Chapter 21
The Woeful Witch
Wael the Forsaken [Mythological Figure / Corrupted]
Age: 17
Lineage: Commoner
Origins: Highwall Castle, Earstwar Kingdom
Class: [Void Witch]
Description: Motherless and fatherless, Wael's earliest memories were of the castle's snow-laden soil and her toiling away to clear the abattoir. In the fleshly dregs, unlike others, she found comfort and peace; it was as though they were whispering to her, cradling her in the warmth she so desperately desired. She was an unordinary, working wench until the age of 12 when the High Lord Commander of the Highwall Castle noticed her and brought her to be a live-in maid for his daughter, Young Lady Priscilla. For a moment, Wael dared dream that her designs had changed and that fate had spun its wheel, and that its loom wove a kinder life for her. Alas, it was not meant to be.
Priscilla wasn't kind--on the contrary, she was cruel, sadistic, and perpetually angry, with Wael becoming a frequent target. In the wells of humiliation, naked, bruised, and lain on the cold, frosted soil for others to mock, she heard a voice--a voice that truly changed her fate.
In the 9th year of King Thomas III's rule over the Earstwar Kingdom, a letter arrived that detailed the horror they discovered upon inspection of the Highwall Castle that had gone silent for six months. There were corpses everywhere, some hung from the castle walls, some stacked into piles like hay, some yet scorched and torched beyond recognition. High Lord Commander lay disemboweled on his bed, his daughter, Young Lady Priscilla stuffed whole inside of him. Though he himself had not witnessed it, the description alone haunted King Thomas in his nightmares for years to come.
As for who the devil behind the Highwall Castle’s Purge was... nobody knew. Only whispers of the Dark One surged, but not for long.
The Castle, alongside all those who died within, was burned to the ground and was marked as a Forbidden Area for everyone, lest they, too, become ashes of the unspoken devil.
There was a lot to process, Asher mused briefly.
Compared to Rawen's brief bio which largely detailed a long life in succinct bullet points, Wael's was a hodgepodge of odd details, indulgent slobbery, and mystique that warranted a secondary look after blinking. And yet the weirdest detail of them all came at the very start--supposedly, this tentacle-armed creature with a featureless face and lips where breasts were, was only 17 years old.
Asher was uncertain about the significance behind all of this information that he was being fed--not just information about Rawen and Wael, but also things like spells, Callings, and artifacts. It was as though the ‘game’ was trying to build its world through item descriptions, mythology, and significant figures, but the issue was that Asher... couldn’t see or access that world. To him, these words meant nothing, as he had no frame of reference for them.
The Earstwar Kingdom was perhaps rather important to whatever 'world' he was being described, but to him, it was just a random name with no connotations. He didn't exist in the Earstwar Kingdom. In fact, he existed nowhere near it and knew nothing of it.
It was strange, yet for some reason, Asher felt it wasn’t without a point. There had to have been some lucidity to the ‘people’ who were feeding him this information.
Though both Wael and Rawen, to some extent, were figures wrought in tragedy, Asher could hardly find it in himself to feel sympathy as they were trying to kill him. Other than that, their backstories, strange as they were, felt... misplaced, almost. But they were there, and they were there for a reason.
“Jesus, this bitch ain’t right,” Myra broke the silence suddenly, sucking in a cold breath. “She stuffed a kid into the daddy’s body ‘cause, what, she was kinda bullied? Damn. She ain’t right in the head.”
You ain’t right in the head, Asher held back the comment.
The only piece of information that seemed relevant to Asher's current circumstances were the 'Classes'; he supposed, if arbitrarily, that the 'Classes' were, in essence, a variation of the Callings. Meaning that, perhaps, the bosses they were fighting were previews of the possible Callings they might be offered in the future. But even so, it all felt so... pointless.
“A’right. I’m ready. You ready? Ready to kick the big-ass teeth into the bitch’s big-ass tit mouth?” Myra asked.
“... ready,” Asher replied.
“I’mma take the front and her aggro, y’know? You just fuck her up from the back. Fuck her up real good.”
“Alright.”
“Man, you sure as shit ain’t saying much.” she scoffed as the world slowly unpaused.
The tentacles began to writhe and the woman’s figure bent to the side strangely, appearing misshapen. Myra rushed forward, swinging her sword and leaving a deluge of afterimages behind. Arrays of swordlight blast forth, kicking up dirt and stirring the wind, but Wael seemed wholly unperturbed by it.
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A banshee-like scream suddenly shook the world as the tentacle arms slammed to the side, destroying all swordlights in a singular motion. At the same time, black vortexes began appearing within a hundred-yard radius. They were small, perhaps window-sized, spinning unto themselves, their edges faintly fading in and out of existence.
From within then, ghastly-looking arms sprung out with the elasticity of a rubber, twining toward both Myra and him.
It was also then that his flutter of spells reached Wael, bombarding her from all sides. The figure screeched yet again as something jaw-dropping began to unfold--the woman’s chest-maw began to jut open outwardly, seemingly consuming everything else in a big gulp as the figure itself vanished right as the salvo of spells landed.
Asher used Vanishment immediately, turning into a bundle of chaotic energy just in time to be besieged by a thousand tentacles that swarmed out of a massive maw that appeared above his head. They lashed like mad but dealt virtually no damage as he escaped their clutches. At the same time, Myra came flying in, slashing about violently and cutting through the many tentacles as though she were cutting through grass.
Flesh and blood rained down as the figure of a woman shot out of the massive maw that then twined back into the woman’s chest; it was a macabre sight to behold, but Asher had seen many such sights just today alone that it hardly fazed him. Myra, on the other hand, seemed entirely too immune to everything, deriving joy seemingly only out of hacking away at flesh and bones.
