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Dark tendrils lined the walls, all of them semi-ethereal as they sought not to physically attack people but leave them with some odd dark affliction that wasn’t a curse but seemed a lot like a curse. This particular affliction did damage and fucked with your senses, throwing them for a loop. Jake could definitely feel the roots of the magic in the dark affinity, but outside of that, he had no idea what he was dealing with.

“Hexes, try to avoid them. They are difficult to dispel,” Dina warned after Sylphie was hit and proceeded to smash into a wall as she became unable to tell up from down.

Okay, so they were dealing with hexes. Great.

Jake tried to claim the upper hand right off the bat when the fight had begun and activated Arcane Awakening at the stable 30%. The Sword Saint and Fallen King had also joined him – with Sylphie trying but getting hit by another few tendrils.

The first barrage of arrows released from Jake got blocked by a black disc of pure energy that popped into existence not close to the witch, but only five or so meters in front of Jake, making him nearly blow himself up if he hadn’t reacted fast enough to make all the arrows stable.

It wasn’t like the old man or Fallen King did much better. Rainclouds began to condense all around the room, but dark magic instantly influenced them, and the rainclouds became clouds of black smoke that flew toward the swordsman and encircled him.

Out of all of them, the Fallen King did have the greatest success as he released a golden wave of force that the Dark Witch seemingly couldn’t do much to influence. Yet the moment it was about to strike, the witch seemed to just disappear into nothingness, leaving nothing more than a pile of black smudge behind that absorbed the Fallen King’s golden wave.

Within the first ten seconds, it was established this fight would be annoying, and in the following minute, it was made extremely clear it would be very annoying. They were caught within the domain of a witch, one she had spent more than a century in. And it showed as their party found themselves bombarded by magic from all sides. Magic of varying kinds, from simple black bolts to odd hexes that did nothing but try and mess with you in some way. The Sword Saint even ended up getting hit by one that just made everything smell like absolute shit.

However, it wasn’t all bad.

“She is running out of energy or at least spells,” Dina said through their Golden Mark. “Look, the runes on the wall are fading with every second.”

“And her mind clearly isn’t all there,” the Sword Saint added.

Jake had to agree. The spellcasting was complicated due to its inherent nature, and yet it felt sloppy and clearly not performed by someone with a plan. Usually, the most annoying opponent was someone who could string attacks together and claim momentum. This Dark Witch just threw everything and the kitchen sink at them, hoping something would hit them in the head. What was kind of weird was how her focus obviously shifted from Jake, Sylphie, and the Fallen King throughout the fight, instead focusing nearly all of her offensive magic on the Sword Saint and Dina.

This did confuse them initially until Jake realized why.

“You two are the only ones affected by the Karmic Plague.”

Sylphie and the Fallen King were considered monsters and thus immune, while Jake had Palate of the Malefic Viper, which he had already used to remove any semblance of the plague from his body.

“Great, good to know,” the Sword Saint grumbled as he found himself surrounded by odd eye-shaped objects that didn’t look like they were doing anything except just staring at him menacingly.

The old man sent out an omnidirectional cut, making everything warp around him as he pushed away the eyes, only to find several of them appearing again, this time covering his sword and robe, freaking him out a little. Dina cast some spell on him that made the eyes instantly disappear, but this only seemed to pull the attention on her.

Sylphie and the Fallen King tried to do something to the Dark Witch, but she was seemingly impossible to lock down. To make matters worse, the dark aura in the room wasn’t just there to limit visibility and enhance her own magic. Jake had activated Arcane Awakening at 30%, yet he felt himself dropping in power ever-so-slowly, down to a level where it felt like the boost was only at 20% now.

In other words, they were in a race to deplete the Dark Witch’s power before they themselves were depleted. The best way to deplete her seemed to be attacking repeatedly, but none of them had managed to land a blow yet. Jake had a plan, though.

“Next time she reappears, I will try to land a hit,” Jake said right after the Sword Saint shot out a beam of water, the Dark Witch once more turning herself into a black sludge.

Jake had managed to place a Hunter’s Mark on her before she had disappeared, but when she disappeared, so had the Mark. It wasn’t gone, though… just scattered. He nocked an arrow and drew the string as he held back on doing anything as he allowed Dina to protect him while waiting for her to appear. Not that she had to do much to protect him, considered the Dark Witch would rather attack the dryad over him.

A few seconds later, he felt the energy from the Hunter’s Mark begin to gather. Without any hesitation, he turned and shot a hastily charged Arcane Powershot toward where she was about to pop into existence. While the arrow was in flight, her form coalesced, and before she could turn into sludge again, Jake hit her with Gaze of the Apex Hunter.

It worked. Kind of. The Dark Witch was frozen for a moment, allowing the extremely fast arrow to strike her, and she only managed to turn herself into a sludge again halfway through the following explosion. What did not go that well was what happened to Jake.

