Lith dashed forward. The chaos and mayhem of the cave made caution irrelevant.
'I must stop the hybrids from getting stronger!' He thought as he unleashed a series of tier four spells that struck the black wargs where their vitals were supposed to be with surgical precision.
Lith had added the bestiary to Soluspedia, so that he would always know the most efficient way to kill the monsters it contained. Three hybrids died on the spot, but four somehow survived even with their heads removed or their hearts replaced by a gaping hole.
At least until a fifth hybrid extended its tendrils to suck them dry.
"Thanks, brother. Much appreciated." The creature said before exploding into maniacal laughter filled with ecstasy. Lith could distinguish two voices talking in unison.
One of them was feral and rough, yet it was barely audible, like it was fading away. The other was ancient and erudite, its phrasing a bit out of date. It held a feeling of malice and power that gave Lith the creeps.
One of the female wargs ran in front of Lith, her teeth bared, her eyes pitch black with the same darkness which was coursing through the hybrids. She tried to stab at Lith's throat, but he easily avoided the hit and pierced her heart.
Lith let darkness magic flow through the Gatekeeper, expecting her to commit a suicidal explosion. The warg's attack had been too sloppy and hesitant. Killing her had been too easy. It had to be a trap.
Except it wasn't.
"Thanks, brother." She said as the darkness faded from her eyes. The gratitude in her voice, which terribly resembled Rena's, almost shattered Lith's heart.
"It's eating us from the inside." The warg coughed blood, revealing the small furball shivering with fear she had hidden in her other arm the whole time.
"I couldn't resist much longer. Please, I don't want to kill my baby, nor do I want him to become part of that thing."
The Gatekeeper flickered in Lith's hand severing both lives at once. The two wargs died painlessly, but Solus was crying. The remaining grey wargs literally threw their lives at Lith, unwilling to hurt their pack mates.
The Abomination inside of them was too strong to resist its calling. They could only ride its hate toward the intruder and use him as a means to escape their fate. With each swing of Lith's blade, a warg fell into oblivion and Solus cried harder.
Rage and hatred burned like a sun inside Lith's heart, making him once again wonder if death was just a part of life or more like a part of him. Death had brought him to Mogar and had kept walking with him the whole time.
He would either fight it as a Healer or dispense it to those who stood in his path. For the wargs it had been a blessing. A quick, painless, way out from an eternity of slavery, trapped inside the monstrosity consuming them.
He promised to his companion that the thing in front of them would receive no such mercy.
"You shouldn't have messed with my plate, brother." Tezka was busy consuming the four hybrids before their energy was lost forever while Lith killed the last wargs.
"It took me time and effort to make proper nourishment out of this horseshit. I'm still far from being whole and every bit helps."
During the last two days, the warg pack had followed Tezka's instructions. They had exhausted all of their food reserves while practicing magic under the caring eye of the magical beast's memories.
Until the hunger prevailed, awakening the real Tezka. For the centuries old Abomination, they weren't cubs but merely a means to an end. He would use them to regain his body and power before confronting his other self.
It would lead him on the next step of the evolutionary scale that had eluded him for so long despite all of his efforts. Despite the countless lives Tezka had consumed, he was still just an Eldritch. Now, he could become so much more.
The Eldritch was sure of it.
The last grey warg had yet to reach the ground when Tezka charged at Lith like a freight train. Two quills as long and thick as a blade erupted from his forearms while his fur turned into an armor composed of small spikes.
Lith infused himself with every element and sidestepped the enemy's attack. His gloved fist struck Tezka's liver like a machine gun. Each hit delivered a tier four darkness magic spell, Grim Reaper, right inside the hybrid, sending him crashing against a wall with a boom.
Tezka shook off both the spell and the impact before the tier four fire magic spell, Burning Prison, could trap him. He Blinked to safety only to find Lith right behind him.
The left handed hand slash from the Gatekeeper severed Tezka's head as the razor sharp claws of the gauntlet made it possible for Lith to pierce through the Eldritch's heart.
The Abomination just laughed and retaliated at the flabbergasted Ranger with an elbow strike that would have shattered his ribs if Lith hadn't Blinked away at the last second. Black tendrils reconnected the head to the body and sewed it back in its place.
"Who are you? Why did you do this?" Lith asked, voicing the questions that were ravaging Solus's heart as he planned how he was going to kill something with no vitals.
"I'm just like you, brother. An Abomination. As for the why, I did it because I can!" Tezka wasn't a big talker either. He would speak only to mess with his opponents' head while he cast his spells.
His right hand released the tier five Chaos array, Chaos Dimension. Grey specks of light filled the underground cave, making it impossible to use dimensional magic unless it used Chaos instead of darkness.
The Eldritch's left hand drew a circle in mid air, tearing space apart to take out his prized sword, Endless Night.
"Let's see how good you are without the edge Life Vision gives to you, brother." A cruel grin twisted Tezka's snout as he Blinked in for the kill, now that he was certain that Lith couldn't follow his movements anymore.
***
Blood Desert, Outside the Forgotten Plum camp, now.
The real Tezka had been sent by the Master to keep an eye on Balkor's family and kill them the moment the opportunity presented itself. With them gone, the god of death would have no reason to help the Guardians.
The Eldritch didn't like the job, nor following orders, but the Master was the only chance he had to overcome the bottleneck he had been stuck at for decades.
Suddenly, he felt like his soul was being ripped apart. He felt something he had thought long forgotten. Tezka felt fear.
'What the heck? Someone just stole my Endless Night! That's impossible. Both my omni pocket and the sword are linked to my life force. Fuck Balkor, I want answers, now!'
***
Lith was sick and tired of Tezka calling him "brother." Carl called him that and so did Tista, Rena, and now Aran. It was a word that meant the world to him, no matter which planet he was on.
Every time it came out of Tezka's mouth, it was filled with poison. It tainted the memories of his lost brother and those of every happy moment he had ever lived. Tezka's Blink landed him right in the middle of a stream of blue flames that was coming out of Lith's mouth.
They burned through everything they touched. The array, Tezka's body, even the rift in space was forcefully shut down, almost cutting the Eldritch in two.
"Origin Flames?" The hybrid had no idea what those words meant, but a shiver ran down his spine. That was before Solus's gauntlet started to grow.
