‘No, I’m not okay. The odd thing is that using a mind link is supposed to make me feel worse, but I feel better instead. Where’s Phloria?’ Lith said via the mind link.
The answer came in the form of what looked like a vintage convertible that landed right next to them. The controls were so easy that it had taken her just a minute to learn how to drive it.
One button marked with an arrow pointing up made it take off, another with an arrow pointing down made it land, and a control yoke allowed it to steer and change altitude. A vertical lever regulated the speed, making the car go faster the lower it was pulled.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Phloria asked, giving him more relief.
‘I don’t know. It feels like a stream of cold electricity is coursing through my body, giving me the shivers.’ He replied.
‘Could this be a sign of the tribulation you feared?’
‘No. Whatever it is, I never experienced something like this, not even in Kulah.’ He said.
Normally, Lith would have cursed at every second that traffic and finding a parking spot made them lose while Phloria drove following his directions, but flying made his conditions even worse.
His body seemed to have turned into a block of ice and his eyes burned so bad that he was forced to blink often to see through the blur clouding them.
‘Fuck me sideways.’ Lith thought after keeping his eyes open for as long as he could. He was now able to understand why he felt so bad and why going up only made things worse.
With Solus gone, Death Vision had returned stronger and stranger than ever.
In front of his eyes, Phloria and Tista died several times in the span of a few seconds due to mana poisoning or because their bodies couldn’t hold the life force coming from the Forbidden Sun any longer.
The former manifested by making them seemingly fall asleep and then shapeshift back into their human form, with their skin tainted by the pallor of death. The latter, instead, filled them with blisters that made their flesh rot at a speed visible to the naked eye.
And that was the only normal thing he saw.
The city of Kolga was filled with so many dead souls that they blotted the Forbidden Sun to Lith. Many of them clawed, punched, and bit at the energy mass trying to get back what they had lost, but to no avail.
Others followed the tendrils that went from the sun to all those inside Kolga, Lith and the girls included. The cold sensation he experienced was due to the constant stream of shades passing through him and somehow feeding on his mana.
Using Spirit Magic was akin to throwing chum into shark-infested waters. The shades would temporarily ignore him and swarm the unprotected mana tendril. The blurred vision Lith experienced was simply caused by the number of shadows moving in front of his eyes.
Despite the city lights and the luster of its modern buildings, Kolga was filled with more death than Lith had ever seen before. The dead whose life force was being consumed, haunted the living who fed upon it like parasites, while the others flew aimlessly, trying to escape the city borders.
‘As long as Solus was with me, she drained the foreign mana while the energy flooding the cracks in my human life force suppressed Death Vision. Without her, however, I’m being injected with more than just mana, I’m also receiving the thoughts and feeling that it carries.
‘Faluel taught me that only mana can channel willpower and the shades use the poisoning akin to a mind link. The problem is that I have no idea what they want from me.’ He thought.
The shadows following the citizens of Kolga stared at them in hatred, plunging their ethereal limbs inside the bodies of the Kolgans to retrieve what had been stolen from them, but they always came up empty-handed.
Those near Phloria and Tista, instead, looked at them with pity, trying to protect them with their bodies from the tendrils coming out of the Forbidden Sun, but to no avail. As for Lith, there were so many shades surrounding him that he had a hard time seeing his own hands, let alone read their expressions.
The trip to the Light Torch department didn’t last long. The merfolk had shown them the main flight path connections during their tour of the city from outside the barrier and the closer Lith got to Solus, the stronger their connection became.
The Light Torch was comprised of a tall, rectangular main building where the administrative offices were located, and of two long, rectangular wings where the city mages conducted the experiments related to light magic.
It would have resembled an Earth hospital if not for the fact that no one in Kolga could get ill. Childbirth was the only medical procedure necessary since no one would be born with their life force and mana core cracked.
Lith noticed the anguish in the faces of every woman passing by the building, but he had no idea that half of them would actually have a baby while the rest of them would just get a condolence notice before being dismissed.
‘Solus is here. She’s almost within the range of our mind link. I can’t hear her thoughts unless I focus very hard, but I can feel that she’s scared.’ Lith said via the mind link while he massaged his temples trying to communicate with her.
He felt her fear turning into terror and then into horror. Whatever was happening to her, it kept Solus from thinking clearly, replying to his thoughts with raw emotions.
‘I need to Warp to her, now!’ The three of them split up, searching for a corner where Lith could use dimensional magic without being seen from the people walking down the street or from those flying above.
They drew a lot of unwanted attention, especially Lith. His stumpy body belonged to a Professor of the Fire Pit, another department of the academy, and he had no reason to be there.
Fearing that he had come to mess with their research, the people of the Light Torch kept their eyes on Lith, making him wish he could just blow everything apart.
***
Meanwhile, the Kolgan mage who had found the stark-naked Solus sprawled on the ground kept moving his eyes from her to the alarm button on the wall.
‘Is it an enemy or just a lost specimen? I don’t want to put a colleague into trouble for a stupid mistake. The gods know how easily these mindless things from the breeding factory manage to escape the moment you turn your back to them.
‘They run away out of instinct, but the moment the fear is gone, they become meek again.’ He thought.
Solus looked at the hybrid with dread and tried to stand up, but too long had passed since the last time she had real legs instead of constructs. Will wasn’t enough to move, she needed motor coordination and she lacked it.
‘Why did this stupid body return now of all times?’ She thought, struggling even to walk on all four. ‘Even if I escape from here, there’s no way I can go unnoticed. If this keeps up, I might compromise everyone’s life.’
