Chapter 10

As Melsil held his sword up to Kuseen and his father as they were positioned so far up into the air, he hoped they could see a good reflection of themselves. Even if they were far away, the White Spore sword had a funny way of letting you see your reflection no matter how far away you were from it. He had no idea the limitations of length of such a thing but from Kuseen’s reaction in his face, Melsil could make out a certain irritation in his eldest brother’s expression.

It was almost as if, during the coming of age ceremony the Duchils performed, Melsil presented him a dead rat as an offering rather than a precious substance. Kuseen certainly looked insulted. Juchil, also apparently seeing his own mirror image, glared in anger. Their reaction made Melsil smile with mirth, knowing both men were looking at monsters.

“You have such a low opinion of me, brother, to make a portrait of me like that?” Kuseen asked.

“I had nothing to do with what the White Spore shows,” he said with a large grin beneath his face covering. “I’m merely a vessel of the incarnation of its will.”

“Selling yourself as a slave to such a foreign influence?” Kuseen asked. “Do you have so low an opinion of your family?”

“I certainly do,” Melsil said with a chuckle.

He looked down at the ground, smiling as his eyes blurred with tears.

“I wish I was born into the family of the Ghilroys,” he said. “If the White Spore would ever allow me to, as a personal reward for my effort in killing the Duchil main branch, I wish I could rewind my life and be born alongside Teres and her family. But doing so would be because I’d long to escape the sins of my ancestors. And nothing could purge me of the evil I have been stained with by being born into your family, my monster of a brother besides becoming the head of the Red Fungus and turning it into an establishment of peace.”

From Kuseen’s blade appeared pitch black snakes that slithered onto the ground. They were formed by the pieces of the blade breaking off falling before hitting land stretching into serpents, growing fangs and eyes as they did. While it did weaken the blade to some extent, it was a very powerful move that only the most advanced of the black venom swordsmen could muster. The dozens of pitch black serpents then began to slither around Melsil and surround him, hissing as they prevented his escape.

“You utter fool,” Kuseen said as he stood atop the sword hilt. “You’re so wracked with guilt over things you never did you’ll go so far as to chain yourself down forever to serve the lowest slave out there? What would drive you to such idiocy?”

With the blade weakened to the point it would collapse from the weight put on it by both Kuseen and Juchil, so Kuseen withdrew the blade to its normal size, falling to the ground below. He landed on his feet, holding out his hand to catch his father by the foot before lightly placing him on the ground. With his broken blade, Kuseen gestured for the snakes to lunge and attack him. This prompted Melsil to swing his white sword forward.

Melsil extended the white blade forward, the white puffs of spores that began to light on fire spreading from the sword. The spores grew heads of fire and limbs to create the sprites that he had originally seen when first meeting the White Spore. The sprites flew through the air and dove to the snakes, burning them upon touch so the serpents burst into white flame. Kuseen staggered back at such a sight.

“The burning hatred I still have whenever I close my eyes and see Teres’s face begging me not to kill her,” Melsil said, smiling at the idea of torturing his brother with. “The memory of her cries draws in me an unquenchable bloodlust.”

Kuseen glared, tightening his grip on his sword before the portions of his black venom sword grew back into sharp, new pieces. Melsil noted this mushroom swordsmen did have enough reserved nutrients in their body to regenerate their sword blades. However, they had to be careful of conserving it lest they run out at a crucial point in the battle. However, the White Spore sword was far superior than a typical black venom blade in that regard, running on its own nutrients provided it a far greater quality over the weapon of choice of the Red Fungus.

Kuseen then split off another piece of the black blade from his sword, the shard of the weapon digging into the ground in front of him. From that place in the ground rose a blade even blacker than the original and far more wiry. The second blade waved around in the air, as if it was a reed swaying in the wind.

When Kuseen pointed the sword in his hand at Melsil, the blade protruding from the ground whipped into action and swung at him. Melsil parried the strike with his own before deflecting the blade from the sword in Kuseen’s hand that had been extended at him. While Melsil was already having to keep up with what was essentially two swords that were nothing but blurs of black to him at this point but the way it was changing the environment around them was even worse.

The constant clash of the White Spore and black venom was causing the natural influence of each one to spill over into the air and ground around them. Black liquid would spill from each clash of the sword and so would white spores be produced each time the two weapons hit one another. The ground would sizzle from the acidic quality of the black blade melting it while the white blade’s spores would immediately cause green shoots to spring up from the ground, the natural fertilizer that was the white spore immediately rejuvenating dormant plant seeds buried in the ground. This did not happen in most of his fights with mushroom swordsmen.

