Chapter 377: Icy Retaliation
"It’s not that easy, little hayseed," her father said, gently ruffling her hair while his eyes remained fixed on the battle below. "These men are strangers here, but look how well they know her. They covered the arena in dark ash so her white snow would instantly give away her position and stop her from hiding. They’re attacking the trees she could rely on as allies and they haven’t taken one step toward her, forcing her to leave the protection of her trees to come to them."
On the arena floor, there was no sign of Heila at all, leaving the audience craning their necks and peering through the smoke as they searched for a sign of the missing witch. Her opponents, however, seemed like they were in no hurry to approach the trees and search for her.
Instead, wave after wave of obsidian shards swept across the arena, shredding the bark of willow trees and snapping several of their branches that hung limply in the air, awaiting commands that never came.
Several new cracks split the earth, belching forth sooty, sulfurous flames until the air on the floor of the arena became difficult to breathe.
"Calamities are inevitable, Willow Witch," Ropati snarled after destroying a second willow tree with a burst of flames. "We will burn everything in our path until you have no place left to hide, so why drag things out? Take the sniveling merchant’s advice," he said, pulling a fresh cigar from his robes and tearing off one end with his teeth. "Surrender while you still can."
For a moment, his men paused in their relentless assault, watching as their leader lit his cigar and took a deep breath of pungent smoke while he glared into the ash-filled air, looking for any sign of the Willow Witch.
That sign came a moment later when Heila’s voice echoed out, not just from one place, but from six different willow trees as she wove her witchcraft through the delicate network of roots that had formed when Ashlynn guided the growth of every tree in the grove.
"Through morning mist and willow leaf,
Let water gather swift and brief,