"Hmm?" Brangara landed atop a pile of rubble and calmly eyed the floor stretching out before him. As he pondered, the body of an Empyrean Tusk collapsed a few kilometres behind him, generating a rumbling in response, displacing all forms of matter in the form of a tsunami.
The Empyrean Tusk sported bite marks across its body, large and numerous enough to make a difference even on a being of its size and mass. Three of its knees seemed to have been consumed completely while the fourth had been clobbered into a mush.
A few of its organs spilled out while most of its intestines had been gnawed upon. The trunk had been cleanly diced until it resembled noodles while the tusks formed a strange contrast wih their pristine condition.
The fact that they were pristine was an indicator that they hadn’t been used in a battle, a sign of how overwhelmingly one-sided it had been. And the outcome of it all was shown on the head, where one side was missing.
As for the brain within? It had been slurped clean. The culprit was none other than the man who stood upon the palace’s rubble.
As the tsunami approached him, Brangara kicked the floor and jumped inside to appear in a serene location, with walls capable of withstanding powerful attacks.
It was made using Tratham as the base and was mixed with a variety of minerals to create a robust defence. ’Must have been a massive purchase from the Brimgan Empire.’
"It was here, huh?" He uttered upon spotting a Spirit Eater, and on the floor before it were two golden lotus platforms.
Minor Treasure—Mystic Human Stamp!
The first Mystic Human Stamp was fused into the body of the Spirit Eater, controlling the latter. That was how the Spirit Eater obediently produced Parute Seeds for the Mystic Humans, upon consumption of which they obtained Spirit Eater bodies.
The second Mystic Human Stamp wasn’t being used for anything at the moment. Both the lotus platforms were frequented by the Mystic Humans to strengthen their bodies. Of course, the need for it wasn’t high for most with a Gold Ewworm and Spirit Eater build, whose bodies weren’t large.
Only builds with larger bodies required assistance from the Mystic Human Stamp. At present, only a few Mystic Humans had that need. The rest didn’t, and hence, they used the Mystic Human Stamps mostly to refine their Gold Ewworm tools into Minor Treasures.
"P-Please, don’t take it!" Right as Brangara appeared before the second lotus platform, Yoribu entered the space and shouted in a fluster. "The future of the Mystic Humans depends on it."
"I am that future." Brangara commended and touched the second Mystic Human Stamp and watched it fuse into his body. He closed his eyes and commented, "Feels good to be united again."
He then got up, turned around and walked towards the hole he had made in the ceiling. There was a placid expression on his face as he approached a trembling Yoribu and casually patted her shoulder, "There’s one left here."
"It’s only temporary," He commented and leapt out, "Once I’m able to progress through the Life Stage, I’ll be making more of them."
Brangara had just appeared atop the pile of rubble that was once the palace of the Mystic Humans when he saw the wall of thunderclouds churn as an ivory hammer descended down upon him.
It stretched over three hundred metres wide, shifting the atmosphere with the sheer momentum of its descent.
The hammer was formed by condensing the exoskeleton of the Empyrean Tusk, formed at the end of its trunk as Ruvva brought it down with endless fury. ’Strange!’
Brangara lifted his head to stare at the incoming attack, ’I left her at death’s door with barely enough Prana in her heart to prolong her existence at my mercy. It’s unrealistic for her to not only make a full recovery in such a short time, but even prepare such a powerful attack.’
As the attack descended, Brangara broke his arms and casually chucked them before him. Appearing in his other hand in the shape of a racket was Tratham, which he held and swung with all his might.
At the moment of contact, the Tratham unleashed a bright, crimson radiance to launch the arm pieces at the descending hammer. There was a delayed boom at the racket a full second after the projectiles had already reached their destination.
They slammed into the hammer and reduced its momentum a little while also causing cracks to form across its surface. It was merely an effort to buy a bit more time than the descent, which was all he needed to escape.
While his hand did that, his legs formed a pair of boots using Tratham, which kicked the rubble and launched his body sideways.
Boom!
The earth tremored as the sheer might behind the impact caused a shockwave that coursed across the sea of storm clouds of the Dralh Sea’s Death Hour, travelling for more than a hundred kilometres.
