I thought about using the advanced fireball, but both Alice and I were in the splash zone. It also didn’t help that I still needed time to properly power it up.

  Using the spell at a lower charge would be a waste, considering how many tests I put it through. It was looking like the fight might drag on. I needed to end it as quickly as possible.

  I gave the spell a glance just to make sure it was still okay. It was burning dimly above us. Everything was in order. Even my arm was almost fully regenerated. The pink skin was a great indicator of health. I drew my sword from my inventory.

  Squirmy still in a rage dashed forward, lashing out with his clawed hands. With the added joints they almost bent like whips. I used the aura of my sword to block the in coming slashes.

  His claws cut through the outer shell, scratching against the metal of my sword. This caused sparks to fly, colliding with the boss’s chitin. His strikes were so hard that they made the blade cry in a bell like ring.

  I noticed the edge denting in some places. Using the remaining sharp side of Cindy’s sword, I countered with a null blade aura, giving it a thinner and stronger edge.

  My sword bit down on Squirmy’s shoulder, drawing black blood from a small wound. It was too shallow to be significant. Somehow it felt as though his body had become more dense. As if his blood was made of cement and his bones were steel.

  Seeing my weak attack, Squirmy smiled, causing a bladed tendril to pop out of his side and shoot my way.

  My sword was wedge in his flesh, so I expanded the aura of my blade for a fraction of a second, widening the wound for a quick extraction and retreat.

  The tendril nearly skewered me, but I managed to bat it aside with my blade. The wounds I’d given him struggled to close thanks to the punishment aspects, but it wasn't a lot of damage, at least not to a shape shifter.

  New tendrils bloomed each one growing blades at there tips. They were so fast that I could barely knock them aside.

  The worst part was that my sword was struggling to get through. I could damage them but not sever them like before and by the time they got back around to attack me they had been shifted around so that the damage was moved somewhere else. These were much denser than the ones I cut down.

  “What's the matter? Can't get through my meat?” he cackled like a hyena.

  I could barely keep up with the onslaught. The issue was that my aura was too weak. I needed more power. With no other choice, I fed even more Qi into the star pattern.

  This caused my aura to flare up. I wasn’t able to make more layers, but the raw power was needed.

  My aura began to collapse and become more patchy. It broke down and reformed itself, as I tried to get it to form into proper layers. Getting it to settle was nearly impossible. I beat Zubu with this messy aura, so why not this guy too.

  Instead of providing me with a boost in physical stats and a shell of armor. This version would move around my body to focus all it’s power on certain parts of me.

  My defense was garbage, but protection wasn’t what I needed at the moment. The only thing that would work was raw speed and power. With it I stood a chance.

  Don’t. Get. Hit.

  Apathy flooded my existence, as I tried to connect to Squirmy. There was a lot of awful things there. Memories of his victims and the truth behind what he had really planned for them. It made me sick causing me to almost get hit. I tuned it down to the bare minimum I needed for my muse.

  Focusing my aura, I was able to move the unstable energy to the parts that I needed. While weaving I powered my legs. When striking I powered my arms and weapon. No defense, just attack and weave.

  With my perfect focus and my muse. I was able to dance around my opponent, while chipping away at the bladed tendrils and siphoning off chunks of null Qi. Slowly and persistently, I worked my way in.

  My efforts felt like they were getting me nowhere as he grew more tendrils and sped them up. I was being overwhelmed. He was too fast.

  -Alice-

  I had one more vine to go. It was stuck to my left leg. I’d already healed myself, but I couldn't cut the vine. It got really hard all of a sudden.

  That's when I heard it. The sound of flesh being torn open. I turned my head in fear and saw Izzy holding his left arm. There was blood dripping down it. “No! Izzy!” I sent healing energy to him hoping he'd be okay.

  Using my knife I tried again to cut the vine, but nothing “Screw it. I’m doing it the saw way!” instead of the vine, I went for my leg. That first cut hurt so much, but not as much as losing him.

