Mornn
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Chapter 698 - All boned
🕑 Added 2025-06-19 16:00:19 +0000 UTCSofia’s pulverized a side wall of the keep with a kick and jumped outside. She wasted no time scouting and jumped up toward the top of the mountain.
Love’s voice came into existence out of nowhere as Sofia and Pareth took up some altitude.
“... that transformation skills have historically always been one of the strongest early unlock as they often bypass the physical stat limitations! Remains to see what she is planning to do in the five minutes she…”
And before they knew it, it faded away again as they continued their ascension. In just three controlled jumps, they reached the peak of the mountain. There, a certain winged beastwoman was peppering some kind of big ice-spewing lizard with arrows from above. She heard a bang as a cliffside broke when Sofia jumped from it, and turned her head to look, just in time to see a demon’s sharp claws closing in with hear face. She did not even get enough time for expression to change receiving a deadly hug from said demon. Legs wrapped around her waist, one hand grabbed her shoulder while the other grabbed her head. Sofia then forceful separated the two, taking a page out of Moon’s book.
‘You have eliminated [Sonia Rotfallen]’
‘You have received [Minor Unlocker*1]’
As she fell back down toward the lizard monster, Sofia put the two halves of the beastwoman back together before its skeleton was sent to the halls, leaving a disgustingly bloody limping body in Sofia’s grasp. She threw the corpse at the monster, open maw, which stopped it frow spewing more frost at her as she fell. Shifting her tail and wings to spin once, she picked up some momentum crushing the monster with a heel drop as she landed.
The attack left a small crater at the top of the mountain, as for the lizard, there was not enough of it left to even turn to a skeletal thrall.
‘You have defeated [Thinblood frost drake - lv. 253]’
‘You have received [Major Unlocker*1]!’
Quick! Sofia grabbed the two key that had appeared from he kills, one silvery one which had fallen under where she had kill Sonia and one Mithril-colored hovering over the gorey remains of the drake.
[Minor unlocker - Substat]: Unlock any one substat or 33% of your maximum health.
[Major unlocker - Main stat]: Unlock any one main stat and all related sub-stats.
HUGE!
Sofia gave pareth the silver key and used the other.
‘You have unlocked Mana and related sub-stats’
‘(Twin) has unlocked Strength’
Sofia’s mana senses expanded to cover the entire island.
More than half of the people still alive, I think? Hard to distinguish people from humanoid monsters. There are no skeletons underground, as one could expect of a fake island…
But every monster they have killed…
A creepy smile on Sofia’s face, she monitored the skeletons coming to life, bursting out of the dead corpses of monsters everywhere on the island.
“I win.”
Form groups of two with the thrall closest to you. Attack anyone expect Ezerid and the two other real contestants.
The thralls had about the same intelligence as the Kidjikkik skeletons, quite dumb, but they could follow simple orders. They all began moving according to her will.
Perfect. Three minutes left. That’s all I need.
Sofia deployed her wings, it had been faster to jump up to climb the mountain, but with her specialization back, she could fly again. She grabbed Pareth’s left hand as she flew up.
Now there were two options, she could either go for more unlockers, to monopolize the power on the island, or start hunting the remaining dangerous people like Sen, Tartaros and Ezerid.
The thralls got their first kill while Sofia scouted the entire island with her mana senses.
‘You have eliminated [Elb Ogris]’
Let’s go for the city. Someone is fighting the boss.
Sofia relatively close to the ground, giving any thrall in the area an opportunity to use [Bone Arsenal] and become stronger. On the way to the city ruins, she located another person, fighting a snow monkey like the one she had killed previously. They seemed in bad shape.
Is it worth the stop? Sofia wondered as she flew closer, since it was on her path anyway.
To her surprise, stopping was unnecessary, as the person fighting the monkey suddenly stopped attacking, their steel blade starting to hack at their own face instead. Even the monkey was shocked, taking a step back in incomprehension as the person who had been attacking it a second ago was now skinning themselves alive.
