Trying to hunt me... Hmm, quite courageous, but poor judgment. A hunter shouldn't choose prey stronger than himself."
The gentle, soothing voice of a young girl rang out as calmly as if discussing the weather, not from the location of the explosion, but from the opposite corner.
Daenerys didn't recklessly continue her attack.
The first ambush was a probe, but also a declaration of war, but the witch had clearly seen through her intentions and responded with composure.
A witch skilled in mirror magic, capable of escaping the fireball's blast radius with a mirrored doppelganger, might very well use mirror illusions to create sound and confuse her enemies.
Daenerys suppressed her slightly manic laughter, easily leaping to her feet with the strength of one hand, then leisurely raising her hand to tidy her disheveled dark gold hair.
"The roles of prey and hunter can be reversed at any moment, and a weak hunter may still be able to hunt a stronger prey… Ha, especially when the prey is complacent with its advantage and underestimates the hunter."
She gracefully and calmly retied her ponytail, seemingly unconcerned about her nearly tattered clothes, and beckoned to the black-robed witch who appeared in another corner of the basement.
"How does it feel to be ambushed? Shouldn't you be more angry now, or just come and kill us?"
Alice calmly adjusted the black robe draped over her shoulders.
"You want to provoke me, to force me to attack first."
"Oh, keen observation! I believe anyone with a normal intelligence would come to the same conclusion!" Danitalie said in an exaggerated, monotone tone. "Or perhaps, you're actually a witch with a particularly good temper, thinking that even if you're ambushed, you can resolve the trouble by just smiling or taking off your clothes? Ha, if that's the case, then I bet quite a few people have slept with you. A dozen? Dozens? Or even more?"
Such remarks would be an insult to the dignity of most women, but Danitalie still didn't see any anger on that beautiful face. The other woman's eyes didn't even change; her reflection was quietly reflected in her sea-blue eyes.
"When did you get the illusion that I didn't retaliate?"
Alice said softly, her body shrouded in black robes becoming a phantom, fading and disappearing into thin air in just two or three seconds.
"Invisibility…"
Danytalie murmured to herself, about to raise her hand to summon flames, but felt as if her body was bound by invisible threads, unable to even lift her arm freely.
Spider silk—
in a flash of thought, blazing white flames erupted from her body, instantly burning through the invisible threads binding her. Even more intense flames spread outwards along the burned gaps in the silk. In
less than two breaths, countless layers of intertwined spider silk throughout the basement were ignited, weaving a teetering web of fire amidst the leaping pale flames.
"Using such flammable material to deal with a 'fire mage,' aren't you being a bit too naive?"
As she spoke, Danytalie clenched her fist, unleashing the muscular power hidden within her body, and struck the only spot beside her that wasn't distorted by the intense heat. The force of her punch even created a sharp whistling sound.
The petite figure shrouded in black robes reappeared. She dodged the "fire mage's" full-force attack, a faint glint of a short, sharp blade flashing in her hand.
"You can use wondrous magic, become invisible, and assassinate silently... Ha, but in close combat, you can't completely dominate, especially against opponents skilled in hand-to-hand combat. If you miss a strike, you must retreat far away, create distance, and look for the next opportunity."
Danitalie didn't pursue. Instead, she extinguished the blazing white flames on her body,
stretched her right arm from the powerful punch she had just thrown, and watched with composure as the witch stopped a few meters away, reaching out to touch the thin threads that were about to be consumed by the fire. "You understand witches well,"
she heard Alice say. She saw pale white frost bloom from her fingertips, the burning threads covered in the color of ice, condensing into strange frost flowers.
Daenerys felt the temperature around her plummet; instantly, her hands and feet froze, and even her breath sounded like white mist in winter.
But she quickly ignited white flames on her body, dispelling the abnormal chill.
Daenerys knew this wasn't a long-term solution.
She could only maintain the flames for a limited time, and the witch's frost magic was more troublesome than she had imagined, especially in the confined space of the basement, where the opponent's ice, aided by the giant net of silk threads, almost completely covered the area .
Moreover, unlike fire, which extinguishes itself without air and a flammable medium, frost could persist indefinitely as long as the environment was cold enough.
Daenerys almost instinctively came to a conclusion:
move the battle.
Continuing to stalemate here would only lead to her defeat—although she could choose a quick attack, ending the battle before her stamina was exhausted, she didn't think that was wise.
That was the choice of a cornered prey, not hers.
Daenerys was a hunter, a master of deception. She aimed to lure her chosen, beautiful prey into a trap, not allow herself to be manipulated and put at a disadvantage.
In a flash, she conjured a crimson fireball in her palm and hurled it at the surrounding ice threads. Simultaneously, she unleashed several sizable tracking fireballs at the witch. Alice's figure shattered into countless fragments once more, and that familiar black robe reappeared in another corner. She
'd already used her Mirror Image twice… and she hadn't even dodged. Was it that she couldn't, or that she didn't want to?
