The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet

Chapter 135: The Sun, The Heart, The Star

Durrrrrummmmmm!

The core behind me rattled, and a secondary sphere began to form within the core.

In turn, I was feeling a rapid drain of mana from my body back to the core.

…Got to keep the cycle under control.

Mana leaving my body was a very good thing, as I had far too much within me. 

Espoiramissa's warnings were right, and I was dying as we spoke, only being held together by my own skills in Soul manipulation, Starlight to transmit my actions, and the regenerative powers Espr had gifted me.

My brain was well protected with mana, honestly, the most protected part of the body, but I’m still pretty sure mine stopped working a few times, and my soul had complete control over my body. 

What I was doing wasn’t my ideal version of events. If I had the opportunity for a one-on-one alone time with the core, where I could extremely slowly create my current setup, I would have preferred that. However, that would’ve taken days based on my current experiences with the rampaging core, days when I needed to be uninterrupted by anything.

Fire continued to shoot up towards the sky, towards the giants and the blastia of weapons that came hurtling towards me. Large chunks of sand had either melted or been turned to glass by the heat and fire.

Boom!

Splinters of glass rained down on me after a large collision of flames and sand in the air.

Mana is beginning to drain too fast. 

I couldn’t snap one of the strings to slow down the process, as that would cause a massive disruption and would rebound into me, and the damage that would cause wasn’t something I wanted to imagine.

Looks like the fucker has realised that too…

I deflected another spear of golden sand that was aimed directly at my string. The Starlight strings had been strengthened to a ludicrous point, which actually breaking even for me would be hard, the person who controlled Starlight, but I couldn’t risk one of those lines snapping. 

“COUGH!” More boiling blood exploded out of my mouth, but my body was beginning to cool down from the absurd temperatures now that the overflow of mana was somewhat leaving my body.

Mana: 1591% Starlight: 29%

I was still far above safe parameters, but the excess heat from the naturally created sun and fire energies from within my body, due to the excess mana, was being funnelled into the core, so I was able to handle the mana to a greater extent.

I swung my hand, and the waves of flame energy around me followed, exploding through the sand to shallow one of the giants. I didn’t know which one was containing Al-Roo, so I would just have to destroy them all. 

The fire moved like water possessed by snakes and climbed and slithered everywhere. 

“ARGH! FUCK, finally I can speak again.” 

I was able to form shields of condensed sun energy to block additional sand spears. Al-Roo’s attacks had gotten more precise throughout the duration of this fight.

He is not a warrior for nothing… 

He was adapting to my combat and changes in the fight. Initially, he held the advantage by having leverage over the world around me, but the roles had shifted as I took control of the dead dungeon core. I finally had the output to counter his golden sand, and he lost a portion of his control over the sand. On the other hand, I lost my movement ability due to the core being immovable.

Firing back, I looked around me to see if anything had changed. The ground around me was no longer moving via Al-Roo’s will, but I was carefully waiting for another sneak attack, even if it was not possible.

It’s time…

My body had stabilised to the point where I could proceed to the next step before the reverse happened, and all my mana was taken from my body. 

I picked up the Adjustment Crystal I had placed on the floor when I dumped the remnants out of my bag. It was hot to the touch, but the markings hadn’t been damaged. 

(“ That’s not going to work ”)

I know what you said, but I also know a little bit about this myself. This is supposed to stimulate growth, but the reason it only works once is because it doesn’t have the room to improve it further. I might have made a lot of guesses, but sometimes the answer is just really bloody simple.

My effort to try and learn the runes, my short tutelage under Cole-Ra-Cu, and my own experiments weren’t for nothing.

I just need my soul… to adapt a little to what I’m doing… And so I’m going to jump-start that process. 

I had alternative ideas in my mind before I came to this world, but learning about the Adjustment ritual created a possible method to avoid certain issues.

From what I had learned, the ritual itself was meant as a way to improve a Vocation into something that suited the person more. It did this by the fact the individual it was used on had a stronger soul by having plenty of experiences. In human terms, only people who had levelled up to a certain point could be affected by it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t do anything. I hypothesised that exceptions and variations could be made via the power of dungeon cores, but that wasn’t important to my current situation.

Espoiramissa told me it would never work. Which I believed was two parts caused by my own soul, already adapted to handle my abilities without the ritual and Espoiramissa’s influence, mainly from [Primal Guardian Lord]. The ritual itself seemed to only command the soul to perform the functions, not necessarily granting the soul the ability to do it, so a natural adaptation was also possible. If they were the reasons, then I needed a scenario where my soul needed to adapt, the room and resources to do so, and enough space to prevent Espoiramissa from taking advantage of it.

