“Oh, yes. My ancestors could use all elements like humans and cast all kinds of spells silently like beasts. What they lacked was the animal’s affinity for magic and the human’s training, so the experiment was an apparent failure.
“Imagine their captors’ amazement once my ancestors realized that first magic was just the beginning. When they broke out of their filth-ridden cells, drank the blood of those arrogant mages to quench their thirst and then feasted upon the arrogant nobles families who had commissioned the job.”
Nalrond’s pupils turned bright red in a blood frenzy, as if he could see the entire scene unfolding in front of his eyes and he was eager to join his kinsmen.
“Once they achieved their revenge, my ancestors tried to live among the beasts, but because of our human mind, their society was hard to cope with. On top of that, our reproductive preferences remain unchanged, no matter the nature of our animal half.
“Living among humans turned out to be impossible as well. My ancestors had to hide their magical talents at all times, but it wasn’t our hubris driving us away from civilization, it was fear.
“Fear of being discovered, of being subject to those experiments again. Adults can hide their abilities, but kids are hard to handle while newborns…” Nalrond shook his head.
“I know, they can be born in animal form and shapeshift according to their stress levels.” Lith dismissed the thing with a wave of his hand. “I’m not interested in a history lesson so much as in understanding our present situation. Get to the point.”
“Do you think I enjoy revealing my heritage to someone like you? I’m only doing it because your master is strong. Maybe strong enough to capture Dawn. I’m betting on the monster I don’t know only because my hatred beats all reason.
“You need to know this stuff, so in the case you beat the Bright Day, you’ll be able to make contact with my people who know how to contain her. You can’t store her in a dimensional space, you can’t destroy her, and entrusting her to anyone else would be utter madness.” Nalrond assumed he would die the moment he outlived his usefulness.
“Do I look like a servant to you?” Lith released his aura, enveloping the entirety of the dining room in blue light.
There was no hostility in his voice nor killing intent in his mana, just pure, unbridled power. Solus wasn’t the only one benefitting from the tower. World energy endlessly flowed inside Lith, turning his aura into a raging ocean.
“Solus is not my master, she is my partner.” Lith said.
Even though Lith wasn’t moving, Nalrond felt as if the ground was collapsing under his seat while his host grew in size until he was a giant. After spending years watching after the Bright Day, the hybrid could discern the energy coming from a cursed object from that of its host.
The moment Nalrond realized that Lith wasn’t lying, that all that power belonged to him and didn’t come from Solus, the Rezar’s mind went blank in confusion.
“Now continue with your story.” Lith recalled his aura and the world went back to normal.
Nalrond could finally breathe again. The feeling of oppression that had been weighing on his chest was gone.
“We withdrew from the world, taking for us special places of Mogar where we could live in peace. We wanted to find a way to remove the duality in our nature, to succeed where our makers had failed.
“Our species is cut off from Mogar. We don’t belong to any of the four races nor can we Awaken. We’re not monsters, yet what was done to our forefathers prevents us from achieving any form of further evolution. We’re stuck as we are.
“Our condition has only one perk. We can’t bond with a cursed object because we’re already fused with our animal half. We have two mana cores and two life forces, while a cursed object can only bond with one of them.
“Throughout history, when a Living Legacy couldn’t be contained nor destroyed, it was entrusted to one of our clans for safekeeping. That’s how I know Dawn. She’s one of Baba Yaga’s horsemen.” Nalrond said.
Lith knew that name. It was often mentioned in the fairy tales that his parents told him when he was little on Mogar. Unlike her Earth’s counterpart, Mogar’s Baba Yaga wasn’t a seemingly omnipotent old witch who lived in a chicken-legged hut.
She was considered to be the first person to have discovered magic and according to lore she had achieved immortality. Her story, however, wasn’t told to inspire children, but as a cautionary tale.
In her greed for power, Baba Yaga had isolated herself for so long that once she came out from her hut, Mogar was changed and everyone she had known and loved was dust.
She was unable to relate to the new society, even the language was unknown to her. She worked hard to adapt, to learn about the world, and to fall in love again. But while everything changed and died, she remained the same.
Baba Yaga’s children inherited her talent for magic, but not her longevity. No matter what she did to prolong their life, death would always claim them.
Mad with grief and desperation, she devoted her efforts to give birth to a new race of creatures that could live as long as she did, to save her from loneliness. It was thanks to Baba Yaga that the first undead had walked Mogar.
“One of what?” Lith asked. In all the stories he knew, Baba Yaga was considered the mother of all undead, the one behind all the bad things that lurked in the dark. There was no mention of horsemen.
“Undeath is imperfect. Baba Yaga’s children have too many weak points so she crafted the horsemen to continue her research while she keeps improving her strength before making a new attempt at creating a better race.” Nalrond replied.
“Undead are weak to sunlight, but those who merge with Dawn share her mastery above the light element and become immune to it, but that’s not her mission. She was sent out on Mogar to perfect the undead’s feeding method.
“As you should know, with each life they take, the undead become stronger, but that’s it. When an undead feeds upon his prey, he absorbs the victim’s life essence which contains more than just mana. It also holds all of their memories and abilities.
“Luckily for the living, such knowledge is lost during the feeding process.
“In Dawn’s case, however, whenever she bonds with her host or does she create a spawn, she inherits the entirety of their being. The creatures we’ve fought so far were strong because they shared all of their abilities with each other and were guided by an ancient being who can use any skill to its fullest.”
“Are you telling me that if Dawn bonds with a sword master, she acquires their swordsmanship and that each spawn adds new skills to her collection?” Lith finally found a common link between the victims of disappearance.
It wasn’t the caravans’ cargo Dawn was after, but the people who possessed special knowledge. He asked Solus to start compiling a list of what she could do if such people became their obedient slaves while he kept conversing with Nalrond.
