Lith had prepared contingency plans in the case his tower was ever discovered and the spare armor was part of it. He prepared the table for three, bringing out some food from his pocket dimension.
Lith didn’t even use Invigoration, to save it for later. Within the tower, his recovery abilities were enhanced to the point that a short nap would allow him to return to his peak condition.
“Please, allow me. I don’t get many occasions to practice Invigoration on someone else.” Solus said while waking up their guest.
She was curious to study a hybrid who had two mana cores, so while she was performing the healing, Solus also activated the tier five spell, Scanner. She discovered that like Lith, the creature had two life forces.
The main difference between the two hybrids was that in Lith’s case his life forces were linked, growing stronger together every time he experienced a breakthrough. Also, the barrier separating them seemed to exist only to protect his human body from the excessive strain that the other form would cause him.
She was certain that the barrier would disappear as soon as Lith became powerful enough to handle the energy that the combined bodies would possess.
In Nalrond’s case, instead, despite him being in his late twenties, the two life forces were completely isolated from each other by an airtight barrier that prevented any energy exchange.
That coupled with the two mana cores, gave Lith and Solus the impression of being in front of two beings that had somehow been forcefully merged into one. There weren’t two sides of the same coin so much as two coins glued together.
The moment Nalrond awoke, he tried to stand up, but a gentle hand forced him to sit.
“Relax. You’re safe here.” Solus said, wearing her best smile.
Seeing a being made of light, however, was the most terrifying thing that Nalrond could imagine. His response to the perceived threat was to stand up with all of his might while striking at the creature’s heart with his razor-sharp claws.
It was the place where Dawn usually hid within her current host.
Solus slapped away the clawed hand with a grace that painfully reminded both men of Dawn and kept pressing on his scaly shoulder, locking the Rezar into place. The hybrid weighed half a ton, but in her tower form, Solus’s weight reached the dozens.
The attempt to overpowering her hand made him feel small and foolish as if he had tried to uproot a mountain.
“She said relax. If we wanted you dead, you’d have stopped breathing a long time ago.” Lith had a smug grin on his face. He was curious to see how Solus would handle their guest and how powerful she truly was.
Nalrond had already proven to be aware of her existence and to somehow be able to trace Living Legacies like Solus. Hiding her from him was pointless, whereas having a hostile within the tower was a nice experiment.
Solus couldn’t harm Lith, she wouldn’t lift a finger against Tista or Nyka, and Zinya’s husband wasn’t worthy of being considered a test subject more than a cockroach would.
“Believe me, there are things worse than death. The puppet of a cursed object such as yourself should know better.” The hybrid said while panic made his heart drum into his ears.
Nalrond conjured a small sphere of light out of one of his claws that instantly turned into a white-hot beam aimed at Solus’s forehead.
“That’s rude!” She snuffed out the light with a flick of her wrist. With the same movement, she also slapped Nalrond with so much strength that his jaw almost dislocated.
“Who are you and who is that… woman called Dawn?” Lith was about to say “thing” when Solus had glared at him.
Nalrond coughed out a mouthful of blood and attempted to cast an earth spell, to crush Solus with the stones of the pavement. Unfortunately for him, every single piece of the tower was part of her, so his spell found nothing to work on.
A backhand slap came close to twisting his neck, yet he refused to back down, conjuring one element after the other. Each failure was rewarded with another slap, until his spirit was as broken as his body.
Lith had been forced to move the table away during the slaughter to protect the food.
‘I didn’t pay and preserve all this stuff all this time just to get it spoiled by blood.’ He thought.
“You are half-human, so let’s behave at least as half-civilized people. My name is Scourge. Who are you?” Lith asked.
Nalrond attempted to talk, but only jumbled sounds came out. He was suffering from multiple concussions and his jaw was shattered into more pieces than a puzzle.
“Ops! My bad. I’m not used to be the one doing the beating. I thought with all those scales he would be sturdier.” Solus fixed the Rezar again with Invigoration, but not even the breathing technique could restore his warrior’s pride.
Nalrond was aware that physical appearance meant nothing when facing a cursed object, but Solus was so lithe and petite that being handled by her as if he was just a stuffed toy crushed his morale.
“My name is Nalrond.” His voice was dejected and he couldn’t muster the strength to stop staring at the floor.
“Nice to meet you, Nalrond. I’m Solus.” She held out her hand, almost triggering him into a panic attack the moment he laid his eyes on it.
‘Solus, what point does using an alias have if you give out your real name?’ Lith expressed his grievance via their mind link. ‘Also, do you realize how scary your hand is to him right now? You might as well point a blade at his neck and he would feel more at ease.’
‘Who cares about my name? You gave it to me so even if Nalrond knew how master Menadion called me, he wouldn’t be able to recognize me.’ She replied, trying to avoid talking about her blunder.
“You’re right about me. I’m only half-human.” Nalrond hurried to say, terrified at the idea of being slapped again.
“I belong to those you humans call the werepeople.”
“Like a werewolf?” Lith was honestly surprised. He had read about werepeople only in storybooks and according to lore, only carnivores could infect men with their animal spirit. Yet the creature in front of him closely resembled an armadillo.
“Yes. Except the full moon does squat, we’re not afraid of silver, and our condition is no curse. It’s man-made.” Nalrond’s voice found courage in his heritage. The only thing he hated more than Acala was bigotry.
“Really? Then why is your race listed among monsters?” Lith asked.
“We’re not a fallen race. We are no race at all. Werepeople were born out of experiments with forbidden magic in the attempt to create soldiers capable of using magic without training, as it happens for magical beasts.” Nalrond couldn’t hide his contempt for such a foolish theory.
“Magical beasts have a natural affinity toward elemental magic, but that’s it. They have to work their asses off to become good mages.” Lith replied.
“You’re telling me.” Nalrond chuckled. “Why do you think the project was dropped? The final result was an utter failure. Those who survived the procedure were capable of shapeshifting into an Emperor Beast, but apparently they shared no magical ability with their animal counterpart.”
“Emphasis on apparently.” Lith said.
