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Energy Eater - Chapter 158 - The Witch of the Night Trance
🕑 Added 2025-08-15 21:47:25 +0000 UTCNithera, the Witch of the Night Trance, flew across the village at blinding speed. But she was no longer saying anything or using any skills, well, with the exception of the one that she was using to fly. Whatever effect was increasing the power of the chimeras was now all being channeled into her. Now we didn't have to deal with random creatures that were at tier zero with the power of someone that's tier two. But we were dealing with someone who was already at tier two with the power that would be beyond that.
The first few victims were bisected by her wings as she just flew past them. Not even trying to hurt the two humans, just ignoring the fact that they were in her way. But then, the witch slammed her feet against one of the houses, breaking it apart and breaking the sidewall, causing the entire structure to fall down.
There was one of the houses in the village that was housing the children together with the ones who couldn't participate in the fight, but that wasn't it. Some people shouted, but no one was too worried since they knew that place to be empty. At least until I noticed two small bodies in the middle of the rubble. One human, and one Rodenti.
People rushed to help, but that only gave the Witch of the Night Trance more targets to kill. Nithera flew around the village, killing a large group of Rodenti in a flash. I couldn't really understand why she was ignoring the humans. But maybe it had to do with the system. After all, if Nithera wasn't able to see, it would only sense where particles were located. Namely, the Rodenti.
While watching Nithera wreak havoc on the village, my mind sped up for a moment. Not enough for me to trigger any abilities. But enough for me to see things moving a little slower. It felt like this witch was way beyond our capabilities. Maybe the best thing to do was to turn around and run away. Even if the Rodenti and the humans couldn't escape this area, I was positive that my companions would be able to do so.
But just as that thought crossed my mind, I saw Michael preparing an arrow. Astrid charging at the Witch of the Night Trance and Riley quickly weaving a spell circle in front of them. I could have been thinking about running away, but my friends were not. Even Rex was already creating a large bug catcher net using his construction skill to attempt to trap the witch. We were still not at the point in this fight where it was obvious that we were going to die. Which meant that we still had a chance to make this work.
I wanted to use one of my tier two skills aside from {Elemental Imbuement}. But {Wild Steps} wasn't going to be much help here. After all, the whole skill would only reduce my noise since we were in the forest. At least {Nature's Favor} was already increasing the power of my attacks. Without that one skill, I wouldn't be able to deal as much damage with a simple {Formless Swipe}.
Still, I pushed those thoughts away and focused on the witch. She was now circling around one of the houses and rushing back in our direction. But just as she came out from the other side of a building, Astrid triggered {Emerging Glacier}, letting out a massive wall of ice emerge. It blocked the Silken Witch from the opposite direction and forced her to move away towards Rex's stone net.
Despite being unconscious, the witch flew upwards, escaping that attack but became exposed for Michael's aerial barrage. The archer was relentless, using {Scavenger's Volley} to send out projectile after projectile at high speed. Even with all the extra power that the Silken Witch had, it was still not enough to completely dodge the arrows created by the Silkbound Marksman. If she were moving at top speed all the time, that would be the case. But she kept constantly stopping to move around. During those moments, projectiles made of wood, rebar, and silk wrapped into various shapes showered over the witch.
There was one thing that felt a bit strange about the situation. Once we were able to wake up those creatures, they lost the benefit of that power. But no matter how much we hurt the witch, that didn't seem to be enough to wake her up. The only thing that seemed to work was light, but we needed to shine a light directly on the witch's face. And that wasn't something easy to do.
"Try to keep her down!" Riley shouted. But that was easier said than done.
The Witch of the night trance continued to hover back and forth, speeding up and slowly starting to get into a rhythm that allowed her to escape the relentless barrage from Michael. But doing so, Nithera moved in a way that her back was facing me. With Astrid close by, I approached the Huskcarver and sent a message through the System.
Cassandra: give me a boost. Going to try to bring her down.
In my hand, I was holding the Pelt of Frost. Since we were struggling to capture the witch, I was going to change the size of my cloak and use it as a giant net. As long as I was able to make it big enough and when she was not moving too fast, I would probably be able to bring her wings down due to the sheer volume of my makeshift net.
Astrid seemed to understand my idea and put her hands down to give me a boost. We waited for a moment, just until the Nithera was directly above us before the Huskcarver sent me flying upwards. I kept the pelt of frost as small as I could during the trip up to reduce the drag caused by the wind. Once I was about a meter [3.3 ft] away from the witch, I tossed my white net at her, triggering {Compression} one more time to make it grow.
All of a sudden, the pelt unraveled in front of me and grew to a size over 5 meters [16.4 ft] long. We knew that the witch couldn't see. She had her eyes closed, and that was obvious to anyone who was watching her. But thanks to how I changed the size of my cloak, the sound that it created seemed to come from everywhere at once. She was unconscious. She wasn't watching things unfold. Her movements were all based on sound and maybe touch. Maybe some other sense that the Nithera had. But they were not based on sight.
