Balthazar stepped back and his shell hit the stool John had made for him. All around him there was damage to the beautiful work the carpenter had created for the crab. The holes blown through the roof, the blown up iron lanterns, some still partially hanging from the ceiling by their broken chains, others fallen to the floor, which was marred by black scorch marks from all the lightning spells. The merchant felt a brief feeling of shame as he imagined the disappointment on the old man’s face if he could see that place now.

A feeling which quickly faded away when he remembered how much trouble he was currently still in.

Namely, the sadistic dark mage walking up to him with electricity running through his fingers. A slightly more pressing matter at that point.

Seeing no other option, the crab decided to play his only remaining card: running his mouth.

“Alright,” he said, putting both pincers up in front of his face like a brawler, “I didn’t wanna have to get my claws dirty, but if you’re so eager to feel the pinch, let’s do it!”

The man stopped walking towards him, and for a brief moment Balthazar thought his bluff might have worked, until the smirk on his foe’s face grew into maniacal laughter.

“You?” the mage said after his fit of cackling subsided. “A pathetic crab thinks he’s a match for me? A mage of unseen skill, who has defeated countless monsters many levels higher than him? Me, who has slain entire parties of scum unfit to be called adventurers?” He leaned over the counter, getting closer to the crab. “If your golem couldn’t even scratch me, what makes you think you stand a chance?”

Balthazar swallowed, and for once, found himself with no clever comeback to respond with. He truly was outmatched, and in hindsight, holding up two claws made of metal against a mage wielding lightning in his hands was probably not helping him look very smart, either.

The silver man threw his head back and laughed loudly again, the whole situation clearly pleasing his sick ego.

“You will have to wait, though. Your time hasn’t come yet,” he said, staring down at Balthazar with his chilling blue eyes. “I was very well paid to make sure you watch everything around you being destroyed, and I’m nowhere near done yet.”

Charging up his spell again, the mage spun around and shot a beam of lightning horizontally across the east side of the bazaar, shattering everything in its path, from books to glass bottles, and even the shelves and wooden boxes caught in between.

Balthazar watched helplessly as the deranged man wrecked his front gate next, blowing it right off the hinges. He wanted to do something, but didn’t know what. All he could try was to snap his ankle with a claw, but he knew by then that there was no way it would work. There still was a faint blue layer of magic around parts of the man’s body, likely a protection spell similar to the shield he had used before. The mage was too fast and clever to be caught by an attack from a crab when not even one of Bouldy’s punches could hurt him.

The distraught merchant looked up at the sky through the hole in the roof, looking for his friend. Barely a speck against the clouds, the only way Balthazar could still tell it was Bouldy was the text displayed above it by his monocle.

[Level 30 Stone Golem]

With no one else in the vicinity to help, the feeling of defeat started sinking into his stomach, and it definitely did not pair well with the copious amounts of sponge cake already swimming around in there.

Torn pieces of paper exploded into the air as the wicked adventurer cackled and shot lightning out of his fingertips towards some nearby bookshelves.

Balthazar should have known better than to think Antoine wouldn’t sink that low if pressured into it.

It was good while it lasted.

Maybe a quiet life of fishing would have been better after all.

“Boss said you not welcome here!”

Both the crab and the man turned to a stack of crates behind the counter, where a scrawny goblin had just appeared, jumping on top of the boxes with a dark wood staff in his right hand.

The unwelcome visitor seemed to freeze for a moment, as if unsure how to take the scene in front of him. After a pause, he let out a scoffing laugh.

“Is this some kind of joke?” he said, not even bothering to keep his sparking hands up. “A goblin with a magical staff? This stupid little creature that wasn’t even fit to carry my loot? This is what you did with it? You fool, you would have been better off fattening it up and selling it to some hungry orcs. Then again, what could be expected from a pathetic crab?”

“You shut up about boss!” Druma yelled out, pointing his Staff of Arcane Bolts at the man.

