'This feeling. I didn't experience it ever since I was a child.' Lith remembered both the hunger that had plagued his infancy on Mogar and the void that had later tormented him during his teen years.
Now they were both back and they were stronger than ever. His skin started to rob the light element from the surrounding air and to turn darkness into Chaos.
"Quick, shapeshift again!" There was no trace of enthusiasm left in Aalejah's voice, only worry. "Your Abomination form is unstable and it's devouring the others. Fucus on the stars before the corruption reaches the point of no return!"
Lith did as instructed, ignoring the pain, the hunger, and the sweet call of the void that whispered him to take just one bite off the plentiful meal that was the hand on his shoulder.
'The elf won't even notice if I take a nibble whereas I'm so hungry.' Those thoughts didn't belong to Lith and they scared him.
The moment that the Emperor Beast's melody took over, he felt as if someone had exploded a bomb in the middle of the street. It had thrown him up in the sky and everyone else away.
Only after a few seconds did Lith notice that he wasn't falling down and that the red wall Aalejah was clinging to was actually his now scaly chest. The others stared in surprise at the Fire Dragon that had taken Lith's place and admired the determination of the young elf that refused to let go.
Lith used his breathing technique, Abyssal Gaze, to take a look at his own life force while Aalejah was so excited that she kept screaming words that didn't make sense.
The stars had turned from a galaxy into a single constellation that resembled a Dragon. The red thread and the void were used both as a framework that kept the stars in a fixed position.
"How do I look?" Lith's voice sounded like a roar that made his words barely understandable.
"Like this!" Aalejah conjured a giant ice mirror in front of Lith while Phloria summoned a second mirror behind his back so that he could study his body thanks to their combined reflections.
"What the fuck?" Lith said, discovering that he was in a four-legged stance and that his neck was so long that he could look at his back without the back mirror.
His hands still had opposable thumbs, but his arms had become longer than before while his legs had gotten shorter. He had taken the appearance of a Dragon whose chest and limbs were covered in red scales.
Black feathers came out of his spine and covered most of his back where two feathered wings rested. The black feathers run along his spine down to the tip of his long tail, leaving everything else covered in red scales as thick as a buckler shield.
"A black-feathered Fire Dragon! That's how you would have looked like without either the human or the Abomination side!" Aalejah and Phloria said in unison while Solus could only think it.
"Oh gods!" Lith roared in frustration as a burst of deep violet Origin Flames erupted from his maw. "More work! This is the last thing I needed. Fuck me sideways!"
He reverted into his human form, equally happy and annoyed at the same time.
The elf let him go and started to quickly pace in circles while she discussed her findings with the World Tree. Together they searched for a way to dumb their theories down enough for everyone to understand them.
"Why are you so angry?" Phloria asked. "You just heard from Faluel that there might be a way to improve your crafting technique for power cores and we just discovered how you would look if any of the single aspects of your life force became dominant.
"You not only gained invaluable knowledge, but also two more disguises that cannot be detected even by magic. Only people that know how your Tiamat life force looks like can recognize you."
"Because I already have barely enough time to breathe. Even though I'm single, I have so many things on my plate that they are driving me crazy. Now I also have to get accustomed to two new forms and discover their powers." Lith replied.
"I don't see the reason to get upset. Take your time if you need to rest. Remember what Quylla told you at the Gala? Stop considering everything as a matter of life and death. Enjoy the good things and get over the bad ones.
"Otherwise Awakened or not, you are going to have a stroke before thirty." Phloria said.
'Word, sister.' Solus said via the mind link, wishing to be reconnected with Lith to share all the data she had collected during their brief separation. 'Why waste time whining when we have so much to do? The elf's breathing technique, the new forms, heck we have hit the motherl-'
Phloria telepathic reproachful gaze cut Solus short.
'I mean, resting is an important part of training.'
"You don't understand. Ever since I reached the deep violet core, I feel uncomfortable in my human form and I spent all my life with that kind of body. The Abomination and the Emperor Beast forms feel as if I'm wearing a suit so starched that it seems made of stone.
"Practicing while in those forms will not only be time-consuming, but also unpleasant. Not to mention how dangerous the Abomination side is." Lith said.
"Well, I bring you bad news and good news. Which one do you want first?" Aalejah asked.
"The bad news."
"You are right. You indeed have quite a lot of training in front of you if you want to discover and master all of your bloodline abilities." The elf had a pensive look as she tried to guess what kind of skills each side could provide without messing with the other two.
"What about the good news?" Lith asked.
"That you don't need to train you three different forms to do that. After all, they are all part of the Tiamat life force, hence everything they can do, the Tiamat can do it as well." She replied.
"What do you mean?"
"Let's consider this from your Guardian bloodline's standpoint. If the Tiamat was a Guardian, then I'd say that the human, the Empowered Abomination, and the Black-feathered Dragon are lesser Tiamats." Aalejah said.
"They indeed have each their own abilities, but they all come from the same source. You.
"Hence you must train while trying to understand your different sides, but you can do that while remaining in your Tiamat form since it's the only one that shares them all and maybe it's even capable of mixing them together."
The elf moved her eyes from Lith to her staff, to make sure that she wasn't forgetting anything.
'She's right. After gaining my Tiamat form, I could train the Beast side's Origin Flames and the Abomination's Draining Touch even before I discovered I had two more forms. My scales even absorb heat and sunlight to store them inside my body.
'Yet something is off.' Lith thought.
"Wait a second. I clearly remember my Abomination side conjuring Chaos magic and I'm pretty sure that I never managed to do that as a Tiamat. If I want to learn Chaos magic, I'll need to-"
"Are you insane?" Aalejah, Phloria, and even Trevan who had just been standing there with his mouth agape said in unison.
