago after Jin made his appearance. I didn't wanna be on the edge of my seat for this fight, lol. Should I wait one more, or does this one wrap it up good?
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Silver Dawn
I think Sofia needs to hide underground. Too much tracking technology above ground and she isn’t really a stealth specialist. Maybe summon sand worm.
Tom Asciola
So the Carcs were crabs, after all. Gigaton bomb seems a little overkill for a single invader, but then again...
Midnight7411
Thanks for the chapter! I should really be asleep RN but eh all well
Ceasar Salas
Omg! AMAZING! Thanks for much for the early chapter Mornn!
Matt Grayson
No one expects the Asterite Chest!
Aurora1325
oh no what are we going to do
Mornn
Oh no! I slipped and accidentally published early :P
