The man spoke,
"Witch… finally found you."
The woman had decided — now that the fight was confirmed, it was just a matter of how quickly things would escalate, whether she would fight to the death or flee somehow.
The woman asked,
"Who are you?"
The man looked at her body and smacked his lips.
"Such a beauty! Sigh, it's a shame I need to kidnap you and hand you over without harming you too much."
The woman frowned deeper, but she didn't make a move.
The man tilted his head and said,
"You're not attacking, and you're also not running away. It's getting a little awkward. I play the bad guy, but the opening this time feels rough. Well, how about this…"
He took out a pill and continued,
"Take this, and no one hurts you. I'll tell you in advance, since I think you'll ask — it's a pill that will make you unconscious."
The woman smiled.
"You really thought I would take it?"
The man put the pill away.
"Nope, but I had to ask since things were a little awkward in some areas and smooth in others."
For a moment, the forest seemed to lean in. She felt her old instincts stirring — the smell of crushed petals, the faint metallic tang at the edges of the mage's aura. He was confident, practiced; his magic smelled of labored, precise control. Fire and lightning — fast, brutal, clinical. He favored power that left scars rather than riddles.
She let the silence hang and watched him watch her. The man mistook her quiet for indecision. He had no right. Her mind was already assembling responses — her vials, the crushed flowers in her satchel, the root-wrought spells she had practiced alone. She had no wish to kill him, but neither would she be taken.
"Very well," the man's voice eased into mock civility. "Then let's begin. I'll give you the courtesy of choice — scream, and you'll make this painful. Cooperate, and it'll be… less so."
He unfolded his hands, and the air between them snarled. A filament of lightning leapt from his palm and braided into a spear of fire. It hissed as it formed, the heat distorting the leaves behind it.
She moved before she could fully think — fast enough that he blinked. A vial crushed between her fingers, releasing a leaf-scented vapor that exploded outward: bitter, green, and sharp. The mist coalesced into a thin green veil that wrapped the clearing's edge like a curtain. He narrowed his eyes, throat tightening as he recalibrated.
"Parlor tricks," he sneered, launching a volley of small fire bolts meant to shred through the mist and find her form.
She didn't hide. She used it. The mist changed how sound traveled and light bent. To his eyes, she blurred — then fractured. Illusions bloomed: five silhouettes stepped from the trees in a synchronized wheel, each one identical to her, each holding a different stance. He had to guess which was real.
He guessed wrong.
She had expected him to. But he did not simply fire at phantoms — he used calculated strikes, arcs of lightning that cut through illusions as if slicing fog with a hot blade, catching the air where she had been standing two heartbeats before. He read the pattern, adjusted, and struck again — this time with a searing lance of energy that slammed into a birch trunk where she'd just stood. Bark splintered, and sap hissed into the air.
Pain bit her calves — not enough to fell her, but enough to pull a hiss from her lips. Good, she thought. Knowing pain kept her honest; dying numb was worse.
He advanced, each step a thunderclap, casting a ring of heat that shriveled ferns and forced her to breathe shallow and fast. He had learned to use the forest's shape — twisting spells that turned trunks into mirrors of flame and roots into burning whips. Precision. Terrifying, because he wasn't wild; he was efficient.
She struck back with craft: ironvine sap mixed with powdered frostleaf, thrown as beads into the air. They burst into a gout of steam that hissed around his ankles, forcing a shuffle. She followed with a howl of wind — petaled blades she had taught the gale to fold into knives. One grazed his cheek, slashing shallow — a breakfast of pain and anger. He spat blood, eyes glittering with fury.
"You hold back," he accused, half-laughing as if the words proved his dominance.
She stepped forward, each movement measured, and for a breath, he underestimated her. Her palm touched the forest floor. Roots answered like old soldiers to a drumbeat, thrumming and erupting to bind his feet. He cursed in a language she didn't care to learn — half anger, half admiration. He burned the vines with a burst of white flame that flayed bark and seared roots, but they held long enough to slow him.
He threw himself free and closed the distance in two giant strides, lightning dancing between his fingers, the air cracking like a whip. Her lungs shrieked from the shockwave. He had the edge now; every attack landed with intention.
