“Where are we? Who are you? More importantly, am I dead? Is Lith dead too?” Solus asked. She felt as if she was about to faint, yet she was physically incapable of doing it.
“You are where no living being is supposed to be. Inside of my consciousness. As for who I am, usually you call me by many names. The All-Father, the Great Mother, but I think that recently Mogar is the most popular.” The Elina-thing replied.
“Wait what? Why am I here? If I’m not dead, why don’t I have any of my powers?” Solus was only getting more confused with each answer she received.
“You would be dead if you still had your original body, but the one Menadion bestowed upon you is too strong for a mere bolt of lightning to kill you. Not to mention that your life force is linked to the human’s.
“You’re in a state very close to death and since I was there when it happened, the most human part of your mind naturally returned to me. You don’t have powers because you don’t need them here. You’re safe. Unlike him.”
A wave of Mogar’s hand made their surroundings disappear, returning Solus to the Odi’s underground complex.
Solus suddenly realized that something was wrong. Mogar’s presence was calm like that of any normal human, but there were three more pillars other than the one enveloping Lith.
They were much bigger than his silver pillar and so powerful that even in her current state, just being so close to them covered Solus in a cold sweat.
“What are you doing to Lith? What’s the meaning of the silver pillar and who or what are those things?” Solus pointed at the remaining three pillars surrounding Kulah.
“I’m not doing anything that your friend didn’t ask for himself. He calls for me so wearily often, but this time I answered his call.” Mogar shook her head, shapeshifting into Rena.
“The silver pillar is the way I communicate with those like him. As for the others…” The second wave of her hand gave Solus the impression that the whole world was zooming out.
She could now see with her eyes three enormous beasts surrounding Kulah. A golden griffon, a black scaled dragon, and a white phoenix. Each one of them was standing on its hind legs which seemed to reach down to Mogar’s core while their heads stood so tall that they were able to pierce the skies.
The closest comparison between the dragon in front of her and the emerald dragon they had met inside Huryole she could think of, was that of a volcano and a match.
“They are my Guardians. I brought them here to pass my judgment in the case that your friend dies.” Mogar’s warm and motherly smile despite the dire circumstances Lith, Phloria, and Quylla were in, gave Solus the creeps.
“For too long those bastards have hidden from my sight, sucking my blood for their filthy experiments. I usually don’t mind mosquitoes, but this one has got too big and too annoying to let it live.”
“If you already have Guardians, what do you need Lith for? Can’t you see he is suffering?” Solus saw Lith’s seven eyes burning like torches. She had no idea if it was either due to his rage or the tears that in such a form looked like flames.
Even without their mind link, just by looking at his face, she could tell that he was grieving.
“Life is suffering, child. You should know it better than anyone else.” Mogar sneered, assuming Jirni’s features. “I still need many pieces on my chessboard and so far, your friend fits the bill. Do you know why magical beasts are born with two elements?
“It marks what their purpose is, what they are supposed to be. Take the Griffon, for example. Its elements are light and air. Together, they bring order and change. That’s why the Griffon’s duty is to nurture what already exists.
“Back when people still believed in the gods, it was considered the Lord of Prosperity.”
“The Dragon is made of fire and air, elements that complement each other. Both of them are shapeless and intangible. Together they bring the passion and the open-mindedness necessary to those who seek knowledge.
That’s why dragons are usually wise and the first Dragon was considered the Lord of Wisdom.
“Last, but not least, the Phoenix. Its elements are light and darkness, twin elements that despite being polar opposites cannot live without each other. Together, they are an unstoppable force of death and rebirth.
“For something new to be born, something old must die. That’s the oldest rule of the balance. The Phoenix embodies the radical changes that living beings must undergo in order to survive, both as individuals and a society.
“Its conflictual nature made the first Phoenix the Lord of War.”
“Sometimes, however, change is not enough. There are things in every world that are simply born wrong and no matter how much they change, there’s no fixing them, like the Odi.
“Do you know the elements your friend was born with? Fire and darkness. Together, they don’t nurture, don’t protect, nor do they change. Their only purpose is to cleanse and disinfect, to get rid of what is toxic.
“Too many mistakes on the evolutionary ladder have brought me to agree with your friend. I need a Lord of Destruction.” Mogar pointed her slender finger at Lith’s proto-Guardian form.
“By the way are you sure that you can afford to stay here and chatter? Things aren’t going well for him.”
Solus followed the images in front of her, noticing that there was more in play than the physical battle between Lith and Rizo. Now that the Reactor was still, its prisoners were finally able to truly die.
The souls that it had trapped for centuries were finally free.
Yet while some turned into shooting stars and disappeared in the sky, others were now free to look for their revenge upon their captors. All those whose hatred and rage was strong enough that it would’ve turned them into undead if they still had a shred of a body to cling to, found in the abyss erupting from Lith’s soul a beacon.
Each one of them tainted his mind and body, trying to force him to become the instrument of their reckoning. They projected into his mind all the atrocities they had endured, all the loved ones they had lost, adding their fury to his own, driving Lith to the verge of madness.
They couldn’t offer him power, only rage, but that was something that he had plenty already. Feeling his body getting invaded by foreign feelings, Lith focused on Carl’s death, on Yondra’s, and on the painful void that Solus’s absence had left.
The black fire inside of him burned brighter, attacking the dead souls clinging to him and forcing them to release their hold on him. The spirits changed their tactic, replacing their features with those of his loved ones, asking him to avenge them.
Rizo didn’t miss the opportunity that the chaos Lith’s mind was currently in had created for him. He dispelled both the white flames and the God’s Will array while charging forward in a downwards slash that would’ve split the monster asunder.
Lith managed to partially dodge, but the strike still managed to chop his left arm off. The pain snapped Lith out of his frenzy and before Rizo could even gloat at his success, black tendrils erupted from Lith’s shoulder as well as from his amputated limb, reattaching it in a split second.