Sofia received a message as she observed the person below shoving both of their hands in the wound onn their face and tearing their own face away.
‘You have eliminated [Sharam Ringles]’
The monkey fled, screeching with horrified cries as a bloody skeleton ‘freed itself’, coloring the snow red.
Sofia chose not to stop in the end, continuing her flight toward the ruined city, and realizing that, yes, she was indeed ‘that scary’. More kills came in from the thralls, it was a useless distraction so Sofia turned off those notifications.
Arriving to the ruined city on the high plateaus with a bit over two minutes and a half remaining, Sofia made a beeline for the largest mana signatures.
It’s my lucky day.
Tartaros was fighting some sort of bloated obese ogre wearing human corpses strigned together by their entrails as a necklace. Sofia arrived just in time to see Tartaros give the killing blow, punching a hole through the monster’s head. Judging from the impact, the saint had already unlocked his strength.
Sofia started falling, and Tartaros looked up.
Damn orc still has good senses!
Sofia urgently stopped her fall, Tartaros could probably still kill her in one blow if she wasn’t careful. At this time, Pareth jumped off letting go of Sofia’s hand. The monster fell over, a mithril colored key appearing over its large belly.
We can’t let him get that!
Sofia dived down. She tried to lock Tartaros’s bones in place, which barely slowed him down.
Tartaros grabbed the key and rolled away from Pareth landing where he had been an instant ago. It disappeared from his hand as Sofia finally arrived in range. She completely froze Tartaros’ bones in place, allowing Pareth to safely land a clean strike, shattering his spine. Tartaros might be able to resist Sofia’s specialization somewhat, but after such a clean strike, he was too destabilized for that. Sofia broke all the bones in his body, crushing is brain and internal organs.
Now, his heart!
Pareth punched a second time, shattering Tartaros’ mana heart which his bones alone couldn’t break.
‘You have eliminated [Tartaros]’
‘You have received [Minor Unlocker*1]’
‘You have received [Major Unlocker*1]!’
“AND THE SAINT FALL A SECOND TIME!” Love’s excited voice resonated through the city, “This might already be over, folks! Such a huge gap! Can the other contestant even come back from this?”
“Quick, Change The View, Here!”
“Oh my! Another fight just broke out between Seraph Sen and the Andarian ma-...” Sofia heard Love say as her voice faded once again, as quickly as it had come.
Ezerid and Sen are fighting right now? Let’s sort through this shit fast and go kill the winner. Sofia thought as the skeleton of Tartaros and the monster he had just killed were sent to the halls as soon as they started to reanimate themselves.
The minor unlocker was another substat one, Sofia threw it to Pareth who immediately unlocked 33% of his health, while the Major unlocker was actually new type, looking like Adamian steel.
The unlocker dropped are not necessarily the same typed they had?
[Major unlocker - Item]: Unlock any one of your items (Storage items excepted, but not their content).
Dagger!
‘You have unlocked the item: The third Key’
[Title changed to ‘Demon’]
[Title change function is locked for the next 24 hours]
[Demon]: You sold your soul to a dark god. Bold.
Effect: Amplifies your demonic aura.
/Ephemeral/ : Will be lost if you are rejected by your Recessed
[Aura]
Estimated Aura range (distance from mana heart):
Close: 18.9 Meters
Field: 189 Meters
Far: 5.67 Kilometers
50% boost?! Insane!
110 seconds left.
Pareth summoned an exalted exoskeleton of his own, and the duo took to the skies again.
With no indication of where to go, they flew up and toward the clearing at the center of the highland, keeping an eye out. It only took Sofia a few seconds to locate a spot with strong mana movements in the mangrove on the opposite side of the island. Found you, boys.
Sofia flew down while going in that direction, closer to the canopy, she could grab all the thralls that entered her field aura directly into the halls. As she got closer, she still couldn’t directly see the fighters, but traces of the battle could be seen in the burning trees. And Love’s voice starter coming into existence.
