Lowest Island 15 - Musharv

The arid lands around him were harsh, with almost no food to find and a lot of holes in the ground that led to caves filled with monsters. On the surface, there were just rocks and weeds all over the place, with the rare occasional mushroom that could be harvested for eating. You could barely see what was a hundred meters from you; further than that, darkness took everything. Looking up, one could see a thick layer of clouds where a weak light shone through.

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‘Hey, little Jo! Don’t do that, you know that it won’t end well.’ Johan’s voice sounded through Josh’s mind, making the teen lightly shake his head and say.

‘Bro, instead of saying that, encourage me!’ Josh furrowed his brows. ‘If you won’t help me, at least don’t be a distraction.’

Josh was thin and tall, having a lot of bones but no meat to fill them. His limbs were long, and his dark hair matched the dark color of his eyes. His white skin was dry and filled with scars. He ignored his older brother's mumblings and focused on the being in front of him, using his energy to access Johan’s card, which was stored inside him, his own card being:

Soul augmentation

Tier: Unique

Description: Link your soul to a card, enhancing and adding a unique effect to it.

And his brother’s card, looked like this:

Reaper

Tier: Legendary

Description: Shift into the body of a reaper, acquiring powerful traits. Enhance probability of cards dropping from killings.

Unique effect: soul synchrony

The creature in front of Josh was a rare monster, one you had to carefully look for to find, but it had the perfect card to be used by him, one that had a huge potential for growth and was the perfect first step on his journey. It would be the very first addition to his secondary deck.

It was a blackfire butterfly, an extremely dangerous animal that could kill someone very fast if they were caught by it. More than that, it was also extremely hard to find and was thought extinct, killed by countless people in hopes of getting its card, even though there was no recollection of it being dropped before.

The only reason he knew there was this one specimen left was that his late father had passed by the area and found it accidentally years ago while scavenging for food.

The blackfire butterflies was a minor elemental. However, Its fire was much weaker than other minor elementals, but it had a unique quality to it, one so strong that was unbefitting of its small frame. Once its fire caught you, it would never stop burning unless subdued by stronger energy or immediately enveloped by energy, an extremely rare and overpowered effect.

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It was entirely made of black fire, and flew through the air as if it was being blown by the wind, drifting and gracefully sliding around. It was extremely hard to see at the low light, and it could conceal itself even if being directly looked at. Josh was only able to find it due to the effect of Johan’s card, seeing souls.

His brother’s card was simply incredible, and despite not being able to use it properly, it showed why it was a legendary card.

Dark mist covered his body, completely concealing his features and erasing every sound he made, blades grew from his fingertips and his dark irises took on a greenish blue hue that almost glowed in the darkness, but was otherwise perfectly concealed by the mist. He felt his body getting stronger, his thin limbs trembling under the newfound power.

‘I have to act fast!’ As soon as the mist appeared over him, Josh sprung forward, quickly getting to the butterfly and clawing at it. The animal, not expecting an attack, had no reaction and was ripped apart, falling to the ground in different pieces and slowly dissipating.

Josh stood there, mist vanishing from his body and revealing his exhausted frame, he was sweating all over, and his complexion looked pale, his blue lips only accentuating that. But his shining eyes looked down at the spot where the butterfly fell and waited with hope.

He didn’t have to wait long, as soon as the last piece of black-fire disappeared, a card appeared in its place. He quickly took it, the image of a black butterfly on one side was simple, he furrowed his brows and quickly turned it around, eager to read its description.

Concealment

Tier: Common

Description: Use the darkness as your cover, and be unnoticed.

“SHIT! NO! NOO! NOOO!” Josh threw the card on the ground, trampling over it for a second before punching the ground, “ARHHHH!!!”

‘I told you so. It was an unnecessary risk for an unsure reward.’ His brother's voice sounded through his mind, making the punctual remark.

“Not now! It could be the key to getting the golden card! I could have become extremely powerful! Now, I’m just left with this piece of shit card, one that I won’t even use.” Josh took deep breaths to calm down and sat on the ground, closing his eyes and entering his soul to talk to his brother.

The insides of his soul looked like a glowing sphere, colored light blue and rippling from time to time, he had tested it before and his emotions affected the ripples, the same ones who were now quickly agitating his soul.

A cord grew from above and connected to the person standing in the middle of it, Johan, his older brother.

Just like him, Johan had dark eyes and hair, but his frame looked larger, having muscled limbs and short hair cropped in a typical army cut. Simple clothes covered his body, and he opened his eyes as his younger brother appeared.

“What do I do now? I couldn’t get it!” Josh walked from side to side, looking down and constantly shaking his head. “It was our only hope, It would have made everything so much easier!”

“I just talked about the black-fire butterfly as a passing remark before, not for you to go for it. I have already told you that. It was a great risk for a low chance of reward. You knew that from the beginning and insisted on trying to catch it. It was never plan A.” Johan just shook his head. “Not my plan A at least.”

Josh stopped walking and turned to his brother, looking at him with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. Instead of speaking, the younger brother just laid on the ground and looked at the rippling of his own soul.

‘I won’t waste my time answering him.’ Josh thought while trying to calm himself, he knew that answering would be useless, as Johan was the smartest one out of them, and would easily outtalk him.

“Now that you’ll listen to me, execute the plan properly, and follow it just as I’ve planned.” Johan got closer to his brother, and sat by him, the cord stretching from above to following. He ruffled Josh’s hair and added. “We’ll make this work little bro. Don’t worry.”

Josh just shook his head and sighed, giving in to his older brother's musings. “Fine.” He swallowed his anger and nodded.