Mornn
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Chapter 613 - Careful approach
🕑 Added 2025-01-30 17:08:51 +0000 UTCSofia’s staff flickered in her hand, her own appearance oscillating unstably between her light and dark world forms for a few seconds before stabilizing in the light world one, making the staff completely disappear.
Alith was going through something similar, her outfit and weapons changing randomly as she observed the lake and the city, her face blurring and becoming clear again in quick succession. “Even just crossing the lake might be dangerous,” she said after a long while, “our goal is the palace, isn’t it?”
“Not only the palace,” Sofia answered, pointing at another part of the city, “see that tall chapel right there? This is where we’ll find the dead god.”
“The one with a spire floating in the air?”
“Yes. The higher floors are completely gone in the real world. It looks like it’s caught in an in-between state.”
“Did your vision show anything else?”
“No, I recognize the shape of the building, but that’s it. I couldn’t even get a glimpse of the city in the vision.”
“Which one do we go for first?” Bookie asked from up in Pareth’s arms.
“Whichever one the monsters in the city will let us reach,” Sofia answered, observing the deep creatures.
They were numerous and varied, some taking an arachnid shape similar to the giant stalker, while many had more unconventional forms, some being somewhat humanoid, some others being utterly indescribable with words.
“Ah shit…” Sofia mumbled as she spotted a honeycomb-like entity hiding inside of a house.
Alith turned to Sofia, “What?”
“Parasite,” Sofia said without more explanation.
“Hmm… Well at least these ones you know how to deal with,” Alith replied, crossing her arms, “The small stalkers are more worrying. I couldn’t do anything to the big one.”
“Hopefully the smaller ones are weaker, and I’m correct, the parasites like the small stalkers can all be dealt with in the same way, but we need something to make the rot stick to them, is the issue.”
“We just need some non-carbon black powder, right?”
“Even the carbon can work,” Sofia said, “The rot won’t eat its own byproducts but what matters is that the holy light does not get reflected. I confirmed when we were fleeing from the stalker that it reacted to holy light the same way as the parasites. So the rot’s carbon powder should do the trick, that’s not the issue.”
“Then what is it?”
“Let me show you…” Sofia said, bending down to pick a flower, placing it in her open palm. She carefully shone a thin ray of light on her hand, covering the flower in rot. It was devoured and disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
“No powder?” Alith immediately understood.
Sofia showed her empty hand. “I found that out when we were waiting for the fairy… The carbon powder doesn’t exist in the light world.”
“And neither do my pouches…” Alith added, “So we can only reliably kill them outside of the light world?”
“Assuming we can kill them at all. The parasites’ flying swarms are particularly scary already. And we have no information on the others at all… Our best bet is probably to try to avoid fighting at all.”
“Maybe you could switch to that master thief title and go without us?” Alith suggested without much enthusiasm.
“That’s not even an option. The dagger disappears in the light world, so my title isn’t active…” Sofia explained, stopping before she could find anything else to say as she heard something unexpected. “Does anyone else hear that?”
Everyone was silent for a few seconds, but no one else seemed to hear anything.
“The water, the wind, the creaking of branches,” I hear nothing else,” Alith said first.
“I don’t hear anything either!” Bookie added, and Pareth seemed to be the same.
It stopped… “I’m almost certain I heard someone singing,” Sofia explained.
“Either you misheard, or there’s still someone alive in the city,” Alith deduced.
Looking at the shimmering deep creatures lurking around every corner, Sofia found it hard to believe there could possibly be anyone still alive in there.
“Maybe someone from the deep is singing,” Bookie said, “the one that helped us at the academy wasn’t a mindless creature at all so it could sing!”
“The ‘student’?” Alith asked, “It’s true that it never attacked anyone, and it acted somewhat… Civilized.”
“Well, let’s just keep that possibility in mind. We should get going, the faster we’re out of here the better.”
Sofia resummoned the Fairy which had just timed-out, as well as her olden bird recon unit of 54 black turvins. Bookie’s summons were just like everyone else, constantly flickering between the fleshy and regular skeletal form.
They sent a single bird to the city, Sofia being well aware of the dangers the Deep creatures could pose to Bookie’s summons. Nevertheless, as long as the most important ones like Crowie or the engineer were safe, she was ready to accept sacrifices.
