Level Database Query Failover… Target found…

Blight Witch Haru: Minimum DPS to Defeat – 999,999

Haru darted across the sky as fast as she could fly on her staff. In front of her, the massive, scintillating scar etched into the landscape. It consumed most of the beach and shore of Waylander’s Wastes. As she closed in, the fiery scene of the torched throne room appeared within a small section of the fissure near where the cove used to be.

Wasting no time, she steered herself toward the canyon-sized gap in the terrain and dove for the scintillating surface embossed deeper down. The portal to the dark side drove of a steady, powerful stream of void-like energy that created a baleful beacon high into the sky. As Haru passed into this plume of dark power, it immediately dampened her pace, like a tumbling stone careening into a pile of sand.

Haru struggled to push herself to fly faster. The closer she got to the portal’s surface, the slower she flew. It was as if the fissure itself was resisting her entry. She strained, driving against her staff as hard as she could to continue forth. Despite using every ounce of strength to accelerate, it was as if she were standing still. She was now close enough to the ground to reach out and touch it. Despite all this effort, Haru was moving slower than a snail. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut with all her body tensed while locked in this struggle.

The tip of her staff was a hair’s width of distance from touching the surface when her forward motion all but stopped. The scar was rejecting her approach. Her trying to enter was like attempting to mix oil and water. She reached forward in a bid to throw herself into the fissure when she found herself suspended, off center from her usual sitting spot. Even falling into it wouldn’t work.

Then she felt a sudden jostle of her staff behind. Haru looked over her shoulder to find Oracle in her raven form landed and perched on the very edge of her staff, upon the blue crystal, which pointed upwards toward the sky. The raven bobbed its head to take in its surroundings for a second.

A single caw from Oracle spurred Haru into motion and she fell head-over-heels into the abyss of the portal.

The change from the overworld to the dark world was instantaneous. Despite her firm grip on her weapon, the moment she transitioned into the fiery domain, her staff unsummoned itself, dissipating into nothingness despite Haru’s firm grasp.

The witch found herself tumbling down through the clouds from on high, down to the ruins of the throne room.

Haru reached out to summon her staff to no avail. The snap of her fingers brought not even a sound. But she found herself spontaneously righted, hurtling toward the ground face-first.

As she breached the ashy cloud layer, she found below Opti skirmishing with the demon.

Irae was still preoccupied with smashing Haru’s character into the ground and bleating with a goat-like laugh, despite the various wounds the legionnaire was imparting upon the demon’s arms and body. Each time the bundle of tendrils, which still engulfed the acolyte character, smashed into the ground, Irae would howl while leaning forward and hissing.

Haru reached forward, still falling toward the throne room floor at a blinding rate and snapped her fingers to summon her staff. But again, it did nothing.

Seemingly bored with his conquest, Irae winded up the bundle of tendrils and hurled Haru’s former character into the air, over his shoulder, with the tendrils snaking beneath the cloud he was suspended upon, in order to do so. As the limp character dropped onto the ground behind him with a thud, the demon cackled and turned to Opti, who had retreated behind his shield.

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Now moments from impact, Haru tried one last time to summon her staff. Finally, the sound of a snap left her fingers and the blue gemmed rod appeared in her hand after a flash of light. Wasting no time, she mounted it and strained even harder than her attempt to enter this wretched place, to stop herself from slamming into the ground.

Haru slowed her descent only an arm’s length away from smacking into the stone brick surface. To bleed momentum further, Haru diverted her flight path around Opti, and within reach of the demon’s face. His eyes were angled, yellow; face leathery red with brown patches down the middle where his nose should have been. She locked gaze with Irae. Despite his demonic image, his eyes couldn’t hide the momentary shock at the realization of her arrival.

Irae swiftly pivoted to swipe at Haru, but she careened in an arc away from him, and around. The demon splayed his bundle of lashes into individual strands and one by one swung them wildly at the flying witch.

Haru dove, ascended, and weaved through the storm of iridescent lashes falling around her. Each tendril that missed slammed into the ground, sending powerful vibrations that caused what was left of the structure afar to crumble even more, shattered bricks falling to dust that tumbled to the ground.

“I’ll make you regret coming here!” Irae howled like a rabid dog as he turned, watching Haru dart through the air.

Opti, panting and sweating, let the tip of his sword rest against the ground. He leaned into his rectangular tower shield which was wedged between the gap of the stone bricks beneath him. He kept himself between the demon and the sibyl, who was standing statue-like, hands clasped and white robes with veil flowing

Haru thought back to engaging with the demon as her surrogate. The sibyl did something that allowed her to freely move and attack. A spark of inspiration coupled with hopeful curiosity filled her. Did the sibyl’s blessing also affect Haru in her normal form?

She ascended to give herself upward momentum, then yanked the staff out from under her and brandished it at the demon.

“Normal Attack.” Haru called out. The blue gem on her staff began to glow steadily and grew brighter by the moment. Soon after she dismounted, her upwards acceleration faded, and Haru was quickly soaring through the air, downward toward the ocean of lava beyond the destroyed throne room.

The demon’s fury eased the moment he saw the witch’s staff start to glow. The tendrils’ whipping diminished and returned to a bundle in short order, and he leaned forward, still hovering on his ashy cloud.

Haru’s attack finished charging and an azure beam exploded from the tip of her staff, taller and wider than the witch’s form. In the blink of an eye, the light closed on Irae. But just before it collided, the demon tucked his arms and dodged away. The ray slammed into the ground, and cleansed the singe marks from the tendril’s strikes, restoring the stone to their former luster.

With the flick of her wrist, Haru mounted her staff again and pulled hard to fly upwards, narrowly avoiding casting herself into the endless lake of fire that surrounded the arena. She climbed and banked, keeping herself out of range of the demon’s lashes.

Irae brayed at Haru, splaying his arms. As the witch readied to try again from a higher altitude to give herself more time to climb again, the demon smirked and looked down at the clearly exhausted Opti. Irae stopped paying attention to Haru and rushed in to charge down the legionnaire and the sibyl behind him.

The witch then abandoned her attempt and dove as hard and fast as she did when trying to enter this place. With a speed that outpaced the demon closing ground on Opti, Haru pivoted at the last moment and slowed her momentum to land on the ground next to the legionnaire, in front of the sibyl.

Haru readied another attack, but seeing the demon closing in, there wouldn’t be enough time to charge it before it bore down on them.

“What are you doing?” Opti forced himself to shout, panting and wheezing while sweating profusely.

“Buying us time.” Haru spoke flatly.

She raised her staff and then slammed the bottom upon the ground. Around them, from all directions, hexagonal tiles–light blue, materialized in the air and began to assemble themselves in a ring, centered around Haru. The area encircled both Opti and the sibyl as well. They appeared and attached to each other fast enough to create a horizontal shield. The collective pieces began to take shape. It was enclosing the three in a dome.

But Irae threw himself into the air and latched onto the gap still exposing them overhead. The hexagonal pieces continued to assemble concentrically, but the demon fought against them attaching, gripping and yanking them away with a voracious howl. Each time he whisked one into the distance, he then turned to reach down into the dome.

“Now what?” Opti shouted, his shield shaking as he struggled to keep it trained overhead.