Even a troll core couldn’t keep up with the endless hunger of a rampaging Abomination because the hunger typical of Abominations didn’t come just from their black cores.
Their very life force was a bottomless pit that could only be kept at bay thanks to the balance that having multiple cores bestowed upon the Master’s hybrids or in Lith’s case, the fine-tuning between his life forces.
Back when he was a kid, before he achieved the blue core, his hybrid nature had been too weak to manifest. His growing body could barely handle the mana flow of his core so the Abomination side had remained dormant.
It had altered his body odor and helped him to mend his wounds from time to time, unable to do more without compromising the human shell. Only when the teenage Lith used darkness magic did the Chaos manage to seep out, draining the strength of his opponents.
After Lith reached the blue core, the Beast-Abomination hybrid life force had become as powerful as the human.
Due to the fact that the human life force suppressed the Abomination from the outside and the Emperor Beast did the same from the inside, however, its hunger was always in check.
The Abomination side could only manifest its powers through Lith’s scales, painting them black and granting him nigh-immunity to the draining touch of undead and fellow Abominations that originated from their innate abilities.
It was only now, after the bright blue core had allowed the three different life forces to merge, that the Chaos energy manifested itself in response to a direct threat. The many wounds and repeated uses of Origin Flames had weakened the other two life forces enough to compromise the balance.
The energy Lith took from his victims empowered both his human and hybrid essence, but only the Abomination side could feed without limit. The Emperor Beast side was limited by Lith’s mass while the human side was limited by the cracks plaguing it.
Just like too little energy made them fade away, too much made the life forces bloat. It was only a matter of time before only the Abomination side remained after swallowing the other two.
Lith’s survival instinct was too strong to care for such details but Solus did.
She could see that while Lith ripped apart a wave of monsters after the other, his whole body became less and less that of a Wyrmling and more like that of one of his Demons of the Darkness.
‘By my maker, those creatures aren’t shadow soldiers so much as undead Abominations. Could be Lith really be some kind of Puppeteer as well? After all, he took over the corpse of the real Lith just like our enemy possesses that of an orc.’
Solus snapped out of her worries when an even bigger problem appeared.
‘Dammit, Lith’s body and his life forces can’t take much more. The rampant Chaos energy is causing him almost the same damage it deals to our enemies, yet if I stop him now, he’ll die anyway.’
Solus had to choose whether to have him die as a human or live as an Abomination and lose everything he had fought so long to protect.
‘Lith, if there’s something of you left in there listen to me. Cast as many Plague Arrows as you can, now!’ She said.
Lith did as instructed and Solus dispelled her darkness sealing array.
The Plague Arrows lost their light element due to the black life force sucking even its own magic dry and became a volley of Chaos Arrows. Westhar managed to dispel a few but Lith’s three remaining wings had a huge span and the wand could cover only a small area.
To make matters worse, each Chaos Arrow was as fast as a lightning bolt and dozens of times more destructive. They turned everything in their path into nothingness, destroying the crystal wand and riddling the Puppeteer with holes so big that one could see through them.
Yet it wasn’t enough to kill him. Between the many gemstones in his hand and the huge amount of energy he had hoarded, Westhar wouldn’t die as long as he had a speck of Chaos energy in him.
He sucked the crystals dry to mend his wounds and returned the volley with his tier three Chaos spell, Doom Hail. Lith tried to Blink, but Chaos replaced darkness and he had no idea how to use it.
The spell failed, leaving him stuck in place. He dodged some darts, others he used enemies to block, but took most of them in full. The Scalewalker armor cracked in multiple places and so did War in the attempt to divert the onslaught from its master’s vitals.
“You fought well, but well it’s not enough. Farewell.” Westhar said while casting his tier five Chaos spell, Shattered Star.
He had lost most of his army in the conflict but it had been worth it. Monsters would take little time to breed whereas by killing the hybrid, he would teach the Master a lesson and get his hands on priceless equipment.
Two birds with one stone.
He never expected a third and much bigger bird made of Living Thunder to sweep the area. It turned everyone in an area of 100 meters (330 feet) into a charred corpse and interrupted the Shattered Star spell.
The only exceptions were Lith, who had been intentionally spared, and Westhar, who had survived again. His body had been turned into shreds by the attack, yet black tendrils had sewn it back into place at a speed visible to the naked eye, only strengthening Solus’s fears.
“Good gods, Scourge, are you alright?” The Roc had gone to the rescue the moment she had perceived the alteration in the world energy.
“No, he’s not.” The Puppeteer had no time for another Shattered Star so he conjured Doom Hail again.
Olua Blinked both herself and Lith to safety in the nick of time while Bodya emerged from the ground and unleashed a tier five spell, Collapsing Volcano. Fire and earth mixed together, turning the ground under the Abomination into magma.
‘I have to help them. I just need a bit more of life force. Just a bit more.’ Despite all of his wounds, Lith didn’t feel pain, only hunger.
‘No, you don’t. You need to get to safety and let them do their jobs.’ Solus said.
‘What are you talking about? I feel fine, I’m just hungry-‘
‘You’re dying!’ She cut Lith short and showed him the condition of his life forces through their mind link. ‘If you really don’t care for yourself, at least do it for your family and for me.’
Only then did Lith notice that War and Solus’s ring were sizzling, but not because of the Puppeteer’s spells or because of the Nidhogg acid. His touch was deadly to them as well, to the point that he was sucking Solus’s life instead of nourishing her as usual.
Yet neither the angry blade nor her did leave Lith’s hand, suffering in silence just to fight by his side. Lith went into a panic, but he had no idea how to get rid of the excess life force he had consumed.
His human and Beast side couldn’t keep up with the Abomination and were slowly fading away.
