“Your children?” Dervalos repeated in disbelief.
“Yes, our children.” Xenagrosh the Final Smile snarled, her form flickering between human, Dragon, and her old Abomination form.
She had always liked Zinya’s children and the bond with the Master made her love them. Yet after Elysia’s birth, her maternal instinct was cranked up to eleven. Her unbridled fury was so great that it suppressed Bytra’s blood madness.
“Our children.” Nandi, or better, Kimbug the Bloody Abyss, said after emerging from another portal.
Quomar the Vampire couldn’t believe his own eyes as all the worst nightmares on Mogar seemed to have come to life just to pay him a visit.
“We’ll take it from here, Lord Vastor.” Tezka jokingly gave the salute before grabbing an undead with each of his tails. “Please, do try and run away. We love ourselves a good chase.”
His lips curled up in something too cruel to call it a smile.
The Suneater’s eyes were filled with delight and promises of endless pain. Once they got away from Filia and Frey, there would be nothing stopping the hybrids from picking up from where Vastor had left off.
The Abominations needed no reason to torture the undead, a pretext was more than enough. The three assassins slumped, praying to the gods that by cooperating their suffering wouldn’t last too long.
Tezka lapped the kids, hugging them to reassure them with his warm fur. Then, he waved them goodbye and disappeared, his anger reaching new heights after checking how bad the scare had been.
The rest of the hybrids followed his example, reassuring Filia and Frey and then leaving.
“I think we are still in time to catch the final act of the fireworks.” Vastor said after checking his pocket watch. “Do you want to go back to Ustar or do you want to go home?”
“Home!” Filia and Frey said in unison, stopping from sipping the hot chocolate that Bytra had offered them for a second. “I want to tell Mom what happened and show everyone how cool you’ve become, Dad.”
“Home it is, my boy.” Vastor smiled, caressing Frey’s head and feeling moved by his sincere admiration.
He checked their current coordinates via his army amulet and after reporting about solving the situation by himself, the Master opened a Chaos Steps that would bring them to the nearest Warp Gate.
‘Whatever I am, whatever I’m becoming, I won’t let my past taint my family. I may not be worthy of being a father, but I will.’
***
Back to the Vastor Mansion, Zinya was utterly terrified hearing what had happened but the kids spoke about the little they had spectated of the fight with so much enthusiasm that she could only smile and nod.
‘The last thing they need is to realize how dangerous the situation was and be scarred for life.’ She thought. ‘It’s better to let them think it was some kind of adventure and hope that time would smother the horror of the experience.
‘This way, when they understand the truth, maybe it won’t hit them as hard as it should.’
Lith, Kamila, and the rest of the Verhens had been invited as well, mostly because Filia and Frey wanted to brag about their father. Surrounded by the warmth of their home and family while clinging to Tezka’s fur, even the most dramatic parts of the kidnapping didn’t seem so bad anymore.
The Suneater was back in his pet form, a bit pissed off for missing the fun in the basement but otherwise happy with the outcome. The rest of the Eldritches had even worn Constable uniforms to keep Vastor’s promise about doing things by the law.
“All we promise you is due process.” Kigan said in between Chaos spells. “And when I say process, I mean decomposition process. The roses of the Lady of the house grow best with fresh undead ashes.”
Aran and Leria were envious of their friends, garnering them a big scolding from their respective parents.
“There’s nothing to be envious about!” Raaz said, incapable of believing his own ears. “Filia and Frey got kidnapped and it’s only thanks to Zogar that nothing bad happened.”
“Isn’t that the same thing that always happens with Lith?” Aran countered pointedly.
“Yeah, but we always miss all the action.” Leria pouted. “You didn’t even bring us to watch the fight between Grandma and Uncle Doggie. Why do Filia and Frey get to see amazing stuff while we are locked in the house?”
Tezka chuckled at being called a dog and laughed hard at the rest.
“That’s my fault, sorry. I only had a limited number of guests I could invite and family comes first.” The Suneater said.
Aran and Leria nodded and dropped the arguments since the only person they could blame was Salaark but they loved their grandma too much to bother her with such a small thing.
“Come on, Dad. Show them.” Frey tugged at Vastor’s arm.
“Sure, but please, take a few steps back first. I’m not used to this yet and I’d hate it if someone were to get hurt.” The Master handed the Yggdrasill staff to Zinya, which helped her to notice how his skin wasn’t turning black anymore and heightened her mind.
They exchanged a brief nod, implying that he would tell her the full story later and away from impressionable ears.
Vastor took a deep breath, using his breathing technique, Beyonder’s Eye, to study his new life force and focus on it as a whole instead of the red thread that carried the remaining melody of his previous form.
A regular human’s life force looked like a mannequin built out of lego blocks and an erector set. The life force of the newly evolved Arisen, instead, looked like a humanoid doll comprised of colored threads.
There were red threads that originated from the residual human life force, white threads coursing with Decay, black threads of Chaos, and grey threads that stood inactive.
They carried no energy and acted as a buffer, keeping the red threads separated from the Cursed Elements. Vastor’s life force still closely resembled that of a human but it had already lost most of its previous rigid structure.
Not only did the threads work as better conductors for the elemental energy but they could also be freely rearranged, making shapeshifting easier.
Both Lith and Vastor assumed that, if an Arisen worked in a similar fashion to the other evolved humans like the Fomor, then he was likely to develop more eyes and maybe even more wings as his cores fused.
The only thing they were certain about was that Vastor’s evolution had just started and it still had a way to go. The most peculiar thing about the Arisen’s life force was that the different colored threads were woven to form something that was still unclear due to the red and grey being dominant.
‘Who knows, maybe they’ll assume a more complex shape like Elysia’s and Lith’s life force. Or maybe once the process is complete, the various threads will merge together to form something entirely different from a human.
‘Only time will tell.’ Vastor thought.
His cores closed in again, using the darkness element of his mana core as a buffer in order to turn the light element into Decay safely.
