There, the speck of blackness found the already burning world energy and was set ablaze like everything else. Except that the Origin Flames didn’t burn the death energy.
Once ignited, it burned Lith’s mana and the world energy in a burst of blue flames. They burned at the Origin Flames, consuming the violet fire before moving on to Primal Spark and Lith’s life force.
The Father of Fire jumped back and let go of Lith’s face before the blue flames reached him.
“Okay, that’s enough for a first try. Reel them in.” It took Valtak a split second to understand that it was agony, not surprise to have cut Lith short.
Contrary to his expectations, the blue flames spread inside as well as outside. They followed the stream of mana back to the cracks in Lith’s life force, setting everything in their wake ablaze.
Upon reaching the cracks, it wasn’t just a speck of blackness fueling the blue flames anymore but every single drop of death force that oozed out of the cracks. The gate that the Void had kept closed for over twenty years, guarding Lith’s life force from invaders, was now flung open against his will.
Souls he hadn’t called upon and who he hadn’t granted any access to his bloodline abilities took everything he had by force. The countless voices that Valtak had heard a few seconds ago weren’t muffled any longer.
They screamed their rage and agony in Lith’s mind, their thoughts flooding his own until he could barely tell which memory or idea belonged to him. Lith was forced to relive the countless souls’ deaths, experiencing the pain and fury that kept them from moving forward.
“What’s going on?” Tista asked when after a few seconds the blue flames had yet to burn out. “Didn’t you just ignite a single spark of Lith’s mana?”
“I did but I’m afraid that the worst-case scenario is beyond anything I predicted.” Valtak replied. “I made a grave mistake. I assumed that the blue flames were akin to Origin Flames and that to burn things they needed to consume the source of their strength.
“I was wrong. It takes death force to ignite the blue flames but that’s not their fuel. They feed on world energy like Origin Flames. The problem is that they feed on every form of world energy, not just what Lith conjures!”
The Father of Fire pointed at the rocks, the ground, and even the ashes in the air that were set ablaze by the contact with the blue flames. Everything was fuel to them. A hard piece of stone was no obstacle to the blue flames, it just gave them more energy to burn.
The blue flames broke everything down by consuming the forces that kept matter and energy together with blazes of entropy. Where there was order there was also fuel and fuel burned.
Everything was fuel. Everything burned.
To make matters worse, the death force kept seeping out of the cracks in Lith’s life force and generating new blue flames that spread further and faster by the second.
‘Fuck that old fossil!’ The Void was doing everything he could to shut the door close again, but he was alone against an unending flood of desperate souls.
Taken one by one they were nothing to him, but there were thousands of them, and more kept pouring. Their sheer numbers would have been enough to overwhelm the Void and they were just one part of the problem.
Lith’s mind was drowning in memories that didn’t belong to him. He was forced to face in seconds decades of traumatic events and struggled not to let them scar him for life. The blue flames were also burning at him, digging through his body as they inched closer to the cracks.
Physical and psychological agony paralyzed both his body and mind, leaving him frozen in place like a statue. Then, when Lith couldn’t take it any longer, his mouth dropped open and an inhuman scream came out of it.
It was something that Mogar had never heard before and, with a bit of luck, would never hear again. The scream expressed, pain, betrayal, rage, grief, heartache, and desperation at the same time, conveying the feelings of the countless souls that ravaged Lith’s body.
His Tiamat form melted like wax, reforming into the appearance of the Void Demon Dragon. It wasn’t a matter of choice so much as survival.
The Abomination side was best suited to handle the rot that the hungry souls inflicted upon the living flesh while the Voidfeather side formed an insulating sheathe to protect his life essence from the infection of the blue flames.
Yet such power came at a price.
A new balance was required to exalt those two sides and give them the strength they needed to resist the onslaught. There was no place for the human side anymore and it had to be discarded.
“I knew we shouldn’t have left Solus home!” Tista stifled a streak of swear words that almost forced its way out as the babies started to cry.
“What in the gods’ names has Solus to do with this?” Valtak asked and the Hekate had to bite her lips hard to find the strength to answer.
“The blue flames never manifest when she’s with Lith. She keeps the worst of him at bay.”
“Solus? Not Elysia?” The Father of Fire was flabbergasted. “Why no one told me anything about this?”
Knowing there was no time to lose before everything was lost, the Elder Wyrm reverted to his true form, that of a 32 meter (105′) tall Red Dragon with scales as red as rubies and a wingspan bigger than most villages.
His long white beard tousled in the shockwave produced by Lith’s scream and the blue flames’ roar. Valtak took a deep breath, letting his bloodline ability, Primal Spark, call upon the immense life force of the Valley of Life.
Usually, a Red Dragon gave life but when needed they could also take it.
The strength of the soil, the boiling magma, and the small creatures that thrived in the harsh environment of the plains answered his call, lighting the area around Valtak with bright violet flames for hundreds of meters.
It was a tidal wave compared to the humanoid torch wrapped in blue flames but the Father of Fire knew it still wasn’t enough.
‘Those things would eat my Origin Flames just like they did with Lith’s. I need more power.’ With another deep breath, the Elder Wyrm released one of the few sparks of life force he had left, turning the sea of flames white.
“Lith, if you are still in there, fight with me!” The Fire Dragon roared as the roiling tide crashed against the Void Demon Dragon. “I don’t want to kill you. I want to save you, brother!”
Those words triggered something inside the mess that Lith’s life forces were. Suddenly, the Void wasn’t alone anymore.
‘Fight, you useless bastard!’ The Voidfeather Dragon had come to the rescue and had brought reinforcements.
Valia, Varegrave, Locrias, and Trion stood right beside the two monsters, trying to stop the flood of souls and adding their strength to the effort of closing the door.