She tasted defeat at the back of her teeth — not final, but real. Her thoughts raced: escape routes, a smokescreen of petals and sap, luring him into a hollow where the roots could hold. She couldn't enact all her contingencies at once. The man's grin was a blade; he smelled victory.
He snarled, "Stop dancing. I'll—" and released a spear of lightning that seared the space where she'd stood.
She parried with a frozen lattice, ironvine and frostleaf fused into a web. It took the strike but shuddered violently, shards of frost snapping backward and spearing into the loam. The impact tossed her sideways. Her shoulder slipped from its socket with a hot, searing pain, and she bit down on a breath that tasted like iron.
He laughed, the sound animal and pleased. "You can't hide behind flowers, witch."
She tasted ash, rage, and the sharp sting of resolve. He had the edge, yes — but she still had options. She spat out a charm point, the last of a special resin, and flung it into the air. It bloomed — not into light, but into a choking, cloying scent that filled the clearing. The man blinked, pupils contracting in irritation. He staggered, a microsecond off balance, and she used it — stepping through the smoke like a shadow through curtains.
She didn't run. She vanished — slipping between trunks, bleeding, breath ragged, mind sharp as winter ice. He advanced and cursed, fire and lightning arcing in staccato sweeps that lit the trees like warning beacons.
They were at an impasse. He had superior strength — the heavier hand; she had craft, guile, and a small, dangerous reservoir of tricks. Neither could finish the other yet. He had the edge; he pressed it. She had the will; she refused to yield.
Finally, the man launched a serpent made of lightning, while the woman crushed an unknown vial and met the attack. However, the victor was the man — and the woman was thrown back, crashing through leaves and roots.
The man smiled.
"You're strong. Using a weak spell would be an insult to you."
The woman asked, puzzled,
"What do you mean?"
The man said,
"I'll use my strongest attack — the Lightning Serpent. Anyone below a powerhouse would love to avoid it."
The woman's red eyes trembled.
But then came the cry of a wyvern.
There was a wyvern in the sky — first a small dot, then growing rapidly as it approached. And in the next moment, a red-eyed boy appeared out of nowhere.
---
Adrian Lewin's POV
I was searching when my ears caught the sound of battle — and my nose picked up the sharp scent of vials.
Don't tell me… she's fighting someone.
I rushed toward the noise.
Soon, I saw her being blown away. My wyvern screeched to draw attention as we descended, and while it circled above, I teleported to the ground.
Then I looked at her.
I had been warned about her long before I ever saw her — the Witch of Nightmares, a name whispered with fear and awe. Red eyes that could see the threads of fate; a presence that could bend the world to her will. And yet, here she stood — as if those rumors had softened into something tangible, human… yet not quite human.
Her hair was black as the void, cascading past her shoulders in fluid waves. It moved like smoke caught in a faint wind, each strand carrying weight and grace. Even from a distance, I could see how it framed her face — sharp elegance, the subtle curve of her jaw, the faint rise of her cheekbones. Dangerous, yes — but in a way that drew curiosity more than fear.
And her eyes… red, as I'd been told — but far more haunting in person. They didn't just glow; they burned with quiet inevitability, like embers buried in ash. I knew, as I looked at her, what the world would someday whisper — Witch of Nightmares. Yet here she was, a wounded woman on the border between shadow and light. Her gaze met mine, unflinching, and for a heartbeat, the world around us felt hollow — as if it existed only because she allowed it.
She stood about five feet ten inches tall — imposing, yet with a feline grace.
Her body carried curves impossible to ignore — not exaggerated, but perfectly balanced, precise, as if sculpted by intent rather than nature. Even the faint shimmer of the dark fabric beneath her cloak suggested elegance and restraint. She was a study in contradictions: seductive, yet innocent; dangerous, yet calm; untouchable, yet profoundly real.
The air around her shifted. I could feel it — her aura, intoxicating and heavy, a mixture of danger and allure, with a hint of purity that made her impossible to define.
And still, I didn't flinch. I knew who she would become — the power she would wield, the terror she would inspire. Yet standing before her now, I felt anticipation, not fear.
The Witch of Nightmares was legend.
But this woman — this version of her — was alive, breathing, and walking the world with intent I could not yet read.
She was a puzzle, a force, a presence.
And I would find her, and understand her, long before the world learned to fear her name.