Instead of destroying them, the Plague Arrows turned the mages back into living beings by balancing the scales. At the same time, physical contact allowed the souls that haunted Grem and Xennon to unleash their fury.
The bodies of the two mages constantly rejuvenated themselves thanks to the mass that had been bestowed upon them at birth by the ritual. The life force and light element that coursed through them had been stolen as well and kept in check by the Forbidden Magic empowering Kolga’s sun.
The souls used the death energy flowing from the cracks in Lith’s life force to get ahold of what belonged to them now that the Plague Arrows had temporarily disrupted the effects of the ritual.
Lith could feel the shades begging him to grant them substance and he did. By infusing them with Spirit Magic, the souls turned into Demons of the Darkness who used their powers to retrieve all that Forbidden Magic had taken from them.
It was the stolen life force that granted the Kolgans their long life and the ability to feed upon foreign mana and light element, absorbing them as if they were their own. Without it, the two mages withered.
The very ritual that until a moment ago had empowered them, now filled them with poison.
Death made the corpses of the Kolgans disappear, but the Demons had yet to finish their job. They grabbed at the tendril that had connected Grem and Xennon to the Forbidden Sun, sucking it dry of any trace of their life essence that it still held.
For a moment, Lith saw his Demons turn respectively into a young merfolk and a Shyf (puma type magical beast). They gave him a deep bow before darting upwards in the form of two small spheres of light.
Despite the many questions he had about what had just happened, a single thought eclipsed them all.
‘Good gods, Solus, are you alright? What did they do to you?’ Lith helped her to sit up on the stretcher and cupped her face, trying to calm her down.
‘I think I’m fine. I didn’t let them do anything to me, but this stupid body doesn’t listen to my orders. Without your timely arrival, I don’t know if I would’ve managed to kill those guys without alarming the whole city.’
Once Invigoration confirmed Lith that nothing had happened to Solus’s life force and mana core, he sighed in relief, touching her forehead with his own. The moment they made contact, Lith felt the pain leaving his body while Solus’s mind found relief from the horrors she had witnessed.
‘About that, how did you get your human form?’ He asked.
‘Beats me. How did you open your fifth eye?’
‘My what?’ Lith let her go and quickly conjured an ice mirror.
The reflection showed three more eyes shining on the face of his disguise. His regular eyes had turned red and black, those on his forehead were blue and white, while the new eye on his cheek was bright orange.
He could feel a pull at his conscience, similar to that he had experienced in Kulah, but hundreds of times stronger.
The more Lith looked at his face, the less he liked that situation. Thanks to Faluel’s teachings about the basics of Domination, it took him but a deep breath and some focus to close all the extra eyes.
Along with their light, Mogar’s call faded as well.
‘We don’t have time for this. We need to get away before someone stumbles in here.’ He turned around, finally noticing her condition. ‘By the way, you look pretty… naked. Wear something.’
‘By my Mom, this isn’t how I pictured showing you my real body. Years of dreams and preparation just went down the gutter.’ Solus turned to a shade of purple and took her Scalewalker armor out of her pocket dimension.
‘If it’s of any consolation, it’s close to how I pictured this moment when I was still a horny, single teenager. I expected it to happen sometime when we were alone in the tower, not in a death trap.’
‘Gods, stop it.’ Solus knew about such fantasies through their past mind fusions, but hearing him say it made her turn even more purple.
Lith needed a few tries to take her in a princess carry with a Vastor-like body, embarrassing her even more.
‘I guess my dumb act worked. I need to take her mind off whatever had happened in here. I don’t need a mind link to notice how scared and shaken she is. Solus is on the verge of a breakdown and before it happens, I need to bring her somewhere safe.’ He thought.
Lith opened a dimensional opening the size of a keyhole to look at the place where the girls waited for him and to establish a mind link.
‘Is the coast clear?’
‘Yes. What took you so long?’ Tista replied.
‘It’s a long story. Keep a Warp Steps leading to your apartment at the ready, we’re going to need it.’ Lith waited for his sister to give him the all clear before going back outside.
One of the perks of being short was that in his Vastor form Lith could easily hide behind two adults. When they had failed to find an isolated space to open the dimensional passage, the girls had just stood in front of a section of the wall, hiding him from view.
Then, Lith had used his mind link with Solus to look through her eyes and know where to go. The moment Lith stepped outside the wall, he fell down the Warp Steps that Tista had placed below his feet.
Phloria walked behind her, using the cover to disappear from sight and space, quickly followed by Tista. She only needed one step and a single moment when no one was around to vanish like a ghost.
“What the heck happened to you?” Phloria asked while looking at Solus’s petite build and gentle features. Lith coming out of the lab with a woman instead of a ring had almost knocked her off her feet, but only now could she express her shock.
“Before that, give me your hands, please. I can see that using so much magic has put a toll on every one of you.” Solus was getting the hang of her new form, but she still moved clumsily and her fingers trembled out of shock.
Tista held Solus’s left hand while Phloria took the right. The contact drained the poison that tainted their bodies and cores, allowing them to recover their strength.
“I thought it was the combined effect of the crack in Lith’s life force and in your core that cleansed the Forbidden Magic. Was it just you all along?” Phloria asked.
“Nailed in one.” Solus nodded. “My centuries of isolation didn’t cost me just my memories, but also my body. Luckily, the tower has my “blueprints” and it’s rebuilding it from scratch.
“Ever since we got here, staying with Lith protected him but actually dampened the effects that the Forbidden Sun has on me. What is poison for you, is nourishment for me and it provides the tower with all it needs to give me back my human form.”
