“I need to get rid of Thaymos now to protect you guys.” Tyris shook her head. “If I just seal him somewhere, sooner or later the Council of Jiera is going to decipher his language. I don’t think you want him going around babbling about the Destroyer and his cursed object.”
At those words, Solus’ anger at Tyris disappeared and was replaced by gratitude.
“By my Mom, I had almost forgotten about that. Lost cities don’t have much credibility but if someone believed him, we would have gotten in trouble.”
“Indeed.” The Great Mother nodded.
Saying that Lith was bonded to a cursed object was easy to refute since he could foil any investigation simply by taking off the stone ring. The problem was that Thaymos wouldn’t make a generic allegation but point at Solus.
The moment someone examined her from up close with a breathing technique and discovered that her energy signature was the same as Lith’s, Thaymos’ words would be confirmed.
“Also, this isn’t my turf.” Tyris added. “Fenagar would notice me if I followed you as you moved the camp to a new site. If I waited for you guys to go back to Garlen, instead, I would have to bring Thaymos with me.
“The other Guardians would then ask themselves why I’m endangering Elysia first and my Kingdom later, wasting my focus instead of just dropping Thaymos here and making him Jiera’s problem.
“This is the best moment to get rid of the lost city without anyone suspecting that I needed your tower, Lith. Remember that the Guardians know you possess Menadion’s legacy but they are completely unaware of what it can do.
“Thanks to these blueprints, I can claim that during the fight I recognized Thaymos and had a way to destroy him. I just needed to restrain him to keep you safe while I searched for the self-destruct spell among the ancient books I keep in my pocket dimension.
“It will explain my current absence and why I was so confident I could destroy him.”
Even through the haze of pain and confusion, Lith knew that the Guardian was right.
‘Even Grandma had no idea of the properties of the various floors of the tower and we spent months on her turf. By protecting my secret, Tyris is making sure that Jiera’s Guardians won’t bother me during my stay.’
“Maybe it’s the headache talking, but I can’t make heads or tails of this stuff.” Lith only needed a single glance at Thaymos’ blueprints to suffer from blinding pain. “Do you need Grandma or Leegaain’s help to crack them?”
“I would, if this was a modern and revolutionary Forgemastering technique.” Tyris skimmed through the pages, highlighting with a holographic marker the parts she needed. “This stuff is so outdated that it’s embarrassing to look at.
“Don’t get me wrong, without the schematics, not even Leegaain’s Eyes would find a way to safely destroy a monstrosity like this. All the souls and the mana cores Thaymos absorbed during the centuries have formed hundreds of layers that shield the pseudo core’s runes from being studied even by Soul Vision.
“With the schematics, however, finding the weak points of the lost city is child’s play for an ancient creature like me who can read the ancient runes and is familiar with this kind of enchantment.”
She double-checked her findings and once she made sure to not have missed anything, Tyris handed the Eyes back to Solus with a deep bow of gratitude.
“I’ll send you back first to give you guys plausible deniability. Can you stand?”
“Barely but that’s a good thing.” Lith’s knees wobbled for a second. “We are supposed to be exhausted from the battle, after all.”
Tyris nodded and put Lith and Solus right inside their respective doubles before making them fade. Everything that their copies had seen, heard, and experienced was passed into Lith’s and Solus’ minds, bringing them up to speed.
Luckily, they had been away for less than two minutes. Aside from the screams of joy and a quick head count to make sure that no one was hurt, nothing much had happened.
“Lith? Are you alright?” Kamila asked with worry after seeing him shutting his eyes while gritting his teeth.
The influx of information from his copy wasn’t much but it was enough to aggravate his headache. The babies clinging to his chest while screaming at the top of their lungs didn’t help either.
“I’m fine, Kami. I’m just moved and deafened from the warm reception.” He forced himself to smile while he resumed reassuring the children from where the copy left.
There was a small crowd of people surrounding them, waiting for the moment to ask their questions without disturbing the moment. Everyone had seen how desperate Lith’s condition was after Thaymos’ punch and even though they knew Tyris had healed him, they were still worried about him.
“Thank you for your help, Solus.” Friya hugged her while asking her to play along via a mind link. “Without you, my spells would have collapsed.”
In the chaos of battle, no one had noticed her disappearance and Friya was providing Solus an alibi. Friya knew that the camp had withstood the Tower Spirit spells only thanks to the defensive system of the tower and this was the only way to give Solus her due credit.
“We make a good team, as always.” Between her still ringing head and the influx of information from her copy, Solus had a hard time focusing.
After Tyris had disappeared, the camp had fallen into a stunned silence. The fear from witnessing the fury of a lost city and the apparently endless scores of the Black Tide had taken a while to fade.
One moment everyone was praying the gods for mercy and the next a living god had fought for them. Tyris’ power, her Morning Star, and the complete annihilation of a monster tide had left the people in the camp with their mouth agape and their brains frozen in shock.
It had been the cries of the babies when Kamila had come to check on Lith that had broken the stillness.
“Are we safe now?” She had asked.
“Yes, it’s all over now.” The construct had replied with so much confidence that his words had lifted everyone’s spirit.
The camp had burst into laughs, cries of joy, and cheers that had continued until that moment.
“You can turn tail and get back to the camp, you cowardly bastards.” Orion cheerfully said to the pilots of the DoLoreans. “I’m sorry to break this to you, but we are all alive!”
Once he confirmed that there had been no casualties and that everyone from the advance party had come back, Orion went to talk to Lith.
“I know that it’s a stupid question, but I need you to confirm it to me. Is the Black Tide really gone?”
“Most of it, but yes.” Lith nodded. “I’m not sure if the lost city left a few of them behind as a backup, but even if he did, they shouldn’t amount to more than a few monster hordes. And hordes without a leader at that.”
“What about the lost city?” Orion pointed at the massive molten remains that lay a few hundreds of meters in front of the camp.
