Chapter 146: Cast (1)

The world turned white before Jaxir could find anywhere to go. He threw every thought of dodging aside and dumped mana into his Aegis, bracing as the gathered light crashed over him from every direction at once. There was no impact so much as a sudden, all-consuming pressure, heat blooming across his skin while his MP plummeted fast enough that the number blurred.

When the light finally faded, Jaxir remained standing in ankle-deep water with smoke curling from the edges of his robes. His mana pool had gone from almost full to scraping the bottom in a single attack, more than two thousand MP erased despite the defensive conversion keeping most of that damage away from his actual health. He grimaced as he looked toward the empty reserve of his Aegis and cursed himself for never finding the time to fill the damn thing again.

"Who the fuck designs an undodgeable attack?" Jaxir pulled a Grand Mana Potion from his inventory and tore the cork free with his teeth. "Just being an asshole."

Five hundred MP rushed through him the instant he swallowed, cooling some of the hollow feeling left behind by the attack even though his skin still felt singed.

More than two thousand MP through the Aegis meant the same strike would’ve ripped away well over a thousand HP if he had taken it normally, which was enough to make Jaxir wonder how anyone was supposed to survive this boss without a defensive treasure. His eyes moved across the cavern again, searching for something he had missed.

There was nothing.

What Jaxir couldn’t know was that there normally would have been. Clearing the maze through its intended method opened a narrow passage into the boss chamber, and the Willow Witch’s largest attack was telegraphed long enough for a party to retreat inside before the gathered light reached them.

Jaxir had instead blasted through the ceiling and watched his improvised entrance seal behind him, leaving himself with no shelter and turning a simple positioning mechanic into something he would have to survive through brute force.

"Fantastic." Jaxir pulled out a second potion while the Drowned Willow Witch began moving again and drank another five hundred MP before tossing the empty vial aside. "Guess we’re doing this the expensive way."

The Witch no longer bothered pretending it intended to pull itself free from the island. Its enormous roots settled beneath the moss while the trunk stood at the center of the lake, almost serene beneath the returning lights overhead, as though those first movements had only been there to make Jaxir think it might chase him. Then the water around his legs rippled, and three beams formed from different angles.

Jaxir pushed off before the first one fired, using the lightness of his equipment to skim across the shallow edge of the lake while the beams tore silver lines through the darkness behind him. Fine mist exploded wherever they struck, hanging in the air long enough to catch the pale firefly light before falling back to the lake.

Jaxir landed, twisted his staff forward and answered with a rapid line of Casts.

[-38]

[-36]

[-39]

The first two struck the trunk before the Willow’s branches swept outward. Leaves peeled away in hundreds, catching a sudden current of air and spiraling into a green wall that swallowed the next attacks without allowing them to reach the bark. Jaxir curved another Cast low across the water, but the leaf storm dipped with it and knocked the spell away.

"You’re learning." Jaxir grinned as another pair of water beams appeared near his flanks, forcing him forward instead of backward. "Good."

He released two Casts while running and curved them away from one another, sending one high toward the hanging branches while the other skimmed the lake before climbing toward the trunk.

The leaves rushed toward the higher threat first, which gave the lower Cast half a heartbeat to slip beneath them and strike one of the root joints Jaxir had already identified. The hit wasn’t much against thirty-six thousand HP, but watching the Witch react made Jaxir’s grin widen.

[Critical Hit!]

[-57]

The next several minutes became a contest of concentration.

Water beams formed wherever Jaxir left himself exposed, some rising from below while others cut sideways across the lake, and every Cast he sent back forced him to track the shifting wall of leaves surrounding the Willow.

The cavern that had seemed so peaceful when he entered became a storm of spinning green, silver water and drifting mist illuminated by motes of gold and blue overhead.

Jaxir loved every second of it.

His mind felt stretched in more directions than it had since the fight against the possessed trio. One part tracked the mana gathering inside the lake, another watched the leaves for gaps, while two more held the paths of separate Casts in his head so he could bend them after release. The heavier the load became, the wider his smile spread, as though every additional problem gave his mind another toy to play with.

A beam appeared beneath his right foot and Jaxir kicked off before it erupted, twisting through the spray while three Casts circled behind him. He sent the first directly into the leaf wall as bait, curved the second around its edge and delayed the third just long enough for the defensive current to commit itself. The second struck bark while the third found the same root junction he had hit before.

[-37]

[Critical Hit!]

[-59]

"Again." Jaxir landed with water spraying around his boots and immediately began another sequence. The Willow answered with five water beams at once, then folded the leaves inward when Jaxir’s first Cast approached, forcing him to break his pattern halfway through and redirect everything.

The exchange continued until Jaxir lost any real sense of time beyond the movements in front of him. Whenever his mana began falling too far, another Grand Mana Potion disappeared from his inventory, and whenever the Witch changed the angle of its defense, Jaxir changed the shape of his attack. He was landing hits, avoiding the water and learning faster with every minute.

It still wasn’t enough.

Nearly ten minutes into the fight, Jaxir finally glanced at the Willow Witch’s remaining health and felt his smile flatten slightly. He had barely carved away a meaningful portion of that enormous total despite firing almost constantly. At this rate, he could spend hours dancing around the lake before the thing died.

"Dammit." Jaxir slipped past another beam and sent two Casts around opposite sides of the leaf storm. One struck, one missed, and the Willow spent almost nothing compared to the mana Jaxir kept pouring into making each adjustment.

The Witch wasn’t just defending faster than he attacked; it seemed to be doing everything more naturally, almost lazily, while Jaxir had to consciously control every curve and correction. Even when he predicted its response, the Witch adapted with a smoothness he couldn’t match.

Jaxir stopped thinking about damage and watched.

The next water beam didn’t appear through brute force. Mana entered the lake, but instead of seizing the water and dragging it where the Witch wanted, it followed the existing current before narrowing it, accelerating something the water had already been willing to do. Jaxir’s eyes sharpened.

Then the leaves moved.

He had been thinking of them as the Willow’s shield, but that wasn’t quite right either. The tree wasn’t controlling each leaf individually, nor was it forcing them into a wall through raw mana. It was shaping the air, and the leaves were simply following.

"No..." Jaxir murmured as another Cast disappeared inside the spinning defense. Leaves weren’t the point.

It was the wind’s relationship with them.