Rolling on the ground, I quickly steadied myself and eyed at my targets, infusing tiny amounts of malaise into my fingers and enforcing the arrows in my hands.
'Bang'
Loosing them, the arrows, although flying with much more power than a normal arrow should without the influence of higher powers was far from the intended target goal.
'sh*t'
Cursing within my mind, I looked at my hands which had just loosed three arrows targeting at the skulls of the Whither Skeletons on the frontlines.
'The output is a bit to slow.'
Realising that forcefully stagnating the flow of malaise from my hands to the arrows was actually a bad idea, I quickly opened the flood gates and let the malaise flow into the arrow.
Holding a pose, I drew the string back to the center of my chest before feeling the strum of the strings ripple in the air in front of me.
*TwWwAaNg
'Yeah that's not going to work.'
Exploding a large crater in the battlefield filled to the brim with crackling lava, I quickly rushed at the gap between the monsters and resisted the urge to use a melee weapon.
Sliding underneath the fireballs floating above my head and exploding against the ground in little patches of flame, the black sand gave way underneath my legs as I pulled the string of the bow back to my chest.
'Bang bitch.'
Multiple nocked bow aiming three arrows in three directions, all three purple tipped arrows flew through the ring of rods surrounding the Blazes floating above the lava pool and struck their cores.
*KuuHHH
Hearing the hollow sound of a Blaze dying for the first time, I leaned forwards using the aid of forwards sliding and rolled onto the ground.
Feeling the earth shake underneath my feet as a ghast fireball fell to the ground, I looked up at the air again.
'Well hot damn.'
Realising that the first volley of fireballs had finally reached the ground, I grimaced.
Now that I was looking at it, the Wither Skeletons and Blazes were beings that were quiet literally hiding
The difference was, we as human beings and lizards are not exactly people great at enduring fire.
I mean we might have built up an endurance to it from several times of experiencing it, but it doesn't take away the fact that its just at the limit of enduring it.
Enduring the heat of the first ghast ball landing onto the ground, I quickly looked at the sky filled with several more of these flaming balls impacting the earth and terminal velocity.
'...I really should shoot them down before they can become more of a nuiasance.'
Pulling the string of the bow back, my eyes widened as a tiny gust of wind touched the back of my neck.
And sensing the very real threat of death that I had gotten familiar with, I twisted my body to just barely miss the edge of the blade which whiffed by the scruff of my neck.
'Holy!?'
Eyes darting to my right, my leg kicked back and stomped onto the ground right before I lifted my arms in a blocking motion which was met with a hard kick of the heel.
Scuffing backwards from the force of the blow, I looked at the enemy I was facing while on the shore of lava.
[Elite Wither commander.]
'Well hi'
Noting that this guy could serve as the test dummy to my power in hopes of controlling it, I held the arrow in my hands and slowly let the malaise run through it.
'Oh hi to you as well.'
Eyes widening in surprise, I quickly stepped to the side to allow a frozen arrow to whiff besides me.
But to my utmost surprise, the ice arrow exploded mid air, sending fragments of ice which scratched against the surface of my skin drawing droplets of crimson red blood.
Taking a look at the [Awakened Ice bow] in the distance, I bent my legs and quickly jumped above the Lava Pool.
'I really should stop doing things on a whim.'
Quickly reorienting myself by stepping onto a Blazes core head and plunging it into lava, I hopped across each individual Blaze, making sure to unleash a Malaise fused stomp onto them as the Wither commander coldly stared at me.
And lo and behold, for some reason, the Awakened Ice bow followed me.
'I mean, I know I'm your creator but why aim at me specifically, there's a perfectly fine target made out of bones right besides you.'
Mentally complaining about the unfairness of it all, I looked at myself.
'I mean, am I really that attractive? Why aim at me specifically?'
Noting that the Awakened Ice bow had a strange fixation on me specifically, all the while I hopped across the heads of the blazes which were now drenched in lava, arrows of ice flew across my eyes.
Landing on the surface of the lava pool and rapidly cooling it to the point of forming incredibly solid surfaces wich bobbed on the surface like pieces of flotsam in the sea.
Without a moments hesitation, the Awakened Ice bow chided their steed to run on the surface of the lava pool.
And much like their rider's icy arrows, the hooves that made contact with the lava pool created large portions of untethered stone platform that albeit were unanchored to any surface.
Seeing this, I felt an unprecedented sense of crisis and enlightenment at that moment.
The enlightenment consisted of me realizing that I could use ice shards to make sure that I don't take a swim in boiling hot lava.
The crisis was that for reasons unknown to me, the Awakened Ice bow really wanted to kill me.
