Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley (35 page)

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Smoke only had Igniz by his side as he faced Crucibelle, the Witch of Immolation. Luckily for him, his weighted chain and sickle was made out of perlite. 'Items from the Labyrinth sure are handy.' he thought.
Crucibelle raised her hands and with open palms aiming at Smoke, she unleashed a flurry of fireballs. Igniz flew upwards and tried to attack her with his own fireballs, but his attacks didn't even make a scratch on her.
Smoke tried his best to dodge her fireballs, but there were just too many of them. One of them blasted the ground to his right and propelled him into the air.
Crucibelle swiftly formed a triangle with her hands and chanted, "Plus Gros Sinistre." A fireball quadruple the size of the previous ones appeared above of the casting circle.
"
Meteor Strike!
" she screamed and launched the blazing attack at Smoke.
With iron ball in his left and sharp sickle in his right hand, he placed his arms at his sides in an attempt to move through the air faster.
Despite this, he still couldn't escape Crucibelle's fiery attack and it hit his left shoulder, sending him hurtling to the ground.
Smoke received 3,790 points of damage. He quickly stood up as he saw more fireballs coming his way, but this time, Crucibelle was in range of his chain.
He evaded the fireballs and threw his sickle towards her simultaneously. Crucibelle became wary of his weapon and dodged it instead of blocking it with her Fire Shield.
As soon as Smoke saw the Witch take the bait, he rolled towards her side and tugged hard on the chain leading to the sickle. Crucibelle managed to avoid the returning sickle as well, but momentarily lost her balance.
Smoke wouldn't pass up this opportunity, as he swung the portion with the iron ball as hard as he could. Upon releasing it, the chain leading up to the iron ball extended and his weapon bludgeoned its intended mark. His surprise blow only dealt 750 damage points, but it was enough to make the Witch arch her back in agony.
'Hmm. She has high defense and life, but she isn't used to pain.' observed Smoke.
He quickly used this opportunity to throw his sickle over Crucibelle's head, and then yanked it downwards with all his might.
At the last second, Crucibelle saw the sickle and sidestepped it, but Smoke's attack still managed to nick her left arm.
"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!" cried Crucibelle, "No-one has ever been this insolent to hit me!" She touched her gashed arm and cauterized the wounds.
Through several battles, Smoke acquired a survival instinct, which now told him to run. He turned around and sprinted away from her. Crucibelle raised her hands and pointed them at him.
Soon afterwards, multiple fireballs came his way. Smoke was careful not to be blasted away by the splash damage of the fireballs as they hit the ground.
Running away from her proved to be a bad decision. His Cunning of the Dire Fox could not detect projectile attacks, but he wasn't confident that he could dodge her fireballs from a close distance.
Smoke looked over his shoulder to see how far he had gone from Crucibelle only to see her cast Meteor Strike directly behind him.
BTOOOM!
He tumbled five meters away and received 5,935 points of damage. He checked his life bar, which displayed (162,670/176,250 HP).
Crucibelle's life bar was barely damaged, while his was already missing almost 10%. More fireballs came his way, but he easily dodged all of them due to the large distance between him and the Witch.
Unfortunately, he also couldn't attack Crucibelle because she was out of his chain's reach and she was immune to his arrows.
'I've got to take some risk.' he thought. Smoke switched to his white metallic staff and created a purple concave Manatl in front of him.
The enraged Crucibelle quickly made a circular motion with her hands and created a red casting circle in front of her. She touched certain runes inside it and it lit up with flames.
Their new abilities pitted against each other. She traced a triangle within the casting circle and yelled, "Inferno!"
The DarkElf braced himself as innumerable fireballs were headed towards him. With both hands, he held his staff tightly in front of him. The onslaught of fireballs kept hitting Smoke's Manatl.
Ten seconds passed and his concave barrier began to show signs of degradation. Before he could gather the energy into his staff, a Meteor Strike shattered his Manatl and squarely smashed into his chest.
This attack damaged him for 5,999 points and Smoke's ego was also hit as he was blown away. He went into a rolling motion and hid in one of the bushes.
