HIDDEN QUEST UNLOCKED!
Revival of the Witch of the Cursed Forest
Description: With her remaining strength waning, Moriah seeks a vessel. After sacrificing most of her power to rebind the Sisters of Fate, she stands at Death's Door. Your survival provides an opportunity for her rebirth, escape from the Tower, and vengeance upon the god she holds responsible. Her aim: to use your body as a Vessel.
Task Objective: Kill Moriah before the spell she cast upon you takes over your body completely.
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Quest cannot be declined, it has been automatically accepted.
"Typical of a witch bitch," he muttered.
The moment the system confirmed the quest on its own, a jagged streak of sickly green light lanced toward him, a hex, he noted to himself, recognizing the general structure of the spell as it shot toward him.
He twisted sideways, narrowly avoiding the hex as it splashed against the bark of the tree behind him. Within seconds, it withered and turned into ash.
Moriah's face was now expressionless, but her eyes burned like smoldering coals. She raised her hands, vines cracking through the earth at her command, thorned and dripping with resin.
"It's always the super hot ones that are evil," Deacon growled, flicking his blades forward.
Flame Armament.
His short swords lit up instantly, one wreathed in a thick ribbon of fire, the other already sweating droplets of venom down its edge.
He wasn't sure why he'd been wreathing his short swords in both properties at the same time, as that would have been incredibly mana taxing to do so, as the heat would destroy the poison, causing him to use more mana to recreate it.
Mycelian Grasp responded, tendrils tightened around his left hilt, exhaling faint clouds of glowing spore mist.
Probably the work of this forest, something messing with my head, Deacon theorized, thinking back on how he'd fought. I was a mess against Flesh Golem Liam... and those other creatures. Could it have been their blood? Did it trigger this sudden mental decline? It would make sense if that was the case, and something Moriah or the Fates did to them in order to make me more agreeable to becoming a vessel of sorts.
The forest shuddered, and not metaphorically speaking, as roots shifted beneath him and trees groaned.
"IGNIS!" Deacon barked, hurling a ball of flame in her direction.
Moriah swept her hand sideways, leaves curved unnaturally in the air, forming a spinning shield of leaves and wind. The fire broke across it, scattering into glowing embers.
Then she was in front of him.
Deacon was barely able to cross his blades in time as her right hand lunged at his neck. Sparks flew into the air as her palm, which was now revealed to be covered in writhing runes that slithered across her skin, met his steel blades with extreme overwhelming force. His boots tore grooves in the dirt as he skidded backward, barely holding his ground.
With another flick of her wrist, thorns lanced from the ground in his direction.
Deacon jumped and, in the air, he twisted, flames coiling from his blade and slamming downward in a wide arc.
The arc of flame crashed downward, carving a smoldering scar into the forest floor, but Moriah wasn't there.
She reappeared behind him, her presence vanishing from the forest before reappearing moments before impact. A jagged blade that looked to be made from corded vine and bone formed in her hand before it darted toward his spine.
Deacon twisted himself mid-fall, one short sword whipping up just in time to catch the edge, but its force still sent him tumbling into the dirt back-first. The impact rattled his head and knocked the wind out of his lungs.
[System Notification]
Witch's Vessel Countdown – 24%
Remaining Duration before spell completion: Estimated 4 Minutes
There's a fucking timer? Deacon mentally shouted to himself as the System Notification suddenly popped up in the corner of his eyes. And you tell me this now?
"Still trying?" Moriah asked, drifting above the ground, her hair floating like water, her eyes dimming and brightening in flickers. "What you're doing is quite foolish, young hero, just accept the inevitable and offer your body to me, I do not wish to harm my vessel any more than I have to."
"Yeah," Deacon coughed, spitting out a dried wad of blood as he rolled away. "I'm stupid like that. Besides wasn't your whole MO about denying shit like this?"
She didn't respond to his words. Instead, she raised her hand into the air again, sigils carving themselves into the air in front of her. In response, Deacon hurled one of his daggers at her without hesitation.