“... a thunderous blow, yet not enough to shake Sen! But it looks like this fight is about to get a lot messier! Look out! Skeletons!”
Sofia flew over the battlefield, not even stopping. She only did one thing.
[Unshackle the halls]!
Comments
Nicole Widrig
The skeleton freed itself and traumatized everyone involved 😹
E
Imagine you're some low level human set on being enemies with Sofia and then all of a sudden your hands start gouging out your eyes and rip your skin off. That is a monstrous power she has. She'd accidentally kill so many people if she went back to her homeland right now.
OmniGlitcher
To quote Mornn in a reply earlier (to @Lazy Monster) "They're however strong Sofia's aura can make them :^)"
E
Saria is probably still alive. Might have another boss battle on the horizon.
Daemion
I don't think this is the fastest run ever but taking out that undead knight with only one unlock should count. Perhaps she can kill all the bosses that are still left and unlock *everything*? Because that might be worth bonus points.
phantom
That would actually be a huge aid to that one hero. It was shown in that one event he is ridiculously fast. If he got some of his speed..
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter! I do have a question though. Was it ever discussed how the power scaling of the Thralls work? I don’t recall hearing about it. I know bookie’s skeletons kinda keep their same ‘original’ stats and the grave nymphs level with the skill. Can someone enlighten or correct me?
Matt Grayson
(Ezerid/Sen conversation) "You're an imprint!" "No, YOU'RE the imprint. Your whole family are imprints!"
Matt Grayson
Lem wrote a story like that, but I only remember a skeleton in the suit.
Sanetless
Yeah, the moment she unlocked her bone ability, it was over. Even with stats & skills, Tartaros struggled with it
Dan N
Ooof, imagine if you had some sort of magical biology like Sofia's where losing your skeleton isn't necessarily lethal. You'd be left a helpless observer inside your own skull while your brain is kidnapped by your skeleton escaping from it's flesh prison. Kinda reminds me of this sci-fi horror comic I read a while ago about a guy who is stranded on an alien planet in an exosuit that is force marching him to the nearest inhabited location tens of thousands of kilometers away and since he doesn't have any supplies the suit's emergency medical systems keep cutting off bits of him to recycle for nutrients in order to keep him alive. This keeps going until he's nothing but a brain and eyeballs suspended in a barely functioning exoskeleton and the last panel of the comic is the suit's nanites beginning to devour the guy's eyes.
Kota
Man, this chapter was so much fun! Excited for the next one!
Lazy Monster
Maybe clearing the whole lobby in under 5 minutes? Maybe be the person who kills like 80% of the competitors? There are options.
Mornn
They're however strong Sofia's aura can make them :^)
steamrick
And yet, getting her early was the only chance they were going to get...
OmniGlitcher
Thanks for the chapter! >“I win.” Well, she's not wrong. Getting the main stat unlocker certainly worked out for her. >Sofia received a message as she observed the person below shoving both of their hands in the wound onn their face and tearing their own face away. Yeesh, I thought the skeleton would just try to walk out of the person, not... that. It works though. >[Unshackle the halls]! Long have we waited, thrall zone activated.
Dan N
I wonder how many of her kills came exclusively from bone liberation? Also, how many keys are just laying around unclaimed now? I doubt the thralls can claim the keys for her.
Alexander Andrews
Fantastic... Gotta love the mass reanimation of skeletons.
Lazy Monster
TFTC. Hey Mornn, do the skeleton thralls get brought up to Sofia’s level like bookie’s skeletons or remain the level of the dead thing? Im assuming the skeletons of the other trialees are level 299 not 20, but just curious in general.
Clara
But is merely coming in 1st enough to break the score? How will Sofia extra cheese this, maybe she can shuck herself over to the other lobbies and beat those too
Matt Grayson
Sonia, attacking Sofia early on => bad place in the survival ranking. As for Ezerid/Sen, oh, this is going to be fun.
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
