‘No way.’ Lith refused Solus’s offer right off the bat. ‘To stand a chance, I need to be at 200%, which means that I need both your smarts and help. Don’t get me started with the consequences that revealing your existence might cause.’
While they were running along the corridors, Lith and Solus reviewed their fight with Jiira, noticing several things that were out of place.
‘Why did they send only one Odi to take us down and how was he linked to the Mana Reactor?’ Lith pondered.
‘I doubt they can have made many spheres capable of creating the green array and even if they did, giving someone infinite mana and conjuring such a powerful array is something even my tower form can’t achieve.
‘It probably takes the full output of the Mana Reactor and geyser to fuel just one person. As for the link, beats me. If I had to take an educated guess, I’d say they have Forgemastered their bodies.
‘After all, the reason why the Body Forgemastering procedure on the specimens failed was because they didn’t have enough mana to fuel the enchantments, but if part of the Forgemastering process gives them access to infinite mana…’
‘The problem is solved.’ Lith completed the sentence for her. ‘That also means that all those linked to the Mana Reactor can’t leave Kulah without getting a new body first since their survival depends on a constant supply of mana.’
The further down they went, the clearer Lith could see the Mana Reactor. It was a giant structure, at least 30 meters (100 feet) tall, placed right in the middle of the natural mana geyser.
Somehow, the Reactor siphoned most of the Geyser, which explained why despite the fact that they were right in the middle of one of Mogar’s most powerful natural phenomenons, all of their mystical senses worked, whereas in the crystal mine Lith and Solus had been blinded.
‘I guess this also explains where the Odi found so many crystals. This place had to be a mine in the past.’ Lith thought, while observing the constant stream of world energy being sucked and spun inside the reactor.
Lith couldn’t see how it was shaped, only how the energy moved inside the device. The world energy was then divided into all of its components before being reassembled in the form of pure mana.
The process was intriguing, but Lith was more concerned about looking for Quylla’s and Phloria’s energy signatures. He was afraid of arriving too late, to see their expression fixed by death in a state of pure despair like what had happened to Yondra.
Even worse, he was afraid to arrive just in time to see their bodies perfectly fine, but occupied by someone else. Lith wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone who was just borrowing Phloria’s appearance, but it would still be proof that he was as helpless now as he had been on Earth.
‘Calm down, the body-swapping procedure is bound to be difficult. No one can remove the Skinwalker armors except for their wearer, so they’ll probably leave Phloria and Quylla for last.’
‘That, or they’ll shatter my prototypes with their ridiculous array. Damn me and my avarice. Why didn’t I prepare something better for them?’ Lith thought.
When they reached the fifth underground floor, the two Rangers perceived an odd vibration running through the metal structure surrounding them. Lith also heard muffled screams, but both Solus and Morok confirmed to him that the corridor was actually silent.
Lith had been feeling strange since he had discovered that he was able to understand the words of the Odi’s victims, but now that sensation was getting stronger with each step he took.
Something was stirring inside of him, almost triggering his memory about it, but every time he was about to recognize it, the feeling stopped. It was like listening to a familiar jingle, but only to its first notes, making it much harder to remember the name of the song.
On the sixth underground floor, Lith almost felt dizzy. The noise ringing in his head was becoming unbearable and not even Hushing his ears worked. The silver lining was that they had reached the Mana Reactor’s level.
Both Rangers could clearly see it in the distance and were near their destination. Lith’s stomach was churning because they had yet to find any trace of his friends. For security reasons, the stairs leading to the upper and lower levels were located at the opposite ends of each floor.
He had hoped that he would find Phloria by looking through the walls, ceiling, and ground on his way down, but reality had proven him wrong. Lith was about to ask Solus for an analysis of their situation when he noticed that all the shadows that the lights projected were now filled with angry mouths and eyes.
They would appear and disappear every time he blinked. Once again, Lith was the only one who seemed to be able to perceive the strange phenomenon. To make matters worse, now the ground was trembling so much that the Rangers thought that an earthquake was about to happen.
‘Don’t worry about them Lith. If something bad had happened to Phloria and Quylla, we would feel it.’ She said, trying to calm him down.
‘That’s bullshit and you know it. When my brother had the car accident, the only thing I felt was the urge to get a cab and go to work. Where the fuck are they?’
‘My guess is somewhere near the Reactor. According to Kalla, the Odi laid the foundations for Lichhood, so we can assume that the Reactor works akin to a phylactery.’ Solus said.
‘They didn’t use it to win the war because the further they get from it, the weaker they become. Ripping someone’s life force away and replacing it entirely is a mammoth task, on par with splitting and removing a mana core like a Lich does.
‘I think that the lab where they Forgemaster the Flesh Golems, use the Life Merging process, and perform the body-swapping are all near the Reactor, in order to maximize their odds of success.
‘Based on what happened to Kalla and what we know about Forgemastering, they only have one shot for each body. There are no do-overs.’
Lith thanked her, focusing on Life Vision even more while scouting his surroundings. He much preferred a hard truth to wishful thinking.
The Reactor was a beacon, the Rangers didn’t need to read the signs to know where to go. Much to Lith’s dismay, the door leading to their destination was blocked by two Flesh Golems.
Clearly the Odi were at least as paranoid as he was and they weren’t willing to take any risk that their improvised plan to resurrect their civilization would be ruined just because they had miscounted the hairless monkeys.
“Fuck, we have to fight them one on one. I’m not so much worried at the idea of facing a Golem again as much as wasting our time and blowing our cover.” Morok said while scouting the area from around a corner.
“Don’t worry, we’ll kill them so fast that when mister see-through arrives we’ll already be next to the Mana Reactor. At that point, we’ll have the upper hand. That kind of device is delicate, fighting in its proximity means destroying it.” Lith replied.
“What makes you so sure of our success?”
“We’re both highly motivated.” Lith shapeshifted into his hybrid form “Phloria is in a room near the Reactor, so neither of us has any reason to hold back. It’s do or die and I’ve got no intention of dying.”
