Emery raised both of his hands and quickly accessed his new and improved nature core, as he quickly cast one of the spells in his repertoire. In a matter of seconds, numerous plant roots emerged from the ground and held down the newly created living corpses by entangling them from the legs to the whole body.

Craacckkk!!

Loud, crisp sounds of bone breaking resounded through the air, as the plant roots destroyed their respective target, bringing the living corpses down, unable to stand anymore.

Emery had no plan to underestimate the witch, nor took things nonchalantly. He mustered his spirit force till its maximum capability, as two dozen plant roots swirled fiercely from the ground. Within seconds, the area was completely clean from any standing corpse.

Now that the small fries were out of the way, he finally could focus his attention on the main enemy. Not wanting to see more tricks from the other party, Emery swiftly took control of the plant roots and willed them to attack the standing witch.

Swish! Swish!

Faint sounds of air being sliced through were heard, as the plant roots shot toward the witch at great velocity. Unfortunately, the roots were quickly cut down to pieces, as Meave fired multiple shadow blades from her palms, denying Emery's attempt to take her down.

Seeing the sight of the roots destroyed didn't make Emery falter. He immediately sent more of them altogether toward the witch. The roots flew through the air toward Meave, leaving no gaps in their formation like a great downpour.

Looking at the numerous sharp roots heading her way, Meave just raised her weird-looking staff in a nonchalant manner. After a brief glow at its tip, the plant roots that had almost reached and impaled her suddenly shriveled up and lost their vigor, lifelessly falling to the ground.

The sight unfolded before him reminded Emery of when Meave drained human's life force out of them. It certainly had a similar effect to that spell, but he assumed the staff in her hand had enhanced her spells.

Not giving up, Emery casted more of those plant roots. Dozens, nearly hundreds of sharp roots rose from the ground and shot toward the witch from all directions, but none of them managed to land on her body.

Seeing how Emery relentlessly tried to attack her in spite of the fruitless result, Meave wickedly laughed, as if what the former did was extremely foolish in her eyes.

"This is indeed the most impressive display of the entangled spell I've ever seen in my life." She said, "But, you won't be able to beat me, as I am now the master of life and death!"

Hearing that, Emery stopped his unrelenting barrage and said, "Thank you for the compliments.." He drawled before a faint smile appeared on his face, "But I've already achieved what I wanted."

Meave just realized something when she heard Emery's words. The shaman who stood behind her was already covered up by the plant, unable to move even an inch.

"Now no one can distract us now!"

After a simple analysis on the overall situation and what Meave said previously, Emery could safely assume that plant magic actually did contain the essence of life.

If what Meave said was true - that her spell was related to life and death -, he could assume that, no matter how fierce and relentless his attack was, it would be nothing but fruitless if he kept using plant element spells. Therefore, he had to adopt a different approach.

Emery was really tempted to just blink over to her and finished her by separating her head from the neck. However, he decided to shelve the idea for the moment. He chose to be more cautious and carefully observe the spell she used before he proceeded with such an aggressive approach. After all, he could not afford to be careless in this fight, or let her escape one more time.

The best case scenario was actually to successfully capture her alive, so that she could be brought before the High Priestess, or better, Killgragah.

While Emery was busy mulling over his thoughts, Meave herself wasn't planning to remain still, to just stand and be attacked. In a span of seconds, shadow blades started to appear around her before flying toward Emery at breakneck speed.

Swish! Swish! Several shadow blades, that Emery extremely familiar with, rapidly flew through the air, intending to spell the end of his existence.

Seeing the menacing sight of dark-colored blades, Emery calmly moved his body and dodged them with ease.

When the barrage became too much and some of the blades were getting too close, he quickly touched the ground and immediately, a wall of stone rose to stop the incoming blades.

Craacckkk!!

The stonewall was quickly destroyed by the shadow blades, but it already gave Emery enough time to move out of the way.

Emery continued his evasive maneuver, casting [Mudwall] spells a few more times to see how long she could keep up her barrage as well as observing her rhythm.

