Thaymos’ strength turned into poison and his enchantments shorted in a rainfall of wild mana sparks.
The colossus fell to the ground, incapable of withstanding his own weight. The Life Maelstrom coursed through the Eternal Fortress in a cycle of destruction and regeneration that drained his mana reserves.
Tyris made it even quicker by dropping Morning Star on his chest. Without the ability to conjure a hard-light construct, Thaymos’ hands melted as soon as he grabbed the haft.
In the span of a few minutes, the living castle was reduced to a pool of molten stone and stayed that way. All the mana the lost city had accumulated since his creation was spent and what was left of it was barely enough to keep his pseudo core from succumbing to the heat radiated by the mace.
And that solely because Tyris willed so.
She stored Morning Star away the moment its work was done, giving Thaymos’ core time to stabilize. Sure, its energy reserves had reached rock bottom, but they were still near a mana geyser and the pseudo core still had the cumulative power stolen from millions of mana cores, both healthy and defective.
The Guardian could already feel the pseudo core draining the surrounding world energy and twisting it into a corrupted hybrid between life force and mana.
The ruins of the Eternal Fortress were slowly rearranging themselves into their original appearance, the different buildings taking form from the amorphous mass of molten rock.
“That was impressive.” Zagran clapped her hands in amazement. “Scary and reckless, but impressive nonetheless. Yet there’s a reason I never tried doing something like that.
“If we don’t find an isolated place where to seal that thing soon, it will come back to life with a power beyond what a non-Guardian can face. We have to move fast and contact the Council for help.
“That scaredy serpent of Fenagar fled and I’m not going to bring one of his living legacies on my turf.”
“I don’t need the Council’s help and I’m not going to seal this thing anywhere.” The Griffon grabbed the pseudo core with her clawed hand, crushing the white stones that had already reattached to it and insulating Thaymos from the world energy with her Life Maelstrom-enhanced aura.
“I’m going to kill this revolting creature here and now.”
“How?” The Garuda asked, trying and failing to open a Steps leading to Tyris’ position.
With Fenagar missing, the authority of the ruler of the land weakened both Guardians but Tyris’ rage was stronger. She usually wouldn’t interfere in the power balance of her own country let alone that of another continent.
When she faced someone important or a threat on the level of Thaymos, no matter how much they angered them, she would limit herself to teaching them a lesson and cripple their life force.
It was what she had done in the past to Xedros, Ileza, Fenagar, and twice to Roghar.
Yet the lost city’s life force was coded into his enchantments and altering them would have caused a chain reaction whose consequences were unpredictable. Tyris had yet to forgive Fenagar for his transgression and the people of Jiera for turning their back on her.
Yet the anger she felt for Thaymos and the pity for his victims surpassed even that. The only option she had was to solve the problem permanently and teach a lesson to all those too arrogant to fix the errors of their ways.
“Tyris, do you need my help?” Salaark didn’t attempt to open a Gate, knowing that she would have suffered Zagran’s same fate.
“Please, if Creation Magic was all we needed to get rid of a lost city, it wouldn’t have taken you centuries and the help of the young lizard to get rid of those in the Desert. Don’t worry about me. I have everything I need right here.”
A snap of her fingertips Blinked her and Lith inside the Mirror Hall of the tower.
Yet while the Guardian’s disappearance was evident, the Tiamat had been replaced by a hard-light construct that was in no way distinguishable from the original, not even with Soul Vision.
The life force, the energy signature, and the mass were identical to the real Lith down to the smallest detail. She did the same thing for Solus, making a copy of her join the celebrations for the victory so that no one would question her absence.
“What? Why are we here?” Lith’s wounds were perfectly healed and between the tower and Tyris’ spell, his body was full of vigor.
“Didn’t you hear me? I have to destroy this thing and to do it, I need your help.” The Griffon shapeshifted back into her human form and showed him the mana crystal she held in her hand.
It was rough, white, shaped like a rectangular stone, and the size of a shoe box.
“And what am I supposed to do with this, exactly?” From so up close, Lith could not only feel the corrupt life force that coursed through Thaymos’ pseudo core, but also hear the deafening chorus of voices from the millions of souls trapped inside of it
The former made his body churn in revulsion while the latter made his head hurt so much that he was afraid it was going to explode.
“Not you. You two.” Tyris pointed at him and Solus who was floating nearby. “Do you mind lending me the Eyes of Menadion for a while?”
While they talked, Thaymos’ senses took in the magnificence of the tower despite the cloaking spells restricting them.
‘This is a mage tower. A perfect mage tower.’ He thought in amazement. ‘If I can assimilate it, my powers will soar. I have no idea what the Eyes of Menadion are, but if the female Guardian thinks that’s enough to destroy me, she’s deluding herself.
‘The first thing I did after gaining sentience was to destroy every blueprint of my creation and kill every person involved.’
‘Am I?’ Tyris replied with a sneer. ‘Shouldn’t you be wondering how can you suddenly understand modern language?’
Thaymos had no eyes for blinking or a throat to swallow saliva. He was just a block of crystal but if it had a face, his expression would have been of utter confusion.
‘I’m doing this for you, but don’t misunderstand. I’m not doing you a favor. I just want to savor your fear and despair while your end nears. I won’t let you spend your final moments in blissful ignorance.’
The Eternal Fortress tried to counter that he was true to his name and that the three Guardians of Jiera had already tried and failed to destroy him. He attempted to mockingly ask her why she believed things would be different for her but Tyris kept the mind link one way only, humiliating him further.
Without his powers and any way to communicate, Thaymos was reduced to a bystander in his own life.
“The Eyes? Sure.” Solus conjured the relic and handed it to the Guardian.
“Thanks. I figured that if your mother’s legacy could reverse engineer the schematics for the Golden Griffon, it should be able to do it again for…” Tyris wore the mystical pince-nez and started studying the crystal in her hand.
