Chapter 574: Chapter 567: Time is running out

Velania walked among the falling petals.

Her hand on the orb, she continued the game, “Sanctuary of Peace.”

‘Sanctuary of Peace; 1 959 862’

This one doesn’t sound too bad. If it’s Peace like the god, though… Should I worry about my face getting stolen?

The word resolved and Sofia felt the magic spreading from the orb like a wave. No damage… What does this do?

There was no obvious effect, the magic hanging in the air was barely visible, and it wasn’t any type of curse. Sofia walked up to the orb, thinking about what to summon next. Placing her hand on the artifact, she spoke up.

No sound came from her mouth.

Oh. Yeah, of course. That’s one way to make me lose the game…

I could dispel that with the ring of Zar, but should I? If I still need to survive another five to ten words from her before Everelle can summon her things, the lethality of Velania’s words is only going to go up… Maybe it’s best to just wait this one out and get our first curse mark?

Judging from the speed it’s fading at, the Sanctuary of Peace has maybe another seventy seconds of mana left? Yeah, let's just wait.

Velania just waited on the other side of the orb, a faint smile on her face. It seemed she wasn’t able to speak either. Everelle came near Sofia, trying to understand the situation, and the round eventually ended after a silent exchange of shrugs and hand signs.

Purple marks explosively grew on Sofia and Everelle’s left arm as the minute ended.

So that’s the curse mark. Doesn’t even hurt.

With a snap of her fingers, Velania dispelled the silencing sanctuary of Peace. “D- did you really have no way to dispel that?” she asked.

“I have a few ways but it would either take longer than a minute or use up ressources I’m keeping for later,” Sofia explained, “Might as well just take the curse mark and see what you have next.”

“I- I see… This next one is a bit strange, so… I apologize… Vortician Plague.”

‘Vortician plague; 3 906 250’

Cursed mana erupted from the artifact like a fountain, spraying everyone and everything nearby, except for Sofia, as the cursed mana just curved around her, shoved away by [Dodge - me].

This works with curses? Actually, this works now? It feels like this damn thing never actually works except when I expect it the least.

Everelle wasn’t as lucky, the curse took over her body in a matter of seconds. She fell to her knees, her body trembling.

“Are you going to be alright?!” Sofia asked, uncertain of what to do. She couldn’t touch Everelle or she would catch the curse too.

“Ugh, I’m not dying from this but…” As Everelle answered, her upper body suddenly spun around, twisting her waist for a full ten turns like a corkscrew.

“Everelle?!”

“S- Stay away, I’m good,” she answered, her waist expanding like a liquid to regain its natural proportions, “The Sunless body is stronger th-…” she was cut mid sentence by the sudden twisting of her neck, followed by her four limbs. Her body now resembled an assortment of springs stuck to a black torso. ṝ

Sofia gulped, I don’t want to imagine what that would do to a human body.

Velania on the other side had also been hit by the curse, but her reaction to it was a lot tamer, with only her head continuously turning right by itself, which she prevented from going too far by holding it with both of her hands.

Everelle’s body collapsed and turned into a steaming oily black puddle with a bunch of pointy white rocks floating in the middle. Before Sofia could worry too much, the puddle expanded and the usual Everelle was back.

“Vortices huh, annoying curse,” she commented, now also affected by the turning head symptom, “Sofia, you should keep going before we time out…”

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“Ah, sorry, this was all just a bit disturbing to see…” Sofia apologized, putting her hand on the orb again.

“Was disturbing to live through as well, but I’m expecting this game to go much further than that so it’s whatever.”

Sofia nodded in response. “Solar Chimera skeleton.”

‘Solar Chimera skeleton; 5 000 000’

The word was recognized as valid by the artifact, yet, no Chimera appeared, to Sofia and Everelle’s surprise, a large Chimera-sized cube of Mithril appeared instead.

“Hum… Is the artifact broken?” Sofia asked Velania.

This made Velania giggle lightly, “A Chimera is annoying to deal with so… I just did this when it appeared.”

“You did this?” Sofia asked again, looking at the large block of solid Mithril. “Is the Chimera skeleton inside?” Can’t feel anything through all that Mithril…

“It is,” Velania confirmed with a nod, “and I intend to keep it there.”

