Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell watched Gendor as the man ran away without a second thought, not wasting a single second on fear or uncertainty. It was interesting for Maxwell to see someone who seemed so untouchable before run away without a second thought after seeing what he could do, but he couldn't really blame the guy. If anything, the man would need to re-evaluate the situation before facing him.

Among the crowd he enslaved thanks to the shadow mana inside them, Gendor had been the only one smart enough to think of purging himself of the said mana.

Using darkness like this was a spontaneous experiment he decided to perform on the spot, but it turned out to be even more effective than he first theorized, after also using Drakhabgar's name.

As always, voicing the name caused real effects on the world, but Maxwell realized that the effects actually could be quite complementary with his attacks.

He could admit that he had been a bit over the top with the things he said to the crowd, and behaving like a god made him cringe, but he was sincere with some of the things he said.

Among the crowd, there were people who were only here due to their thirst for blood. With his new awareness, Maxwell discovered that some of the cult members had a familiar otherworldly feeling about them.

It was the same thing he felt from things related to the gods. Some, on the other hand, were almost completely untainted by such influence, yet they were still here.

A surface-level mental intrusion was enough on Maxwell's part to realize that some of these people were true degenerates.

He wrapped the priests behind him with the darkness, being careful not to harm them with the mana. The darkness now towered over the church, and the structure was completely swallowed, but he could feel it fight back. If he prolonged the fight for too long, he felt that even his resources would be consumed against the blessed building.

Devour

He commanded the darkness and watched the people among the assassins who were here without a religious reason slowly getting destroyed by the darkness. He could forgive delusion, and he thought that giving the others to the Neivor's people would be a good idea for their last verdict, but the other people sickened him.

He watched and restrained the group, and in a few seconds, the bodies of the psychopaths dissolved into darkness, getting consumed with incredible efficiency.

He was surprised to feel the pressure inside his soul getting a bit elated, as the energy from his victims flowed into his soul, etherium immediately integrating the energy with itself, replenishing the immense amount of resources it used when the Guide was in charge. To his amusement, he could sense a feeling of... approval radiating from Felix, who was fused to him.

So I can recharge myself by killing. How morbid. Maxwell thought. And redirected his attention towards the devoted cultists. They still tried to manipulate the shadow mana inside them without success, but Maxwell was surprised to see them calmer than he expected.

No, they are not calm; they just don't feel anything. He corrected himself. There were simply no emotional waves coming from the group, no negative energy, nor any rogue mental energy waves. It was as if the cultists were just husks.

This feeling intensified more in the next moment, and Maxwell could feel the strange feeling he got from the cultists increase. The feeling of divinity suddenly exploded from the group, and Maxwell felt the shadow mana under his control slowly dissolve. He immediately stabilized the mana, making it exist by sheer delusion, but the divinity was already gone.

To his senses, divine energy was still elusive, as it still gave him the feeling of being just beyond his perception. Still, he could see the direction it was going by following the mind-bending phenomenon.

Among the group, there was a particularly strong cultist, probably the leader of the group, and the energy flowed into the woman, focusing on her body.

Maxwell could sense that the woman's body wouldn't survive this, as he could see the mana inside the matter, making up the form of the woman, and immediately start to deteriorate, yet he was curious. A divine interference, by definition, was something worth seeing after all.

The leader's body managed to suck in the elusive energy eventualy, and it was not long after that the invisible event started to show some effects on the real world.

Under Maxwell's gaze, the woman's body started to flow and was slowly covered by shadows. It was similar to Drakhabgar's form, but it was apparent that there was still a real physical body under the shadows; it was just covered with them. Slowly, the feeling of divinity settled into a stable vibration, and Maxwell, for the first time, felt a competition as he tried to control the shadow mana he extracted from the cultists.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Still, he refused to let go, and with a brief moment of considerable mental effort, he pushed the mana inside his own body, watching it get devoured by the ever-hungry darkness making up his body.

Just about now, the form of the woman before him finished its transformation, and Maxwell felt his control over the body shatter without any resistance. It was not like this method was usable for people close to his strength.

The woman, now looking more like a gap in the world due to the amount of shadows, glanced around, her head moving eerily with no eyes, before her gaze locked onto Maxwell. He saw her open his eyes, and a regal voice immediately rang in his mind, transcending sound.