The bird flew over the hole-ridden lake for all of three seconds before a luminous eel-like creature jumped from under the water. The attack was fast, clean, and almost silent. The giant deep eel jumped a hundred meters up into the sky, its wide maws engulfed the bird mid-flight at the apex of its jump, and plunged back into the calm waters in the blink of an eye. The bird did not even have the time or chance to unsummon itself.
“It’s gone…” Bookie announced, his voice shaking a little.
Sofia sighed and gave Bookie a few headpats. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”
The idea of permanently sacrificing a few skeletons to the deep creatures if needed was something that Bookie himself had suggested earlier when the group discussed what to do should they encounter the stalker again. He knew he was going to have to eventually abandon many of his precious skeletons as Sofia replaced his pages anyway, since he was still limited to fifty of them. Despite that, it was clear that he did not enjoy the process. Sofia was also a bit reluctant, but it was undeniable that the information the lost bird had just taught them was invaluable.
“It’s alright…” Bookie mumbled, “they willingly follow our orders, I’m not even forcing them…” he explained with a sad voice, “the others will all go if you ask them too.”
“Let’s not. It’s better to limit the sacrifices. At least now we know, both the lake and the airspace above aren’t safe…”
“Doesn’t leave us with many options,” Alith noted, “We can try to go even higher, bet on a teleportation despite the unstable space, or dig under the lake.”
Looking up, Sofia shot down one of Alith’s suggestions, “Going higher isn’t it. I didn’t see them before, but there are things hanging off of the tethers. Like bats, maybe? I can’t see well, but they’re not deep-colored, at least.”
“More skin dust monsters?” Alith asked, “We might have understood the tethered were people but there’s still no explanation for the smaller dust crawlers and the horse thing you saw in the first city.”
“Likely skin monsters, yes,” Sofia confirmed, “Either way, flying seems like a bad idea. Though perhaps we could try to back out and enter from above the tethers, directly to the tree.”
After some deliberation, Sofia sent a bird back to the outside, to see if the idea of climbing over the tethers was safe.
It was not long before Bookie announced in a whimper that this bird had also permanently died. Sofia consoled him while Alith tried to think of another way in, squatting as she observed the distant city. “If only Asty was here, I bet she could teleport us there safely,” she commented.
“She cannot see the deep monsters,” Sofia rebutted, “I would not bring her here in a million years.”
“I know. Just saying. Looks like we’re going to have to dig. Are you gonna bust out the sandworms?”
“They’re not great for digging through dirt and rocky terrain like this,” Sofia denied, shaking her head, “but I do have the skeletons for the situation,” she proudly declared, ripping one of Bookie’s pages to summon a small army of digger Kidjikkiks. They were rarely used, as she could normally just phase through the ground with the graveyard skeletons, but Sofia finally felt validated about having kept the diggers all this time.
The centipede-like Kidjikkiks were originally living inside of one of Cerberus-beta’s moons; this was exactly their field of expertise.
After Sofia and Alith decided on the exit point that seemed the safest in an obviously empty and somewhat isolated house in a corner of the city, the Kidjikkiks started to dig. In a few minutes, the Kidjikkiks had already dug deep enough, and started to head toward the city from under the lake, everyone else following them from a safe distance.
Comments
Tejing
Yeah, digging works. Though I'm not sure why she isn't just going straight for the cathedral or the central castle. What's the point of breaching the surface anywhere else? This is clearly near the top of the danger levels she's ever willingly walked into... Sofia be crazy. Corrections: This is where we’ll find the dead god. This -> That and I’m correct, the parasites I'm -> if I'm “The water, the wind, the creaking of branches,” I hear nothing else,” branches," -> branches. as well as her olden bird recon unit olden -> old
Robinn57
I did. Just remember with you saying something about Moon. Moon doesn't have a face does she?
Cyclone001
The fact she was looking for the skill is obvious. The fact she's looking for dead gods was known. The fact the dead god from the ring's vision was on this moon was news to me. I mean I thought the odds were very good there could be a dead god here considering the fate of the past expeditions, but the fact it was the one from the vision I would have expected to be mentioned in the chapter where Erredis sees them off. If it was mentioned somewhere there, I missed it.