  With a scream I pushed through cutting it off in a few strokes. As for the bone I had to use my strength to snap it in half. Once free I healed myself. It took at least three heals to top myself off.

  I then looked to my husband. He was still fighting. His attacks did nothing to the tendrils. He couldn’t even get closer. The only thing he could do was hold them off.

  I could transform, but that didn’t work so well the first time. I’d just end up getting in the way. If that was the case them I’ll be his support.

  I changed my hot bar around then brought out my wand. It was a white one with a heart at the tip. The gemstone was a nice blue, and it had these really cute blue ribbons that wrapped around the whole thing.

  I began casting my buffs on Izzy. “Liberate! Stone fortress, attack boost, imbue fire, health boost, regenerate,” Izzy was bombarded with a bunch of colorful lights.

  Next came the hexes for Squirmy. “Gravity well, bind, weakness, curse.”

  -Aku/Isaac-

  This was ridiculous. I couldn’t even cast a spell with this much crap flinging at me. If only there was a small window of opportunity here. At least I have Alice to heal me.

  That was when I felt something strike my insides. It was a strange blue energy. Then a yellow one and a red one, then the blade was lit on fire for some reason, and I got hit with two more that were both green. The colors all seemed to cycle inside me like the basis for an aura.

  I felt pretty good and my speed went up a lot. My weapon was lighting the tendrils ablaze. I was actually doing good damage now.

  That was when a dark power landed on Squirmy. I watched as black chains wrapped around his body, pulling his tendrils down to the chitin on the Boss’s back.

  Lifting my arm I took that chance to cast a punishment fireball, then began feeding hydrogen aspects into the spell. It quickly grew into a Solarball.

  Before I could fire it though, Squirmy threw a hissy fit, “No you don’t!” he roared.

  I felt it before it happened. With a Qi pulse I moved out of the way while the chitin morphed into several spikes over taking the area.

  I rushed to my wife’s side. Luckily his attacks were only focused on me. Alice was smiling and even started running towards me.

  This made the perfect opportunity to get her out of here. I used a double platform spell to create a fluffy pillow in front of her, which caused her to trip and fall forward onto it.

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  To my relief It began to lift itself into the air. I made it go as fast as possible before that asshole can catch up. That was when I heard the horrible screeching that only Squirmy could do.

  “Where the hell do you think your going!” Squirmy was right behind me and had devolved into a giant black sheet with teeth. It swirled through the air, as if caught up in the wind.

  With a Qi pulse I shot myself near the edge of Squirmy’s head only for the teeth night blanket thing to cover my vision.

  “Get away!” I fired the Solarball ball creating a bloom of golden flames. He was so thin that they ate through him like he was paper.

  “aaaargh!” he screamed as the flame fucked his whole bed sheet form up.

  I gathered up any heat aspects scattered by the flames and used it to spam punishment fireballs. Each one took a big chunk out of the bedsheets. It was actually pretty satisfying. The only issue is that I couldn’t find his soul.

  Using Qi sight I realized it was… It was “right behind me!” I turned only to find Squirmy’s monster form. The blanket was only a small part of him. To my embarrassment I screamed like a little girl then pawed him like a cat.

  I jumped back and yelled “don’t do that!” that’s when spikes came out from under me pinching me like crab arms. I shrieked in fear.

  “This is over.” He said while turning his hand into a blade.

  “Like hell it is!” I created a platform under my left leg and made it push up. Then unequipped my clothes to un-wedged myself. The platform pushed up getting me out of the hold I was in.

  The sudden loss of aspect control nearly caused me to lose control of the delay fireballs but I only unequipped it for a moment before putting my clothes back on.

  I then took a fighting pose and hopped up and down on my toes. “I can do this all day!” I insisted.

  “I can’t believe the boss was afraid of you. You cant even do proper damage.” He swung his blade as his arm became like a whip. I could avoid one so I side stepped it before dashing forward and punching him in the balls.

