Merchant Of Yliaster

Maxwell and Darve slowly approached the iridescent brother, Darve following Maxwell from a safe distance.

Soon, they could see the weird mushroom man in the distance, and the creature looked even worse now that they could see it with their eyes.

It was glowing with a bright yellow color, and its eyes could hardly be called eyes, as they were more like round spots placed on the spot you would expect eyes to be if a mushroom had them.

The creature made no additional move when they entered its field of vision, but Maxwell could see that mana was slowly gathering on the creature. Actually, it would be better to say that light mana was gathering towards the creature.

So it's a light affinity one, Maxwell thought. These were probably the sentient versions of the mushrooms on the walls.

"Is this a joke?" Darve said, and Maxwell started to answer. This, though, almost caused him to lose his life as his intuition suddenly screamed for him to dodge.

There was an explosion as Maxwell unleashed a wave of pure mana to his left, and he was launched right with explosive speed.

At the same moment, a beam of light was released from the brother's cap, and Maxwell, despite his speed, could only dodge it partly.

He hissed as he felt the beam of light hit his side only partially, immediately burning through any physical matter he still had.

Darkness energy tried to absorb it, but light was a direct counter to the energy. The beam pierced through and continued to pierce through the wall behind him. Any sand immediately turned into glass, and this prevented the cave from flooding immediately with sand.

Maxwell was quick to respond. While he was injured, it was just a mild wound. Darkness started to spread, and the cave took a shade darker immediately as Maxwell tried to stop the brother from charging another attack with the same intensity.

Spears of darkness formed around him before they started flying towards the weird organism. The brother responded in a way that Maxwell didn't expect.

He watched in surprise as mushrooms detached themselves from the walls one by one before exploding to meet his attacks.

So he can control the mushrooms? Maxwell was pretty sure that the creature would lose this ability if he managed to cut the cords tying it to the network, but that was easier said than done.

Now that its ability was not a secret, the brother seemed to understand that it was time to go all out. Maxwell watched as numerous mushrooms with light mana type gave their mana willingly to the brother before it unleashed another beam of light.

This time, Maxwell was ready, and he created a shield of darkness before him to meet the attack. There was no big explosion or a loud sound. With a low but constant hum, the wall of darkness absorbed the light, but Maxwell felt most of the mana disappear from the wall.

If he could use light mana in front of Darve, this whole affair wouldn't be so problematic.

Maxwell focused his dominion to 40 meters around him, greatly enhancing his capabilities with mana, and started to mix his mental energy with darkness energy once more, also mixing it with decay mana.

The effect was immediate. The mushrooms covering the walls immediately started to die, withering and turning into husks, and the brother gave an emotional response for the first time.

Maxwell felt a big mental wave erupt from the creature, and all mushrooms simply expelled their mana before they died, quickly turning the cave into a chaotic space filled to the brim with numerous types of mana.

Maxwell hastily pushed Darve with a burst of mana, not caring about the man's comfort for the moment. The man was launched back like a bullet, letting out a startled scream. Maybe he would break a couple of bones, but he was definitely better off not being in the immediate vicinity of Maxwell right now.

Just as Darve disappeared into the distance, mana around them turned truly chaotic, and a wave of different mana types quickly consumed the tunnel.

Excluding himself from such mana was an easy task for Maxwell, but the brother didn't seem to expect this. Maxwell could see it focus mana once more in something like anger. It was probably furious after losing so many mushrooms.

Maxwell responded by simply dropping into the ground, weakening the ground below him with his carving. After passing through the hard rock, it was a simple task to phase through sand using darkness.

He immediately moved below the brother, but he was startled when it fired a light beam directly downward, forcing Maxwell to dodge.

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Fuck this, Maxwell though, and concentrated. He was being careful with his mana, as the creature still had most of its mana due to the supplement from the mushrooms, but it was apparent that that would be pointless.

Around the iridescent brother, darkness and decay mana started to flow, and a mass of darkness was created, closing in on the creature.

It responded by releasing a strong omnidirectional light wave, but it obviously couldn't differentiate between decay and darkness. While darkness got immediately purged due to strong waves of light, decay directly struck the creature, making it release a sound like metal grinding on metal.