The dagger shot through the air, crossing the twenty-meter distance between them in less than a second and a half.
Moriah leaped backwards, escaping the arcing dagger's range as it whizzed past her.
Her eyes followed its trajectory somewhat. "Desperate throwing already?"
"Not really," Deacon growled, already moving.
He used the distraction, closing the distance with a short burst of speed. His right short sword was already ignited with Flame Armament, the tendrils of Mycelian Grasp wrapped around the hilt of his left short sword, oozing a steady drip of greenish venom down the steel, ready to bloom inside her bloodstream the second he got a clean cut.
He slashed upward from a low angle, aiming to carve across her exposed ribs.
Moriah raised her arm to block, but the witch's defensive enchantments and spells could only handle so much in their extremely weakened state. Her "human" skin cracked, creating spiderweb-like thin cracks along her forearm as Deacon's dual short swords bit into her arm, revealing to him that, in contrast to her appearance, she was not human.
However, instead of reacting to the dual short swords biting into her arm, Moriah unleashed the spell she was casting.
A violent gust of wind knocked Deacon back mid-step, which was quickly followed by a second wave of wind, far more compressed than the one before, that slammed into his chest like a battering ram and forcefully sent him backwards.
As he stabbed one of his short swords into the ground to prevent himself from being pushed any further, however, just as he stabilized himself, he barely ducked in time just as a thin spear of wood shot past his head and embedded in a tree behind him with a heavy thunk.
Deacon dropped low, rolling to his side as a second thin spear of wood tore through the air and embedded itself beside the first thin spear of wood. He came up on one knee, teeth gritted, and flipping both of his short swords to be held in reverse grip.
Moriah's form flickered; she was panting now, visibly unsteady in the air. Her arm, the one he'd struck, was trembling and mottled with sickly green veins from the poison threading through her blood. Her left eye twitched unnaturally, blinking out of sync with the other.
"You're fading out," Deacon said, voice steady despite the dull ache spreading through his ribs from the wind-blast. "The longer this goes on the shittier it is for you to keep going."
"No," she hissed, vines lashing down from the canopy above like vipers. "The longer this goes, the better it is for me, why do you think you haven't died yet. In three minutes, my soul gets transferred into your body."
For fuck's sake, Deacon groaned as he threw himself sideways as the vines struck where he'd just been kneeling. Dirt erupted around him. Mid-roll, he hurled a second dagger, this time at her injured side.
Moriah caught it with her wind magic, but the effort made her wince. The veins were spreading.
Deacon noticed this and charged forward. Poison seems to be extremely effective against her. Nice!
She tried to retreat again, levitating back with a swirl of petals and smoke, but her right foot dragged behind her, unaffected by her levitation spell.
He closed in.
"Flame Armament."
His right blade ignited again with a roar of orange light as the spell's effects had run out moments ago. This time he didn't swing recklessly, instead, he feinted high, baiting her shield spell into flaring across her shoulder, then spun low and drove his poisoned blade toward her hip.
It connected.
She let out a scream as his poisoned blade was shoved into her body.
Her hand slammed down on his chest. His vision went spotty for a moment as her palm burned through his armor and into his skin.
Deacon headbutted her.
Her skull cracked against his head with a satisfying thunk, and for just a heartbeat, her magic broke.
They both staggered back, blood now trailing from her mouth, while Deacon wheezed, his chest smoking where her spell had struck. He glanced down and saw black, flaking spots spreading across his skin like rot.
Fuck! His eyes widened. Necro hex.
Without hesitation, he leapt backward, tossed his right sword into his left hand, now gripping both blades, and summoned Ignis into his right palm. With a grunt, he slammed the burning hand against his chest and felt the searing pain of the necrotic hex being burnt off his flesh.
Deacon let out a silent shout as he clenched his teeth down from the pain, but he didn't stop until the smell of scorched flesh overpowered the scent of necrotic rot. The blackened flakes on his chest that were growing were now crumbling into ash and falling to the ground.
How fucked is my luck to be facing a hex witch right now? Deacon heaved, and he pushed himself upwards with his hands on his knees. I need to buy a hex pouch the next chance I get.
