Lance Lightning 5

Remembering how the witch had healed her hand earlier by submerging it inside a tree, I ignored the shrieks of protest from my legs and rushed to her.

She swung her only arm, releasing a gust of the smoke that’d nearly melted my lungs.

I activated Burst Step once more, dodging the poisonous smoke and closing the gap in a blink. Tendrils of black lightning coiled around my right arm. Rather than attempting to break through her corroding aura and risk mutilating another hand, I gripped the handle of my sword still embedded in her thigh. Acting as a conductor, the branches of electricity coiled down my sword into the witch’s body.

Her body immediately stiffened and jerked in a fit of convulsions from the current of lightning passing through her body. I could see her trying to fight back but I became hopeful as her hollow eyes reeled back.

Her head spasmed but there was still strength in her as her glossy eyes slowly came back into focus. The witch’s gnarled face cracked like dry soil as splotches of charred skin spread over her body.

Please, just die, I pleaded in my head as my decreasing mana reserves made me fear for the possibility of backlash.

Suddenly, I was wrenched back from the witch. As if I had been prodded by an iron brand, a searing pain radiated from my shoulder as I was sent tumbling back on the ground. Without looking back, I coated my hand in an icy aura and reached over my shoulder to pry off the fingers of mana she had conjured.