The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Chapter 95: To Simply Kill You

Chapter 95: To Simply Kill You

You won’t get away.

Fire climbed up the side of the tower in a mad dash for that vermin.

“Wow, that’s quite dangerous.” He ran up the tower to dodge the spreading flame, leaping from left to right as flames reached to grab him.

I hang on to the wall, standing on the hole in the wall.

“Ergh, that was unpleasant.” Jordan got back up and climbed besides me, and potential thoughts about attacking were definitely put outside after being jumped by another party.

The bastard's surprise attack had happened fast. 

I wasn’t sure what skill allowed him to break through the tower’s walls, but with how quickly it destroyed solid matter, it was dangerous and added another reason to not allow him to get a close-range attack on me. We were still within the inner barrier that surrounded the tower, which made space tight and manoeuvring hard, but the insect was managing. 

The first thing I did was launch a [Hungering Flame] up the tower to chase the bastard. [Hungering Flame] wasn’t a magic skill I used often, it had a limitation of the flames being required to travel across a surface, and they only stretched so far, which our current combat arena met. It was a little mentally taxing compared to my other skills, surprisingly, and I was forced to feel the flames searching for prey and travelling across surfaces and everything it burned. As an upside, it wasn't as expensive as directly controlling a flame to track a target. 

Jordan asked, “Do you have any plans? Because I would like to give him a nasty swing with my axe.”

I question, “Are you fine being the follow-up?” It was best to understand the roles in this fight beforehand.

He commented, “I did always prefer being the supporter.”

I looked up, my flames were increasing in size but still weren’t doing anything. “Good, strike when the opportunity looks good and when you are sure to guarantee a hit.” 

“Yikes, strike requirements, even my boss was nicer.”

“You are welcome to leave.”

“No, I’ll be back up.” He stepped back to be more out of view.

“Good.” I used [Burst] to move up the side of the tower. Being outside on the side of the tower was going to come with some resource costs as I had no easy method of flight or sticking to the tower like Mr. Spider here.

[Fire Arrow][Flame Barrage]. 

A dozen [Fire Arrows] were summoned behind me, and thousands of tiny sparks were created that flew in the fire. 

“Now you are showing up, I was honestly getting bored, so I was going to come down and say hello.”

I created another Starlight spear and swung as I [Burst] up close, my arrows firing as did.

“Fisity and crazy, huh.” He would not shut up. From the flames that chased us, the [Flame Barrage] sparks flew out to attack him.

He clearly saw the sparks and simply ignored them, letting his armour tank the damage. Then he flipped out of the way of my spear.

Damn, he is fast.

He recognised and deemed them no threat, they weren’t a strong attack, but damage to equipment is still damage, he could’ve easily dodged that. His armour must be better than I first thought.

I quickly formed one [Scorch Extinction] dark orange ball of flames and chucked it.

The ball flew towards the vermin’s feet. Brief moments before landing, his body flashed a gold light.

Crash! Woosh! 

A massive pillar of flames exploded out in every direction, eyes from everywhere would be looking at what was going on.

I could feel the heat that generated on my armour as I was close to the blast, but I had created a wall of flames with the spreading and growing [Hungering Flame] to offset the strike along with controlling the flames of the attack to weaken towards me. Due to how powerful and fast the explosion was, I couldn’t just cancel all the flames headed in my direction.

However, my attack was likely ineffective. I saw it moments before it exploded; in a blur of light, his body zipped in multiple directions at once. Some of those images caught in the flames, but after the light faded, there was only one of him–unharmed.

He laughed, “Come on, you can’t catch me with mere fire.” He touched his index and thumb together and put the circle over where his eye would be under the helmet. “Wow! I’ve never seen such a lopsided list of Fire and Sun skills. I know it’s known for destruction and damage, but what? Are you a pyromaniac or something?”

Tch! Espr, how about Soul Page blocking?! 

The majority of my [Blazing Solar] magic skills were just different variants of burning stuff. Useful as I tended to have the right method to burn something, but also bad as I was lacking many supporting skills that I knew existed and which I even tried to create. 

My [Starlight] magic skills made up for somewhat, but I was still lacking compared to a normal person’s toolkit. I never understood why, even with how much I wished, I never got certain skills I wanted, but I learned to deal with it.

(“ It is hidden, he just got a peek at one skill ”)

Which apparently was my entire list of [Blazing Solar] magic skills?!

(“ It’s fine, due to his own skills condition, he won’t be able to use it on you again ”)

Still, why didn’t you stop it?

Espr laughed. 

(“ Actually, it shouldn’t have worked on you in the first place, even without my protection, I just allowed it to happen ”)

Why did you–oh I see. Thank you for that.

Realising Espr actually did me a massive favour, I thanked it, even if it gave up some information to the enemy. 

I allowed myself to dive into the flames, pouring more mana into them to increase their intensity.

From all directions, different constructs of fire were launched towards the bug, he jumped and deflected and only got struck by a few of the ever-constant strikes.

With a Starlight spear in hand, I charged in from behind, he twirled and grabbed a black arrow from his belt and used it to block the attack.

“Well–”

I interrupted him during our clash, and removed all anger from my voice and said, “Hello, Thomas.”

“ —oOh?” He didn’t show any anger. An invisible force centring on him pushed me back, I didn’t resist, I could feel it was going to be harmful. He continued, “Surprised you knew about that.

I [Burst] back onto the tower, and with Starlight chains and spikes, swung around to get close as the fire flowed back in towards him.

“I’ve been tasked to investigate you specifically.” I lied. I summoned numerous [Fire Arrows] behind me, each ready to be launched at a moment. “And I mean, out of everyone, you are far and away the most noisy.”

“Argh…. So true.” He scratched the back of his helmet, acting embarrassed. “I’m going to get another scolding, sigh.” 

“Still, I didn’t think I was that bad.” His voice was cold. “I make sure to leave no witnesses.”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you were the best at leaving no evidence.”

My flames danced around us as we made repeated jabs at each other. I kept my eye on the arrows and used [Starlight Mapping] to keep track of Jordan's position.

“So, chasing me down, looking to capture me?” He asked in a cutesy voice, “Looking to poke me for some annnswers?” 

I threw the arrowless Starlight spear.

“No, I’m here to simply kill you.”

He flipped out the second arrow and used it to deflect the attack, then raised both in a combat stance. “So much hate, it’s not worth capturing you for questioning.”