During his past visits to the Valley of Life, Lith had searched for mana geyser with the excuse of exploring the area during the breaks from Valtak’s lessons. He could mark a geyser on his own, without the need to build the tower there.
He had planned to return to the Valley of Life and train on his own, he had never considered such an emergency.
‘Thank the gods for Lith’s paranoia.’ Solus opened the door, letting out Dawn and Kamila who had come with her. ‘Be ready.’
They were far from the scene of the fight and Solus knew the region only from Lith’s memories. Yet the Warp Mirror could help her cover most of the distance and from there, her bond with Lith would guide her.
Solus had brought Kamila because Tista had briefly explained the problem. If Lith needed his inner light to overcome the souls, Kamila would give him strength as well. As for Dawn, a Horseman capable of using Blade Spells was a fine addition to any mission.
“Why do you hate us?” The souls screamed in frustration as they felt the encroaching of Solus’ light weakening their grip on Lith’s body further. “Why won’t you just let us live?”
“I don’t hate you. You have suffered so much that I pity you.” Valtak replied as he conjured a searing wave of emerald flames. “Yet there’s no place for you on Mogar and I can’t let you stay. You are here because of me. You are my responsibility and I will put you to rest.”
With each breath the Father of Fire took, the wave of Immortal Flames grew taller and more violent. With each breath he took, he consumed one of the last embers of his life.
“You don’t belong in this world. Life is for the living so go back to the abyss that spawned you!” Valtak spread his arms, coating them in emerald flames that he used as an extension of his limbs.
“This is our world now! We can still live!” The Void Demon Dragon roared, squeezing every bit of death energy he could as the door slowly closed.
Even from that distance, Solus’ light shone on Lith, adding love and kindness to the sources of his strength. Kamila’s smell filled his nose, reminding him of the life they had built together and turning his sense of self into a beacon of light that cut through the ocean of darkness drowning him.
Lith could hear the babies cry. He saw them fighting for him. Beside him. And he fought harder for that.
‘Get! The Fuck! Out!’ The Void, the Voidfeather, and the human merged into one, each with a different reason to protect their world.
“You could live.” Valtak nodded at the Void Demon Dragon. “But I won’t let you!”
More and more Immortal Flames burst out of every scale on his body as he charged forward. The Void Demon Dragon shaped the blue flames into a spinning barrier but the Father of Fire broke through them like an emerald ram.
The creature’s mouth fell open in shock and the Elder Wyrm closed it shut with a flawless uppercut. Knowing he was done for, Valtak had no reason to hold anything back.
“Are you crazy?” The souls hadn’t expected the fight to turn physical. The threat of the blue flames was supposed to keep the Elder Wyrm away. To give them the time to overpower his waning strength.
“You’ll burn to death. You’ll die!” They begged the Fire Dragon for mercy as he unleashed a flurry of fists.
The spirits of the dead were thousands, but each one of them had lived shortly and fought for an even shorter amount of time. The Father of Fire was alone but he had fought long enough to reach perfection.
Every single one of his blows landed exactly where he wanted and created an opening for the next, turning him into an unstoppable force. The Void Demon Dragon had the blue flames converge on himself, but Valtak didn’t stop.
He kept the Immortal Flames focused on his arms, injecting them where Lith’s essence shone the brightest to help him reclaim his body.
The souls threw desperate claw strikes imbued with blue flames at the Elder Wyrm’s back, but he didn’t care.
“You think you can burn me, child?” Half of Valtak’s body was burning emerald and the other half blue from the attacks he had failed to stop or just ignored. “I am the Father of Fire!”
Valtak expanded and boosted the Immortal Flames with the remains of his life essence, turning them from arm guards into giant blades.
“I decide how my life goes out!” He extended his middle and medium fingers out of his fists and lunged forward.
“Down! To the last! Spark!” The emerald flames focused on his fingertips and blasted forward, piercing through the flaming blue armor of the Void Demon Dragon.
“You can’t burn my Immortal Flames more than you can burn me!” The Elder Wyrm laughed as the souls tried and failed to extinguish the emerald fire. “They are my life. They are a part of me and not even my spit is going to surrender to a bunch of sore losers!”
The emerald flames seeped inside Lith’s body and reached his eyes. There, they cut off the small stream of blue flames that Valtak had unwittingly sparked less than a minute ago.
Without the connection with the cracks in Lith’s life force, the blue flames went out and without them, there was nothing keeping the door open. The Void, the Voidfeather, and the five Demons pushed with all their strength, shutting the door close.
Now all that Lith had to do was refuse the souls access to his life force and they would quickly fade away. They now had nothing to give them substance and without the constant stream of reinforcements, the little strength they possessed was quickly consumed.
Valtak saw Solus and Kamila approaching. He felt Lith’s strength soaring while the wandering souls grew weaker. Elysia kept channeling the blue flames, drawing the souls unto her and purifying them in Cursed Flames.
Valtak could feel the Void Demon Dragon crumbling apart and turning back into the Tiamat yet he continued his attack nonetheless. The Elder Wyrm spread the emerald flames over the cracks in Lith’s life force, cauterizing them close.
It inflicted the Tiamat pain, but it was a pleasant one. The flow of death energy stopped, Death Vision disappeared, and his inner fight became even easier.
“You can stop, Patriarch. I’m fine.” Despite everything he had gone through, Lith felt his body tempered like a blade and brimming with strength. “That was a close call.”
“A close call indeed.” The Elder Wyrm chuckled while nodding at Tista. “You have lots of things to explain to me, hatchling.”
Lith had listened to Tista’s words and so had Valtak.
The Tiamat tried and failed to come up with a plausible explanation for Solus’ ability to restrain the blue flames and how she and Kamila had reached the Valley of Life so quickly.
Unluckily for Lith, he didn’t need one anymore.
The moment the emerald flames died out, so did the Father of Fire.
