Chapter 160: Declawed and Decrowned

Chapter 160: Declawed and Decrowned

"What do you mean it's not real!?" Ian shouted as he was fighting off a group of imaginary swords. Now that I had broken through successfully, the entire fight seemed almost comical.

"All the weapons are an illusion! You need to disbelieve it!" I shouted.

To prove my point, I used [Thunder Step] to appear next to the cat and attempted to backhand one of its floating swords. There were some yells from my party members for me to stop, but I knew it wasn't real, and my hand passed straight through the blade despite some of their gasps and astonishment.

The cat growled, and then its shadow erupted with shadowy spikes toward me; I reflexively threw up an [Aegis] and saw the dark spikes crash against it.

"Okay, its shadow can apparently attack!" I warned as I retreated to a safe distance with another [Thunder Step].

"Is that why it cast [Eclipse]?" Jet said with a frown. "Bloody hell. No stupid monster cat will use my own affinity against me."

Jet seemed to accept what I said easily enough, and soon enough, he ignored the illusory blades that passed through him. Eliza joined shortly after, as it seemed her inability to siphon the illusion damage had spoken volumes to her frame of mind. Ian and Pelopi, however, were struggling desperately to overcome it. I wondered if it was due to their failure to resist one of the numerous curses the cat had flung at us, and unfortunately, the cat seemed to know this as it focused its assault on them and tried to ignore us.

While throwing [Lightning Bolts] at it was all fun and good, it had an enormous mana pool and thus effective health. I had the perfect new spell to try out —[Mana Burn]!

When I cast the spell on the cat, it screeched with rage. Its shadow flickered wildly and lost all cat-like resemblance, instead looking like it belonged to one of my chimeric monstrosity forms. Everyone reacted with shock, and that was when its shadow rose from the surface, detached itself from the cat, and flung itself at me with burning hatred.

I threw up an [Aegis] in reaction, and the shadow monster tore through; as soon as I heard the familiar shattering sound, I threw up another, and this time, it finally halted its trajectory. The shadow slithered around and over the [Aegis] before flinging itself towards me again.

"Focus on the cat! We have to kill it before its shadow gets Syl!" Jet ordered.

"I still can't hit the damn thing!" Ian shouted in frustration. "Eliza! I'm going maximum burn!"

"Right!" Eliza confirmed.

Ian erupted with newfound firepower, the tips of his flames even turning blue with the intense ferocity. Under the insane heat, his flesh was in a constant flux of charring before returning to normal, while a massive amount of dark energy was being constantly siphoned. With her free hand raised, a black flame formed, and then, rather than her usual dark bolt, a flamethrower of black conflagration streamed from her palm.

Pelopi kept up her [Fire Arrow] spells while running away from the swords chasing her. She sprinted and dodged with feline grace.

Jet replaced his crossbow again, this time with two identical handheld ones, and began firing a torrent of shadow-infused bolts at the cat.

Meanwhile, I had my shadowy pursuer hounding me with dreadful ferocity. I tried casting spells at it, but it seemed completely ineffectual against the shadow. The closest I got to harming it was with bright light generated from either [Fire Magic] or [Lightning Magic], which seemed to stun the entity temporarily. This thing was like my worst nightmare: immune to debuffs, immune to afflictions, immune to magic, and likely even immune to slime.

I tried casting some [Lightning Bolts] at the cat when I got the chance but received a scolding from Jet.

"Worry about keeping yourself alive, Syl! It's a damage race right now!" Jet shouted.

"We've got this!" Eliza said reassuringly.

I nodded as I used [Thunder Step] to evade the shadow once more. It almost instantly rebounded off the dungeon wall when it missed me and was again like a projectile seeking to end me. I made sure to at least order any expiring debuffs and afflictions refreshed to my cores, especially [Mana Burn], which seemed to be double dipping in the damage department.

'I had presumed destroying mana would deal damage like backlash does; it seems my assumption was correct. So since mana is being destroyed and mana is its health, it's stacking together. No wonder it sicced its shadow on me exclusively.'

With the number of [Aegis] spells this shadow was chewing through, I was honestly beginning to worry even I'd run into some mana issues. It was becoming a balancing act of trying to estimate whether I should avoid it with [Thunder Step] or block it with [Aegis] depending on its incoming velocity. What made matters worse was the [Jinx Aura] was affecting both my skill and magic, as sometimes I would trigger [Thunder Step], and it would just fail, and I'd be left standing on the spot looking like an idiot. [Aegis] failing was awful as the magical shield would form and instantly shatter without blocking even a single blow, wasting a considerable amount of mana in the process, not to mention the backlash, which felt like taking a hammer to the core. Not fun.

After our game of cat and mouse, it seemed to finally reach a level of its remaining life when it recalled its shadow to deal with the others. With only Pelopi and Ian taking damage from its illusions anymore, it needed to take out the others. It seemed Eliza was its next target as the shadow flung itself at her; I immediately threw up two [Aegis] spells to block it.

"It's coming for Eliza!" I shouted.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Shit! Ahh! We were winning this race! Stupid ghost cat! Stop cheating!" Pelopi screamed.

From my perspective, its mana was dangerously low, so I made the impromptu decision to try to seal the deal with [Decay] and also triggered [Assassinate], even if the bonus damage would be halved for the cat being fully aware of me. With six debuffs at least, eight if I included the ones I had merged, and four afflictions, I knew it would be a big chunk of damage, and I prayed to Gramps that it would be enough to end this.

"I have no idea what this does," I said with a mumble.

"Well, it's not magical," Eliza said.

"Yeah, [Appraisal] is showing nothing." Jet agreed, having recovered from his coughing fit.

I stared at them in bewilderment before responding. "It's definitely magical. I can see three different types of enchantments at least, and my [Appraisal] calls it the [Cat Sith Crown]."

"That's... Odd?" Jet said curiously. "Toss it here?"

I threw the crown over to him, and he examined it closer.

"[Appraisal] still shows nothing... Not even a failed [Identify] notification." Jet said, scratching his head in puzzlement.

Eliza and Pelopi also took a closer look, but both concluded it was showing up as non-magical in Pelopi's [Mana Sight] and Eliza's [Mana Conception].

"So Syl's the crazy one for once." Ian joked. "Think it's the cat's revenge for you breaking its illusion?"

"I hope not..." I mumbled.

Pelopi placed the crown on her head and gave a mocking and snooty laugh befitting a pompous noble. "Bow down before Princess Pelopi!" She joked.

The crown suddenly poofed off her head.

"Your crown's been stolen, your highness." Ian roared with laughter.

Pelopi frantically grabbed at her head where the crown once was.

"Well, shit. It's definitely magical if it can disappear." Jet said.

"But where did it go?" I asked curiously.

Pelopi suddenly pointed to me. "Crown thief!"

"Oh. It appeared on Syl's head again..." Ian said. "That's handy?"

"Or worrying... An unknown magical item has attached itself to her." Eliza pointed out.

"This bloody dungeon... I swear." Jet grumbled, taking another drink.

"It doesn't seem harmful," I said, hoping it was true. At least no scary notifications or garbled text was appearing. "Although if I'm forced to wear this thing, I wish it was a hat rather than a crown..."

As soon as I said that, there were some gasps from the others. Jet spat out his drink and started coughing.

"What!?" I said with worry.

"Definitely a magic crown," Eliza stated.

"It's a magic hat now!" Pelopi corrected.

I reached up and pulled it off my head. What was there now was a round-brimmed cap with a large bright red feather attached to it.

"Huh..." I mumbled, staring at the strange... Hat?