Chapter 145: Drowned Willow Witch [Bonus]

[Bonus Chapter thanks to castle from Chronotitan <3]

The opening Jaxir had blasted through the roots started sealing almost as soon as he released the charged Cast, thick cords of wood crawling back across the gap while smaller vines stitched themselves through whatever space remained.

He threw himself forward before the passage could disappear, twisting sideways as bark scraped across his robes, then dropped through the darkness with another mana potion already in hand. By the time the last sliver of light vanished above him, Jaxir had popped the cork with his thumb and was drinking while he fell.

His boots struck shallow water several seconds later, and Jaxir bent through the landing before straightening with the empty vial still in his hand. He expected another humid tunnel filled with roots and rotting vegetation, but what waited beneath the maze stopped him before he could take another step. For several seconds, he simply stood there and looked.

The cavern stretched far beyond what he could properly see, its ceiling swallowed by darkness while thousands of tiny lights drifted through the black overhead. Some moved with the slow, wandering paths of fireflies while others hovered almost motionless, pale gold and blue motes hanging among them until the darkness looked crowded with stars.

Their reflections scattered across the water around Jaxir, doubling the lights until the lake beneath his feet seemed just as deep as the sky above.

A circular lake filled most of the cavern, dark enough near the edges that the water seemed to absorb the light instead of reflecting it. At its center sat a small island coated in moss and pale flowers, and rising from the middle was a willow tree so large its hanging branches stretched beyond the island and over the water.

Its leaves fell in long curtains from every branch, brushing gently across the surface and sending thin rings through the reflected lights whenever they moved.

The air felt different here too. The sickly sweetness of the maze had disappeared, replaced by wet soil, fresh water and the faint scent of flowers Jaxir couldn’t see among the shadows. He drew in a slow breath and smiled despite himself.

"Okay." Jaxir looked around once more, taking in the lights above and the willow in the center of it all. "This is quite nice. I should get a willow for the lawn."

A notification unfolded in front of him before he could move closer.

―

[You have discovered the Heart of the Drowned Willow]

[The Guardian of the Heart has awakened]

―

Name: Drowned Willow Witch

Level: 15

HP: 36,000/36,000

―

Jaxir’s gaze remained on the health total. The original Twinkle Twinkle Bear King had only possessed five thousand HP before its Rare Instance transformed it into something ridiculous, while this thing started at more than seven times that amount without any special trigger attached.

A soft grinding sound came from above him, and Jaxir glanced back just in time to watch the hole he had fallen through disappear completely. Roots slid over one another until there wasn’t even a crack left behind, sealing the cavern as though his entrance had never existed. He chuckled and turned back toward the island.

He probably wasn’t supposed to get here by boring through one of the maze walls and dropping straight into the boss chamber. There was almost certainly some proper solution involving the shifting tunnels, splitting a party across different regions and forcing the dungeon to eventually give up the route forward, but Jaxir had already spent close to an hour wandering around inside the thing.

Whatever elegant answer the developers had intended could keep its dignity without him.

The willow moved before Jaxir finished the thought. At first only the hanging branches shifted, swaying in opposite directions despite the cavern having no wind, but then the entire island trembled as enormous roots tore themselves free from the soil beneath it. Mud and water rolled away from the trunk while several thick roots planted themselves around the island like legs.

Jaxir watched in silence as the tree pulled itself higher, revealing a deep hollow running through the center of its trunk. Two pale lights opened within that hollow and settled onto him, while mana spread through the surrounding lake so smoothly that Jaxir almost missed the change. A narrow line of water formed less than a meter from his face.

"Sneaky little shit." Jaxir chuckled and shifted his head and shoulders aside before the beam finished forming. The water tore past him and struck the root wall behind with enough force to crack bark and throw splinters across the lake.

There had been almost no movement from the Witch itself to announce the attack. The spell had formed directly out of the water around him, which meant watching its branches or trunk for casting motions would probably get him killed if he relied on that alone. Jaxir’s smile widened as he raised his staff.

"Now we’re talking."

Three simple Casts left the end of his staff in quick succession. Jaxir released each one almost the instant it formed, keeping the mana from settling long enough for Channel to begin strengthening it, and the pale spheres crossed the lake toward the trunk. The first two struck cleanly.

[-34]

[-37]

Before the third could land, hundreds of willow leaves ripped free from the surrounding branches and began spiraling around the tree. Wind followed them almost immediately, twisting the leaves into a dense rotating curtain that caught Jaxir’s Cast and dragged it sideways until the spell struck the lake several meters away. Jaxir’s eyes narrowed with interest.

"So that’s your shield." He fired two more Casts from different angles while the leaf storm continued turning. One vanished into the swirling defense while the other curved low enough to slip beneath it and strike the Witch near the base of its trunk.

[-36]

The lake moved around him again before Jaxir could follow up. Two water beams formed from different directions this time, forcing him to push off the shallow lakebed and twist between them while a third formed beneath the arc of his movement.

He used a short pulse of mana beneath one foot to shift sideways before it fired, landed near the edge of the chamber and immediately returned fire.

The Witch answered every straightforward shot with its leaf storm, the spiraling winds turning simple Casts aside almost as casually as Jaxir formed them. When he curved one around from behind, however, the leaves reacted a fraction later, giving him enough time to strike one of the thick roots joining the trunk. The tree shuddered under the hit.

[-58]

[Critical Hit!]

Jaxir grinned as the difference registered. The roots weren’t exactly fragile, but where they joined the trunk gave him a much better target than the dense bark covering everything else. He sent another Cast toward the same junction, only for the root to shift before the spell arrived and a beam of water to punch upward from the lake, intercepting it halfway across.

"That’s cheating." Jaxir laughed and moved again as three more beams began forming around him. The Drowned Willow Witch might have been rooted in place for most of its life, but there was nothing slow about the way it controlled the battlefield.

Jaxir kept firing while moving, testing the wind defense from above, below and both sides without committing enough mana to any one attack to make a miss too costly. A few shots slipped through, most were redirected, and the Witch returned every opening with water beams that appeared from places Jaxir wasn’t looking. The rhythm settled quickly enough that he started enjoying himself.

Then the Willow stopped.

The change was subtle at first, but Jaxir noticed the instant its branches became completely still. The leaf storm collapsed around the tree, the surface of the lake flattened until not even a ripple remained, and the lights drifting above the cavern began to move. Jaxir slowly looked upward.

Thousands of fireflies and motes were flowing toward the island.

The darkness overhead emptied piece by piece as every point of light gathered between the willow’s hanging branches, compressing into a white-gold sphere that grew brighter with each passing second. Mana flooded the cavern until Jaxir could feel pressure against his skin, and for the first time since the battle began, his smile faded as he looked around for somewhere to move.

There wasn’t anywhere.

The lake stretched open around him, the roots along the walls offered no real cover, and the sphere continued condensing until the gathered light narrowed into one blinding point. Jaxir stared at the Witch as that point locked onto him.

Then the entire cavern turned white.