As far as he could see, it was just mist everywhere. He was in the air, being pulled down by the bloodling. He didn't know what it looked like or if it even had a form. He stayed focused, however, and kept shining his light from his palms as it seemed to work against these creatures.

Thud!

"Argh!" He grunted in pain as he got slammed onto the muddy riverbed. The water had evaporated, and now only the swamp-like ground remained. Still, there was too much mist for him to see. So he went by his instincts and used the sense of smell to determine how far the bloodling was. For now, the bloodling seemed a bit shy and didn't continuously attack him.

"Sylvester!"

"Lord Bard!"

The crusaders and Lady Aurora were shouting his names and calling for him continuously, thinking the bloodling had got to him. But he didn't want them to charge forward and die simultaneously.

"I'm fine! Focus on your defence!" He shouted and continued to focus on his surroundings. "Chonky, try to smell things. If you see something nearby or behind my back, just scream."

"Aye, Aye, Maxy!"

Sylvester then held his spear in front of him as he knew that if the bloodling was going to attack him secretly, then the best way for the defence was something physical, as spells take time.

Woosh!

Suddenly, a strong gust of air zoomed past his head. At first, he didn't heed it, but when the same thing happened a few more times, he realised something.

"Fuck! Did that bloodling become steam now? But it must have a physical body as well since it dragged me here." He muttered and decided to deal with this steam first, at least whatever was near him.

He used a simple spell called Whirling Storm to create a few tornadoes of air and sent them to spin around him. In no time, the steam started to get sucked into it and pushed towards the sky.

Slowly he was able to see a few metres around himself. He noticed the ground, it was full of mud, but at the same time, it had too many little golden shining stones as big as an inch. As far as he could see, it was full of them.

'Holy goodness! bloodlings are known to hoard stuff... does that mean this bloodling has been hoarding back all the gold in the mud that seems to pass through here from occasional floods?'

He wondered with eyes shining bright and his heart racing in excitement. But then he looked at the various tornadoes and decided it was better if the steam covered the surroundings. He could not let the crusaders see the state of the riverbed. Nor could he allow the Duke of the area to know about this.

'But how do I extract it fast? Chonky can't eat this much mud, right?--I can't ask him to do something like this.' He tried to brainstorm something while stopping the tornadoes.

He knew the gold was extracted from the mud through a long process of putting the mud on a shaker and throwing water on it to separate the gold, so it remains in the bed of the machine. He didn't have the machine or the time.

Magic was his only solace. "Chonky, look at all this mud on the ground. It has a lot of gold in it. Do you have anything in mind about taking it all?"

Miraj's eyes shined even more than Sylvester's as his love for shiny objects was amplified by Sylvester's questionable teachings. Over the years, Miraj had come to realise the importance of this shiny stone. It could buy him all the bananas in the world.

"How much gold?" Miraj asked.Sylvester looked around and tried to calculate how much it could be. Since the little chunks were as big as pebbles, he felt the amount would weigh at least more than a hundred kilos. That was only the parts he could see... the riverbed under bloodling's influence was a hundred metres long.

If he could turn them into Gold Graces somehow. It was a lot of money, and he could buy tonnes of new materials with it.

"There will be tens of thousands of gold coins, Chonky. What do you think? Do you have any way to get it out?" He asked.

Miraj didn't reply and instead jumped onto the ground and started sniffing around. Then, like a vacuum cleaner, he started devouring all the upper layers of mud into his special bottomless tummy. It was unknown where all that was going, and he didn't ask. Miraj was just moving around with his head held low and taking all the gold he could as fast as he could.

"Ah! It's coming!" Sylvester felt the oncoming scent of death increase.

He quickly prepared himself to counter the attack. Chonky taking all the wealth the bloodling had kept was likely angering it. But since Chonky was invisible, all it could do was come out and attack him.

Sylvester prepared to use both his hands to create a beam of light. Not the Wrath of Heavens, since it was still too early and killing it would also remove all the steam. Chonky still needed at least a dozen more minutes with his speed. And they didn't even know how far that gold was spread, so it could very well take an hour.

'Alright! Let's see how strong this bloodling is.'

"Woosh!"

