Jack observed the battle silently.
Carana Calvadier looked very different here. Her mask of youth was slipping. Her skin appeared translucent and waxy. She held a long, fleshy whip. One that pulsated with a nauseating green light.
With every snap, the whip left trails of corrosive slime in the air. Surrounding her were dozens of her summoned eldritch bats. Creatures of shadow and teeth. Ones that shrieked with a frequency that would have burst a normal human's eardrums.
"Die, you little gnats!" The witch shrieked. Her voice was a discordant rasp.
She vanished in a puff of black smoke. Reappearing three meters behind Reina.
Reina wasn't there. There was a puff of grey smoke. She had teleported the moment the witch moved.
Reina re-appeared high in the air. Her long black hair was whipping around her face. She held her twin handguns. The barrels glowed with a soft, sanctified light.
"Nice! But still too slow." Jack commented calmly.
He was right. When Reina's handguns shot their holy rounds, the witch had already disappeared again. Leaving a puff of black smoke.
Aella was on the ground. Despite her very young age, she had proven why she was a faewitch. She didn't seem scared at all. She had faced more powerful opponent after all.
Her small face was set in a mask of grim concentration. She held the steamrune gun Jack had created for her. It was a little bit oversized for her. But she could use it very efficiently.
She didn't have Reina's grace. But she had raw, unbridled power. The highly destructive void fire, compressed into the blazing, purplish energy bullets.
Directly above her, a dozen eldritch bats dived. Their mouths opened to reveal circles of needle-sharp teeth.
Aella simply pointed her gun and fired. Tiny spheres of dark purple energy erupted from the barrel. It wasn't a clean single shot. It was a buckshot of pure, compressed void fire.
The energy expanded and hit the leading bats. WHOOSH! The bats didn't just die. They evaporated. The purple energy consumed the shadowy bats. Leaving behind nothing but the dark mist.
Aella stumbled back from the recoil. But she adeptly managed her balance. Her small boots dug into the ash without any problem. And she immediately began reloading her gun with his blazing purple energy.
On the other side, the witch snarled. She swung her whip at Reina. The whip extended. Lashing out like a living snake.
Reina disappeared in the air like a ghost. Leaving a trace of grey fog at where she was. She had used her [Absolute Blink] ability without any hesitation. Her current extended mana capacity and the improved cost-efficiency of the skill made her able to spam it without much concern.
The whip passed through the air. Hitting nothing but mist.
Reina reappeared to the left. Her handguns barked in a rhythmic pattern. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Normal bullets would have bounced off the witch's eldritch aura. But Reina was using holy rounds. Each hit caused the witch to scream. Searing white light erupted where the bullets struck. Burning away the witch's dark aura.
"You meddling bitch!" Carana screamed. She slammed her hands into the ground.
The gray ash rose up. Forming a wave of grasping skeletal hands. They surged toward Reina and Aella. At the same time, the witch summoned a fresh swarm of bats. Hundreds of them. Obscuring the sky.
Jack narrowed his eyes. He prepared to move. His hand had drawn his [Judgement Warhammer] from his system inventory. But he paused.
Reina looked toward him. Even in the chaos, she knew he was there. She offered a small, confident smirk.
She threw her arms wide. A thick, impenetrable grey fog exploded from her body. Filling the entire battle space in just a couple of seconds. This wasn't her normal fog. It was a sensory-deprivation field. A mixture of illusion and fog.
Inside the mist, the witch's screeching bats became disoriented. Its echolocation ability was twisted severely. Making them crash into one another and fall to the ashen ground.
The witch panicked. She could no longer see her prey. She teleported frantically. Appearing and disappearing in random spots. Her whip lashed out blindly.
"Where are you, Little Bitches?" She shrieked. "Come out and let me taste your marrow!"
Aella's voice came from the mist. Calm and eerie. "Over here, Ugly Granny."
The witch turned toward the voice and lashed her whip.
CLANG!
The whip hit the ground. Empty. The ones with teleportation power were not just the witch and Reina. Aella could also use it. Her voidfire power technically belonged to the category for space-time power after all. Although, well... the 'time' part was still nowhere to be seen.
Then, the mist parted for a fraction of a second. Reina was standing only three meters away from the witch. Her twin guns leveled at the witch's head.
"You pick a wrong target this time, Old Hag." Reina said. Her voice was cold, devoid of any warmth. "You shouldn't try targeting our crew member."
The witch tried to teleport.
But Reina was faster. She had anticipated her attempt and used her combined fog and illusion to lock her in place. Just for a second. But it was enough.
