Chapter 14: Chapter 14 Perfecting Combat Strategies

I was unfortunately a little too slow with getting my attacks off. All four of us fired almost simultaneously. With a buzzing noise three multicoloured beams of light slamming into my shield from three different directions. My shots went wide as my aim was off from getting hit. My [Psychic Shield] shattered almost instantly, but not before absorbing most of the damage from the attacks. Two of the three didn’t hurt me at all, but the third pierced the shield as it collapsed, and burned into my stomach. I screamed out in agony as I felt it continue to burn me, even after the attack ended. I crashed onto the ground as the force of the attack knocked me backwards several metres. I tried to reactivate my [Psychic Shield], but it wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t work out why until I noticed 2 icons flashing on my heads up display. 

Psychic Fatigue (debuff)
Due to having [Psychic Shield] placed on them too many times in a short amount of time, the target is suffering from Psychic Fatigue and unable to receive another [Psychic Shield] again. Time remaining: 17 seconds

Life Beam Burn (corruption) 
A corrupted [Life Beam] attack has the chance to cause the target to burn for a further 1% damage per second for 15 seconds. Time remaining: 12 seconds

I opened my eyes in shock as I watched my health ticking down. It was already below 80% and dropping rapidly. I felt a flutter of fear as I realised that if I hadn’t had my shield, I would have died. Hold the panic attack until after this fight, girl. I looked around as I sat up, wincing while holding my stomach, and saw the shardlings slowly walking their way to me. They hadn’t fired again, so I assumed - and sincerely hoped -that they couldn’t shoot their beams too often. 

I quickly flew up and away from the shardlings before grabbing the health potion, and taking a sip to recover my health. I had just placed the potion away when the three shardlings started glowing brightly from the branches and leaves that covered the top of their crystalline tree-like bodies. There wasn’t anywhere for me to hide except for the tree itself. I considered going into wisp form to get there quicker, but that was considerably more dangerous since I’m more vulnerable to magic. I sighed with relief just as I got behind the tree, which suddenly shook from the attacks of its own minions. 

“Ha! Take that tree!” I smirked. Coming around the other side, I glanced roughly where the enemy would’ve struck their own tree, and frowned as I couldn’t see any damage, not even a mark. “Well, that’s no good. I guess I’ll just have to do it the hard way,” I grumbled to myself. 

I changed course as I was set to loop the tree again, and instead flew towards one of the shardlings. I fired several [Telekinetic Pulses] at the shardling as I flew over it, then shouted in glee as I saw the top of my target shatter. 

The room brightened behind me, the only warning that I got before light flashed out from the branches above me. The attack happened so fast I didn’t get a chance to dodge before it hit me, and I screamed out in pain as a beam of light grazed my left foot. 

I looked back and saw the light fading from the attack, and as it faded, I was able to get a clear view of the shardling I had attacked. I gasped out in shock as I watched it heal the damage I had done, the branches and leaves growing back out in only moments. 

I noticed the two shardlings that I hadn’t hit start to glow in preparation to attack again, and moved to dodge. Unfortunately these attacks seemed to move incredibly fast, and I only barely dodged one of them before the second hit my shield. A loud cracking noise resounded across my [Psychic Shield] moments before the shield smashed into the far wall, forcing a gasp from my lips and momentarily dazing me while wood and bits of bark exploded outwards. My battered [Psychic Shield] wavered momentarily before it stabilised itself by drawing on my mana, the cracks that had appeared repairing themselves. I had hit the wall so hard that the shield had pushed itself partially into the wall. I shook my head as my brain matter slowly unscrambled itself. Seeing all three shardlings about to attack again, I shot up in the air as fast I could fly. Three beams of multicoloured light flashed underneath my feet with the now familiar buzzing noise, exploding the wood as they hit. I decided on a different approach and fired [Psychic Slash] at the closest shardling to me. The violet light flashed across the distance between us and passed through the nearest enemy seemingly without doing any harm. I let out a dismayed “Oh no”, before the shardling I had targeted suddenly fell over onto its side as it died. 

