“Weird.” The Father of Fire grabbed the Tiamat’s face with his hand and activated his bloodline’s breathing technique, Firestarter.
He could see the cobwebs of cracks in Lith’s life force that covered most of his body. After the fusion with Solus, the tower had partly repaired them, but a black substance still seeped out of the cracks.
It coated Lith’s essence like a thin smoke and reached his eyes where it took the form of Death Vision.
“Even though you don’t feel it, there is a flow. Conjure your Demons, please. Not the ones in your feathers, though. Call upon the souls who rest in this place.”
Lith did as instructed and Valtak observed more and more of the black goo seeping through the cracks. Only a few droplets took the form of Demons of the Darkness. The rest lingered in the air, circling around the Tiamat like a school of hungry sharks.
“We are getting there. Can you feel it?” The Elder Wyrm asked.
“No.”
After several tries and as many failures, Lith had made no progress in understanding his bloodline abilities.
“Are you tired?” Valtak caressed his beard while pondering his next move.
“I’ve spent a bit of mana for the one-eyed Demons, but aside from that I’m fine.” Lith replied.
“Okay, then. We are going to try something different this time.” The Father of Fire said. “You just relax and be ready to shut everything down in case things get out of hand, okay?”
“Define out of hand, please.” Lith grabbed Valtak’s wrist before he could reach for the Tiamat’s face again.
Lith had noticed how the Elder Wyrm always positioned his thumb near Lith’s right eye and the index finger near the left. Right where the black veins ran thickest.
“Fair enough.” The Father of Fire sighed. “It’s what seeps out of the cracks in your life force that fuels Death Vision and your black chains. Every time you conjure your demons, more of it spills out of you yet you have no awareness of this.
“Also, even after looking far and wide, I’ve found no point of your body where that thing reaches close enough to the surface for me to interact with it. Except for one place.”
“My eyes.” Lith completed the phrase for Valtak and nodded for him to continue.
“Correct.” The Elder Wyrm said. “Unlike your chains, Death Vision is a physical manifestation of what Grandfather calls death energy. The thing that keeps your Abomination side stable and nurtures Elysia’s body since conception, making her immune to Chaos.
“I, however, I’ve come to call it death force.”
“I beg your pardon?” Lith said in confusion.
“Think about it. We don’t know how or why but a part of you is dead, or you wouldn’t have an Abomination side.” Valtak said.
‘I actually know how and why I’m part Abomination but I can’t tell him about that either.’ Lith swallowed a lump of saliva as the Father of Fire kept talking.
“This energy, because it can’t be anything else, is just like mana and life force, fueling your body and bloodline abilities. The only reason I can think of to explain why we failed to trigger your blue flames during our training, even by mistake, is that we got it all wrong.
“We considered the blue flames just another kind of Origin Flames and tried to ignite your life force in every way possible but what if they are not like Origin Flames? What if they don’t need a spark of your life force to ignite but a spark of your death force?”
“It makes sense.” Lith pondered. “My ability to manipulate souls was very limited back when I was a child. I didn’t gain my Demons of the Darkness until I got the blue core while for the black chains I needed the deep violet.
“The blue flames didn’t manifest before I reached the violet and my Abomination side stopped fighting me for control.”
“If I’m right, it’s because for most of your life your Abomination side was a reluctant ally at best and an honest enemy at worse.” Valtak said. “Your human and Divine Beast life forces repressed it and with it its powers.”
Lith nodded since the Father of Fire’s theory matched what he had learned while communing with the other two aspects of himself.
“The more your life forces developed, however, the more they merged, giving the dead side more control over you. Now that your life forces have completely fused, your Abomination side has lost its aggressiveness so you didn’t experience any side effect.
“Yet the death energy is still there and after spending all your life fighting against it, you have no idea how to control it aside from the powers that come out on their own. My plan is to use Primal Spark on your eyes and see what happens.
“The Fire Dragons’ bloodline ability is supposed to extract the life force contained in regular mana and use it to conjure Origin Flames. Maybe, the proximity with your eyes will allow Primal Spark to extract the death force in the mana surrounding them and let you to experience the blue flames safely.”
“Sounds like a solid plan.” Lith nodded. “Primal Spark deals with mana, not life force, let alone this ‘death force’. Best case scenario, we get a glimpse into its abilities. Worst case scenario, nothing happens.”
After receiving Lith’s permission, Valtak touched the Tiamat’s face while activating Firestarter and used it to guide Primal Spark to the mana that flowed inside the veins blackened by Death Vision.
“How are you feeling, hatchling?” Valtak asked after getting a grip on the mana yet keeping Primal Spark at a safe distance.
“I’m fine, thank you. Why do you ask?”
“Because I don’t feel well. As I’m touching this thing, it’s touching me back. I can feel a coldness running through the world energy carried by my breathing technique and it’s giving me the creeps.” The Father of Fire replied.
“There is hunger, wrath, and hate. I can feel a cacophony of voices screaming and crying. It’s like standing near a thick door and there’s something bad going on on the other side.
“The door is not soundproofed so I can hear the loudest bits but the rest is too muffled to make sense of the noise.”
“I feel nothing.” Lith would have found Valtak’s words nonsensical if not for the sudden pallor of the scales on the Elder Wyrm’s snout.
“That’s good news.” The Father of Fire said. “It means that the death force affects me because I’m new to it. Over the years, you must have developed a resistance to it. If I’m right, things should go smoothly. Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are.” As Lith finished speaking, Valtak activated Primal Spark on the mana in Lith’s eyes.
“You know how this works. Use a fire spell. Anything will do.”
Lith did as instructed and a crown of bright violet Origin Flames covered his head.
“It didn’t work.” He said with a sigh. “I don’t feel anything diff-”
Then, a tiny speck of blackness that was supposed to fuel Death Vision was swallowed by the mana flow. Primal Spark had no effect on it but guided it toward the burning flames.