"You made my believers summon me?" she said, and stopped speaking for a second, her body trembling, as the world became a little brighter around them, the goddess devouring the shadow mana around them to stabilize her form. "Ah, much better. So, I see you said some very interesting things to my believers, as far as I know, there is no other god who claimed this world other than me, and the fucking sprinkler, so you better explain yourself. The name used… I don't recognize it. Are you an anomaly playing a god in your ignorance by any chance?" the goddess spoke, her voice making the shadows around them dance.

Whatever this form was, whether it was a vestige, an avatar, or a vassal, Maxwell could feel some pressure standing against it, but it was nothing after standing before the Traveler. Just a single word from Felix's parent was way worse.

"You don't know the name I spoke?" Maxwell said, infusing his voice with mental energy. After going through many Etherium Soul activations, he picked up how to do this. Etherium Soul directly used his soul energy, but substituting it with mental energy made the ability much more sustainable.

The goddess just stared at him, and Maxwell was surprised to see that the goddess was more human than he expected. It was hard to tell with her body being covered by shadows, but Maxwell was pretty sure that she was surprised by his nonchalance. He supposed he was the weird one, having a vestige of a god inside his soul.

"You are still going on with your little play? Mortal delusions are sometimes so unreal. I don't have much time here with the feeble energy they used, I suppose you wouldn't let my believers go if I asked you nicely, so I will give you a treat instead." The goddess thrusted her palm towards Maxwell, and before he could even see what was happening, a flicker of shadow impacted his body, immediately starting to interact with something he was not sure what.

Shadow tendrils started to move around him, his control not managing to destroy whatever command the goddess gave to the mana. How the fuck did he stole Shergoth's mana that easy? Maxwell thought, cursing the guide for being too greedy, as he tried to get rid of the web of shadow around him.

The shadows didn't interact with him directly for now, but he could see clearly that they were building up for something. He was doubtful that it would be pretty if he let it progress freely. However, he was not successful in overpowering the goddess with the mana around him. This was the first time that he was clearly outmatched in a match of control.

The goddess was watching him with interest. "You think you can wrest control away from me? A goddess? Your delusion makes me wonder what kind of life you lived. I will watch personally, I guess. Some of these fools' lives should be enough for a minute or so," the goddess said, and Maxwell, in his preoccupied state, could see a few of the cultists disappear into shadows, getting devoured without leaving anything behind.

"Everything you kill leaves a shadow on your soul, you know. Since you think you are comparable to a god, I decided to show you how concepts are much deeper than you realize, maybe you will be enlightened before you die. I can sense a great deal of residual slaughter energy from you, so this should be fitting for you," the goddess said, and Maxwell felt the web around him stabilize, before giving a soft, transparent glow. He braced for impact, expecting something bad to happen, but the church was consumed with an anticlimactic silence, and nothing happened.

In the next moment, Maxwell watched as the shadow web around him continued to glow for a few more moments before it released a dark glow. It looked menacing, but Maxwell smiled, realizing something. He had no reason why, but he was pretty sure that the web of shadows just got overwhelmed by something, and it was dissolving like a web trying to carry something too heavy for it.

"You… How many did you kill? Just who are you? What was the name you said? Drakhabgar?" the goddess spoke, and for an instant, Maxwell thought that the name didn't do anything this time. In the next moment, though, the goddess turned around suddenly, as if she had heard something from behind her. She glanced behind, as if she was being attacked by something Maxwell couldn't see.

"What? Wait-" the goddess's tone turned to panic for a brief moment, but her voice was cut suddenly, and the form of the woman she was possessing immediately returned, her body getting uncovered by the shadows as everything that had happened in the last few minutes was an illusion.

The leader immediately fell to the ground, not looking very healthy by any means. Her skin was covered with rotten spots, and her eyes were glassy and too big for the space they belonged to. They seemed to realize this, too, as they popped out with a wet squelch as the body impacted the ground.

The sound of cracking bones filled the silent area, her bones immediately getting crushed under the weight of the rotten body. It was not very hard to realize that the woman was already dead.

Maxwell watched this with a sense of unreal detachment, as he tried to understand what had happened. While he was used to seeing weird things happen as he voiced Drakhabgar's name, he didn't expect it to cause something like this. Maybe names had more power when gods used them? He glanced at the notification before him, shaking his head in exasperation.

Title acquired: The Trickster Of The Divine:

The Trickster Of The Divine:

Sometimes, even the most mundane of worlds could have things that could trick the gods. You are a particularly dangerous one, as you have no idea what you are doing.