Just as I was about to celebrate, the crystal tree shivered and another seed dropped from its branches and another shardling began growing at super speeds. I immediately sped off before I was hit again, several more multicoloured beams barely missing me. It seemed I had gotten the hang of avoiding the shots, although I couldn’t keep this up forever. As I swiftly flew over the top of the shardlings, I fired [Psychic Slash] at them all, and the tree for good measure. The shardlings all died a moment after being hit but the tree didn’t even seem to notice the damage taken. On impulse I inspected the tree and tried willing more information to appear, specifically a health bar or something similar and to my amazement it worked. 

Ding! 
Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill [Inspect], which offers more information than the regular inspect ability does. 

Life Shard{corrupted} (Rare) 
Power Level: 450
Health: 100%
Mana: 67%
A single shard from the Tree of Life was placed in this dungeon and grew to become this beautiful specimen. Unfortunately it has become corrupted by a malevolent entity and is considered extremely dangerous. 


I could now see its health and mana? I couldn’t help but grin at that, that was actually pretty useful. As I flew closer to the Life Shard, a red health bar and a blue mana bar appeared, hovering near it in my vision. I also noticed, now that I was looking at it, that the tree was looking a little sickly compared to when I first spotted it. That gave me an idea. I dodged the next few attacks from the shardlings, one of which just narrowly missed me, lightly grazing my shield, but not taking any strength from it thankfully. 

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I fired several more [Psychic Slash] attacks at the shardlings - both of my arms flinging out wide like I was asking for a hug before closing for the third shot - and managed to hit two out of the three while I weaved and flew at my top speed around the room. My eyes opened wide in surprise as the shardlings didn’t die, and moments later, multicoloured beams of light shot down from the top of the tree and hit its minions, healing them back up. I used my new [Inspect] skill on the shardlings, curious about this new development. 

Life Shardling{corrupted} (Rare)
Power Level: 325
Health: 100%
Mana: 100%
Grown from the seeds of a shard from the Tree of Life. These shardlings are often used to help maintain the tree’s environment and the tree's health. They can and will fight viciously and relentlessly to protect their originator at all costs. 


So the newer shardlings have increased in power? That’s going to make this fight even tougher. I shrugged with a nonchalant “Ah, well,” and fired slashes at everything. Violet light flashed across the room as a prismatic effect followed my erratic flight over the heads of my trigger happy enemies, before I dropped down to fly in and around the shardlings. My heart was beating a mile a minute as I dodged and weaved in and around the shardlings, light flaring around me in nearly every direction. A silly grin appeared on my face from the exhilaration I was feeling in this high stakes fight. I was terrified out of my mind, and loving every minute of it. 

Pretty soon all of the shardlings were just piles of crystalline kindling, and with that, all of the attacks against me ceased, leaving me panting in midair as I struggled to get my breath back. Suddenly four blue glowing crystal seeds dropped to the ground and shardlings began sprouting from them. I got a surprise when the tree shivered and the outer skin, bark? Cracked open, the cracks began glowing a sickly blue colour that almost oozed out, brightening as I watched. It was then that I noticed the tree's mana had started rapidly regenerating from nearly empty. “Oh, no, you don’t!” I shouted loudly at the tree and fired a [Telekinetic Pulse], not sure what was going to happen. Maybe nothing, just like all of the other times I had shot at it? This time, however, a blinding flash of blue and purple light burst out and a screech of anger and pain pulsed from the tree like a shockwave. I winced from the psychic feedback, and had to blink several times to clear the spots in my vision from the bright light. 

As the light faded I could see that even the shardlings had been disoriented by the tree's reaction to my attack, and I sighed in relief, as I had just been hovering near them without moving. I jumped forward with a burst of speed, narrowly dodging several beams of light as they flashed behind me, glancing at the tree's health as I did so. 