“You shouldn’t play with things you don’t understand,” said the mage. “You might get hurt, you little—”

A stream of bright green magic bolts shot out of the staff at great speed, catching the silver-haired man off-guard as he attempted to monologue.

With surprise stamped on his face, the man was knocked down to the floor by the impact of the bolts, which hit his chest and made his thin layer of protective magic ripple in response. Whatever it was, didn’t seem to do much against the arcane projectiles. If nothing else, the staff the old wizard had given the goblin had at least managed to knock the mage off his feet.

“You dare strike me with magic, you foul creature?!”

Unfortunately, while they had hit him, the arcane bolts did not seem to cause much damage to the mage, other than to his inflated ego.

He stood up off the floor, his figure a large shadow growing over the small goblin, looming over him with a dreadful presence. What little courage the crab’s assistant had conjured up to help his boss seemed all gone after seeing his old owner back on his feet.

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“Out of my sight!”

The dark mage pulled his hand back, but this time there was no bright lightning, only a round bolt of pure darkness, pulsing within his grasp for a moment, before he shot it out towards the goblin.

The small creature only had time to jump as the dark missile hit the crate he stood on, causing it to collapse on itself and explode into a thousand pieces of shredded wood.

The impact launched the goblin up into the air, and he disappeared into the mess of debris with a loud thud.

“Druma!” the crab shouted as he ran towards the pile of broken wood and glass.

“Not so fast!” the mage said, hitting the floor in front of Balthazar with a lightning coil that extended out of his hand like a crackling whip, leaving a threatening burn mark on the floorboard.

The merchant halted his run and took a step back, looking back and forth between the man and the place where his assistant fell.

“I’m not done with him yet,” the mage said, tightening his grip around the lightning whip. “Creatures like him need constant discipline, and since you failed to give it to him, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

More than helpless, Balthazar felt angry. Both at the despicable man and at himself for being so useless in that moment. He knew it was of no use, but he just wanted to charge him and snap away at his face for what he was doing.

A furious screech echoed from above.

The man’s head snapped up, right as a drake dive-bombed on him.

“Blue!” a hopeful Balthazar exclaimed. She had come, no doubt attracted by all the lightning and thunder shooting in and out of her home.

The adventurer instinctively covered his head with his arms as she descended upon him and began relentlessly clawing and slashing at him.

Each strike rippled through the protective shield layered over his body, keeping her from sinking her powerful talons into his flesh, but not fully preventing them from opening small cuts and scratches into his skin.

“Argh!” the man howled, as he ducked and dodged, a flurry of flapping wings and angry claws chasing him on his way down.

As much as Blue’s attack was fierce, it was still not going to be enough to break through his defensive spell.

“Watch out!” Balthazar yelled at the drake, but his warning was not fast enough.

The mage raised one hand between the winged creature’s attacks, and with a twist of his hand called down another lightning strike from above, which hit her directly like a pillar of pure electricity from ceiling to floor.

She screeched in pain and fell to the ground, wings sprawled to each side.

“Blue, are you alright?!” the desperate crab called out. “Get up, girl! Please, get up!”

The drake lifted her head and neck off the floor with difficulty, and strained to get up to her feet, her eyes burning with a clear desire to get back at the man for that last attack.

The dark mage stood straight again and looked over his own arms and winced with anger as he saw the multiple tears on his sleeves and the bleeding cuts underneath.

“How many pests does this hole hold?” he spitefully said, as the blue layer of protection rippled and restored itself over his arms.

No matter how much they seemed to throw at him, that shielding spell seemed to make him nearly untouchable. The only exception had been Druma’s staff.

Balthazar’s eye stalks stood up.

“It’s protection against physical damage,” he whispered, before turning to the drake and shouting. “Blue, you gotta use magic! Fire him up!”

Without needing to be told twice, the drake breathed in and unleashed a bout of bright blue flames upon the man.

The mercenary’s eyes widened, and he quickly attempted to cast a new protective shield around himself, but by the time it fully formed, some of the flames had already reached him.