A sudden fog rolled over them, the mist emanating from their two swords as they parried one another again and again like the brothers were boiling water. The mist formed a dome that trapped the two of them inside and even separated them from the outside world. The mist itself could not decide whether it was white or black, constantly switching between the two shades as the streams of rising fog fluctuated wildly as if being blown by wind that shaped it into the dome the Duchil family members were caged in.

Rather quickly into the fight, every slash between them caused a flash of someone else’s memories to invade Melsil’s mind. He saw the horrified look of warriors of both his own kind and of different species to die, the expression a look of acknowledgment that this was their last few moments. Only, it was not Melsil’s sword killing them.

He found the poison of the blade of this warrior stabbing into the earth in an attempt to poison the soil of the pine tree before realizing it was Kuseen doing so. As he glimpsed into Kuseen’s memories he could feel his brother’s ambition to be the next head of the Duchil family and anger at how his species was not as powerful as the ants. The desire to become stronger and climb the ranks of the Red Fungus was the sole reason why Kuseen committed all this evil. While to any onlookers this would look rather strange, Melsil fully expected this, as he was told by the White Spore.

A master of the White Spore sword is more than just a skilled weapon’s user. The White Spore told him as he fell back to the earth after ascending into the aether. It’s fullest potential can only be unlocked by the user proving their heart is completely pure of evil intent and wishes only to return this world to its original state of unblemished nature. While other weapons run on the physical skill of the user, the White Spore’s power is determined almost exclusively by the benevolence of one’s inner character.

So I can’t rely upon my swordsmanship to fight my family? Melsil asked.

Not until you thoroughly prove loyalty to the White Spore by sacrificing everything you have for others. He said. As it is the only way to live. The black venom, while a different weapon entirely, becomes stronger the more evil intent behind the user. And when they clash, it can be immensely dangerous for the wielder of the White Spore.

How so? Melsil asked.

The poison of the sword goes beyond physical contamination. He answered. It even does so to the very person wielding and fighting against it. The White Spore is as pure as snow and upon clashing with such a concentrated dose of the Black Poison tree’s excretion it can send evil emotions directly into the user. In a fight between users of both swords, the swords themselves become conduits between the very hearts of the swordsmen. You will literally feel each other’s innermost desires and pains until the influence becomes overwhelming. Your morality can become completely changed in a prolonged duel and turn wicked as a result of the influence of your opponent’s mind and soul making direct contact with your own.

What about my opponent? Melsil asked. Does that mean it’s possible for them to change?

Sadly, that is not usually the case. The White Spore answered. It is easier to become evil than good and the wielder of the black venom usually dies when defeated by a user of the White Spore while, if the White Spore swordsman loses, they can very easily become evil.

As the war of swords waged on, different shapes and beasts emerged from the dome of fog. Clawed hands and mouths of ferocious animals made of the fog extended toward the brother’s. Each time a claw or mouth would scratch or bite Kuseen, it was always a white object that would bathe the part of his body that was contacted in white light, the fungus person wincing in pain. The same would happen to Melsil, except the claws and jaws were made of black fog and, while he would feel no physical pain, his mind was flooded with horrific images of his brother slaughtering soldiers and civilians alike. His blood stained sword was held high in the air as the corpses of children surrounded him, laughing in triumph.

At first, Melsil was disgusted by such images before he began to feel like his brother felt. Kuseen’s pleasure in the defeat of his political enemies became his own enjoyment, the delight of exerting one’s power by slaying thousands and advancing in rank of the Red Fungus fueling him. Rather than the drive of winning this fight being the desire to undo the tyranny of the Red Fungus, Melsil began to contemplate rejoining the Red Fungus with the intent to gain the prestige a ruling Duchil could have. It would be far easier to rule the Red Fungus as a tyrannical overlord like his predecessors had than chaining himself down with the pursuit of others’ needs.

The black venom sword feeds off the evil of its host. Melsil thought. Just as the White Spore only permits itself to be wielded by a man it considers righteous in every sense. And this is the realm where those two worlds of poison and purity clash...Kuseen must be assaulted with my memories as well as the two tree’s incarnations fight for supremacy. And, just as the White Spore foretold, my heart is now being contaminated by Kuseen’s own evil.

