"Do you have any idea how hard it was to find humans smart enough to help me manage my business? How difficult it was to round up among the dregs of society the right ingredients for my path towards godhood? You..."
The ramblings stopped. Suddenly the extra gravity had disappeared and the unnatural man could feel a stinging pain in his abdomen, along with a sensation he had never experience before in his life. Nausea.
"You!" He screamed at Lith. While the others had jumped up on their feet assuming a defensive formation, Lith was still crouched. Several tendrils made of light and darkness came out of his body, tampering with the energy coursing below him.
The array’s magic circle was distorted, turning the clockwork formation into a shoddy mess.
"Don’t mind me." Lith replied with an innocent smile. "Keep talking, I was really caught up by your narration."
’It seems you are right.’ Solus kept observing the alterations in the man’s cores.
’The array is linked to his black core, feeding it of the accumulated energies inside the array. The black core absorbs and refines the energy before transferring it to the cyan one.
’It’s an artificial version of Accumulation. By my maker, I can’t imagine how many lives it took for him to reach a bright cyan core.’
’It was the only possible explanation for keeping those people prisoners.’ Lith shrugged. ’He needs quality cores. That’s why he fed and healed them. Probably he wanted them well ripened before squeezing them. So kind of him giving me a path straight to his mana core.’
"How dare you touch a dragon’s treasure?" The unnatural man turned into a blur, charging at Lith while ripping to shreds all those standing on his path. Three members of the unit died without even managing to slow him down.
’A dragon?’ That word along with the man’s speed sent a cold shiver down Lith’s back.
’I thought it was just some psycho, but to be so quick he must be able to use fusion magic. Why the heck an Awakened need this contraption? Could a dragon really have just a cyan core? It doesn’t make sense.’
He didn’t fear to fight another Awakened one, hybrid or not. Nor did he care about the rest of the unit, since they were dead the moment they would see his real skills. Lith was experiencing what all of his past opponents felt facing him.
The confusion deriving from not having a clue about what he was against.
The unnatural man jumped, extending towards Lith his hands that had turned into razor sharp claws.
’What an idiot.’ Lith sneered while getting back up. By leaving the ground, the opponent had actually slowed down. Once in the air, fusion magic was useless and the trajectory was easily predictable.
Instead of freezing up in fear like his opponent expected, Lith took a side step. He then grabbed the arm while pivoting on his right foot, executing an overhead throw. Lith added his strength to the opponent’s momentum, slamming him against the light dome.
’This guy has no technique, just brute strength. Revealing his abilities just to scare me is stupid beyond reason.’
’Why the throw?’ Solus was confused by the turn of events.
’Because normally one can’t be harmed by their own magic. Yet I think he is trapped as well as we are.’
The impact was strong enough to make the unnatural man penetrate into the light wall for a second. His flesh turned black while the energies trapped into the array reacted to the foreign body with a violent assault.
The unnatural man screamed in agony like he never did when the unit had showered him with tier three spells from their wands. The light dome pushed him away, making his body bounce on the floor writhing into spasms.
Lith didn’t wait for him to recover, using wind, gravity, and spirit magic to toss him again against the wall.
’Bingo! The array is so filled with different energies that it’s unable to recognize its master. I can kill him and not blow my cover. Two birds with one stone.’
Alas, the unnatural man had no intention to cooperate.
He roared with fury while his body covered with golden scales. Two membranous wings formed under his armpits, connecting his little fingers to the hips. The neck got longer while his face deformed into a long snout.
His nostrils dilated doubling their size, his open mouth now bigger than a manhole revealed the rage burning within. The following breath of fire turned everyone on its path into cinders, making even the gold piles boil.
When the jet of flames ended, the creature was over four meters (13 feet) tall, forced to bend over to avoid his head to graze the ceiling. His long tail whipped the air furiously, generating sparks whenever it briefly touched the array.
Lith was taken by surprise, managing to dodge at the last second only thanks to air fusion. Yet his right leg was grazed by the flames, not even the Skinwalker armor could resist such intensity.
Even using water fusion wasn’t enough. The fire burned through the protective enchantment, covering the whole limb below the knee.
Lith’s skin was no more, his burned flesh left exposed the burned muscles still throbbing in pain. Four more members of the tactical unit were dead. Only the mystical energies of the array had protected the room, leaving the wall and the floor pristine.
’That’s not a man, that’s a wyvern!’ Solus clearly recalled Kalla’s words during their last meeting. Magical beasts once Awakened would evolve into monsters. They could still have offspring, giving life to a new bloodline of creatures that wouldn’t be Awakened ones.
He hid behind one of the altars, using light magic to heal his wounds.
The wyvern roared in outrage. By slamming into the energy wall first and by recklessly using his fire breath, a good chunk of the energy stored in the formation had been lost.
"I was so close! Curse you, human!"
Gadorf the wyvern was aware of being really close to a breakthrough. Even though he was no Awakened one, the black core he possessed gifted him with several powers.
The ability to absorb the life force of living beings, to detect the magical talent of those close to him, enhanced regeneration, and partial resistance to most elements. At that moment, the only person that Gadorf hated more than Lith was his own father.
It was because of his father’s refusal of Awakening Gadorf that he had spent the last two centuries experimenting all kinds of forbidden magic. None of his experiments bore any fruit. Not until he met that arrogant, insufferable human.
It was only by becoming their test subject that Gadorf had acquired the black core and the Life Draining array. That human was obsessed with the idea of achieving eternal life through the Abominations.
After obtaining what he wanted, Gadorf would have gladly awarded them for their services with a swift death, but the Abominations serving the Master were too strong.