Ronny was seen standing in the middle of a wooden spear storm that was closing in on him rapidly. Miasma was also present in the surrounding area. Things suddenly started heading south for him.
That was until a hive of fire-snakes made their appearance.
The number of wooden spears was more than twice that of the fire snakes. But that didn't matter to the now-lifelike fire snakes. They all hissed and approached the spears closest to them.
Each of the fire snakes bit off the tips of the wooden spears as soon as contact was made. In some cases, snakes even wrapped their bites around wooden spears' hilts.
Spontaneous combustion!
Jules saw that as soon as the fire-snakes bit the wooden spears targeting their caster, they burst into flames before immediately disappearing into thin air. The fire snakes didn't rest and targeted other stray wooden spears that were heading towards Ronny.
The fire-snakes destroyed many wooden spears with their bites. Dom, however, had created more of them during that time. He sent the newly made ones towards his opponent. Edward stood next to him with his sword drawn.
The fire-snakes seemed to have realized that it wouldn't be possible for them to take care of all the flying wooden spears coming their way in due time. So all of them opened their mouths and hissed.
Something strange happened at the time for Ronny. The multiple perspectives he was processing in his head seemed to have a mind of their own even when they were connected to him. The perspectives asked him for his mana. They wanted to cast a spell of their own.
Jules saw that loads of fire-snakes Ronny had cast and positioned himself in their midst, opening their mouths towards the approaching wooden spears that had been newly formed. Then she saw the snakes creating a fireball each in front of their wide-open mouths.
She opened her eyes in utter surprise as she realized something. It seemed that a stacked spell was casting a stacked spell of its own.
Multiple small balls of fire were seen forming around the still-delirious Ronny. They were soon hurled towards the groups of wooden spears by their supposedly inanimate casters–the fire snakes.
'Burn everything!'
Ronny mumbled to himself as multiple rounds of detonation took place all around him in the surrounding area. The newly manifested wooden spears were caught in a series of detonations and were spontaneously combusted.
But some half-burnt wooden spears still made it past the fire explosion and started approaching Ronny. Jules thought that it was game over for her teammate as he still seemed to be in a daze.
Ronny didn't move even though he could sense that the mana-strengthened wooden spears were approaching him from multiple directions. He used his defensive spell this time.
Blitz Shield!
A layer of lightning formed around Ronny. But this time instead of tongues of lightning dancing over his skin, the lightning had formed a densely knit net and covered his entire body.
The net of lightning soon transformed into something different, guided by Ronny's dazed mind. Now it looked like Ronny was wearing a cloak of lightning that covered every inch of his body from neck to toe. His head had also been covered in a lightning net.
The wooden spears that had made it past the series of fireball detonations soon landed on Ronny. They came in contact with his lightning cloak and their momentum was unrealistically killed off before they burst from within.
The wooden arrows were imploded as a very high voltage ran through them. The lightning's destructive voltage was so high that it had overcome the insulation properties of the manifested wooden spears.
All the arrows that came in contact with Ronny's lightning cloak faced the same fate as their earlier counterparts. Meanwhile, the target of that attack who was in a daze of his own soon seemed to have been snapped out.
The butcher woke up when he destroyed all the remaining wooden spears. He was woken out of his state because his body had subconsciously realized that it was running low on mana.
The casting of stacked fire-snake spell and stacked fireball spell had cost Ronny a lot in terms of his mana storage. When he was snapped out of his potion-induced daze, he wondered how he had so much mana after pulling off a stunt as he did.
Then the headache hit him. An excruciating form of headache he had never experienced before. He had started seeing things around him in a blur. He had to shake his head to regain normal vision. But the headache remained.
'It must be the side effects of the potion. That little ghost should have warned me, damn it. I hope this wretched headache is all there is to it for the side effects.
*Sigh. No point complaining now, anyway. I should focus on getting rid of Dom first now that I've also made him spend so much of his mana.
If the apparition follows real-life logic, he should be as spent as I am.
Ronny shook his head as he focused on his two opponents. If he was in full control of himself, he would have targeted Edward first because he seemed like the weaker ranker between the two opponents. Too bad, the subconscious-him wanted to dominate the biggest obstacle first. In doing so, he had left the potioneer unchecked for far too long.
'This miasma. My mana circuits and core have also been affected by this. The more I stay inside it, the more debuffs I'll have to face. I could target Edward. But Dom would use that time to initiate a counterattack on me.'
In the end, Ronny decided to continue targeting Dom. He retrieved Diceros Right again and realized something. He could have targeted Dom using his weapons when he had first gotten close to him. But he dropped the thoughts of regrets and narrowed his eyes on Dom.
'Bud, you are not the only one who could use potions in battle, you know.'
Ronny addressed Edward's apparition in his head before retrieving a vial.. It wasn't a potion bomb this time.