The Empyrean Tusk lifted its hammer and swung it sideways to target the escaped figure of Brangara, who behaved like a crimson arrow and zigzagged across the ground.
And if he so wanted, he would launch large blocks of earth into the sky and then use them as footholds to propel himself to any heights he needed. As for the insane levels of Prana required to maintain such a feat? His Empyrean Boar King stomach was stuffed to the limit with compressed flesh of an Empyrean Tusk.
Brangara appeared atop the Empyrean Tusk’s head and planted the Mystic Human Stamp on the forehead, "You should stay put obediently for a while..."
He spontaneously retracted the Minor Treasure and noticed it was red hot now, sporting a minor crack too, ’It failed?’
He retracted it and stared at the Empyrean Tusk in interest, "So, that can be done too."
"You’ve developed resistance against my Minor Treasure’s influence. Were you preparing for the day Virala returned?" Brangara chuckled, since it was a known fact that Virala’s resistance meant he would recover eventually, even if that were to take over a century.
"However, you weren’t prepared for me." Brangara chuckled, as the damage that Virala would have taken over a century to recover from ended up boosting Brangara, who ended up gaining control over the body.
There was a contraction in space as the Empyrean Tusk vanished, pulling Brangara towards the figure of Ruvva at the centre. Her expression was haggard while her eyes seethed in anger. Using the space contraction to her advantage, she aimed at Brangara and unleashed a death ray of digestive acids.
Minor Treasure—Weaponised Ruthusk Lantern!
He couldn’t evade the attack, even if he wanted to, as it was too fast. In the place of an Empyrean Tusk now stood Ruvva, so the space contracted around her, generating pressure on Brangara that he couldn’t break from.
The only way to ease the pressure was to expand a large enough space himself, which was to assume his Empyrean Boar King form. However, doing so would actually result in his death, ’You learnt from the first attack’s failure, huh?’
"That’s...cute." He uttered as the digestive laser melted through his body, brute-forcing through the latter’s resistance until nothing remained behind. However, there was only in terms of sight, where a blind spot had occurred due to the dispersion of fluid in gaseous form from the digestive laser.
As the laser sped forth, it began to expand in size due to air resistance. And the epidermis of the laser turned gaseous from friction, which spread outward like a shockwave. The sheer destructiveness of this attack didn’t differentiate friend from foe much, not to mention the severe collateral damage it could cause, which was why Ruvva never wanted to use it.
However, even that was proving to be insufficient, as appearing in her Prana detection means, in the blind spot of her sight caused by the expanding laser, was a massive, undiminished presence.
It was brangara’s heart, covered by a layer of Tratham, which was what had ejected it out of Brangara’s body before the laser could reach him.
The Tratham layer lost its structural integrity and shattered, revealing the heart that was protected by a dense layer of psychokinesis.
T-T-T-T-THUMP!
The heart was thumping at an unreal speed, hundreds of times every second. It was achieved through the usage of psychokinesis to move the heart muscles at such speed. The benefit of this was simple: the heart pumped out blood filled with Prana, at such speeds it expanded to a gaseous state.
This expansion, with the addition of psychokinesis, created a layer of protective blood mist around the heart, which was what Brangara had used the first time to prevent the laser from puncturing through his heart.
Thump!
The heart hadn’t suffered a scratch this time either, though it had expended all the blood within it for defence. However, since it had survived the attack, it was enough. The hearts of Mystic Humans also doubled as secondary brains, so they had enough means to make decisions, such as in the present scenario.
There was a minor space expansion, as in the place of Brangara’s heart now was Virala, cracking his neck as he eyed Ruvva, "That ability truly forces me to use desperate measures for survival."
"However, it doesn’t seem realistic that you could fire a second one so quickly. Your recovery makes no sense either. And most of all," Brangara licked his lips, "I’m confident you’re relying on a Minor Treasure to achieve this, but I couldn’t detect any in your body, even when I cut you open."
"Your Minor Treasure can probably hide others of its kind too, huh?" He analysed while eyeing the lunging figure of Ruvva, not in the slightest feeling threatened by her abilities, "That will answer a lot of questions."