'I'm so proud of you.' Lith could almost see sparkles in Solus's eyes while she thought those words.
'You are willing to help these people for good instead of taking the easy way out.'
Truth to be told, Lith empathized with the Kadurians. Their situation, pain, and struggle were similar yet much worse than his own. Yet he didn't care that much. Lith had just got carried away with his act while pointing out the clerics' stupidity.
'Helping them also means helping us.' Lith replied. 'While I listen to their explanation, you look into the blueprints for clues about the body and soul preservation process.'
Solus was too happy about his sudden change of heart to notice how quickly he changed the topic.
After Lith finished learning and practicing the spells necessary to disable the Black Star, Solus reported her findings.
'The Black Star is indeed a masterpiece. It can draw power from the mana geyser and use it to empower all the arrays that run through the city. Just like the academy, any damage the building takes can be repaired this way.
'It also possesses an amazing number of skills, but nothing out of the ordinary. Even after reading five out of eight blueprints, I have yet to find a single rune pattern that's not about a combat spell.'
"I have a question." Lith had no time to beat around the bush. He needed some answers and he needed them before it was too late.
"Who came up with the idea of granting the High Lord the ability to restore your bodies? I'm a Healer and with such a spell I could save countless lives."
"No one did." The clerics replied in unison.
"If we could do something like that, there's no way we would lose a war. The High Lord purpose was to destroy our enemies and supply our mages with the mana coming from the mana geyser that is underneath Kaduria." Ruka said.
"That's not entirely true." The high cleric Meru said while caressing his chin.
"We were outnumbered, so we gave the High Lord the ability to cast tier four light magic. That way it could both heal our troops and replenish their life force. The idea was to make our army unstoppable as long as they were within the city."
'There's something amiss. I can do everything they just mentioned yet I can't even fix a single damaged mana core, let alone recreate a whole body from scratch.' Lith thought.
'Yeah. Based on what they said, the Black Star would simply allow them to use Invigoration.' Solus pondered. 'Do you think it's possible that somehow they forgemastered something that's greater than the sum of its parts?'
'No way. We have forgemastered countless items, seen incredible artifacts being crafted by Professor Wanemyre while we were at the academy. Yet not once the final product diverged from the specifics. What we have seen so far is an unprecedented anomaly.'
Despite the situation was still dire, Lith burned with curiosity. There was a thought scratching at the back of his mind. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he believed that the answer was getting closer with every possibility they discarded.
Lith cast Ruka's Invisibility spell. The cleric's creation clouded the artifact's perception, making Lith able to get close to it without risking his life.
The clerics accompanied him downstairs to the main temple. They formed a circle around the Black Star, pretending to pray out loud while they actually covered the artifact's line of sight.
Lith used their cover to sneak in undetected. Invisibility blocked the Black Star's magical senses and the clerics blocked the physical ones. For once, Lith wasn't happy for being so tall.
He had to crouch all his way in until he was close enough to start chanting the Freeze spell. Lith chose not to float or use the Hush spell because he had no idea what was the range of Ruka's spell and wasn't willing to take risks.
Once again, paranoia saved his life. Invisibility made his life force and mana flow undetectable, but the Black Star was still able to perceive the spell coming out from Lith's body while he was so close.
It wiped out the clerics with an energy blast, leaving eight black puddles as the only trace of their previous existence.
"You! How did you get here?" The Black Star said. It had no reason to keep pretending of being inactive. It tried to emit a second focused beam of pure mana, but it was already too late.
The Freeze spell was completed. It shut down all of the artifact's abilities but its mind. Lith kept a Warp Steps and a Blink ready at hand, just to be safe. He reached the artifact and used Invigoration on it.
"Keep your hands off me, you filthy human! What did you do to me?" The Black Star screamed. There was a tinge of emotion in its voice. It resembled panic.
"You don't know?" Lith asked with a grin.
'The cursed item is paralyzed and it doesn't seem able to assimilate the people's memories. So far so good.' He thought while analyzing with Solus the results of his breathing technique.
At first glance, the Black Star was almost identical to Solus. It had a life force and a mana core instead of a pseudo core. A bright purple core at that. The star shaped crystal that was the artifact's body had a purity level like Lith had never seen before.
It breathed like a living being, but instead of air it sucked in world energy and expelled something else. It was a dense gas, similar to mana yet now that Lith was close enough, he could feel his skin prickle, a nauseating sensation spread through his body.
Lith checked his surroundings with Life Vision, making sure he had no witnesses. Redan was waiting for him on top of the stairs, nervously shifting his body weight from one foot to the other.
'Good, he wouldn't like what I have to say.'
"Now listen carefully, because I'm not going to repeat myself." Lith said with his usual stone cold business tone.
"I want to know how you are able to bring back the Kadurians, how you can replicate mana cores and bodies."
The artifact laugh was devoid of emotion. It didn't express amusement, only mockery.
"Or what? Even if I'm paralyzed you are not strong enough to harm me, fleshling. Your witchcraft is fading by the second. You'd be wise to run away."
Lith's reply was the last spell Ruka had devised, Repentance. It was a forgemastering spell. Lith spread the special ink onto the ground, leaving to Solus the duty to form a magic circle by manipulating the droplets with water magic.
The runes shone and took life, floating around the Black Star before sinking into it one by one. When the first rune crashed against its body, the artifact found itself unable to breathe anymore.
The second rune made the mana coursing through its crystal lattice go turn into poison. Its transparent surface revealed green spots that branched into slim veins that spread along the chiseled lines shaping the artifact like a disease.