Proof of that was the fact that she was able to go after people who were hiding behind houses, but at this moment, that was her weakness. Unable to see what was going on, she only heard a strange sound coming from behind her as it spread out in all directions. Before the Silken Witch could do anything, my improvised net covered her and made her fall to the ground. The wings pinned under the weight of the cloak.
Even if the cloak itself didn't change weight when using {Compression}, there was also the air resistance that it would create when trying to move. Not to mention that wings were, generally speaking, already operating on the edge of their power. Any added weight could cause problems even for a hawk, much less a moth.
The witch plummeted to the ground, landing with a heavy thud on top of the makeshift net, but she was very much alive. We could still see movements underneath it and strange growls coming from her. But we didn't let up.
Astrid slammed her axe near the bottom of the pelt, activating {Frosted Swarm}, so the tiny spider-like pieces of cold would chase after the Nithera. I also rushed towards the Witch of the Night Trance, hoping I could give her a good whacking the moment she escaped. Despite being someone who was more proficient at fighting long range, Rex also joined me, rushing by my side and quickly trying to make some stone clamps with the dirt from the ground.
Riley was preparing something else. The Novice Silken Witch was creating a helmet of thread in front of them. It was same silk that they could create and had done so moment earlier. The plan was pretty obvious. They would make this helmet and shove it on top of the Nithera's head, hoping that they could activate the bioluminescent effect once more. The concentrated light could be enough to force the Witch of the Night Trance to wake up, making her lose her power.
Funny enough, Riley didn't speak that plan out loud. We all just noticed what they were doing and acted on it. Despite becoming a group being somewhat recently, we were already very much in sync.
Nithera struggled to get free from the belt of frost, but once she fell from the sky, she was already close to the edge of one of the sides. Even with Rex and me trying to hold her back, she was able to reach that area. But I wasn't about to let her get free before we could wake her up. Rex and I followed the witch as she tried to escape.
The moment she broke free from the cloak, I launched at her arms, trying to hold her in place but more worried about pinning the wings that were pressing against my chest. Rex, on the other hand, jumped on the witch's face, trying to claw her and make sure that she wouldn't be able to do anything to stop Riley's incoming attack.
But Nithera wasn't done. Even with both of us trying to hold her back, she struggled and opened her jaw, hinging with a strength that bit deep into Rex's leg. The Rodenti screamed in pain as the Silken Witch continued to press with her fangs until she was able to bite his right leg clean off of his body. Blood puring everywhere.
I shouted for my companion and was about to let the witch go when he just shouted, "Hold her!"
I saw how the edges of his wounds were slowly trying to close up, showing me that he was already using {Body Regeneration}. As a matter of fact, he was the only one in our group who also got the skill that came from my title, {Heart Of Endurance}, meaning that he was the person who could recover from injuries the quickest aside from me.
Not wanting to let go, I pressed even harder against the Silken Witch. We struggled as Michael fired a couple of arrows, hitting the witch's arms and shoulder, narrowly missing me. Just as this monster was distracted, Riley rushed forward and slammed the cocoon helmet on top of the Witch of the Night Trance's head.
She then jumped away just as the witch broke free, tossing me to the side. The cocoon on top of the Silken Witch's head suddenly started to glow in a blinding light. By themselves, those bioluminescent strands weren't that powerful. But when they were clumped together, it became almost like a flashlight from the old world.
The witch seemed to freeze for a moment and stumbled backwards. Her feet got caught in the pelt of frost, causing her to tumble back onto the ground. Just as she impacted, the witch started to scream bloody murder. It seemed like all the pain that she wasn't feeling while unconscious came rushing after her.
Astrid quickly rushed in her direction and slammed her axe down, using {Frost Chop} to cut off the witch's head in a single clean blow. Now that she wasn't protected by whatever spell was empowering her, she wasn't able to withstand the power from the tier two Huskcarver and perished on top of my cloak.
The particles rushed towards us. As a matter of fact, there were many more particles than I was expecting. Almost as if the witch wasn't the only thing giving us those particles. But I wasn't entirely sure if they were also coming from the chimeras who were connected to her somehow, or if the spell she created was the one responsible for this excess in particles. We had bigger things to worry about right now.
We all rushed towards Rex to see if he was okay. In those few moments, the wound on his leg was already starting to close up. But unlike what the System told me I was able to do, he wouldn't be able to regrow a limb with just {Body Regeneration}. As a matter of fact, maybe even I wouldn't be able to do such a thing unless I was already at tier three.
While everybody was still trying to see if we could do anything to help our Rodenti companion, the System sent me a pair of messages. The first one made sense, but the second wasn't something I was expecting.]
[Congratulations user Cassandra for the level up. Current level 2. 2 attribute point available. 1 skill available.]
[In addition. User has acquired a number of skills. Two from The Silken Witch of the night trance, one from the Spider Chimera and two from the dungeon core of the Overgrown Bunker dungeon. Skills will be available for user to choose from for the next 4 hours.]
#### Author's Note ####
Sorry for the lack of chapter yesterday. Got a decent shift on the side gig again, but couldn't finish this one in time. I'll try to make another one by the end of the day.
And did you really think they wouldn't get anything from a dungeon core? The system just needed some time decrypt the information.