Sylvester jumped back out of instinct. But he kept his eyes on the front and noticed a giant figure. It seemed like a big blob on foot. The colossal monster was made of something blue like water. It had hundreds of tentacles, and all of them appeared like water. But it had eyes too, not one but tens of them spread around the body. At the same time, the feet seemed to be made of vines.

This was a proper monster, unlike the last bloodling with a humanoid body. Though Sylvester appreciated one thing for now. "At least it can't fly."

But, the tentacles the bloodling had were like whips that went at the speed of sound. They were so fast that Sylvester didn't even know when they were thrown at him and taken back. All he noticed was the booming sound of the snapping tentacle.

"Chonky! Can't you increase the speed? I do not wish to be caught by a tentacle monster... I don't think that will lead to good things for my body." Sylvester shouted in question.

Miraj didn't reply, however, and kept eating the dirt. Thankfully, he was not tasting it since this was not his regular mouth but the interdimensional one.

Sylvester took that silence as, 'It will take time.' So he braced to fight this thing slowly this time. For this, he decided to use fire-based attacks.

Woosh!

He sent one fireball at the creature, then another one. One after another, he launched a barrage of them. He could see something happen to the bloodling, too, as the spots that would hit it would slowly release a lot of steam with pain-filled growls from the creature.

'This one seems too weak against fire and light. No wonder it was strong with the flowing water. And if its body is based on water, then it can't heal itself by replacing it anymore.'

Sylvester slowly started to realise the edge he had over this one bloodling. The odds were entirely in his favour this time. As long as he stayed away from the range of the tentacles, the creature could not hurt him. Not to mention, the creature was too slow on its feet.

'I should take this as slow as I can.'

He even took the spear in hand and started to heat the tip of the blade with magic. He aimed to cut the tentacles slowly and make the bloodling useless.Woosh!

The bloodling sent a strong wave of attacks--a barrage of hits from the bloodlings towards him. Sylvester anticipated them from the scent of death. Whenever it peaks, it means the attack is coming. So, whenever that happened, he'd start spinning the spear at a fast speed.

"Come on! You can do it, bloodling... or should I say, weakling? Pathetic!"

Sylvester didn't know if the creature could even understand his taunts. But his voice sure made it annoyed and forced it to use more of its tentacles. But Sylvester kept spinning the spear in front of himself, making the tip go red.

Woosh!

"Wraaaaa!"

bloodling cried in pain once its tentacles started to get sliced as if it was inside a mixer grinder.

Boom!

Sylvester threw an intense fireball when it came too close to him, sending it tumbling back. Its huge blob-like body was its bane as it was too easy to roll around.

'I can't believe this thing was killing the crusaders.' He muttered. Though, it was this weak because he had taken away what made it strong in the first place--water. It was like taking the sun away from a wizard. The Solarium is the lifeline of all wizards, so without the sun, weakness would ensue.

So, he kept playing around, wasting time with it. Cutting its tentacles from time to time.

Bam!

Sylvester made a 180-degree jump to the back and spun in the hair to dodge the oncoming attacks from the bloodling. By now, the creature knew that Sylvester could not be beaten, so it decided to cover itself in the mist again.

"Haha, you can hide from me, but not my fire!" He boomed and threw so much fire from his two palms in two directions that even a dragon would feel ashamed. The mist was part of the creature's body, so it was naturally hurting it--clear by the grunting screams being heard everywhere.

"Maxy! All done!"

"About time!" Sylvester breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to end this thing once and for all. First, he needed to gather all the mist in one place and burn it all with his Wrath of Heavens.

He started to chant and placed his right hand on the chest, facing the palm forward. He wanted to first see how much mist one attack could remove. The light he'd release would spread everywhere. Hence its effect should be radial and not linear.

♫Filthy creature of the water, you have defiled this land.

You are needed no longer, for I am putting you to an end.

O' holy Lord, erase this darkness with the light I command...♫

He suddenly stopped and looked around himself. His hands fell to his sides, along with his shoulders.

Pa!

He facepalmed himself, but under that palm was a big grin. "Why didn't I think of this before? With a few human sacrifices--I can use this weakened bloodling to win over the crusaders!"

_______________________

GT = 1 Bonus chapter.

Super Gift = 1 Bonus chapter.

APE TOGETHER STRONG!