Tam’sfil’s pain was Q’porr’s pain, shared through their common bond with the World Tree. She felt his agony peak and disappear, leaving only a void in her mind where Tam’sfil light had been until a second ago.
Q’porr shed tears of sadness but her hand held steady. She cleaved the possessed corpse asunder and released the tier four darkness spell, Death Mist. It destroyed everything organic, leaving behind only the broken Darwen.
‘Behind you!’ The warning resounded one second too late.
Ragnarök cut Q’porr in half at the waist, cauterizing the wound on both sides.
The Void had exploited the cover of the Darwen armor to Blink out of Tam’sfil body unseen.
Only two elves were left, too few to assume any of their most powerful battle formations and too confused to fight back. They had come prepared to fight a ruthless tactician but a tactician nonetheless.
The Void, instead, was a berserker. He traded blows uncaring for the pain and mutilation he would suffer, knowing that he only needed to eat in order to heal.
They had expected to fight an angry man who above all wanted to go back to his family, not a suicidal monster with nothing to lose. To make matters worse, Lith had collected the Yggdrasill branches of the fallen Chroniclers.
The wood amplified the feeble connection between the human side and the Void and by draining the Yggdrasill weapons at the right time, Lith could trigger pangs that paralyzed the elves and interrupted their spells.
Not even darkness fusion could stop a pain that originated from their minds.
The second last Chronicler fell when Derek Blinked again.
Everyone turned toward the exit point but nothing came out of it. The Void had shapeshifted his body to match the outline of the entry point and never crossed it, his energy signature hidden behind the Blink.
The Void stabbed the elf from the back, severing her spine and flooding her lungs with blood. From so up close, the final Chronicler found himself trapped. The Abomination’s wings attacked him from the sides while Ragnarök came from the front.
The elf couldn’t block the hits of someone so much heavier than himself and put everything he had into dodging while casting a powerful spell. He had just slipped past Derek’s left wing when the membrane shapeshifted into a huge hand that clawed at the Chronicler.
The attack caught the elf by surprise and increased the wing’s reach. One of the wing fingers barely grazed the Chronicler, but it was enough to maim his right arm and send him to slam against the ground.
Not only was he losing lots of blood but the Abomination Touch had robbed him of mana and vitality.
“I’m going to ask you only once. Where’s Solus?” Lith and the Void spoke in unison, the voice of the man and the Abomination overlapping in the rumble of an angry god.
Tendrils of Chaos and darkness restrained the crippled elves just like the buffalos a few hours back.
“Where is she?”
‘She?’ Derek froze as the sweet smell and the light brown of the hair now had a face and a name.
In his memories, he was happy when Solus smiled, sad when she cried, and mad with fury when anyone or anything threatened her.
“Where is she?” Derek roared while lunging Ragnarök into Q’porr’s liver just like he had done with Chris two decades ago.
“Far away from here. Where you’ll never find her.” The Chronicler gurgled, her mouth frothing blood.
Q’porr knew there was no way out. Verhen was already eating her alive and her Yggdrasill weapon was in his hand. She stopped using light fusion to fight death and surrendered to its cold embrace.
The Void consumed Q’porr’s spark before it went out and passed her blood onto Ragnarök to assemble a new scabbard.
“That was a mistake on my side.” Derek sighed. “I’m an idiot.”
He strengthened the grip on the remaining Chroniclers and brought them back to full health.
“Let’s start this over.” Lith was pleased as he pinned the elves to the ground with the tendrils.
He flooded their bodies with the spark of Chaos, corrupting their mana flow and making it impossible for them to weave runes with their mind and bodies.
“Where is Solus?”
The Chroniclers’ loyalty was unbreakable, mostly because the fragment of World Tree fused with their flesh prevented them from even thinking of betraying their master. On the other hand, the Abomination’s hunger was infinite and there was still a lot of time before sunrise.
***
It was only after the third elf died without saying anything that Lith understood that interrogating them was a waste of time and returned to his slumber. Derek, instead, kept playing with his prisoners and experimenting with his abilities.
By the crack of dawn, all Chroniclers were dead and all Yggdrasill branches had become ashes. Derek used them to study Chaos magic safely, discovering how dangerous it was.
Ragnarök could use the Cursed Element only because its body was made of indestructible metal and the blade had no life force that could be injured. Yet a single Chaos spell drained a huge chunk of Ragnarök’s energy reserves and blood scabbard.
As for Derek, the slightest mistake would have grievously injured his life force if not for the Yggdrasill paying the price for him.
The World Tree had spent the night in agony and their screams would have been a wonderful lullaby for Solus if only she could sleep. She remained in her ring form, hoping for Lith to be alright and humming their favorite songs.
Unbeknownst to her, the Void found himself humming those same songs.
Solus’ name gave him a head-splitting headache. There were too many memories associated with her to sort through them all. The Voidfeather Dragon was already exhausted from the previous night and now he had to block another stream of consciousness.
‘My human life force is still too weak. Waking it up, even for a short while, was a huge gamble. Yet if I hadn’t done it, I’d be dead by now.’ He thought.
“Who the fuck are you?” The Void said while slashing with Ragnarök at the ethereal figure and hitting only air.
‘Who is this moron talking with now?’ The Voidfeather looked around but there was no one.
“I’m talking with you, jackass.” Derek could see his Divine Beast side floating in mid-air with the appearance of a translucent ghost.
‘You can see me?’ The Voidfeather was flabbergasted. ‘Our connection must have become stronger now that you’ve remembered about Solus.’
“You’re not making any sense, Larry.” Derek threw all kinds of spells but they all phased through the hallucination.
‘Call me that and I’ll call you George!’ The Voidfeather snarled. ‘Now shut up and listen. I don’t know how long this will last and there are a few things you must know. One, no one brought you here on Mogar. You did.
‘You are just amnesiac. Second, Solus is a person, not a thing. If you die, she’ll be lost forever and there will be no resurrection for you. You’ve overcome that issue a while ago after Kami-‘
As the life forces recovered from the damage inflicted by the elves, the connection with the Voidfeather Dragon broke, leaving Derek with more questions than answers.