Across from him, Moriah stood unsteady, both arms trembling, her corrupted blood still pulsing from the wound in her hip. The poison had taken root. Her eyes flickered, struggling to focus, and her left hand spasmed with each breath.
And yet… she laughed.
"Do you even know that the longer this goes, the better it is for me?" she whispered, voice crackling like dry leaves. "You're not stopping this, Deacon. You're just dragging your own soul deeper into my roots, in two minutes, you become mine."
[System Notification]
Witch's Vessel Countdown – 48%
Remaining Duration before spell completion: Estimated 2 Minutes
"I don't give a shit what it completes," Deacon snarled, forcing himself to stand. "If I'm going down, I'm dragging your fine ass into the dirt with me."
He flicked his blades upwards, back into his normal grip, and darted forward. He knew she'd try to keep her distance this time as her body was giving out, judging by how it was flickering.
He closed the last few meters in a blur of speed, sliding low again, but this time, instead of slashing, he jabbed forward with the poisoned blade, aiming for her already-wounded arm to worsen the venom's spread.
It was a glancing hit, but it landed, albeit barely, and it was enough to pierce into her skin.
Her reaction was immediate.
She shrieked in pain, and the sigils she had been creating invisibly in the air exploded outward like shattered glass and rained down around them both. Unlike Deacon, who was distracted by the exploded sigils that rained down at them and attempting to get away from them, Moriah was unaffected by her own spell's implosion.
Vines erupted from the ground, grabbing Deacon and tightening around his ankles and calves. As they twisted, thorns began to dig into his leather armor, trying to root him in place.
[System Notification]
Witch's Vessel Countdown – 83%
Remaining Duration before spell completion: Estimated 1 Minute
"I was merciful," she hissed, eyes glowing brighter again, wild with fury. "I offered you legacy, life, purpose–!"
"I already have a purpose," Deacon growled, hacking downward with both blades to sever the vines. "And dying to some two-bit hooker isn't it."
His dual short swords slashed downwards, one after the other, tearing through the last of the writhing vines that attempted to hold him down. But as he hacked through the last of the vines, he noticed that their blades weren't sharp; they had dulled from the previous fight and from how many of the vines he'd been hacking away.
Poison still oozed atop their blades, but it wouldn't matter if his blades couldn't get inside her bloodstream.
He glanced upwards.
Her body jerked and staggered around like some drunk imp as the poison from Mycelian Grasp was finally inching toward her weakening heart.
[System Notification]
Witch's Vessel Countdown – 92%
Remaining Duration: 45 Seconds
I need something better than this, my dual short swords are too dull to deal any damage other than poison, Deacon thought to himself just before his eyes snapped to the side, then widened.
Just a few feet away, partially buried under tangled roots and corpses, was the corpse of a cadet he killed in wave 8. The flesh golem's corpse still gripped its axe in one hand and a tower shield in the other.
A grin split Deacon's face as he sprinted forward. Perfect.
The vines under the control of Moriah were now sluggish as they whipped toward him Deacon. She'd used all the strength within her disgustingly weakened form, the System had created with her shade to bind the Three Sisters of Fate, and as a result of pushing herself beyond her limits, her form was now flickering between states of corporeal and spectral.
Deacon yanked the axe free from the corpse's swollen left hand, and as he gripped the weapon in both hands, flames burst to life around the blade as he channeled Flame Armament atop it.
The steel axe's blade steamed for a second before becoming wreathed in flames just as Moriah's eyes snapped open and slowly began to move as though she were reading a line of text, before snapping towards him.
"No, we are–!" she cried as a sense of fear overtook her form, her arm raised out in front of her, palm facing him.
Deacon roared as he leapt forward, swinging the flaming axe in a brutal, overswinging arc that easily sliced through her neck and sent her head flying into the air, for a few seconds before thudding onto the floor and bursting into flame along with the rest of her body.
*[Moriah – Hidden Floor Boss Lv 10] has been slain – XP has been given.*