The leviathan was like an underwater mountain, a volcano of mismatched corpses and parts, fish and otherwise, human, dragon, kleptra, all stacked and fused together. Even in the stopped time of the toybox, they swayed and pulsated slowly, mana coursing through them like blood through capillaries before seeping into the water. On top of this uncanny mountain of corpse, held up by a neck of a thousand thick tentacles, was a giant, bloated ‘head’, looking very vaguely human. It was hard to describe, especially with Sofia’s current mana vision, but it looked both happy and in pain. Its wide, creepy toothless smile curved up the sides of the head, surrounding two uneven large empty eye sockets, that two tiny hands on spindly arms were clawing at restlessly.

The reason Sofia could see that much of the thing’s ’face’ was that it was facing her, and she could tell that this was not the whole thing, as the bottom of the ‘mountain’ faded out. The toybox was only simulating a portion of the entire Leviathan.

Just what is that… Sofia wondered with a shiver.

I thought it would just be another big sea monster. But this?! Was the leviathan a person? Or did it evolve to copy a head? And the number of dead bodies on there… That’s what… At least twelve entire Dragons and five Kleptras? Hard to tell when all I get is the mana shape, but that’s what those look like…

And the weird tentacle of mana circles that just killed me, let’s see…

It continues deep underwater… So deep I cannot even see its origin… Wow. There are several of them too… I did manage to fly past the head, so that’s something. But it looks like I won’t be able to go much further…

And this isn’t even the real thing, is it? Considering the size of the real Leviathan’s territory… It must be at least fifty times bigger than that… How did anyone ever manage to harvest a tear of this thing? Does it even cry?

Just how does such a thing come to be…

Sofia felt the need to avert her eyes, as she could clearly notice her thoughts get muddy the longer she stared at the Leviathan.

Gah, good that I don’t need to sleep much anymore, this is the stuff of nightmares.

How much longer can I maintain the freeze if I don’t move at all? I feel like maybe a minute or two if I really really push it. Is that enough time to find a way to survive this? I’m out of mana, got two unlife runes left considering I am technically dead right now…

Do I have something stored im my eye that could help maybe? Hmm… Bunch of junk… Oh, I do have that… The bottle of forbidden juice. Could the trial’s toybox properly reproduce the effects of a Lord’s blood, though? And would it even help? The effects on Izzaro and the hidden moon citizens seemed to have been quite slow.

It’s not often that I feel so out of options. When was the last time? When Hugo was slapping me around after I stole the Key, maybe? I got saved by an external factor back then. And now…

Sofia imagined a thousand scenarios in her head as the seconds passed in the frozen toybox.

I think I got it!

The Leviathan won’t even let people teleport through its domain!

The toybox unfroze, and Sofia’s rune activated. She lost consciousness for the three seconds she was dead, and even through death, one thought persisted.

As soon as she revived, she used [Summon Self], purposely botching the cast to eject her entire soul out of her body instead of the tiny fragment normally used for teleportation. This wouldn’t be fatal, as the unlife runes disjoined her soul and her body in the first place, but she died once again either way, as the tentacle of mana circles obliterated her once again.

Another such tentacle had shot out of the ocean at the same time to attack her stray soul.

Only light remained of Sofia’s body after the tentacle erased her, but as far as she was concerned, this was enough. It was a physical body.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

[Mark of Aphenoreth] :

- Soul protection. Due to the irremovable nature of the mark, your soul is now similarly impossible to forcefully erase. Please note that this does not prevent self-inflicted soul damage nor does it prevent death. This is only in effect while you have a physical body.

The second tentacle hitting Sofia’s soul failed to erase it. And with the sheer force of the magical blow it was an exact repeat of the abyss god hitting Sofia’s asterite chest into space. Her soul could not be erased, so it was sent into orbit. Three seconds of flight at this speed through the spirit plane without gravity to hold it back was more than enough to send Sofia’s soul far and away into space.

At the end of those three seconds, her body reformed at the midpoint between her bloodlight and soul, snapping both halves together, creating a long scar of spacial disturbance along the way.

With no runes left, Sofia opened her eyes in the dark emptiness of space, with a perfect view of the entire blue planet below.

We’ll call this one a draw.

A wide smile on her face, Sofia wanted to bask in the glory of her narrow escape for a bit longer, but she could see her health ticking down already. Though offset by the healing of her specialization for now, it would not last forever.

Ah crap. I can never catch a break!

Not quite outside of the planet’s gravitational pull, Sofia was already falling anyway, but with no mana and no air to fly on, she was going to fall straight into the Leviathan’s territory again.

She used the blessing of permanent frame on her own skeleton to stop the fall. The Leviathan’s territory supposedly extended quite far into space, so if she was currently out, she wouldn’t be for long. Stuck in place, she watched the planet move away rapidly.

Oh shit.

She cancelled the blessing and started to fall toward the planet again.

Scary how fast a planet moves! And we don’t feel any of that? Hoooly lords.

That certainly puts me out of the Leviathan’s territory. Sofia thought as she fell down. She looked at her position on the map. And on the correct side, too! Finally some luck!

Wait… That means we could have just sent the ship to space and done that to get past the leviathan to being with! Fuck… All that for nothing… Well, not that I could have known the planet was moving in exactly the right direction. Or that this would even work, was my blessed frame’s referential for ‘cannot move’ the sun this time?

Sofia would fall in between the fourth and fifth checkpoint.

The landing spot is perfect. Though I suppose I should turn toward the fourth checkpoint a bit to catch it. Just have to be careful not to get into the Leviathan’s territory again. The checkpoint itself is right outside after all…

While she fell, she checked her health, which was also falling.

This fall is taking so long… Yeah I’m never reaching the surface before I die. My thoughts go fast but my fall doesn’t. It was stupid to expect to fall that far in twenty-odd seconds anyway huh.

Well, Pareth should have relayed the news already. He must be waiting.

PARETH, NOW!

Sofia felt the spatial disturbance coming before the teleportation resolved. Two huge galleons appeared in space. They were fused together hull to hull by a bunch of bone, to which Pareth’s feet were also melded. With this simple trick, it was possible to teleport massive things with Pareth’s link to Sofia. Pareth immediately cast a [Greater heal] on Sofia, bringing her health from 34% back to full.

The others were all under a large dome-shaped shield maintained by Ezerid, allowing them all to survive in space, though most of them could already do that easily. Only Pareth, Pestle and Sofia were out of the shield, and while Sofia couldn’t speak due to the lack of air, Pestle still could.

“Sofia klepra,” she said, disapprovingly shaking her skull. “Regret?” she asked.

It was Sofia’s turn to shake her head.

“Fun play Levatan?” Pestle asked, her jaw dropping.

Sofia nodded with a crazy smile.

“Yes?!” Pestle exclaimed, sounding a bit proud, “Hmmmmm. Maybe Sofia ravager one descendant after all…” She turned around, looking satisfied. “Maybe… Levatan leg…” Sofia could hear Pestle mumble as the tiny fairy walked away.

Sofia let Pestle wonder about the logistics of eating the undersea abomination and went to free Pareth from the block of bones he was fused to, gave him a quick hug, then walked into Ezerid’s dome.

“Well? Look at your map. What do you all think? Success, no? We skipped like two hours of sailing!” Sofia said as soon as she felt air enter her lungs.

The fully armored hero from Ezerid’s group answered first.

“Okay, yeah. Why in the fuck are we in orbit, though?”

Sofia shrugged.

“I said I would get us past the Leviathan faster, never said how.”