I had been practicing with my soul to do the process manually, but my hope was that this ritual would act as a drug to kick my soul into hyperdrive.

“ARGH!” My blood-curdling screams echoed across the desert as the markings injected themselves straight into my soul.

I lost my vision for a moment but still raised my hand and formed a javelin of sun energy. I remembered where the giants were, even while I felt my body creak and crack as the mana within me screeched.

When I was in my moment of weakness. 

A segment of the sand near me bubbled. 

Woosh!

Al-Roo’s figure appeared in front of me; golden sand was flowing in and out of his body.

My hand reached into the waves of fire and grabbed and formed a sword-shaped stick, and our blades clashed. 

“Reaching your limit, Al-Roo?” I taunted, but by the stars, I could feel my body shutting down.

“...I would ask you.” Our weapons clashed and melted into each other. 

Funnelling the heat in my blade, both weapons exploded, pushing both of us back. In an instant, we reform our weapons and continue clashing.

Sand weapon missiles still fell down towards me, and I painfully directed the fire tsunami to cover us in a protective dome.

Al-Roo’s strikes switched back and forth with attacks on my body and attacks on my strings. Within moments, he disappeared and reappeared.

I need to kill him…

The reason why this process was so difficult and so dangerous was that he was around. I regretted not ending him earlier but destroyed those stray thoughts and focused on surviving. 

The world was burning alive.

Then, as Al-Roo went to stab the string, I threw my body in the way, and his blade cleaved into the fragmented remains of my armour as my crimson sword sliced down–

–Severing Al-Roo’s tail and arm. He could barely react to the pain of the cut and heat entering his body as I kicked his body into the wall. He flopped to the ground, but sand formed around his lost limbs, allowing him to keep fighting.

From above, the sand giants all came crashing down. 

Shit!

The sheer weight broke through the firefield and smashed down onto me. I used a little of my remaining Starlight and was constantly being drained due to the core and my connection to it to create a shield around myself. 

Sand surrounded me.

…

And I focused.

“GOT YOU!” I felt the flare of life with my soul pressure, and formed a Starlight blade covered in solar energy and stabbed it through my shield into the sand as Al-Roo was appearing through it.  

His blade smashed against my shield, but it held up.

I apologised, “Goodbye.” Superheated the blade and exploded the area.

BOOM

The sand flew apart and, in some instances, melted away.

I looked around, and Al-Roo’s body was lying on the ground. The golden sand tried to push him up, but my liquid flames kept him down. The majority of his body was missing, but his hands shook as he tried to reach for a weapon.

I walked over to him, surprised he managed to survive that even for a moment, but his soul was rapidly weakening. Well, the more I felt it, the more it felt like his soul was just putting on an act of strength.

I said, “Despite my honest declaration about being at peace with what will happen to this world, call me partially surprised that you didn’t try bringing Lu or one of the other Nelatta into this.”

“...I could never bring them into this…” Al-Roo’s eyes, which had appeared clear and sharp for the whole encounter, faded into a foggy haze.

…Rest in peace. 

I wobbled away from the body. I now just have to complete the process. I could feel ‘pipes’ forming within the soul to handle the intake of mana as it flowed in and out of my body. As more of my mana cycled through the core, it got brighter and brighter as the nature of the energies within my soul influenced the core. 

“Argh…” 

Bang.

I collapsed to the ground.

My hand was held to my chest as I felt the burning sensation within me suddenly rapidly increase. 

(“ Cong-ratu-lat-ion Ce-ella, th-is w-orl-d i-s truly d-ea-d ”)

Espr’s voice was nearly impossible to hear. I could feel the sand slowly falling away from my feet. Travelling down, but there was nothing down. The sky went from red to orange, to purple for a moment. My hazy eyes looked at the core as it was suddenly expanding slowly. 

Espoiramissa encroachment within my soul was being burned back and devoured by my burning soul.

(“ I’v-e ne-ve-r fel-t th-is wa-y be-fo-r-e ”)

…Recovering working…?

I could feel the mana around me finally entering my body again, but an extreme tiredness was washing over me. [Sleepless Nights] should prevent that, but I wasn’t feeling its effects. 

(“ P-rou-d ”)

Espr’s words continued to fade, along with my mind.

I need… to keep checking on the progres…

(“ F-ur-i-ou-s”)