A vague guess formed in Daenerys's mind, but her hands continued to toss several more fireballs into the area covered by the ice threads, saying,
"Understanding your prey is a fundamental skill every qualified hunter should possess."
Alice paid no attention to Daenerys's exploding fireballs, merely staring at her with a slightly indifferent expression.
"The things you know aren't things you can find out on a whim."
"Of course, I have my own sources, and besides…"
Danitalie counted a few times in her mind. As a fireball slammed into the basement ceiling and exploded into a crimson flower, she suddenly flipped and dodged behind a load-bearing pillar in the basement.
Boom—
a deafening roar—the wooden ceiling leading to the first floor of the manor was blasted apart by the successive impacts. When the smoke cleared, a dark hole was visible where the damage had occurred.
Alice had moved away from the danger of being caught in the blast when it happened, but she was still a little later than Danitalie.
And when she stood still, Danitalie's slightly hoarse, androgynous voice drifted from the other side of the blasted hole.
"I've heard that witches were once men, only to be forcibly transformed into women after drinking a potion… Miss Alice, what about you? Did you also experience the humiliation and pain of being turned from man to woman? Or do you actually quite enjoy being a woman, because it's far more beautiful than your original form, and even brings you unprecedented pleasure…"
Before she could finish speaking, Danitalia braced herself with one hand on the ground and nimbly leaped up to dodge an ice spear thrown at her.
She spun around as fast as she could and saw a dark shadow appear in the glass of a window on the first floor of the manor. Alice, clad in a black robe, emerged from this image.
"What? Did I hit the nail on the head? Are you angry?"
Danitalia continued to provoke. She wasn't afraid of the other woman's anger; rather, to ensure that the witch chose to chase her, what she needed to do now was to provoke her.
Otherwise, if the witch continued to stay in the cramped underground room, waiting for her to walk into her trap, then Danitalia would have to consider blowing up the basement…
"Heh." She heard the witch Alice chuckle lightly. "For the daughter of a wealthy merchant in a small city, you seem to know far too much. Who told you all this? Was it the person who guided you onto the extraordinary path?"
"Getting anxious? Getting scared? Starting to wonder why a mere Sequence 8… a Sequence 8 troubled by advancing potions, would know these secrets? No way, you're not worried that I have some powerful figure protecting me, so you don't dare to make a move, are you?"
Danitalia smiled exceptionally brightly, but opposite this beautiful smile was an almost vulgar disdain and mockery.
"I didn't expect that after being turned into a woman by the potion, not only did you lose that thing down there, but you also lost your dignity and courage as a man? You're really pathetic. How does it feel to become a woman, body and soul, in bed with different men... Ha, maybe you enjoy it quite a bit?"
Before the witch could respond, Danitalie lowered her head again and sneered.
"Since that's the case, wouldn't it be better to sleep with me? I won't see you as a man, and you can use your former gender as a substitute, wouldn't that be perfect? Your feigned modesty in rejecting me only makes me want to pierce you, tear you apart, bite your neck, and let you feel pleasure in the suffocation of death…"
Swish swish swish—
three solidified ice spears pierced deeply into the floor and the wall behind the "fire mage," while Danitalie herself had already flipped over and, as if she had anticipated this, flashed to the edge of the corridor by the window, her tone full of feigned surprise:
"Why are you attacking again? Did I say something you don't like to hear?"
No witch could remain unmoved by such provocation, so "witch" Alice remained silent for a few seconds, feigning an icy expression as if she were angry.
"Is that all you wanted to say? I suggest you save your breath; perhaps you'll have the energy later to let your servants hear their master's delightful screams."
"So you prefer to be admired...but unfortunately, they won't hear anything."
To prevent the hunt from being disturbed, Daenerys had already made arrangements. Now, seemingly oblivious to the threat, she leaped onto the windowsill, summoning fire crows to meet the witch's ice spear, her body falling backward, shattering the tightly closed glass window.
"Come, to my hunting grounds, and begin to enjoy the hunt!"
Her agile body stretched and tumbled like a raptor as she fell, then easily rolled to her feet, completing the brief descent and landing firmly on the overgrown, shrub-covered ground.
Like a king returning to his palace after a secret visit, Daenerys, as the hunter, returned to her hunting grounds.
She quickly moved away from her spot, silently traversing the grass and bushes that would give away her presence to an outsider, constantly listening for any sounds from behind.
Soon, she got the sound she wanted.
Something fell from a height, followed by the rustling of footsteps.
Daenerys's heart leaped with joy: once the witch left the manor buildings with their many mirrors and entered this forest, her chances of success would greatly increase!