  Squirmy didn’t even flinch. “Where are your balls!” I demanded. How dare he hide his boyz!

  “I got rid of all pointless organs!” he whipped his left hand out turning it into a blade. I ducked then punched him twice before avoiding another attempt to cut me.

  I needed more power so I punched him again, but this time I added a Qi pulse to my attack and managed to get him to step back a little. I even got a little bit of blood out of his stupid mouth.

  Satisfied I then slapped him with a double bind. His body was wrapped up like a present. This didn’t stop him from attacking, as his body produced even more tendrils from his back.

  I used bind once more as I retreated. Causing his tendrils to be held down by my spell. I then fired off one more fireball. The spell wasn’t that powerful, but the punishment fire would spread and consume his entire body.

  “You think I’ll die to this! Don’t be stupid! This is nothing!” his body shifted. He created new tendrils and even tried to create a new body with them but his soul wouldn’t carry over.

  It was all thanks to the bind spell. I didn’t know it had this effect. I was reminded of my mother constantly bringing me back from the brink of death. Souls cant escape, no matter how much they wish they could.

  Despite his attempts the flames continued to spread. No matter how many body parts he created it persistently followed.

  This was because of the hatred I put into that fire. I guess you could call this sorcery too. I remembered all the crap this asshole did to me and it made something in my chest burn. So I used that to make the flame.

  It was time to go. I saw my fluffy cloud flying off into the distance so I gathered up a few aspects and fixed my aura making sure to power it with wind and heat.

  With a Qi pulse to my step, I dashed forward and made a huge jump. I created a few platforms to help get back to my wife who looked really happy when she saw me jump.

  That was until I saw her face change. I didn’t even turn around. I simply activated my Qi sight and saw all the jade fire balls being hurled my way.

  Landing on another platform. Then turned around. I knew one thing. I couldn’t let them hit my wife. I gathered up all the wind and momentum aspects I could possibly get my hands on. The strain of all the spells was really getting to me.

  The ball of aspects grew to the size of a tennis ball. I then clapped my hands over the aspects creating a small Shockwave that caused the nearest fireballs to detonate.

  From there I pulled Snowball out of my inventory and used her to create several layers of platforms between me and them. Then used her again to create Manabolts to try and shoot some of them down, before they got to the shields.

  I then felt another buff hit me as null aspects began to gather inside me. Was this some sort of focus buff. It wasn’t exactly safe for me, but I could use the extra aspects. They were provided by the system after all.

  As my barriers were brought down I slowly backed my platform up to not only make more room for barriers but put space between me and the boss.

  Speaking of the boss. It looked like it had changed directions and was now following me. That was bad right. I was leading it deeper into the city too.

  Okay, I can do one better. I started turning my platform to go the other way and after a good 15 minutes of making a big ass half circle I managed to get squirmy turned around.

  Maybe it’ll leave the city. That would be nice. I’ll probably die before then. At this distance I could activate the advanced fireball.

  Wait where did I leave it? Using my Qi sight, I looked around and even managed to find it. It was back were we were! No! That’s so far away now!

  There was no helping it. I turned the platform back around again. I was getting dizzy managing so many spells.

  Eventually I found the spell and pulled it to my side. I didn't do anything right away since I wanted Alice to watch. It’s no fun making cool new stuff without an audience to praise you and tell you how cool you are!

  She was off in that direction. The question was would I last long enough to show her. I’m sure it’ll work out. I weaved left when a jade fireball nearly struck me.

  I scooted my platform back as fast as possible and used snowball to create giant platforms for protection. I then began shooting the fireballs down again. “That was so close!” Snowball had swirly eyes again, but these were from being dizzy.

  About 10 minutes later I ran into my wife. I hopped onto her cloud then repositioned the platform I was on to make another shield.

  “Izzy, you came. You’re here.” She cried hugging my legs. I don't think she was comfortable with standing on a cloud.