Maxwell quickly used this chance to re-enter the tunnel and dashed towards his enemy. His following move would be a bit risky, but he was almost sure that he would survive.

He grabbed the ridiculous screaming creature by the cap, and as he expected, the creature let out an immense light wave to fend him off. Maxwell, though, already expected this.

His form was immediately purged from the darkness mana, but something remained as he felt his skin burn from the strong light attack.

As he tanked the explosion of light, he shifted his duality from darkness to decay, and watched as his flesh took on a rotted appearance. His hands got thinner, his muscles disappeared, but he wasn't any weaker.

He smiled at the mushroom, the creature looking at him with a confused expression. At least that was what he would like to think the expression on the creature's face meant, and he smiled, his mask mirroring him.

"Bye," he said, and all of the decay mana inside his body immediately flowed into the mushroom, Maxwell focusing on infusing it into the creature. He could feel his will clash with the mushroom's as he tried to infuse it with mana, but Maxwell's mind immediately crushed all resistance.

With a last mental effort, Maxwell actually managed to create an amplification rune inside the creature, and watched as decay immediately exploded inside the creature, ruining its insides immediately.

The mushroom immediately started shriveling, and the screams came to an abrupt stop. With a wet sound, a sludge of decayed mass of fungi fell on the ground, the creature not being able to handle thousands of decay mana flowing into it at the same time, while it also got amplified uncontrollably by a rogue rune inside it.

This, of course, didn't come without consequence, as all of that mana travelled through Maxwell's hands. He slid down on the wall tiredly, and held out a hand, examining it.

His hand looked like it belonged to an old man, and it was shriveled like he didn't have much time to live.

He immediately used whatever mana he had to infuse his hands with blood mana and took a sigh of relief as he saw signs of improvement immediately. He really didn't want to lose his hands this early on his journey, as he was not sure if he could make them grow back.

What a ridiculous fight, he thought. A mole, a tiger and a fucking mushroom. Awesome track record. He thought. Thinking about the life and death situations he had been in.

This time, though, this was only dangerous due to him being stubborn about keeping his persona intact. If he used light mana with a reduction rune, this fight would be pretty easy, he felt.

He groaned and got up, his muscles protesting as they were forced to work immediately after getting injected with an immense amount of decay.

Well, some elements are dangerous, after all. It was probably due to the nature of decay mana that his body was wrecked at the moment.

It was not very surprising that your body would protest if you injected it with something opposite to its nature.

He stared at the remains of the mushroom. Not even a core remained of the weird creature, and even now, what remained was slowly dissolving due to the residual decay mana inside.

Among the types of mana Maxwell recorded in the compendium, decay was one of the most terrifying ones.

He started to walk towards Darve, slowly shifting his duality back into darkness. His mana was almost completely gone, and it took some time before Drakhabgar was back in his full glory.

He found Darve inside a wall, and he was pretty sure that the man would die if he remained like that. When Maxwell pushed him, the man directly pierced through the walls and into the sand outside, and the pressure was too much for the man to move.

Maxwell could see him twitching against the immense pressure, probably trying to do something about the claustrophobic situation he had found himself in. He grabbed the man with telekinesis and prepared to push him into the cave while pulling the mana out from the sand on the way.

He was surprised, though, because as he weakened the sand, the man actually started to move without the aid of his telekinesis.

As soon as the sand was weakened, Darve was launched forward with a green light, immediately arriving in the cave and promptly slamming into the other wall.

"Ugh," he said, summarizing the situation.

Maxwell was not sure of the method the young man used to move, but it apparently worked.

"You nearly killed me!" Darve said, looking at him with a furious expression.

"That nearly is me doing my job," Maxwell answered, glancing around the cave. Now that he knew about the reality behind them, the mushrooms on the walls gave him a creepy feeling.

Having Darve along with him was turning into a real problem. He just hoped that the young man wouldn't remember when he realized that his way of travelling in the sand was dead for some time.

In the next second, something he didn't expect happened, as he felt a presence suddenly strengthen in his senses, making him smile.

He could clearly feel that Blueberry had entered the rift just now, and her abilities would fit the bill to get rid of Darve. Temporarily, of course.

He was puzzled about something, though, how come he could also feel Felix?