If the witch hadn't been blinded by rage, she wouldn't have made such a reckless decision.
A prey consumed by emotion and devoid of reason—Daenerys felt confident in handling her.
Utilizing her familiarity with the terrain and the perfect application of her "hunter" traits in the forest, Daenerys quickly refined her battle plan, then nodded slightly and turned to walk towards the location where she had set her trap.
Daenerys's plan was excellent, and things were going as she had anticipated, but she had forgotten to consider one crucial issue.
Her decision to advance had been too hasty.
If she were willing to spend more time preparing and meticulously adjusting the traps originally intended for catching animals, these hidden traps scattered throughout the mountains and forests would be the first line of defense against the witch, and might even become the greatest contributors to this battle. The
fate of prey that willingly jumps into a hunter's trap is obviously predictable.
Unfortunately, her eye for choosing prey is indeed poor… or perhaps it should be said that her eye is too good, picking dangerous beasts that combine strength and beauty.
Faced with an arrow trap triggered by a tripwire, the witch simply blocked it with a thick ice wall;
under a giant hunting net falling from the sky, the witch raised her hand and summoned an ice spear even larger than the net, hitting the target directly and sending the entire net flying;
as for traps like rolling stones and logs, the witch didn't seem to use any special methods, simply solving the problem with a mirror substitution spell…
Isn't there supposed to be a limitation to the use of such substitution spells? Could it be that all those mirrors hanging under her black robes are mirrors?!
Danitalie inwardly cursed the witch's cheating, but seeing that the traps she could use were dwindling, she couldn't remain a bystander any longer.
At least, she had used those traps to probe part of the witch's strength and her fighting habits.
Moreover, moving through the mountains was different from moving on flat ground; the witch's stamina would inevitably be depleted, but her anger should have subsided somewhat over time, so it was a trade-off.
Before the witch Alice could "track" her movements, Danitalie took the initiative.
Taking advantage of the hunter's ease in the mountain forest, Danitalie moved silently among the high branches, like the most cunning and cautious female leopard, approaching the witch directly above her barehanded, then stopping abruptly.
Driven by her fire-wielding instincts, she conjured a spear wreathed in blazing white flames as she fell, her body almost simultaneously bursting into flame of the same color.
The tip of the spear pierced the black robe atop the witch's head, passing right through the figure. But Danitalie knew it was an illusion; she felt no resistance as it tore through flesh.
Sure enough, the next second, the torn black figure before her shattered into irregular fragments, scattered across the ground.
At the same time, she felt a gust of wind behind her and instinctively dodged, but was still grazed by two ice spears. The tissue at the wounds was frozen by the low temperature, without even a drop of blood flowing.
Turning around, the witch Alice stood in a clearing among several northern banyan trees, her eyes seemingly filled with a frozen sea of ice.
Without a word, Daenerys swung her flaming spear, letting the flames in her palm transform into a crimson whip that lashed out at her opponent. Simultaneously, she summoned several fire crows with her left hand, controlling them to fly towards the witch.
Alice raised her hand, conjuring a shield of frost to deflect the fire crows' impact, but more fire crows were created by Daenerys, while the flaming whip swept across her other side.
To avoid being attacked from both sides, she chose to dodge to the right.
In this way, both the flaming whip and the flying fire crows ended up on her left, easily blocked by a sufficiently thick wall of frost.
But at that moment, Daenerys herself, the manipulator of the flames, used a pre-arranged charging stance, stomping her foot and flying towards her like an arrow. The weapon she held in her right hand was no longer the flaming whip she had swung, but transformed, returning to the form of a blazing white spear.
...The spear tip wasn't aimed at her?
Alice hesitated for only a moment before the onrushing huntress seized the opportunity, hurling her spear and pinning a corner of her black robe to the ground.
After that, Daenerys summoned the explosive fireball she had first mastered, sending it and the belated fire crows swarming towards her.
The corner of her robe, ignited by the flames, was torn open. Alice continued to retreat, and Daenerys pursued, closing in. Daenerys abandoned her "fire mage" abilities, opting instead to subdue the witch with her bare hands.
Something was strange...
Alice finally realized the anomaly, but by then she was already several meters away. Using invisibility to escape now would only result in her being hit by the attack. Her best option was to use frost magic to protect herself, or at worst, use mirror magic again...
Just as she was thinking this, Alice's retreating steps suddenly stopped. She felt herself stepping onto a patch of ground with an unusual texture.
But Danitalie smiled.
The next second, the two of them fell into the deep pit of the trap. The mechanism at the edge of the pit was triggered, and a large amount of grayish-black oily liquid with a pungent smell poured down.
"Don't move, Miss Alice, or I can't guarantee that I won't be so scared that my hand will shake and I'll accidentally blow us both to smithereens with this fireball."