Peter Smith
In this aspect its about setting a tether for the attack to connect to. It should also be noted that the reason why the rot works is because it devours mana, and then the material connected to it. The deep creatures aren't weak to pocket sand, shes just rule lawyering the hell out of her ability and the souls power of perception. The idea is that living things souls have the concept of dirty, so when you throw dirt onto something, despite knowing that the dirt isn't directly part of you your soul considers itself dirty as long it remains in contact with the material, therefore the soul considers the dirt to be part of it until the material is cleansed from it in some way. Therefore if you can affect the material connected to the soul you can affect the soul, if you can affect the soul then you can add an affect to the soul, if the effect is a curse which connects to the soul then you can affect the body of the creature.bits the same thing as with ghosts, if they are connected to mana then by affecting the mana you affect the ghost. Basically shes killing them by sneaking up to a sleeping creature whispering "you're dead now" and then giving them a wet willy.
E
There are several ways they could source black powder (not sure why it has to be black). Use a super hot angel bolt on the moon's surface then pulverize the solidified mass. Crush and burn some bones. Chop off Pareth's limbs, cover them in rot, and just throw them at the creatures. Cast Summon Blood and use rot on the blood. The Deep creatures being weak to "pocket sand" attacks is strange.
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the chapter! Are we sure Sofia is vindicated that the diggers stuck around? Or is it Mornn who feels vindicated with their Chekhov gun? Also I still really wonder what dead god it will be. While it would make sense if it was Moon, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s some lesser god that decided to indulge the Queen. Lastly, I feel like Sofia will end up going back to Cerberus one day anyway. Not sure how or when but it was doable by the admins at some point, so I can’t see why Sofia can’t either.
Sky
As mysterious than the dark side of the moon behind the moon~
Mornn
This was the vision given to her by the ring in chapter 575, it was left vague on purpose back then : 'At that moment, Sofia felt a mental pull from the ring. For the second time that day, foreign images flooded her mind. She was given a location, first from extremely far away in space, showing her the entire planet and its surroundings, then progressively getting closer image by image, ending on an image of a fallen statue blocking closed doors.'
Kennyevilmonkey
Gone, but not forgotten.
Chance Rose
No, you've talked about her looking for a dead god and the skill. I don't remember what chapter this vision she keeps referencing was in, but youve addressed why they are here several times
John Grizzly
Mb what's confusing is how she knows there is one here? Some kind of dream or something?
John Grizzly
It was mentioned but it was a bit confusing since in the chapters before coming here it was cliff hangered and only vaguely mentioned. Then it was declared in one chapter then it's been Rollercoastery since coming to the moon so if it misses some people's attention I can understand. But the lead up has always been looking for the dead god and it's been mentioned I'm pretty sure these last 3 chappies
Songy
RIP bird skeletons #12 and #47, you will be missed
Emily Gurnavage
Nah it was totally mentioned a bunch, that person just forgot or missed it somehow. She described the church/her vision of it at least twice if not three times, and has mentioned it like at least 2 other times. I can't say what chapters, but it was def mentioned a good bit.
Mornn
Pretty sure that she was searching for the dead god's been said a number of times already... Hopefully. It's getting hard to keep track of everything 600 chapters deep but still this kind of stuff I should have mentioned several time in and before this arc. You're gonna make me doubt now lol.
Mornn
She has quite a lot of them, at least, so losing a few wouldn't be too much of an issue, but yeah, they are indeed in short supply otherwise. That being said, the most important one not to lose power-wise is the fairy.
Cyclone001
Did I just miss it, or is this the first chapter that confirmd there is a dead god here? Feels like something that should have been mentiond in the chapter justifying this expedition, but I don't recall it there. More than that, I'm wondering why the monsters are so much more aggressive here. Think the flickering in/out of the light world is what triggers the memory reset and violent bahaviour the avian warned about?
Emily Gurnavage
I hope she doesn't lose the Kdijicksihickshijs, or at least not many. I don't think she can reasonably get more of those considering where they came from.
Custus
Thanks for the chapter!
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Quentin Cozzi
Thanks for the chapter!