Crucibelle created the same red casting circle, but this time eight of them at once! It took longer for the spell to complete, but she was ready to fire in all directions.
Smoke switched strategies once more. He took out his Digger's Wand and Armored Armadillo Shield. He quickly activated the shield's Magical Armor ability and blocked the start of the torrential fireballs.
He then pointed the Digger's Wand to his feet and created a trench below him. He couldn't risk jumping away; Crucibelle made it clear that she was a great shot in the air.
With the aid of his Digger's Wand, he started making trenches around Crucibelle. Unhinged, she unleashed her Inferno spell all around her.
Every animal in the area ran away, while the unfortunate ones that couldn't escape were burnt to a crisp along with the plants. In less than two minutes, she burned down two square kilometers of the forest.
As Crucibelle rampaged above ground, Smoke completed a circular trench around her and dug tunnels that ran across it and connected it to his trench. An eerie silence loomed over their battlefield.
From inside the trenches, he could sense Crucibelle's location using Cunning of the Dire Fox, but he couldn't tell which direction she was facing.
Since he prefered his head still attached to his body, Smoke couldn't risk sneaking a peek. He used Symbiote Vision and had Igniz fly directly above her.
Crucibelle paid no mind to Igniz as she stayed in the center of the burnt-down forest patch. Smoke used his Earth Manipulation ability and launched an earth spike from behind Crucibelle. However, she expertly dodged it. He tried several more times, but his earth attacks couldn't hit her at all.
'Why can I hit her with the weighted chain and sickle but not with my earth attacks? Am I that slow?' thought Smoke.
"Nyak nyak nyak! Even my little sister Terrabelle couldn't hit me with her earth attacks, what makes you think
you
can? Your poor imitation of her ability is laughable, to say the least." Crucibelle let out her deranged laughter.
SLASH!
Smoke's sickle cut Crucibelle's back as she mocked him. His damage finally went over a thousand as he inflicted 1,495 points of damage. He quickly dove back into the trench to avoid her fireballs.
Crucibelle instantly created a casting circle and her Meteor Strike destroyed the part of the trench which Smoke had leapt into a moment earlier.
He suddenly appeared on Crucibelle's left side and made a mad dash towards her. Before she could blast him away, Smoke activated his weapon's deadliest ability, Cyclone of Slaughter.
His movement and attack speed were increased tenfold. He spun and moved around at such extreme speed that his weighted chain and sickle created sixteen afterimages.
Crucibelle created another casting circle and fired a flurry of fireballs at Smoke, but his chain deflected all of them. Her voice echoed while she got slashed and bashed by his weighted chain and sickle, as it enveloped her in a whirlwind of attacks. His weapon's ability lasted ten seconds and Crucibelle's life bar now displayed (849,510/900,000 HP).
Smoke couldn't believe that one of his strongest attacks only did that much damage. He quickly dove back into the trenches before the Witch could launch her counterattack.
'The Manatl attack could've packed more punch if only it didn't break.' thought Smoke as he made a mental note to become more experienced in using that ability.
As he hid inside a tunnel, he took out a piece of jerky and chewed on it voraciously. He watched his life bar regenerate while waiting for the cooldown of his weapon's ability to finish.
Suddenly, he felt really hot while leaning against the wall. Seconds later, molten rocks appeared at the tunnel's entrance and steadily flowed towards him.
Smoke turned around to check the other direction and found the same thing. He used his Earth Manipulation to quickly open a hole above him and leapt out with his shield in front of him.
BTOOOM!
A Meteor Strike struck his side as soon as he appeared above ground and blasted him upward. While Smoke was suspended in mid-air, Crucibelle unleashed her innumerable fireballs on him.
Smoke twisted his body to turn the shield towards Crucibelle. He managed to block most of the fireballs before tumbling down to the ground. His life bar showed (141,344/176,250 HP).
'Should I run for it? If I die here, those guys might fight to the death.'
Even though Smoke had told himself earlier to focus on the battle at hand, he still couldn't help but worry about his private army members. He held onto his shield tightly while pondering on his next move.