"Go away you crazy bitch!?"
Floundering in the air, the Blaze head which was supposed to be underneath my foot disappeared with a chilling crack as I nearly took a dive in the lava stream.
Thankfully, my enlightenment wasn't in vain.
"Wohoohoohohoh"
Chuckling at the absurdity of the fact, I stood on the piece of stone flotsam being slowly consumed by the lava stream and watched as the Ice rider slowly neared.
And was I just imagining things or was the battlefield getting farther and farther away?
'Also, why is that Wither Commander suddenly flying.
Eyes widening against my will, I watched as the Wither Commander grabbed a
And now that I looked closer at the Group of ghasts that had neared the ground while firing ball after ball of fire, the stones that I mistook for hardened lava chunks were actually undead riders of blackened bone.
'You know? I really wish I was blind right now.'
Watching the Wither Commander clasp hands with another Wither skeleton and riding the top of a giant white behemoth spewing fire, if the Ghast didn't look like a ghost, I would've thought that this would be the second coming of a certain Lich king.
+Cough cough Arthas cough+++
'But less epic if I might add.'
Staring down at the Wither Commander in black armor exposing bits of bone, a scorching touch of lava reminded me of where I truly was right as an ice arrow reminded me what I was dealing with.
'Yep, get your head into the Game Slade! Your in a life and death situation right now you little bastard that thinks alot!'
Quickly leaping up to dodge the crushing hooves of the Ice riding skeleton, I landed onto the quickly heating platform and shot at the rushing skeleton warrior from the air.
Arrows whistling through the heated air, wisps of smoke rose up as the bodies of arrows missing their targets burnt up in the flaming waters.
And if one actually thought about it, wasn't lava just really really REALLY hot water?
'GET YOUR HEAD INTO THE GAME SLADE!'
Slapping myself in the face, I froze the ground I was standing on and quickly stepped onto the newly appeared rock floes.
*PLumph!
'What the...'
Eyeing the spout of lava which suddenly rose up to the air, I noticed that several similar such spouts appeared right as I sensed something behind me.
And realizing that due to many other features such as lava surrounding me on all sides, I quickly twisted to the side and slammed my multiple nocked bow into the attack.
Swinging the bow and watching it burn up right in front of my eyes, I watched as the fireball was sent flying back to where it came from.
'Or maybe not.'
Watching the fireball fly off into the sky where nothing would meet ut in the near future, I pulled out the Marksmans bow and twisted my body to make it near parallel to the flotsam.
Legs somehow balancing myself on the moving piece of flotsam, the rushing river of lava couldn't deter me from shooting at an Awakened Ice bow that was still stubbornly attacking me.
Ice shards activating once more, several portions of land appeared where I stepped onto them.
'Stop chasing me you f*cker!'
Gritting my teeth, I twisted away once more much to the dismay of my creaking waist as I pulled the string of the bow back and looked at the terror in the skies.
'Well sh*t'
Soundlessly roaring a command, it didn't take much imagination of what the Wither commander had just said as all the ghasts simultaneously unleashed balls of flame.
But where there is danger, there is oppurtunity, something that I know was correct as it was prime time for a counterattack.
And seeing as these fireballs seemed durable enough to not immediately explode upon a quick collision, it seemed that what they had just did was shoot themselves in the foot.
Quickly bringing out several arrows and sticking them in between my fingers so that I could quickly use them all, I realised belatedly that there was no such need for such a thing as I strummed the bows string like a guiter.
*BANG
Firing the first arrow into the air, it quickly collided against a falling fire ball and sent it flying where it had just come from.
But when compared to the rest of the fireballs which seemed to make it as if the sky was falling, it was but a meagre drop in the bucket not even worth talking about.
But I wasn't even done, no, not even close to it.
Continuing to strum the strings of my guitar, the arrows flew into the air and struck every single fireball.
Some only scratching the edges of the fireball and diverting it from its original purpose while some hitting dead center, I not so skillfully cycled between shooting into the air accurately and strumming the strings.
But as I continued in the span of a few seconds, every single arrow became smoother in its release.
Less deviations from course occurred as a minority of them returning to sender turned into a majority of them returning to sender, until all of them were doing so.
Cycling between arrow after arrow, I fell into a sort of flow state where my eyes shined more orange than ever.
And now a few seconds wasn't really much, but what people forget is that Slade had become the Avatar of the Malaise, and if anything the Avatar of the Malaise didn't lack in the slightest, it didn't lack any sort of energy in their faucet.
And energy was something that was being spent willy nilly all in order to deal with the falling sky of flame.
+++
Tree thatkept his promise