Wael, staggeringly, had 5,000 Health.
It was an insane amount, stacking up to nearly 1,000 of some monsters combined, but what hurt even more was that she was rather apt at dodging and even that her defenses were rather strong, as all Asher’s spells seemed to deal about 30% less damage than they did to the monster.
There was also the added issue of him not being able to Level-up any longer, missing that temporary boost of 3 spells that would be rather helpful right now.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t as though she was impossibly difficult to hurt; with Myra’s relentless hacking and his relentless bombardment of spells, it took them about a minute to deal 500 damage.
Wael, for the most part, used her tentacles to lash out at Myra who cut through them, and using that teleport ability and aiming it at Asher every 30 seconds or so.
Unfortunately, he no longer had the luxury of having Vanishment up every few seconds, so the next time he saw the maw open up above him, he took a risk and ran out of the range as fast as he could without using Vanishment. He ended up taking 14 damage in the end, causing him to sigh. It was on the very edge of acceptable--however, considering that he would no longer be able to gain shield from the Vampiric Desires.
With the few HP upgrades he grabbed on the way, he had 45 Health in total, certainly not a small amount. Furthermore, with the artifact’s effect and his own baseline, though rather negligible, HP regeneration, he could restore his Health back up to full if the ability’s interval didn’t change.
Fuck it; it’s better to save Vanishment for something worse. She’s drawn us into a lull... there’s no way she’ll only have 1 basic attack and 1 teleport ability. Worse is coming.
He almost cursed himself out at that moment since it seemed his thoughts directly jinxed them--Wael's banshee scream was so robust that it sent Myra flying backward for nearly twenty yards. At the same time, the featureless face began to 'spawn' eyes, beginning with one, until there were hundreds of irises dashing around the bulging sockets. All eyes were hollow-seeming, cloaked in shadows and blood, obsidian like her gown in hue.
Just as he was wondering what the ‘spell’ was, the eyes began to weep--and they wept blood. At the same time, the sky above darkened seemingly out of nowhere, donning a hue far more shadow-cast than the simple ashen one it had gotten from the repeated dust storms.
Clouds began to roll it and, like sponges overflowing, began to drip scarlet droplets--it wasn't long before the few droplets turned into a downpour of blood that soaked everything. Strangely, though, it seemed to have no negative effects on Myra and him outside of just looking nausea-inducing. Which meant--
"--it's a buff," Myra licked her now-blooded lips, causing Asher to nearly throw up. The woman had a corkscrew lodged where a notion of common sense existed. "A'right, you eye-infested bitch. Let's see what you got, ha ha ha~~"
With roaring laughter, Myra dashed forward wildly, swinging her sword once again.
Wael, on the other hand, stayed still for a moment before all eyes abruptly closed. At the same time, spacetime behind Myra squirmed strangely, seemingly writhing as it split open from the inside out like a pimple. From within, a tentacle sprung and lashed against Myra's back, slashing open a massive wound that sprayed blood. However, in the midst of the red rain, it was barely visible.
Oddly, Myra didn’t cry out in pain, simply immediately spinning backward and cutting through the tentacle in one swift motion. Rather than a look of anguish he anticipated to see, she sported one of elation, joy, and ecstasy.
A volley of chaotic spears was repelled and the motes of chaos spawned some eighty yards from Wael, once again proving to Asher that he should not have chosen this path.
What helped a little was the change in the original passive effect of his staff--now that he was facing the boss, he no longer fired the extra projectiles but instead had 300% more attack speed. If the cannonade of spears before was impressive, right now it was enthralling. All the same, he was dissatisfied.
He suddenly saw -23 appear in his peripheral and felt scalding pain rush from his back; terrified, he activated Vanishment by instinct and rushed away, glancing back and seeing the exact same rip in spacetime that appeared behind Myra. In fact, another one just appeared near him, slashing out with the tentacle. Luckily, Vanishment was still active so he took only -1 damage, but if he was of flesh and bone... he would have died. In just two hits.
The more he looked around, the more terrified he got--around Myra, he saw at least six almost imperceptible points at which the space wagged and twitched unnaturally.
“DUCK!!!!” he roared as loudly as he could as soon as he left Vanishment, his eyes roaming around looking for others. He spotted one just before it broke open to his left; like mad, he dashed opposite of it, barely leaving its range as it ruptured.
Myra, too, seemed to have instinctively listened to him and ducked, dodging four tentacles that ripped at her. Her sword quickly found them and destroyed them.
“Yo’, thanks!” she didn’t even look his way, continuing to besiege the boss. They, somehow, managed to shave 300 more Health in the meantime, fighting for their lives along the way. He was rather thankful to the ‘system’ that allowed him to focus on surviving while it fired of spells. Though it was probably more optimal to do what Myra was doing--manually fight without any assistance--he didn’t need optimal. He just needed to live.
“How dost thou dare, thou pitiful vermin? I shall not permit thee! I shall suffer not any to harm me more! She vowed, she spake—she spake that I would be liberated! Do not dare shackle me! Allow me freedom!” she spat out violently.
At the same time, a pillar of crimson-red shot down from the sky like a beam, swarming her as Myra was forced backward once more.
“Just how many fuckin’ stages this bitch has got?!!” Myra cussed. Even Asher, as tired of her tongue as he was, could only agree. If she got two new abilities every 15% Health, wouldn’t she be firing as many spells per second as Asher was firing spears by the end? Even thinking about it caused him to shudder... so he stopped.
There was no point in thinking that far--all he could do, all he had to do, was simply survive. Everything else was just a distraction--a distraction he couldn’t afford.