Chapter 601: Chapter 594: Don’t let it get to your head

“Are you really sure this is fine?” Sofia asked Alith, her gaze switching from her to the blinding angel bolt silently pulsating in her hand.

Alith crossed her arms in front of her chest, “You really underestimate Dopple, Sof. I’d bet I’m better protected than you are.”

“Ahah… Can’t be helped, I haven’t seen you fight in forever, so…”

“Well let’s not talk about that though… You don’t want to see me fight. Ever since I got my specialisation it’s been a bit… awkward.”

“You were already dancing so how bad can it be to also roll around?” Sofia asked.

“Very bad. But on the bright side, I rarely ever get injured, unlike a certain someone.”

Sofia sighed at the remark. “Hey, at least these days it’s my opponents injuring me and not myself more often than not. Progress. Look at this, bolts don’t even burn anymore.”

“Yeah, good, because I can’t kiss you back to health anymore.”

“Still hung up on that skill?”

“It’s… My new skills are the same, you know? My entire class is like this, I always get the most random things. I thought the specialisation would help but I still get stupid skills even with the alterations. Just look at the latest addition to the pile… It’s not bad considering my blessing, but just why?”

[Fire Keeper]: Fire cannot be extinguished by anyone else in your presence.

“That’s an altered skill?” Sofia asked.

“Yes. A locked toggleable passive. I was a bit too eager to get my new skills and didn’t even check before accepting, so I’m stuck with it now,” Alith explained.

“You’re too impulsive for your own good. But at least you get simple skills, every single one of mine is several paragraphs, it’s becoming a headache to keep track of everything, honestly. I’m not even sure what skulls I still have in reserve with the choir. I don’t think I have any lightning ones.”

“Better to find one soon, then. But are we going to stay here for hours or are you going to hit me?” Alith impatiently asked.

“Alright, let’s start slow,” Sofia said, bringing the tip of the pulsating angel bolt to Alith’s uncovered abs, and lightly poking her. The bolt stopped a few centimeters away from Alith’s skin, hitting the invisible rippling barrier of Dopple that covered Alith from head to toe.

“Feel anything?” Alith asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Sofia answered.

“Well, I didn’t take any damage, so that makes sense so far. You can go harder.”

Sofia stepped back with a nod, and after some consideration, lightly swung the bolt at Alith like a rapier.@@novelbin@@

“Not even close,” Alith commented, shaking her head. “Give me a real one.”

“Alright alright, here I come.” Still not going to use all my buffs, but let’s get slightly serious…

Sofia grabbed the bolt with both hands and got into a proper stance. The strike was swift and violent, the bolt crashed against Alith’s shoulder, sending sparks of plasma flying. There was a light cracking sound but the bolt was repelled, almost sending Sofia flying back.

“Almost there,” Alith said, having not moved an inch, her arms still crossed in front of her chest.

“Dopple really is tougher than I gave him credit for,” Sofia said, surprised.

“Told you so. I don’t have a lot of health or mana but my defenses are on point.”

Sofia nodded, “And that’s with you not even trying to defend. It’s not helping with testing the skill though, I don’t think I’ve charged up at all yet, so let’s ramp up a bit more,” she said, before taking the admin dagger out of its bone sheath and stabbing her mana heart a few times. ṙÁƝ𝘖𝖇ÈS

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You just casually killed yourself to stack [One with suffering]? You’re a real lunatic,” Alith commented with a smirk when Sofia was resurrected by one of her unlife runes three seconds later as if nothing had happened. Even in death, she had not faltered or fallen, and her sustained angel bolt stayed stable in her hand.

“Says the one who’s asking to be hit by said lunatic’s lightning bolts.”

“The things I wouldn’t do for a friend…” Alith answered with a smile on her face, “Hit me.”

Sofia sheathed the dagger back and once again grabbed the bolt with both hands, this time with doubled strength.