From the observation, Emery discovered the shadow blades Meave threw had roughly similar strength and speed as his.

Amazingly that was almost twice the power she displayed last year; she definitely grew so much since then. After all, the current him had 600 in spirit force department, as well as his dark core that made his dark element spells stronger.

He hated to admit it, but there was indeed a huge possibility the other party had managed to cross rank 9. Hence when he has the chance he needed to be ruthless.

After receiving dozens of Meave's shadow blades, Emery knew it was time for him to launch his own aggression.

This time, he decided to use his water-based spells. As he ran and continued to dodge, swirls of water began to materialize on his palms. Emery started to collect and congregate his water spell, waiting for the perfect opportunity to launch the counterattack.

When the timing was right, he immediately propelled all his momentum and threw the water spell prepared in his two hands. A moment later, two large waves of water went toward the witch.

As expected, her death magic was unable to stop the waves from rushing at her. Meave tried to move out of the way of the two waves, but Emery commanded great control with nature spells. He twisted the movement of the water with his hand waves, causing the waves to swirl and head in the direction of his command.

And as he continued to channel more spirit power into the spell, the waves continued to grow as they passed through the terrain.

In the end, two grand streams of water ferociously rushed at the witch. Looking at the unbelievable sight before her, Meave started to become bewildered and partly dumbfounded.

"Huh?!!" She exclaimed, as she saw the previously one meter tall waves had grown twice the size "How can you cast it like this?! It's not possible!!"

Meave threw more shadow blades in the two waves' way in the effort of stopping them, but it had miniscule, if not nonexistent, effects on them.

The two water waves swirled from two sides and charged at Meave from back and front. Left with no other escape path, she was forced to jump into the air otherwise she would be crushed by the waves.

It was at this moment that Emery casted [Blink] and appeared in the sky, right on top of her.

Two raging waves of water were charging at her from the ground, and Emery was ready to launch his offensive from above. From any side, it seemed Meave had no possible solution from this precarious situation.

Within a split second, she cast her [Oak Flesh] and turned her body into a hardened state. At the same time, he also swung her staff to block Emery's attack that came from above.

However, Emery would not let such a golden opportunity go like that. He forced himself to cast another [Blink] at that split second moment and quickly took out the [Moon Dagger] , the tier 3 dagger that could give guarantee to cut through that hardened skin of hers. Appearing a few feet away from his initial position in the air, just enough to make Meave's staff miss its target, he used the dagger to cut her arm that was holding the staff.

Splat!!

Emery's attack had forced Meave to release her hold on the staff. Emery, however, wasn't finished yet. He proceeded to deliver a hard roundhouse kick to her, sending her straight down toward the raging waves.

BAAMMM!!

It was a hard one and Meave's body was forcibly went back and forth between the two waves before being violently slammed to the ground.

Knowing that combination of attacks simply wasn't enough, Emery quickly cast another [Entangled] spell midair, and used the roots to strangle her body while the staff was not in her reach.

Roots rapidly rose from the ground, creeping on the witch's body. She shouldn't be able to cast a spell when in that condition.

A few seconds later, Meave finally opened her closed eyes, which was then followed by a loud groan caused by the painful sensation she felt throughout her body. When she tried to see her surroundings, Emery was already in front of her.

"You have lost!" Emery said coldly. "Now tell me where Morgana is?!"

At that question, the witch was raging. "Huh?!! You are strong, young Emery. Very strong!!"

"But this won't be enough to stop me!"

Following the end of her words, Meave's body started to change. Black fur started to appear throughout her skin, while her fingernails and canine teeth began to turn sharp. It was her [Wolf Transformation] ability.

Emery quickly added another layer of [Entangled] to her restraint. He even added a layer of [Mudwall] to hold her down, but these measures were apparently not enough.

The witch swiftly broke out of her strangulation and her body rapidly grew as big as the wolf he saw on the island. However, there was a difference: spikes grew on Meave's four limbs.

Written by Avans, Published exclusively by W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l,