"Aaaarrrggghhh!"

The witch laid on the ground and clutched the stump of her broken arm, while Emery stood with the tip of his bloodied sword aimed at her.

"Aaarrrggghhhh! My arm! My armmm! How dare you! Aaaaarrggghhhh!"

The witch screamed in pain, while Emery approached her as she tried to crawl and search for her missing arm.

"My arm… My arm…"

Emery stopped right in between her and the bleeding hand and stepped on the bloody edge for good measure.

"You have lost, Maeve!"

Maeve raised her head towards Emery with an expression full of agony. "Yes… You win, you win… Please, please.. just give me my arm back."

The wicked witch, who laughed at his suffering and killed villages in the guise of plague has now turned into a different person in the face of death.

Emery glanced at the severed hand beneath his feet. For a second, he did consider grabbing the arm, but he suddenly realized it couldn't be that easy. He quickly alarmed, turned around right as three shadow blades formed on top of the witch and flew towards him.

Emery instantly cast [Blink] and reappeared a few meters away from her.

"Hahahaha! You are still that naïve boy, after all! You should have landed your finishing blow right after that… Such strength, yet without the brain to match!"

Emery glared at the woman in annoyance, but indeed, the witch was really cunning. Her pained expression was quite the top-class act. If only he knew, he would have asked that woman to teach him her acting skills instead of alchemy.

Maeve stood up, grabbed her severed arm and reattached it by converting the stump into roots before letting the root absorb the arm before disappearing. The arm was now in place and she gave it a few experimental moves.

It seemed the spell she used to reattach the arm was similar to the spell the Lady of The Lake used to form Emery's arm.

"Damn, she really is hard to deal with…"

"Aaarrrggghhh! That cost me a lot of energy. You! Take some responsibility and give me yours! Your wonderful, powerful energy… I have been dreaming about it for months! What was it, Emery? Tell me your secret, now!"

"If you die, maybe you'll dream of that." Emery gripped his sword tight and took his stance,

Maeve slowly knelt on the ground and used both of her hands to touch the ground.

"Look, look at this, Emery! The result of the power I took from you… It was exquisite!"

A torrent of roots emerged from the ground and spread slowly towards a nearby tree. Right as the roots touched it, the tree started to crack, wither and raised itself from the ground, changing into some kind of life-form. The roots of the tree started to bind together, forming an appendage similar to legs.

It is a [Tree Golem] spell, but it looked a bit different. The bark's color started brown, before it faded as it stepped out of the ground, red veins started to form on its surface, while the bark darkened into a deep, rich black brimming with power.

"This is… Could this be… A combined spell!" Emery thought and his suspicion was instantly proven right when the roots of the tree attacked him, almost catching him off-guard.

Clank!

"Dammit, if only I stopped her sooner!"

Emery placed his dagger into his spatial space and used his free hand to cast [Shadow Roots]

The tree golem stopped moving instantly, bound with the void-colored roots from Emery's spell.

"Amazing! Your [Entangled] spell looks very special. Let me see the extent of your power!"

Once more, Maeve touched the ground and let the dark roots spread, creating half a dozen more identical tree golems.

This time, when the trees transformed, Emery could feel the distinct jolts of spirit energy in the air, along with the small tremors and loud cracking sounds filling the air as the plants started to emerge from the ground.

This was such a display of strong spirit force. Emery couldn't help but worry if their power difference was too far apart

[Shadow Root]

Emery concentrated on his power and tried to pull out the maximum power allowed by the restriction spell. Six giant, dark-colored roots emerged from the ground and all strangled the wood golems. Now, they struggled, trying to break the root binding their neck with branches that seem to function similarly to arms.

At first, their attempts were met with failure, but in only less than a minute, the golems were able to overpower the roots, causing them all to crack and split apart into dust.

Clank!

Emery used his sword to parry the multiple incoming attacks coming from the wood golems. This further convinced him that Maeve really was one level higher than him when it came to spells.

He had to admit, it was impossible to defeat the witch in a battle of spells. Not right now, while his spirit power was restricted.

The six wood golems started to surround Emery and he quickly cast [Shadow Mist] before casting [Blink] to hide in the shadows of the forest. The witch's expression turned wary and she looked left and right searching for him.

"You can't hide from me!" She shouted.

As if to prove herself, she quickly detected the real Emery from amongst the shadow clones and she started to gather shadows in her hand, forming a blade before flicking it in his direction.

In response, Emery quickly used [Blink] and reappeared near her.

But this time she was ready. She touched one of the tree golems nearest to her, and all of a sudden, she reappeared on top of the largest wood golem.

Although she was smiling all the while, Emery still could sense her momentary worry through his spirit reading. The witch looked down, perched atop the highest branches of the golem and shouted at him.

"You are dangerous, indeed!"

Maeve gripped the wooden golem tight, creating black roots all around her as a shield to stop Emery's sudden attack.

"Try to come near me now, if you dare!' The woman taunted.