Juchil sat silently behind Kuseen as the brothers danced toward and away from each other, deflecting the other’s sword strikes while occasionally being cut by a stray slash. Melsil groaned in pain and was stunned for a moment as the blade growing from the ground in front of him cut into the shoulder of his sword arm, the mushroom swordsmen too focused on the stronger sword strikes of the weapon in Kuseen’s grasp. The younger of the two brother’s had more physical wounds, having difficulty parrying and dodging two blades that’s speed and power was almost equal.

And as he fought, he became more and more susceptible to the invading memories and desires of Kuseen. He wasn’t sure if it wasn’t the weakness of his strength being further and further drained by the power of Kuseen’s sword strikes but the longer the battle lasted, the more Melsil just wanted to stop and do what Kuseen was doing. He wanted more and more to experience the immense bliss of fighting solely for himself and no one else. When he looked into his brother’s memories he wasn’t just tempted by the pleasure Kuseen experienced.

It was the fact his older brother didn’t carry any weight that Melsil did. For two years he had been running back and forth across Wassergras trying to rid the country of red mushrooms and keep the fungus swordsmen from gaining control of any more land in Ushujin. He was growing tired from fanning the flames of war when the Red Fungus would light up another fire in its place at every waking moment.

That wore on a man and while Melsil was never given a break from that task assigned to him by the White Spore, Kuseen was absolutely jubilant at the destruction he wrought against the world. He laughed in pure delight at every piece of land they conquered, at every man, woman and child he slew and the higher and higher position Juchil gave him for every assignment he completed. Kuseen was unfettered, unlike Melsil, and could do anything he wanted while Melsil was constantly trapped and roped down by helping others.

Why must I continue to press on…? He thought as the pleasures of evil flooded his mind. The wounds from his battle were only enhancing the desire to just stop and leave this task behind. What’s the point of living if I don’t do it for myself? That’s not living...it’s only surviving...maybe Rillia was right...those people I save don’t even care that I saved them...what will I get out of life if I bow down and do nothing but act as everyone’s lapdog?

However, Melsil noted that while he was bleeding more, Kuseen was exhausting more of his body’s natural nutrients. Melsil didn’t need to stretch his white spore sword as far as Kuseen did, resulting in the latter’s blade being weaker and constantly being damaged. Kuseen constantly needed to regenerate the blade, no doubt draining his body’s finite reserves of growth substances. This gave them advantages in their war of attrition.

However, the younger brother could tell he was in the lead. He knew that his brother, while certainly not caring much for Melsil’s memories, was weakening from his younger brother’s innermost desires. He could tell by the wavering of his sword and formerly strong stance that every sword clash and touch of the fog objects around them, Kuseen was being drained of initiative to fight. His techniques were becoming sloppier, his attacks more sluggish and his intense glare going from intensely angry to confused, as if conflicted. If evil was invading Melsil’s mind, then good was invading Kuseen’s.

Not to mention Melsil was getting into such a state that he could win if he wanted to. With Kuseen constantly having to replenish the damage done to his sword by regenerating it with his energy, Melsil was able to shrug off the pain of the attacks he’d received. His brother was weakened to the point he could end this with one fell swoop without chance of retaliation. The only problem was that Melsil was reluctant to do so.

To win this fight means that I’ll be head of an organization that will fight me at every turn… He thought. And any influence and wealth I gain I will never be able to use on carnal pleasures or expanding my empire. Nothing I do...will be for me...there’s no turning back at this point...I’ll be married to the idea of creating everlasting peace in Wassergras forever…

He winced as dodged another sword strike before parrying another. Parrying the black blade gave him a memory of Kuseen jumping for joy when his father gave him the rank as sole heir to the Red Fungus when Juchil died. The pleasure coursed through him to tantalize him, as alluring as the scent of a flower in spring. Melsil staggered back before locking onto Kuseen and pointing his sword at him. He thought back to what Rillia had told him the first day they met.

She wanted to live for herself because, if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be living at all. He thought. And she saw my way of life as foolish as I saw her’s. At first I brushed the ant’s argument off as foolish but seeing how good Kuseen feels doing the same thing…

He lowered his sword blade, something that caused Kuseen to pause.

Why go through with this? Melsil asked. Is complete and utter surrender for the sake of others something I want? I know I wanted to fight for Teres’s memory and live as a crusader of justice but...but that’s harder than just living life for myself…

“Something wrong?” Kuseen asked. “You lost your train of thought? Realized how stupid it is to fight against your birthright?”