Blue’s attack did not last long, her fire-breathing soon dying out as she fell to the side, her tongue hanging out of her mouth as she panted. Between being hit by a massive lightning strike and putting all her remaining energy into that last attack, it was clear the poor creature was exhausted and completely wiped out.

As the fire subsided and the mage let his magic shield down, he dropped to one knee, quickly tapping his shoulders and feet with his gloved hands, putting out the few flames still chewing away at his clothing.

His outfit was partially shredded and burnt, and the previously immaculate pale skin of his face now covered in black soot, but what really seemed to fill him with horror was his long, pristine silver hair, its tips burned up by the drake’s attack.

“You!” he growled between gritting teeth, murder in his eyes as he held a lock of his own hair between his fingers, the silver of it charred black.

The crab stepped back and looked up at the enraged man as he approached.

“I’ve had it with you!” said the not-so-silver-haired-anymore mage. “Antoine will have to be satisfied knowing you suffered on your way out.”

He held both hands out in a claw shape, fingertips nearly touching each other, and a black orb of energy began forming between his palms, growing as it swallowed all the light around it.

It was as if the void itself was staring into his soul, but as Balthazar looked up at his executioner, he realized something else.

“Very scary,” the crab said, “but between all this spell casting stuff, you forgot one crucial detail.”

The man frowned as the dark spell kept growing and pulsing in his hands.

“What?”

“The duration of the levitation spell.”

His eyes bulged out, and his dark spell sputtered out as he looked up just in time to see the massive golem coming down from the sky like a meteor.

All the spellcaster had time to do was throw himself to the side, near the front entrance, right before the descending boulder crashed down on the spot he was standing, breaking through floorboards and rocky ground underneath, creating a large crater on impact.

The meteoric golem stood up slowly, dust and pebbles rolling off him, and he gave the crab a smile and a thumbs up. There was a crack in the middle of his chest, but other than that, he seemed fine.

Same could not be said of the unwanted guest, standing up with difficulty, wooden shrapnel from the impact all over him, plenty of new cuts and bruises covering his exposed skin.

“Enough!” he yelled out in a deranged scream.

He raised his hands again, and the same ball of darkness began forming between them once more, except this time it looked much bigger and more unstable.

“I’ll see you and all your stupid pets gone once and for all!”

A small goblin, scrawny of body but brave of spirit, jumped up on the counter, battered and bruised. His hands firmly gripped his magical staff, aimed straight at the man that once enslaved him.

“You leave Druma’s boss alone!”

The crab, the golem, the drake, even the mage himself, could only stare in awe as the runes carved on the wooden staff began glowing and, in a split second, a beam of bright green magic shot out of the diamond shaped crystal at its tip.

The arcane pulse filled the whole bazaar with blinding light and pierced right through the dark orb, dissipating it into nothing and hitting the dark mage squarely on the chest, no shield or protection able to stop it.

Too bright to look at, the light grew as it swallowed up the man and exploded with a loud blast.

As quick as it came, the bright light was gone, leaving everything else around untouched, but also leaving not a trace of its victim, except for a brief cloud of dust and ash that blew away in the wind after a moment.

Druma stood rooted in place, staff still held out, his eyes wide as he stared at his own hands and at the spot where his foe had stood a few seconds before.

“Woah,” Balthazar said, his mouth still half open in shock as he walked up to where the front gate used to be and where the mage had just been vaporized. “Tweedus really wasn’t joking. That was one big boom.”

The goblin let out a short nervous chuckle as he lowered the staff, his expression telling he was still processing what he had just done.

Something shuffled and grunted outside, and Balthazar quickly turned and stepped through the empty doorway to investigate.

A small man jumped out from behind a boulder, red in the face, his hair looking as if he had been pulling at it from the sides, a thin, ridiculous pencil mustache disorderly twitching above his upper lip.

“Why!” Antoine yelled out in what sounded more like a screech. “Why can’t you just be gone?!”

Druma came running from inside the bazaar, staff still in hand. “Boss, boss! Want Druma to hit bad man with staff?”

“No,” Balthazar calmly said. “No need. I got this one.”