  “Of course I came. I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t know where you were, so I was going to throw myself at the boss until it died, or I died.” I said.

  “Your always so reckless. Please don’t throw yourself away.” She lightly scolded.

  I nodded, “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry.”

  Alice looked back to the boss with hatred in her eyes. “I wish I could have done more. That asshole deserves pain.” She spat.

  “Do you wanna see something cool?” I asked.

  My wife narrowed her eyes in that way that said, ‘what did you do now’ but nodded out of curiosity.

  I turned around readying the spell I’d been preparing for so long. It was still at my side. I fed momentum, wind, and heat aspects into it, as the power of the void flooded its containment runes.

  Seeing as they were so effective, I added punishment aspects directly to the fireball itself. The red nova grew In size, as if it had been starving this whole time and was waiting for me to feed it.

  I took all the heat aspects from the heat stone, feeding them into the spell while injecting hydrogen into the fireball itself. It quickly grew into a large Solarball.

  The yellow ball didn't stop there, as it expanded even more. That’s when I began condensing it. Keeping it at the size of a beach ball. The heat was so well contained that I couldn’t even feel it.

  “Uh… Izzy, that looks super dangerous. Is it… supposed to shake like that?” Alice’s words made me smile.

  It didn’t end there, as the spell greedily sucked up not only the heat and fuel I was providing it, but the air and ambient heat in the area. I could feel a cold chill run along my body, as the flame turned into a hot blue light. It was powerful—like a meteor spell, but much more compact and with way more kick.

  The blue flame was self sustaining, as it drew in aspects on its own. The only thing keeping it in check was the magic circle I’d created. Even that was having trouble at the moment as the outer ring began to vibrate and strain.

  “Izzy, it’s really pretty.” Said Alice.

  Squirmy, the one that I burnt to a crisp slowly made his way to the edge of the bosses head, he was covered in burns. The guy gathered 100s of the boss’s bladed tendrils for an assault on us.

  Each tendril had several jade fireballs at the ready. It was too bad that by then it was too late. I released the advanced spell. Whispering it's name In the wind, “Greater Azureball.”

  Slowly, It moved at the pace of a falling tree. Gradually, it picked up speed, as our nimbus pillow floated in the opposite direction. The boss’s mouth had just opened and released a cloud explosion of acid and poison, as it’s tendrils shot forward at the same time. Even it’s head lunged forward to try and attack us with its massive stinger.

  It didn't matter as my Azureball burned right through the cloud, striking true and erupting in an explosion of white and blue flames.

  The flames expanded in a swirling mess. Sweeping and blooming across Squirmy’s head and what I would consider to be his neck.

  As soon as the spell went off the rest of my spells activated creating and releasing over 50 punishment delay fireballs all throughout Squirmy’s back. The giant bug was lit ablaze, as most of his body erupted in violent flames.

  The tendrils fell limp, but the jade fireballs continued. “Alice use that spell again!” I commanded.

  She lifted her shaking little hand, “protect!” creating a magic circle and a big blue shield over us.

  I quickly put my hand over her spell circle and used my will to take control. The shield changed shape becoming a dome. Using my Qi sight I copied the runes and created 4 more. It was an easy spell that only used momentum aspects.

  The shields were bombarded by jade fire, but the attacks were no match for our protections. In the end only 4 were broken. Um… with a big old crack on the last one. Actually, that was close.

  I wished my spells were enough to finish him off, but it was nowhere near the damage needed to bring him down. Since he was a shapeshifting type of monster, head shots wouldn’t work here. It didn’t matter right now, Alice was the priority.

  Even with all that, the monsters HP bar had only gone down about 5%. It wasn’t enough. This meant I needed way more attack power. This really sucked, especially since my Qi was down to 27.74%. I wish I could leave for another week of training, but that would require me to almost die in a safe and hidden area.

  At the very least Squirmy had been lit on fire with burns that could not heal, and that wasn’t something he could easily fix.