“Can’t you just turn it into more flower petals?” Everelle asked from the side, “I thought the game had glitched for a second there.”

“Glitch?” Velania repeated with a confused look, “I- I could have, a Chimera isn’t immune to corruption, but they can usually disrupt spellcasting and I want to avoid a backlash…”

Even someone at her level has to worry about that? And I’ve just been letting my scepter absorb it all. Got to give it to the avians, I’m not about to change weapons anytime soon. Now let’s see what she has in reserve for the ten million mana mark…

After exchanging a few more words with Everelle, Velania realized at the last second that her time was about to run out, she quickly gave her next word.

‘Architect’s matrice; 9 090 205’

What kind of Architectural spell costs th-

A 3d grid of solid mana rods appeared in the room, taking up the entire space. The rods were crossing together in three directions, creating the shape of many small cubes in the empty spaces; at a glance, the mana rods were all spaced by about ten centimeters. Only where there were already things, like people standing, did the rods not fully appear, as they couldn’t form inside people.

Fully encased like this, Sofia couldn’t move at all.

She could bend her wrists enough to grab a rod and try to break it, but it was tougher than mithril, she couldn’t even begin to bend it.

Using the flexibility of her bone armor, she used bone tendrils to grab the admin dagger from the hole in her chest, and lowered it through the empty spaces all the way down to her hand. Dagger in hand, Sofia managed to cut through the rods with little difficulty. But it wasn’t exactly fast either. Maybe about two seconds to force the dagger through one mana rod.

Despite not being a rule, clearing the orb’s surroundings between each words was something that Sofia had copied from Velania, if only to avoid things from appearing over one’s head and give some time to react to spells being cast from the orb. Now that security distancing was being used against her, she wasn’t that far from the orb, only about five meters, but that was enough to put plenty of mana rods between her and it.

“Want me to step in?” Everelle asked from further away, squeezing her malleable body through the rods.

“No need, keep your words for later, worse case it’s another mark,” Sofia decisively answered as she forced the dagger through rod after rod, trying her best to squeeze her way through the matrix. But she was still too slow. She timed out as her extended left hand reached for the orb, still missing about fifteen centimeters of arm length to reach it.

A second curse mark appeared, covering her left leg.

“So close… Well played, what’s next?” Sofia asked, relaxing her tensed body, and slowly finishing to cut her path through the few remaining rods to prepare the ground for her next round.

“I need a second to clean up,” Velania answered, before her mana spread everywhere, and a large dome was cleared in seconds, all the mana rods corrupted into another avalanche of white flower petals.

She then went for her next word, “Chrono Arc.”

‘Chrono Arc; 17 833 256’

Nothing happened, then a third curse mark appeared on Sofia and Everelle’s right legs.

“What?! Time magic?!!! Did we jump a minute into the future? What’s happening?!”

“My system clock hasn’t moved…” Everelle commented, “strange.”

“You have a system clock?!” Sofia repeated, going from surprise to surprise.

“Well, I made it myself, it’s pretty accurate, but point is, time’s not moved. Not in any noticeable way at least, even if I’ll admit that this was also my first guess.”

“It… It’s nothing like that,” Velania finally explained, scratching her burned arm, “Chrono Arc is a spell that forcefully resets internal mana circuits, either to shorten intrinsic spellcasting cooldowns… Or to trick artifacts into activating faster…” She started to blush, “A- and, are your death protections still ready? I’m going to try to kill you again…” she shyly asked as if asking for a favor.

“There isn’t anything like an expiration time on mine, I can just die and be fine,” Sofia answered first.

“I’m also good, my self-resurrection skill is passive so it’s always there. I would be more worried about you, if it gets to my turn, I’m preparing to give you the nastiest things my homeworld has ever birthed” Everelle warned. “I’m inclined to think the game room will not survive it, honestly.”

“I’m perfectly safe, no need to worry about me,” Velania answered with a smile, “and the game room is protected against the artifact and it’s invokations specifically, this is normally played by fairies around as strong if not stronger than me, after all, so it’s impossible that we would break it,” she explained while confidently nodding to herself.

“If you say so. We’re not quite there yet anyway… So what are you going to try to kill us with?

Velania put her hand on the orb as her answer, “Absolute Death.”

‘Absolute Death; 33 333 333’