Chapter 3852: Not Hungry (Part 1)

"How big was that mana crystal to cause that kind of explosion?" Baba Yaga asked.

"The size of your fist, Yaga." Salaark replied. "But the crystal was just the trigger. The real cause was the energy involved in the experiment. I used my full power to forcibly extract my life force from the Spirit Crystal, generating a vacuum.

"What was left wasn’t dimensional magic, but a crippled, unstable mix of elements that endlessly absorbed the world energy in an attempt to reconnect with my life force. I was dumb and prideful, so I refused to accept my failure.

"I poured more and more mana to stabilize the crystal and keep the life force away from it until it was too late. When I realized how much energy I had fed to the unstable elements, they had already reached the point of no return.

"You know the rest."

"Back to the drawing board, then. I’m glad we had this conversation." Friya and the other women swallowed hard.

For the first time in their lives, they welcomed failure with open arms.

***

Verhen Mansion, a few days later.

"Do you think we should start worrying about Zor, Solus?" Lith asked while they worked on perfecting tier five Void Magic in the Firing Range. "First, she refused to help us against Ruugat, and now it’s been days since the last time we got in contact with her."

"Maybe she’s on a mission for the Master." Solus replied while switching fire into ice and light into darkness. "When you served as a Ranger, we disappeared for weeks at a time and the only person we contacted regularly was your handler.

"Zoreth is strong, and Bytra is always with her. I doubt there are many things on Mogar that can hurt them."

"I don’t know, Solus." Lith imbued fresh mana and willpower in the spell, but he failed to alter enough runes to keep the elements together as they changed before they faded away. "Zor loves Elysia so much that Bytra is almost jealous of their relationship.

"It’s weird that Zor hasn’t even messaged me for a new picture or a funny video of Elysia. Also, when is the last time that Bytra has passed on the opportunity to try to make amends with you and spend time with Ripha?"

"That’s my point." Solus interrupted her flow of swear words to reply. "I’m sure that they’ll come here running the moment they are done with their mission. What I’m not sure about is whether we’ll ever master Void Magic! Why is tier five so farming hard?"

She activated the Eyes of Menadion, replaying the experiment from the beginning and taking notes of all the flaws in their technique that the artifact had spotted.

"Because the willpower imbued in a flaming hard-light construct has nothing in common with a darkness-imbued snowstorm." Lith replied as the readings of the Eyes confirmed his hypothesis.

"Sadly, we started from a wrong assumption. Ice can indeed change its shape at will, like light, while fire and darkness coat the construct in the same way, but it seems we can only switch the elements, not pass the willpower from one to another.

"This technique would have worked if we switched light into water and fire into darkness. Only then would the willpower have matched the elemental switch."

"Great." Solus conjured an armchair and plopped on it. "The good news is that we have found a way to invert two elements at the same time reliably. The bad news is that we still have no idea how to handle the change in willpower needed for tier five Void Magic to work."

"Progress, not perfection. Remember?" Lith smiled, thinking back to all the times Solus had repeated those words to him.

"Progress should pick up the pace." She grumbled, fighting back the desire to stress-eat a plate of biscuits or two. "I’m tired of learning what we do wrong. I want to learn how to do something right, for a change!"

"Someone sounds cranky." Lith raised an eyebrow. "I don’t remember you being so impatient when I struggled with my magical studies."

"That’s because those were your failures, while these are mine." Solus had a hard time keeping her face straight as she did her best Manohar impression. "Only idiots fail, and I’m not id-"

The alarms of the tower blared, cutting her short.

Something was approaching the Verhen Mansion fast. So fast that not even the Watchtower could get a read on it. The fact that the incoming projectile tore through the defensive arrays like they were paper only made matters worse.

’Who would be so crazy that they would attack us on a day Kami, Elysia, and Shargein are all here?’ Solus instantly shifted their communication to a mind link, not to waste time.

’Someone either raving mad or desperate.’ Lith replied. ’Either way, we need to do something. Unless that thing targets Elysia or someone else with a Guardian watching over their shoulder, at that speed, it can kill half our family before we so much as slow it down.’

When Solus triggered the red alert, the intruder had already breached all the external defenses of the Mansion and reached its gates. When Lith Warped himself and Solus on an intercept course, the projectile had already stepped inside the park where Aran and Leria were still playing with their friends.

’What’s the status on the Cannon Vault?’ Lith asked, lowering his center of gravity and expanding his arms to their full size to shield the kids with his body.

’Fully loaded.’ Solus replied. ’Beware, though. The Elemental Storage is below half capacity, and the Spirit Tank is as good as emp- I hate it when I’m always right!’

The living bullet ignored the children and charged straight at Lith’s heart. Even if the black and silver lightning shrouding it failed to burn him to a crisp, the raving beast carried enough momentum to impale a Divine Beast on the long horn on its head.

"Thank the gods you’re here!" The frenzied form of the Raiju shapeshifted into a silver-haired human who desperately grabbed Lith. "You have to help me! He- They- Something has taken Zoreth!"

"What do you mean, something? What happened to Zor, and where is the rest of the Organization?" Lith embraced Bytra in an attempt to calm her down, but she sobbed so hard and trembled so much that it was impossible to make sense of the rest of her words.

***

When Xenagrosh woke up, she had no idea where she was or how long she had remained unconscious.

The place was too dark to see, and her body ached so much from her open wounds that it was hard for her to focus.

’Why can’t I see, and how can I still be injured?’ She thought as the harsh reality of her condition cleared her mind like a bucket of cold water. ’My Eldritch side can see in total darkness, and my troll side can regenerate a limb in the blink of an eye.’

Xenagrosh shook her head, and the movement sent jolts of pain across her body. She had been left hanging from chains coming down from the ceiling long enough to make everything from her fingertips to her shoulders sore.

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