Then, Nalrond opened one wound at a time. First on his human body and then an identical one on his Rezar half. He used darkness fusion to numb the pain enough to not lose his concentration but not so much that he wouldn’t notice cutting too deep in.
He hated every second of it, needing sheer determination to go against the instinct engraved inside every fiber of his body. Worst of all, was looking at the worry and pain Friya’s eyes.
She turned around more than once, needing time to compose herself and resume watching.
“Okay. This is enough.” Nalrond panted, exhausted from the pain and blood loss. “Look carefully.”
He activated his tier Body Sculpting diagnostic spell, Watcher, to follow the process for the umpteenth time in the hope of noticing something he had missed in his previous attempts.
Nalrond started to shapeshift, stopping the process midway to let his halves come into contact.
With his life forces weakened, the wall built with Forbidden Magic to keep them apart had also become thinner. The barrier drew its strength from the life forces and right now it lacked the power to keep the bridge from forming.
As soon as the first crack in the wall opened, the life forces went from dead calm to raging. Whenever they touched, they would merge for a split second before bouncing back in a shower of sparks.
The conflict further weakened the life forces and the wall, but while the latter crumbled the former grew more violent by consuming what little energy they had left to exploit the opponent’s weakness and put it down.
‘I hope you have collected some useful data because I can’t keep this up for much longer.’ Nalrond said.
‘Then don’t. Let’s stop it here.’ Faluel said.
While Nalrond forcibly cut the contact between the life forces, he also healed the mirrored wounds one set at a time. It would take him a while if he was alone since he couldn’t risk losing consciousness until the wall was fully restored.
With the others feeding him vitality, however, he could quickly close enough wounds to stabilize his life forces and make sure that the wall drained them faster than they could recover.
He would go for a complete healing only after his life forces quieted down and the wall was thick enough to keep them from perceiving one another again.
“Well?” He asked.
“I have good news and I have bad news.” Since Faluel had earned seven massive headaches for her trouble, Lith let her make the honors. “The good news is that even though the phenomenon didn’t last long, we’ve collected precious information with the Eyes.
“Also, whatever you did in the past worked. At least a bit. Unlike all the hybrids I’ve studied in the past, your life forces partially overlapped with every clash. They tried but failed to fuse every time they came into contact.”
“That’s nothing new.” Nalrond sighed. “I noticed that myself with my diagnostic spell. The problem is that I don’t understand what causes the fusion to turn into a conflict.”
“And here comes the bad news.” Faluel was annoyed for being interrupted and expressed it with seven loud grunts. “Your mana cores never showed any sign of merging or even just coming closer.
“Whenever the Forbidden Magic separating your life forces starts to crumble, the mana cores perceive each other as a threat and react with extreme prejudice.”
“How can my mana cores be the issue?” Nalrond politely raised his hand to talk and the Hydra nodded for him to continue. “My life forces are completely different whereas a mana core is a mana core no matter the race it belongs to.
“They even have the same energy signature!”
The Rezar projected a hologram of his human and beast sides as he saw them via the Watcher spell. One looked like a humanoid mannequin that had been built with red lego bricks and an erector set.
Every piece was snapped together with those adjacent and connected with the rest of the body via what looked like strings and bars.
The other, instead, looked like a burning blue star. It had a solid core that contained the information about the Rezar’s physical form while the flaming external layer controlled the flow of mana and the elemental affinities.
“True, but you have forgotten about a crucial aspect of your condition.” Faluel added a hologram of her own representing the mana cores, that were indeed identical in size, power, and energy signature.
“This is what happened a few minutes ago.” She took control of the holograms with Domination and Nalrond let her.
What he saw left him speechless.
The projection depicted the two life forces coming in contact and trying to rearrange themselves in order to fit with each other. Whenever they failed, both mana cores perceived the merging like an illness.
They reacted by employing life fusion to restore the original shape of the life force, fire fusion to strengthen their respective bodies, and earth fusion to make them resistant to further changes.
The ensuing conflict resulted in the sparks and the bouncing back that the Watcher spell reported.
“What in the gods’ name is that?” Nalrond knew the answer to his question but he needed to hear it from someone else to make sure he had not gone insane.
“Even if the energy signature is the same, fusion magic still works.” Solus replied. “And since, as you said, your life forces are very different, it takes but a small alteration to make the fusion process fail.”
“Why did this never happen to Lith or Tista?” The Rezar asked in helpless frustration.
“Because we’ve only ever had one core.” Lith replied. “When our life forces were ready to merge, the mana flowing through them brought them together because they both ‘belonged’ to it.
“Your mana cores, instead, recognize neither the other life force or each other.”
“That’s why no member of the werepeople ever managed to find a cure!” Nalrond said. “With no access to a specific artifact or Invigoration, even a true mage has no way to visualize their mana flow.
“Even worse, there are plenty of spells that can alter a life force but none for mana cores. They are not physical organs and the only way to interact with them is with pure mana.
“Too bad that since I’m no Awakened, I have no Spirit Magic and if someone else uses it on me, I’d just get mana poisoning!”
Faluel and the others nodded, letting the Rezar vent his frustration since they had nothing useful to add.
“Calm down.” Friya caressed his shoulder. “This was just the first try. The Eyes has collected only 10% of the available information. There’s still the remaining 90%.”
Nalrond sighed and went to bed. He needed to be at his full strength or the following scan would last even less.
One week later, the Eyes had reached an 80% completion. Now the how, why, and when the fusion failed were much clearer. Alas, such knowledge gave Nalrond and the others no clue about how to overcome them.
Consuming before the procedure so much mana that Nalrond reached mana abuse levels made him lose his focus and his head ached so much that he couldn’t bring the life forces together. The process would not even start.