He looks so happy. Melsil thought. Kuseen does...as he stands over his enemies...he just looks like he couldn’t care less about anything in the world. The man with no burdens who has it all...What pleasure will I have in my remaining days if I choose to go through with this? I’ll be throwing my entire life away!

“I can see you beginning to see reason,” his brother chided. “I’ve been assaulted with your insufferably pretentious declarations the entire battle...but I now understand you’ve gained a greater sense of my mind as well. And I can see you’re now rethinking your whole role in this affair.”

He smiled as if laughing at a dark joke as he pointed at him.

“You’ve lost your will to go on!” Kuseen shouted. “You didn’t have the guts to go through with it...all your bravado nothing more than a charade implanted in you by the insufferably stubborn Ghilroy girl!”

The black blades flung to life, poised to strike at Melsil as they poised in the air above him, ready to stab into him like knives about to dig into meat.

“And your ramblings about being chosen by the White Spore nothing but an extension of that delusion!” Kuseen cried. “Over the centuries untold hundreds tried to find the White Spore and never returned, dying being that close to the Giants’ territory! How are you any different! Now die for my family’s blood!”

The black blades dove down at him. In that split second, Melsil chose to ally with the White Spore but just barely. His mind was so confused and fogged over by the desires of Kuseen that he felt unable to resist the pleasure of such an offer of rejoining the Red Fungus. The counterattack was used at the last second by Melsil.

He whipped his sword forward, extending it toward Kuseen. He wasn’t even attempting to deflect the black swords this time, merely going straight for the kill as he attacked his brother. The White Spore sword began to burn with a white flame as it reached toward Kuseen, spores that transformed into fiery sprites emerging from the flames. While the sprites themselves could cause him no harm, they dazzled and distracted Kuseen as they danced around him.

Normally, an experienced warrior like Kuseen would ignore such an obvious obstruction. However, battle fatigue was painfully real, even for the greatest of warriors. Kuseen’s normally vigilant gaze and senses were dulled by battle wear and he was temporarily blinded by the beauty of the sprites. His eyes were glued to the beings as they floated around him to encapsulate him a warm white light before he regained his senses and realized the white sword was dangerously close to his heart.

Just as Kuseen was being hypnotized by the rhythm of the twinkling sprites, his sword instincts kicked in and the sword in his hand withdrew back in an attempt to parry the blade that Melsil extended at his brother. The sword that Kuseen manipulated from the ground reached forward to Melsil and faced no interference from a parry as the younger brother’s sword was attacking Kuseen and too far away to recall and protect Melsil. He was stabbed in the stomach rather shallowly as Kuseen had been a bit too slow to will the attack more efficiently.

The white blade stabbed into Kuseen’s upper chest, his body run through with the blade. What came next was not the killing blow but merely the aftereffects of the White Spore purging the world of such an evil soul. After being impaled by Melsil’s weapon, Kuseen’s body was surrounded by a wreath of white flames that encapsulated his limbs. He screamed in agony as the black silhouette of his body could be seen within the snow-white flames. He burned for only a second before Kuseen was gone, the white inferno not leaving a trace of his body. Juchil looked on in terror as the dome of mist around them dissipated.

Once the White Spore kills a soul as evil as Kuseen… The White Spore whispered into his mind. Not a trace of his body will be left. His body is consumed by the incarnation of the White Magnolia’s flame. The White Spore is unwilling to let a trace of such concentrated Black Poison remain on the Earth.

After the barrier of mist melted away, Melsil walked up to a shocked Juchil who looked up at his son with a terror he’d never seen before in the man. Juchil, a monster that murdered children with glee and feared nothing, was now falling over in acknowledgment his empire and the empire of his ancestors was no more. Melsil used his remaining strength to pick up the man by the collar of his robe and lift him into the air.

“The Knife Claw army has agreed to give me full control of what remains of the Red Fungus,” Melsil said. “And make me governor of the fungal people in Ushujin. Your reign of terror has come to an end.”

“You…” Juchil said. “You traitor...you’re a traitor to your entire race.”

“Rather than a devil willing to throw away everything for the supremacy of his own kind,” Melsil stated.

After lifting him into the air, the mushroom swordsman slammed Juchil into the ground. The already old man was weakened by the blow and remained helpless in his son’s grasp. Melsil looked on at this, satisfied before dragging his father to his group of comrades.