‘It’s because of you that Yurial, Phloria, Nana, Lark, and everyone who ever gave a crap about us died without knowing how much we cared for them.’ As the Voidfeather Dragon spoke, the flames on his feathered wings changed color according to the cursed element they were channeling.
With each word, the Wyrm’s voice turned into a deafening roar that forced Lith to cup his ears.
‘Yet you are right.’ The flames died out and his voice became as low as a whisper. ‘My feelings for you haven’t changed yet if there’s anyone I despise more than the Void, if there’s anyone I resent more than you, it’s that accursed elf!’
The Voidfeather Dragon stared at M’Rael with rage and allowed himself to feel hatred. The same hatred that comprised every fiber of the Void and that now flowed inside the Dragon’s ethereal veins, turning his red scales black.
New horns grew on his head while the old ones became longer and bigger. The feathers on the first set of wings were consumed by blue flames, revealing the membrane underneath.
His remaining set of feathered wings now burned steadily with six different kinds of Cursed Flames.
The blue fire spread from the now membranous wings to the spine and from there, it lit up the black feathers on the way toward the head. At that point, the blue flames propagated along the bone spikes setting them ablaze in what looked like a burning crown.
The Void Demon Dragon, the form that Lith would have assumed if in the past he had let his human side be swallowed by either the Dragon or the Abomination, only had two white eyes without pupils.
‘That’s it?’ Lith checked himself with Invigoration and there was nothing different about him.
His mana core was still violet and his life force was still that of a Tiamat. His mass, magical, and physical prowess were unchanged.
At least until the merging between the Void and the Voidfeather Dragon reached the limit that Lith’s life forces currently allowed. The excess energy that couldn’t be stored within the Soul Projection seeped through the bond it shared with the human side.
Lith screamed in pain as the blackness covered his skin, starting from his head and flowing down as if someone had dropped a bucket of paint on him. His seven eyes turned white and his black-violet aura was replaced by midnight-blue flames that burned at everything.
The air, the dust particles in it, the surrounding world energy, and even Lith’s own flesh. Only the partial merging with the other life forces kept him from being consumed by the flames as well, the blackness acting as an insulant and shielding him from most of the damage.
Most, but not all.
The blazing dark energies covered his entire body, turning his fingers into claws and his teeth into pale fangs. The moment his whole body turned black, his hair caught fire and his skin cracked into countless scales from between which leaked more blue flames.
At the same time, five of Lith’s seven eyes seemed to cry white tears that defied gravity and dripped toward the sky. The five pristine torrents climbed up the Void Demon Dragon’s body until they reached his face.
The white tears formed five white pools that condensed into as many eyes, giving the Dragon part of the power of the human side. The man below and the Dragon above roared in unison as they both stabilized and their eyes burst with elemental energy, white no more.
Lith tried to conjure his Demons but his mana burned blue. The shadows burned. Everything burned.
‘Wait, what?’ Faluel, Ajatar, and M’Rael stopped their fight for a split second, feeling every hair or scale on their bodies stand up in alarm.
Screams and roars were just air and didn’t impress them, but the power they carried was another story entirely. The three of them turned around toward the thing that Lith had become, feeling the pressure of a true Divine Beast exuding from his body.
Neither he nor his Soul Projection were that strong alone, but together they produced the same terrifying presence that a real Dragon would. On top of that, the burning blade between his hands emitted an aura of its own that perfectly aligned with Lith’s, kicking things up another notch.
Ajatar grunted in approval and resumed his attack whereas Faluel remained stunned and so did M’Rael. At least until the first hit of the Drake landed and they both snapped out of it respectively to support her comrade and save his own life.
‘What’s going on? There’s a sudden drop in the world energy’s level but I can’t detect any source for this phenomenon.’ The Hydra and the elf thought alike, one perceiving the changes in the Fringe via the Hands while the other through the tower.
M’Rael had even tried to use the Eyes of Menadion to understand what was happening, but according to the artifact, there was nothing going on.
‘You two, what’s the name of that thing and what can it do?’ He worded his questions so that no deflection was allowed.
‘I don’t know.’ They replied.
Solus knew Lith ever since he was four and the World Tree was the inheritor of millennia of knowledge passed down from their predecessors from times before even the Guardians so those three words scared M’Rael to death.
‘It doesn’t matter. Whatever that is, it can’t be stronger than Menadion’s tow-‘
“Dodge!” Lith fell to his knees, holding his chest in pain yet his voice roared like thunder.
Ajatar and Faluel had no idea what was happening and why Lith hadn’t used the mind link, but they trusted him with their lives. They moved away, leaving M’Rael alone and utterly confused.
The feathered wings of the Void Demon Dragon had drained the surrounding world energy from the moment the Divine Beast had formed and the accumulated power had now reached the critical mass.
Lith recognized the burning sensation in his chest. He had a hard time believing it could hurt so much even though it wasn’t building up inside his own heart but he had long since learned that reality didn’t give a damn about what he believed.
The Void Demon Dragon’s feathers blazed with all kinds of flames as a silvery light bled from his chest and quickly moved up along his neck and out through his mouth.
Dread Flames as focused and fast as a laser erupted from the Dragon’s maw, crossing the space between Lith and M’Rael in an instant.
“What the?” The elf conjured all the barriers stored in both the tower and the armor but the Flames burned them all.
The silvery blast engulfed him from head to toe, eating at his defenses, his mana, the world around him, the tower, and the body beneath.
Solus and M’Rael screamed together, feeling their essences being consumed in searing agony. The Dread Flames moved past the elf, carving a meters-deep trench in the ground in their wake and turning an entire unit of elves into cinders.
“Ajatar, Faluel, leave him to me. This fucker is mine!” Lith gestured them to stand aside as he charged forward, the blazing blade screaming a bone-chilling war cry.
The Lesser Dragons did as instructed, making M’Rael curse under his breath.
