They walked up to the still-burning, still-screaming M’Rael whose body was now fully engulfed in blue flames. His life force was spent, making his skin sag like molten wax and his muscles thin like branches after a draught.
There was nothing left of the proud elf who had dreamed of rebuilding the elven Kingdom. Even his Soul Projection now showed him burning alive in a blazing inferno, his mouth opened in a silent scream that matched the main body’s.
“You were so cocky when you gave me orders.” Solus put one hand on War’s hilt and the other on M’Rael’s jaw, closing it shut so that only her voice remained. “You felt so entitled to steal me away like a petty thief and then abuse me to your heart’s content.”
Being so close to him, seeing his face, and hearing his pathetic whimpers almost drove her over the edge with fury. Yet she had to hold it in, refusing to give him a quick or easy death.
“Now that our roles are reversed, I have only one order for you.” She pried his mouth open with violence while the second jaw of the hybrid lowered and moved millimeters away from him, as if she wanted to kiss him.
“Die!” A jet stream of Origin Flames went down M’Rael’s throat without burning anything in its path.
Solus was using Lith’s mastery over the mystical flames to attack only part of the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and the brain stem. By damaging the lungs, she had sealed M’Rael’s breathing technique and made every breath an agony.
The damage to the liver and kidneys brought him pain and spread toxins throughout his body, causing a cascade of organ failure.
But the real kicker was the brainstem.
Solus had destroyed the centers that regulated involuntary breathing so M’Rael had to work through the pain and will his lungs to fill themselves with air. The moment he lost focus or the pain blinded him, he stopped breathing.
The elf went into a panic, desperately searching for a way to survive but he found only despair. The damage to his body was so extensive that only Invigoration could have fixed him.
Too bad that the only people who could use it were the same ones he had just tried to murder.
“That’s a bit extreme.” Ajatar said.
“Cry me a river, fucking lizard!” Solus’ snarl pushed the Drake back several meters and left two deep trenches in his wake. “First get yourself enslaved, then, when you have first experience on the matter, you can preach to me about forgiveness.”
‘Solus, I get that you are angry, but War is still dying.’ Lith didn’t like being the one who pulled the brakes but he liked what Solus was becoming even less.
It was a mix of him and her while they both were at their worst.
‘You are right, sorry.’ Solus savored M’Rael’s agony and despair for one last second before turning him into ashes.
She couldn’t stay long enough to see him die and she couldn’t risk that someone might take pity on him. She wanted him dead and to make sure that he had no way to be brought back, not even as an undead.
‘Do you think we are in trouble?’ Lith asked, fighting to not let Solus’ fury drown her and attempting to calm her down. ‘I mean, for showing everyone our fusion?’
‘No.’ she replied with a sneer. ‘Ajatar, Aalejah, and Morok are okay. The elves know nothing of what happened. Even if they speak about it to the Council, people like Raagu will just believe they are delirious due to the Tiamat fear.
‘As for the Tree, they know everything, even more than Grandpa. The Yggdrasill knew about me and the tower. It was them exposing my existence to M’Rael. They already knew.’ She said while tower Warping to the Blood Desert.
Alas, she was wrong.
The World Tree did know about Elphyn, the tower, and how most cursed objects worked. They knew how a living legacy would fuse with its host, but only in cases like the Horsemen or the Black Star.
They shared one body and mind until one of them became dominant and the other a puppet. The Yggdrasill was aware of the mage tower’s battle mode, but it was supposed to be a mere exoskeleton, not become the flesh and blood of its master.
The World Tree had no idea of the power that was released when, instead of suppressing each other, relic and user truly became one. They had never seen it happen before because it never had.
Now, however, the Tree had witnessed the power of a violet-cored Awakened reaching the white without its side effects. They had seen with their own mystical senses what could be achieved when two cores were backed by the enchantments of a complex power core.
‘Now everything makes sense.’ The Tree thought. ‘The long millennia of exile, the appearance of the Guardians, and the small-minded stubbornness of my predecessors to waste their lives in the Fringe were all a preparation for this moment.
‘The moment when I’d discover what a bright violet-cored Awakened can achieve with the right servant. If only I had a tower like that, but with one of my Chroniclers instead of a petulant girl as its medium, I would be unstoppable.
‘I’d have the longevity of my kind, the power of the fusion, and the enchantments of a living artifact in the leaves of my branches. Becoming a Guardian would become a simple matter and even if the old Guardians tried to stop me, I could fight them.’
‘Destiny is calling onto me and it found me ready to answer!’
***
Blood Desert, Heavenly Plume Tribe, Overlord’s palace.
The Hybrid moved from the Fringe to the geyser upon which Salaark had positioned her palace in order to let Lith visit her without the need of leaving a trail of paperwork with Warp Gates or in case of emergency.
Lith and Solus bypassed all the mystical defense systems because even in their current form, they were recognized by Salaark’s spells and treated as honored guests. The same, however, couldn’t be said about the guards.
All they saw was a hulking figure armed with a flaming sword, a hammer, and a Yggdrasill staff appearing in one of the innermost and allegedly most secure areas of the palace.
The Phoenixes of the Nest jumped at the Hybrid, no questions asked, unleashing the rightful fury of their Overlord upon the intruder.
Solus wanted to beat them to a pulp but Lith refused to follow her in an act of senseless violence. He stored the Fury and the Sage Staff in the pocket dimension, but when he tried to do the same with War, it failed.
Dimensional spaces rejected kinetic energy and the blue flames packed enough heat to melt a mountain. Lith was forced between snuffing them out and storing War or keeping them burning and consuming the blade’s essence.
‘The blue flames are the only thing keeping the Adamant pieces together. Without them, I can put War in a timeless state but I’m also likely to kill him.’ Lith thought as he used his now three free hands to grab at the incoming spears and twist them along with their wielders.