The moment he had used Gaze on the Dark Witch, so did something gaze back into him. His vision entirely disappeared, blinding him. Next went every single one of his other senses, even his sense of touch and balance. Everything felt wrong, and if not for his sphere, he would have been entirely disoriented, as if stuck in a black space of emptiness, trapped within his own mind.

Fucking hell, he cursed internally, feeling more insulted than anything. Through his sphere, he saw pockets of energy gather close to him, but before they could even fully appear, the dark aura clinging to Jake’s form was dispelled as his eyes gave off a deep orange glow.

Dina hadn’t even had time to start casting something to dispel whatever had affected Jake before he had overcome what he assumed was some kind of hex through the power of pure Perception. Jake’s feeling of indignance for her daring to attack his wonderful Perception would not go unpunished as he quickly nocked another arrow.

If she wanted to play hide and seek, Jake was gonna show her he was the best damn seeker around.

The next time she appeared, Jake instantly struck, hitting her once more. A few seconds later, Sylphie slammed into her after following Jake’s direction, with a massive golden beam hitting her at the next place of appearance. With every strike, the Dark Witch didn’t seem to take much damage, but the many dark runes lining the wall did disappear at a far more rapid pace.

Meanwhile, Dina and the Sword Saint were having a less-than-pleasant time as weirder and weirder magic began to appear. At one point, Dina even had to struggle as Bobo accidentally shot a thorn into her stomach; his senses somehow switched around, making him think he was shooting a thorn away from her and not into her.

The old man had it even worse, as he didn’t have a Bobo to defend him, forcing the Fallen King to step in a few times to avoid the swordsman taking a dangerous blow. His senses seemed entirely off, his attempts to parry inaccurate and not at all like him.

This annoying battle of perseverance continued, and Jake soon knew that holding back was not an option. Arcane Awakening activated at the offensive 50%, with his other party members also using their boosting skills to try and weather the storm of dark magic.

Throughout this all, Jake was also doing one more thing: creating an arrow.

Within his quiver, a Protean Arrow was being constructed carefully. Jake was approaching this carefully, condensing a very special arrow just for the Dark Witch. Killing her was not the objective, just weaken her, so Jake wanted to make a poison aimed to do just that. The internal layer would be with the usual concepts, even if his knowledge about the Dark Witch was pretty much non-existent. When it came to the second layer, Jake would lace it with quite the dose of neurotoxins, making it a true knockout arrow.

All he would need was a bit of time, and his Protean Arrow should be able to-

“I got it,” the Fallen King spoke.

An explosion of light erupted from the Unique Lifeform as the outline of a crown appeared floating above him. In the very next moment, the crown shattered, sending out a shockwave of pure golden energy through the entire core room.

The Dark Witch had just reappeared as the golden aura washed over her. The hood covering her hunched-over form was blown back, revealing her true form. She was some kind of scalekin, and her empty black eyes suddenly seemed to regain focus.

“What… where…” the voice of the Dark Witch echoed throughout the hall as Jake threw the Fallen King a look.

Damn asshole just had to take away Jake’s cool moment.

The Dark Witch below looked completely out of it, but the remaining runes covering the cave walls had all stopped glowing, and the dark aura making them all lose power was gone. Jake’s danger sense also told him there were no hidden threats.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Dina said, sounding pretty exhausted from having dealt with the attacks from the Dark Witch but happy the Fallen King had succeeded.

“The effects of the Karmic Plague on her were soul-related in nature. Is it not only natural I would find a solution considering my station?” the Fallen King answered, sounding cocky as hell.

Which to Jake was code for the Fallen King not actually knowing he could do it either. He had just suddenly figured out a potential solution halfway through the fight and now wanted to flex on them like he had known all along.

As Jake was still grumbling about not being allowed to use his super cool new arrow, they got a notification they had completed a bonus objective.

Bonus Objective Completed: Dark Witch defeated. 1500 Nevermore Points earned.

Jake checked the message and was a bit surprised at getting 1500 Nevermore Points. The number felt both too small and too big. They had fought a level 300, true, but it wasn’t a true level 300 witch. It was more like they had fought the mostly passive defensive spells cast upon this domain before she went insane. If they had actually fought her for real… yeah, that would have been a lot more annoying.

Speaking of the Dark Witch.

“You… you are Otherworlders?” she spoke as she looked up at them with confusion. The witch took a few moments to gather herself as she bowed. “I apologize; I lost myself. When I felt the Karmic Plague begin to take hold of my soul, I attempted to avoid it by warping my psyche and sealing away the influence… obviously, that didn’t go well.”

Seeing as things had calmed down, Jake and company floated down toward where the witch was standing. She patiently waited as she cast some kind of magic on herself. Her body warped slightly as her crooked back straightened, and she stood up straight. Her flayed robes were also changed out for a newer one, which was when Jake noticed something else.

