As for Tista, her all-out attack had failed to buy her a single second. The Hati was still pressuring her with his superior physical strength and the fear from her trauma slowed her movements.
To make matters worse, Valia was right.
The Red Demon was no longer capable of using body casting due to the fact that it brought her life forces closer. Even conjuring a cantrip caused her great pain and shortened the time she had left before the choice would be taken out of her hands.
If not for the Mouth of Menadion and Valia making up for it, Lith would have never allowed Tista to take part in the mission.
The Hati slashed high and low at the same time, forcing the demon to block. His hands shattered on impact but it was irrelevant since the damage was passed onto another warg that in turn was immediately healed by a troll.
On top of that, the Hati had done it on purpose, channeling in his hands dozens of tier three spells that now coursed through the Red Demon’s arms. Water magic froze her muscles stiff, slowing her down further.
Darkness magic bypassed her protections and inflicted upon her lots of damage while also making her stamina plummet. Last, but not least, more bolts of lightning caused one more seizure.
Even with Valia’s help, Tista’s spasming body couldn’t move fast enough to evade the follow-up attacks. The Hati hit her fast and hard, pushing her back until she was against a wall and with no way out.
‘If we don’t switch, you are dead. Let me be your Lith while you act as my Solus.’ The Demon said while a new wave of monsters approached with the fully healed Balor at its head.
Tista’s face flushed in shame but she accepted. Valia couldn’t control the Hands and Mouth of Menadion due to having a different energy signature and the Red Demon was a better mage than a fighter.
The Hati felt the victory already in the bag, yet he didn’t lower his guard nor did he lose his focus. It all proved to be pointless when the demon suddenly switched gears and deflected his claws with small and precise movements of her weapon.
The darkness of Valia’s body now flooded Sunder, neutralizing the Hati’s. Her yellow and blue eyes Dominated the other two elements, turning them against their caster.
The now frozen and electrocuted monster needed but a second to pass the damage and retreat to safety but in that short time Valia stabbed at his vitals five times, forcing as many wargs to sacrifice their lives for their captain.
The Hati had tried to deflect the blades with a kick, since losing a leg was a non-lethal wound that would be easily healed, but the demon repelled his kick with one of her own. All the while she kept stabbing at him while standing on a single leg.
“Now!” The Hati would have liked inflicting more damage, but the trap had worked nonetheless.
The shaman only had to speak to a warg to share her plan with the whole pack without the tendril of a mind link betraying the communication.
Now that the captain was out of the way, the trolls and Traughen unleashed a barrage of heat rays with the intensity of midday sun. The shaman further reinforced the onslaught with her crystal, adding the light element to the attack and infusing the darkness in the trolls to stabilize them.
The Balor, instead, just added a fire pillar of his own.
“Thanks for the meal, suckers!” The Red Demon’s silvery laughter echoed through the cave as Tista followed Valia’s instruction.
The Hands of Menadion neutralized the pure light element, sharing it with all the Demons of the Darkness and giving them new strength. At the same time, Valia and Tista combined the power of their silver eyes to stop the heat rays in their tracks.
Valia absorbed a few of them to replenish her energy reserve and sent everything else back. The swarm of heat rays was so thick and carried enough kinetic energy that both the Balor and the Hati were sent flying back.
The Balor survived only thanks to his light wing draining part of the energy and using it to instantly heal his wounds while the pack of wargs suffered many casualties.
A snap of Valia’s fingers turned the heat rays into healing spells upon impact, ravaging the bodies of the trolls defending the orc shaman and reverting them into their fallen state.
In their mindless hunger, the trolls turned against their allies, giving Tista the respite that she so desperately needed.
Yet Valia just extended and fused together Sunder’s claws, obtaining two longswords that she used to carve her path in the still-stunned enemy lines.
‘How?’ Tista asked the moment that her brain overcame the shock and awe of Valia’s strategy. ‘How can you be this strong? Until a few months ago, you were just a human.
‘You’ve never been a Demon before and you had no voice in your transformation. How can you laugh like this after everything you’ve lost? You were a human barely older than me and now you are an undead…’
‘Monster?’ Valia completed the phrase for her. ‘That’s a really messed up way to look at my situation. One I couldn’t disagree more with.’
‘What do you mean?’ Tista asked while casting spells for the Demon and using the Hands of Menadion to neutralize the orc’s crystal.
‘Kid, my voice was the only one that mattered back when Meln’s thralls killed me. I wanted to live, and your brother, my master, gave me new life. I wanted to protect the people of the Kingdom and he granted that wish as well.
‘I wanted to say goodbye to my parents and instead, Lith gave me all the time I wanted with them. He preserved my body and had my parents move to Lutia so I can meet them every day.
‘I may be dead, but I still have a life. During my final moments, I wished for many things and your brother granted them all. How could I possibly reject such gifts? I’m this strong simply because I’ve embraced them instead of fighting them.
‘It doesn’t matter if I was born Valia the human and now I’m Valia the Demon. I’m still the same Valia who loves her parents and has sworn to protect the Kingdom. There is no disgrace in my condition, only pride.’
Tista’s mind froze at those words, realizing how similar yet different she was from the Demon.
The first years of her life had been a constant close call with death and she had dearly wished to survive. Lith had granted that wish, and then she had hoped for a cure for the Strangler.
After Lith had healed her lungs, she had wanted to become a healer first, then to follow in his footsteps and enroll in the White Griffon, and lastly to join his apprenticeship with Faluel after Tista had Awakened.
Again, all of her wishes had come true, and after Lith had revealed to be a hybrid, she had never thought of his condition as a curse, only as a blessing that she hoped to share.