Reina pulled the trigger of her right-hand gun. The barrel glowed with an intense, blinding silver light. The [Holy Bullet] streaked through the air. Trailing a wake of divine judgement.
The bullet caught Carana Calvadier right in the center of her forehead.
There was no explosion. No gore. Instead, the holy energy flooded the witch's body. The stolen youth she had hoarded for decades was burned away in an instant.
Jack watched as the woman shriveled. Her skin turned into the color of parchment, then yellowed and wrinkled. Her hair fell out in clumps. Her back arched and cracked as her spine curved into a hunched, decrepit shape.
The witch let out one final, unwilling, wheezing breath... before her body hit the ground. Lifeless and ugly. Completely... dead.
With the witch's death, the [Eldritch Battle Space] began to dissolve. The bruised sky cracked and peeled away. Revealing the natural starry skies of Barrentree Island. The grey ash turned back into the rocky soil of the canyon.
Reina holstered her guns and wiped a smudge of soot from her cheek. Aella ran over to her. Hugging her waist. The little girl looked tired but exhilarated.
Jack transformed back to his human form. His hulking rakshasa body shrunk and his blazing armor turned into his usual mercenary's leather outfits.
He walked toward the two girls.
"Are you two alright?" He asked. His eyes scanned Reina and Aella for any signs of injury. Finding none other than a few scrapes.
"We're fine, Dear." Reina replied. Stepping into his space and hugged him. Leaning her head against his chest. "The old witch was annoying, but not particularly skilled. Too much reliance on her summons."
Aella looked up at Jack. Her eyes were wide with excitement. "Did you see me, Captain? I hit the big bats easily! Like... Woosh! Woosh! And they were dead. And the evil old woman couldn't touch me at all."
Jack reached down and patted the girl's head. "I saw it. You did great. Your aim is getting better. We'll work on the recoil management when we get back to the ship."
Aella beamed. Her chest swelled with pride.
Jack turned his attention to the witch's corpse. Carana Calvadier now looked like a centenarian who had been buried and dug up. Her clothes had turned into rags. Next to her body, two items pulsated with a lingering, dark energy.
He picked them up and used his [Eyes of Judgement] to check them.
The first was an artifact called the [Undeath Medallion]. It was made of dull, grey bone and felt unnervingly cold. Jack's information panel flickered.
It could maintain the wielder's youth. The usage requirement was to sacrifice an underage girl at least four times every year. And, it had a great drawback... permanent reduction in soul stability. Giving the wielder a high chance of becoming a mindless ghoul a few days after death.
"Garbage!" Jack muttered.
He looked at the corpse. Carana Calvadier was the wielder of the [Undeath Medallion]. It meant that there was a high chance for her corpse to turn into a ghoul.
Jack casually drew his [Steamrune Shotgun] from his [Spatial Belt] and twisted a dial to transform it into its flamethrower form.
"Move aside a bit, Girls!" He told the other two. "There is a chance for this corpse to turn into a ghoul. We need to cremate it."
Jack pulled the trigger. It didn't take long for the white arcane flame from the flamethrower to incinerate the dead body to ash.
He then looked at the second artifact. It was the old witch's weapon. The [Undeath Whip]. It was crafted from the spinal columns of several different creatures, stitched together with eldritch-processed human tendons.
The whip carried the curse of deadly poisons and fatal diseases. But it needed to be fed with the user's own blood every time it was used. As a result, it would slowly drain the wielder's vitality. Leading to premature aging.
"Another garbage artifact." Jack said.
He looked at the items with disdain. They were the tools of a desperate, pathetic being. One who feared the natural end of life. He didn't even have any desire to draw any spellcard from those two objects.
Reina looked at the items and wrinkled her nose. "They feel oily, Dear. I don't want them anywhere near us."
"They won't be." Jack said. He took his [Spatial Backpack] and pulled out a small, shoebox-sized wooden box from it. The [Mysterious Fish Box]. It was a strange artifact he had acquired in Whaleback Island. Capable of recycling cursed or unwanted items into [Fish Tokens].
He opened the box and tossed the medallion and the whip in it. The box rattled for a moment, then went still.
Four small, bone-like tokens popped out of a slot on the side. They featured a crude carving of a trout. Jack took them and gave Aella and Reina two tokens each.
"Yours..." Jack said. "You could exchange those things with the glitchy cat the next time we called it."
"Can we go back now?" Aella asked. Yawning. "I'm still sleepy."
"Alright. Let's go back." Jack said. He looked toward the starry sky. "We have a ruin to open tomorrow. We need our rest."
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