The bolt struck the same spot as before, blasting through Dopple’s defences and starting to dig into the flesh of Alith’s shoulder until Dopple’s invisible shield reformed almost instantly, pushing the bolt back out. The damage was only superficial but finally Sofia started to feel something, a tingling sensation in her veins, spreading in from the tip of her fingers. It was far from enough to activate the skill, and it disappeared almost as fast as it came.

Ah crap. It’s not just damage, it’s sustained damage. I won’t be able to keep it charged between fights.

“Are you good?” Sofia asked, “How much damage was that?”

“No issue, just a superficial wound,” Alith answered, which was convincing until she winced slightly when she shrugged, “That was just a few thousand health points. I don’t even need to heal myself, my passive regeneration is already taking care of it. How about your skill?”

“It charged a bit but that’s already gone. I’d probably need to strike you like this a thousand times in a row before it’s fully up…”

“It really wasn’t much damage,” Alith said looking at her shoulder that already looked as good as new, “Dopple, don’t defend against the next one. Let’s see how that goes.”

“That’s going to hurt,” Sofia warned.

“I know. Just hit me right there,” Alith said pointing at her waist, “I already have some experience getting cut in half, it won’t kill me, and it’s good training for me. I need to get more used to pain.”

Sofia nodded and readied her bolt.

She readied her bolt.

There was a moment of tense silence.

“Sorry, I can’t…” Sofia apologized, lowering her plasma weapon.

“Wha- Really? Nothing’s gonna happen, are you really the same person who just stabbed her own mana heart? The same Sofia who used to char herself to a crisp to cast a spell several times a day to hunt phageid with me?”

Sofia dispelled the bolt. “It’s different. It was still fine when I knew you had Dopple but I’d rather not see you cut in half again…”

“Agh… Sofia… It’s fine, let’s just go find some bulky monsters to terrorise and get this avatar form going.”

Meanwhile, Pareth just watched from the side. He nodded to himself as if saying ‘now you get it, Sofia’.

It did not take long for the trio to find a group of giant bramble-tusk boars in the valleys surrounding the sect. Sofia knew from Saria that hunting a few of the monsters there was perfectly fine for the sect as long as they didn’t disrupt the ecosystem too much.

The large boars’ levels were only in the early 200s, but they were quite resilient, making them good targets for Sofia to keep whacking her lightning stick at. After she had killed about a dozen of them, with about that many remaining in that one group, she finally felt full, the tingling energy of lightning filling her entire body, she instinctively knew it was ready to erupt.

“You might want to take your distance just in case,” Sofia warned, and both Pareth and Alith, who had been continuously occupying the boars by blocking all of their attacks, nodded and backed out.

Sofia kicked away the tusks of a boar that charged at her, and she unleashed the skill.

[Avatar of Zeus]

The transformation was not instantaneous, at first, it only felt like a shockwave going through Sofia’s body as she activated the skill, then she felt an irrepressible need to scream, as a strange sensation crawled beneath her skin, as if something was going to burst out from her forehead.

Dark clouds gathered above.

Sofia screamed. Her forehead burst open. From within surged a torrent of lightning-imbued flesh, swallowing her whole.

The boars instinctively stepped back at the sight, one of them even abruptly stopping his charge which sent it tumbling down the valley.

The godly flesh wrapped around Sofia like a constrictor snake, and quickly solidified into something new, a new body above her body, a five meters tall godly figure with rippling, bulging muscles and long flowing hair like at thunderstorm, her chest covered by a simple white toga and with lightning clouds gathering all around her. It was still Sofia, but it also was not.

She opened her eyes, and lightning fell. A deluge of volatile electricity sweeping over the land and scorching the earth.

The angel bolt was still in her right hand, larger and longer than ever, it had grown with her to become a deadly stake of lightning.

Looking around, Sofia was shocked. She had not done anything yet, but the boars were all dead. She turned around to see whether Pareth and Alith were unharmed, and they were, but it looked like Alith was speaking, yet Sofia couldn’t hear her. She could hear nothing but the rhythmic, inebriating sound of her heartbeat, and the flow of the warm ichor running through her veins.

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