She didn’t have any real equipment on during the fight either… yeah, definitely not gonna try and fight a witch dozens of levels above myself within her domain again, Jake told himself. Well, not anytime soon anyway.

The Dark Witch observed them carefully as they floated down, her eyes especially on the Fallen King and Jake.

“I greet the Unique Lifeform. From your aura, I suspect it was you who managed to awaken me from my stupor?” she spoke toward the Fallen King.

“It was indeed,”

he said, full of smugness. At least Jake interpreted it that way.

“Then I must thank you,” she said, bowing toward the Unique Lifeform before turning to Jake. “But… you… why are you unaffected by the Karmic Plague?”

Jake was a bit surprised she could feel if he was infected or not… but then again, he really shouldn’t be. The lady had spent a long-ass time trying to get rid of it, so being able to identify it wouldn’t be weird.

“I was affected,” Jake answered honestly. “I just got rid of it.”

She stared at him for a few seconds before frowning. “That… shouldn’t be possible. The origin of this Karmic Plague was an early S-grade. A C-grade should not have the ability to resist it unless… are you in any way related to the Order of the Malefic Viper?”

Jake was once more taken aback at the question. Mainly that she knew about the Order of the Malefic Viper. Usually, these dungeon characters didn’t seem to know much about the outside world… but then again, she did also know that the Fallen King was a Unique Lifeform.

“I am a member of the Order, yes,” Jake decided to answer truthfully.

“Were you sent here to deal with the Karmic Plague, too?” she questioned curiously.

“Wait, you are a member of the Order?”

“No, I am not. But the faction I belong to was hired by the Order to be on the lookout for instances of plagues still out there, and I got unlucky and ended up here when I flew too close to the sun with one of my divination attempts, triggering whatever ungodly teleportation the maniac who planted the Karmic Plague also placed on this planet,” the Black Witch shook her head.

Jake nodded as Dina also stepped forward.

“We heard you were working on some way to address the Karmic Plague but got stopped by the other factions… can you tell us a bit more about that? Is it possible to save this planet?” the dryad asked with quite a bit of hope.

“The planet… yes, it should be possible,” the Dark Witch nodded. “But the people on it… that is another story. Though I can see you already managed to get rid of some of those old bastards. Back then, they came to me and said they wanted to help me to get rid of it. I thought it was odd with the Karmic Plague and all, but I felt desperate. Halfway through the ritual they were supposed to help me with, they all suddenly turned on me. The backlash from the failed ritual weakened me significantly, and when they all attacked at once… I had to flee down here. I was unconscious for a while, but my passive defenses managed to keep them away, and when I awakened, I found my methods unable to be used due to the Living Seals placed on it, and my mind already heavily deteriorated.”

Ah, there we go, Jake thought with relief. The Dark Witch was beginning to feel a bit too real, so it was nice to see she still had some pretty clearly scripted dialogue. Or maybe she just really liked to talk about her own background while giving out exposition.

“How do you plan on addressing the Karmic Plague? If it was truly placed by an S-grade…” Dina muttered.

“Usually, I would agree, but I got lucky. Before I was sent here, my master had already given me an item and a method to address planets infected I came across. Those other bastards sealed it away, but now that the Living Seals are gone, it is useable once more,” the Dark Witch explained as she held out both her hands.

Energy gathered as a stone only about twenty centimeters in diameter appeared, floating above her palms. Jake used Identify and was taken aback.

[Mimicry World Core (Unique)] – A mimicry of a true World Core, able to mirror another true World Core.

That… definitely seemed like a special item, and Jake already had a good idea of what the Dark Witch was about to say next.

“Using this Mimicry World Core, my original plan was to mirror the World Core you see before you and then transfer the Karmic Plague into it, away from the true core of this planet. I have researched the Karmic Plague, and it should be possible. I also discovered that this specific strain of the Karmic Plague does have a built-in failsafe: as long as the source – in this case, the energy within the core – is destroyed, a chain reaction will occur, wiping out anyone infected,” the Dark Witch explained.

Well, that sounds convenient, Jake nodded.

“So… I ask of you. Will you assist me in this ritual?” she asked with hope in her voice as an objective appeared.

Bonus Objective Gained: The Dark Witch has been awakened from her failed attempt to circumvent the influence of the Karmic Curse. She has asked you to help her in ridding Tri-World of the Karmic Plague once and for all through a ritual that will also slay all those infected if the Mimicry World Core is destroyed afterward.

Current Progress: Assist the Dark Witch in the ritual to cleanse Tri-World of the Karmic Plague.

Jake saw the objective and quickly exchanged glances with his party members. It was clear they all knew what they were doing now. And, hey, even if Jake didn’t get to use his cool new arrow, at least he would be able to do some ritual magic to get one over on the Fallen King.

He was a bit sad about missing out on a prime opportunity to do a planetary sacrificial ritual, but oh well, he would probably get another shot at some point.