Streams of fire licked at my arms, a bright, burning conflagration of orange and red that spun and warped into a building roar of flames which coalesced into my palms with the heat of the sun.
The Leshy's mask trembled with a terrible groan at the heat, but it didn't stop in its charge to skewer me. Similarly, I valued my life too much to not go through with this.
The dark forest flared with light for a moment, before a large explosion of heat and fire rolled through the gaps of the woods. The Leshy was instantly pulled into the firestorm I had created, its wooden body loudly creaking as the branches which made its body began to snap and curl.
[-][===][-]
|| [Damage Dealt!] ||
|| [Weakness to fire noted] ||
|| [Damage is multiplied by [x2] ||
|| [Creature is Corrupted! Strength of Fire Boosted! [+75%] and [+50%] From Aspect…[Designation]: [Daybreak]…Calculating Damage…] ||
|| [-700HP x 2 x 125% = -1750HP!] ||
|| [Debuff][Scorch]-[Activated] ||
|| [-][===][-]
For a single moment, I thought that it was dead.
That was my mistake.
From the fire, and through the dark, a ghastly visage of miasma and smoke erupted. I had a single second to look up as it spiralled through the air, before it dispersed with a great gust of wind, and reshaped itself into the Leshy.
The Leshy, which was now falling towards me.
"Shit!" I swore, literally jumping away from where I had been standing. It was a good thing that I did, because not a moment later, it crashed into the exact spot I had been standing.
I pushed myself to stand, scraping my arms and legs against roots and thorns which hadn't existed before. 'Blasted nature spirit!'
"Hey! Why are you attacking me?! I haven't disrespected this forest once!" I shouted, as heat began to boil through my skin and twist into flames.
It was surreal enough that a mythological creature I had once studied was real. But fighting it without any true reason rubbed me the wrong way. From what I knew, Leshy were trickster spirits, who only punished those who disrespected a forest.
The Leshy stopped for a second, its smouldering form almost flinching at my words as its entire body locked up, as if some primal part of itself was awakening to remember its purpose.
It lasted for all of a second, before, with a bestial growl that echoed through the forest, it charged at me again.
'I guess words are useless here…is this because I got annoyed with the tree roots? It can't be that serious.' Then again, this was a nature spirit. Any slight, small or large against a forest would be deserving of punishment from them.
The fire I had been rapidly building exploded from my palms again, a brilliant inferno which swallowed the Leshy again and brought light to the forest. As before, the System notified me of the damage I had caused.
And as before, the same twisting miasma of smoke came barrelling out of the fire. Except, this time, it wasn't heading upwards, but towards me.
My feet shifted, and my arms rose into the familiar form of [Imperial Dawn]. The Leshy appeared before me, its height looming over me as the forest once did, and one of its claws already swiping through the air.
I barely stepped out of its range, avoiding the smoking appendage, and within the same second, lunged forward. Almost on instinct alone, fire coalesced around my right fist, and with all the strength I had within me, I struck its wooden arm.
The fire which had built in my hand didn't surge nor did it explode.
It vaporized.
It almost didn't feel like fire. It wasn't the same wild, and untamed hammer which overwhelmed. Really, it felt almost surgical, pressurized and focused. It reminded me of lightning.
[-][===][-]
|| [Damage Dealt!] ||
|| [Weakness to fire noted] ||
|| [Damage is multiplied by [x2] ||
|| [Creature is Corrupted! Strength of Fire Boosted! [+75%] and [+50%] From Aspect…[Designation]: [Daybreak]…Calculating Damage…] ||
|| [-1200HP x 2 x 125% = -3000HP!] ||
|| [-][===][-] ||
The Leshy's arm, made entirely of darkened wood that sizzled with tiny embers, snapped and burnt to nothing. Though, the fire didn't stop there. Through my fist, it came out as more of a beam of fire that cut through its waist, leaving a gaping, steaming hole.
The creature released a terrible scream, before its body turned into vapor once again and it moved to escape from me.
It created distance between us that we both needed.
An idea began to form in my head, as I tracked where the Leshy moved. My foot ignited with fire, and using the movements of [Imperial Dawn] I slashed through the air with my leg, pushing more Mana into the fire to release a tidal wave of sizzling flames.
The Leshy screamed as it reformed, a howl of pain ripping itself into existence as its entire body was once again ignited.
[-][===][-]
|| [Damage Dealt!] ||
|| [Weakness to fire noted] ||
|| [Damage is multiplied by [x2] ||
|| [Creature is Corrupted! Strength of Fire Boosted! [+75%] and [+50%] From Aspect…[Designation]: [Daybreak]…Calculating Damage…] ||
|| [-400HP x 2 x 125% = -1000HP!] ||
|| [-][===][-] ||
Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough to kill it.
Seriously, just how many Health Points did this thing have?
Its left arm, the one which I had attacked and destroyed, rose high into the air, above the flames which licked at its torso, and it roared.
Not a scream of pain, but a roar of something more.
'I have a bad feeling about this.'
I began to create fire once again, the familiar warmth surging through my arms and fist. Whatever it was doing, I wasn't about to allow it to happen.
Unfortunately for me, it was already too late. I just hadn't realized it.
The forest itself came to life around me, and as I sent another wave of untamed and wild flames through the woods, such a fact became all the more prominent.
Because, instead of hitting the Leshy, my flames clashed harmlessly into a twisted, and knotted wall of wood that rose from the ground itself. They didn't even burn from the heat and seamlessly parted my fire in every direction that wasn't the Leshy.
'This is going to be a problem.' With the way it had fought me so far, I had entirely forgotten that one of the abilities of a Leshy was the manipulation of not only wood, but trees and roots too.
The wall before me shook, before several splinters cracked through its body and surged...into itself?
My confusion didn't linger for long, as the wooden wall broke, and from behind it, the Leshy appeared. Except, where it had once been a thin, stick like figure, now, it was bulkier, thicker and almost resembled a tree.
Its crown of horns had grown larger, with most of them now becoming twisted, and in place of its missing hand, now sat a gigantic axe of sharpened wood that even from here, I could see was the size of my body.
I took a quick glance at my stat page, zeroing in on my Mana Points.
[-][===][-]
|| [MP]: [325/1200] ||
[-][===][-]
'Oh, I am so screwed.'
The Leshy growled at me, a deeper, more monstrous sound from before, and I realised it was mocking me. It raised the giant axe it had for a hand and pointed it directly at me. The message was quite clear for me to understand.
'I guess it's time to show my secret technique.'