'I should probably tell Igniz to get down from there.' thought Smoke as he leaned to the idea of escaping.
Crucibelle stopped her attacks and stared at him. "You're not planning on running away, are you?" taunted the red Witch as she held two fireballs in her hands.
Smoke wasn't about to give in to her provocations, but then his Cunning of the Dire Fox picked up a sizeable group in the direction behind Crucibelle, heading fast towards them.
He sensed sixty Sonstwelters and two hundred twenty-one Zectians. 'Those can't be Laernea and Gandiva. They're all scattered, but they are moving too fast to be on foot. Sierra?' Smoke wondered who was coming.
"Oi, DarkElf, you've been quiet for quite some time now. Are you preparing another special ability? Nyak nyak nyak." goaded Crucibelle.
'She really is Terrabelle's sister. She's got the same annoying laugh.' thought an irked Smoke.
"Not much of a talker, huh? Very well. I'll give you to the count of ten. Let's have our strongest abilities fight it out, shall we?" said Crucibelle.
She made a wide motion with her hands and a casting circle appeared in the sky, between Smoke and her. He looked up and saw the casting circle grow larger.
"Igniz, fly away!" Smoke shouted as he was about to do the same.
The circle reached almost fifty meters in diameter. Since Crucibelle was stuck casting her spell, Smoke instinctively leapt up and started to glide away.
Before he could leave the spell's area of effect, Smoke heard Crucibelle scream, "
Meteor Shower!
"
Meteor Strikes rained from the casting circle in the sky and obliterated the rest of the forest below it. Smoke couldn't escape fast enough and was caught in the spell near the edge of its radius. He received ten Meteor Strikes to his back and plummeted down to the ground, receiving a total of 75,000 damage points.
A one-meter-deep crater was created as a result of Crucibelle's attack. She carefully went down it and walked towards Smoke. As she got closer to him, she started to gloat, "Hmm. Looks like I won. I thought you'd put up more of a fig..."
She couldn't finish her sentence as twenty glistening Aqueous Spikes pierced Crucibelle's back and dealt 4,000 damage points each. She turned around and saw twenty mounted Aqua Knights jumping into the crater.
Smoke opened his eyes and saw that it was Mamelon, the female Aqua Knight, who came to his rescue. Twenty-five more mounted Elemental Knights followed suit as they were lead by an Electro Knight and a Flame Knight.
All of the Sonstwelter Knights had various mounts: from bronze jackals and dirus wolves to acinonyx cheetahs. They all rode swiftly towards Crucibelle.
However, before any of them could reach her, they were all blown out of the crater by a barrage of fireballs.
With the weakest resistance to Fire, ten Aero Knights instantly perished from Crucibelle's massive attack, while the twenty Aqua Knights only lost 10% of their life bars.
The five Flame Knights had the highest Fire Resistance and only lost 5%, whereas five Electro Knights and five Terra Knights lost roughly 50% of their life bars.
"Wrraaaaaaahhhhhhh!" shouted Crucibelle.
She kept contorting her back as she began to melt the Aqueous Spikes lodged into her. The javelin-sized ice spikes disappeared in no time.
Mamelon and the Elemental Knights regained their composure and remained on the edge of the crater. A rain of more than two hundred arrows fell from the sky as the Bowed Fishermen unleashed their attacks.
The mounted Bowed Fishermen riding on aardwolves came into sight, standing beside the Elemental Knights. They let loose another round of their arrows into the air. Two volleys of arrows poured down on Crucibelle.
'That's no use.' thought Smoke as he watched the arrows being burned by Crucibelle's fire, but surprisingly, half of the arrows did not disappear and pierced her skin.
He squinted his eyes and scrutinized the arrows coming down from the sky. They glistened like the Aqua Knights' Aqueous Spikes.
He smiled as he realized what was going on. 'They're water arrows!' Each arrow only did 80 damage points, but it was better than nothing.
He turned his attention to Mamelon's regiment. Aside from the Elemental Knights, Smoke saw that Mamelon brought fifteen Shamans, two hundred twenty Bowed Fishermen and a single Light Wizard named Baldaquin.