Life Shard{corrupted} (Rare) 
Power Level: 450
Health: 75%
Mana: 100%

“Yes!” I cheered loudly, pumping my fist into the air in happiness. I had thought the tree’s weakness would be from its mana. It had lost too much too quickly, and while I didn’t know for sure, it was a good guess, which turned out to be right, thankfully. All of those years spent playing, and attempting to make, video games was paying off. I checked my mana and noticed I was running a little low. The spells and shield had been rather taxing. I rapidly put the tree between me and my foes, then took a moment to take a sip of the mana potion, letting out a  a sigh of satisfaction as I saw my mana bar rapidly fill up, before storing it as I prepared for my next attack. Taking a deep breath, I tried to steady my nerves, my heart trying to beat itself out of my chest.  Bursting forward in a  mad dash towards my targets, a gust of wind was kicked up behind me, my movements stirring the constant mist on the ground as I zoomed fast and low around the base of the tree. Beams of light immediately flashed past me as I violently barrel rolled to avoid them, the buzz of the air superheating right next to my head. 

I fired [Psychic Slash] after [Psychic Slash] at all the shardlings in my way, purple and multicoloured lights brightening up the room in odd intervals as they crisscrossed. Just as I fired at my last opponent, it fired back at me with surprising speed, my shield crumpling from the impact. The floor and roof quickly blended into one as I flipped over, completely out of control, hitting the ground and rolling some more, before crashing to a halt against the far wall. 

“Ow…” I groaned painfully as I pulled myself up into a sitting position. “That could have gone a lot better!” 

I glanced at my health bar and saw that I had lost nearly 10% from just that single hit, which had also taken out my shield. I shuddered at the thought of how much stronger they were this round, and most likely were only going to get stronger. I glanced over at the tree and watched as it shuddered and produced 5 more seeds. As they dropped, I lifted myself up and fired several [Telekinetic Pulses] at them. I managed to hit two out of the five and watched in amazement as they shattered in midair. The last three quickly spawned more shardlings but I had already fired [Psychic Slash] at them. I saw that the Life Shard was low on mana and started charging up a strong [Telekinetic Pulse] strike, I held both hands together as bright purple light began building up between my fingers. As soon as I could see that the cracks had appeared, oozing that weird sickly light from them, I released my spell. The ball of now bright violet light crackled with power as it shot forward and slammed into the Life Shard. The pulse exploded on impact with a loud boom, the entire room rumbling and shaking as the bright light from the explosion briefly blinded me. Once again, I felt a psychic scream, only it was more pain than anger this time, and because I had expected it, it didn’t affect me nearly as much. 

As my vision cleared, I inspected the Life Shard, which was now looking really rough. Cracks had appeared over its surface in multiple places, crystalline leaves now constantly drifting down from the branches like it was the start of autumn, and a few branches themselves had fallen to the ground. 

Life Shard{corrupted} (Rare) 
Power Level: 450
Health: 20%
Mana: 76%

“Huh, I thought for sure I could’ve killed it with a single charged shot. Ah, well, I’ve got you pegged now, driftwood.” I gloated as I quickly flew over to the tree and rose up into its branches. As the crystal tree shuddered, I spotted the seeds as they appeared on its branches and started firing at them moments before they dropped. Out of the seven that had spawned, only three made it to the ground and sprouted. I stayed up above near its branches and fired down at the remaining shardlings,moving behind the branches and easily dodging their attacks as I kept up the assault. The tree tried to spawn more seeds, but I destroyed them all before they hit the ground, keeping up my aerial bombardment until they all finally died. The tree managed to get off a few more heals of its own on the shardlings, but it just served to drain it of mana faster. The end of the fight was sadly anticlimactic compared to the rest of the battle. I fired off a pulse the moment the tree entered its mana gathering sequence, its centre shattering. What felt like a grateful psychic sigh entered my mind as it died, before it disappeared into the blue sparkles of light, a golden loot box orb the only thing left behind.