'Okay, at least I've seen this happening before. Sort of. Normally, when a beast evolves, they release a golden light pillar, but Lith emits both a silver and a black one instead.
'It might depend on his hybrid nature, but I still wonder why it happened during his last world tribulation rather than just when his Wyrmling body undergoes body refining.'
Solus focused all the world energy the tower could muster inside the Heart, to make sure that Lith's body had all the energy it needed the moment it needed it.
'If I had helped the process earlier, maybe his human body refining would have been smoother, or at least less scary. Oh, well. There's no point crying over spilled milk. Now I know and I can act accordingly.'
Lith's seven eyes, even those that were still closed shut, shed black tears while his scales merged with each other, becoming thicker, harder, and denser until they rivaled with steel.
The process had left half of his body exposed, revealing a fiery red skin lying underneath his hardened shell.
Together with the human impurities that had crawled back on Lith's body, all the so-called defective parts gathered up on the side of his head, the end of his spine, and on his back before bursting into flames.
His small curved horns and short tail grew bigger, while a second set of atrophied wings popped out his back. New, thicker scales replaced the missing ones while three rays of pure elemental energy erupted from Lith's opened eyes, flushing out more and more impurities.
Lith's hybrid form was born from an already evolved body that possessed a powerful core, so it was perfect. What it lacked was the ability to channel the full power generated by the constant battle between his Emperor Beast, Abomination, and human life forces.
Lith's hybrid body was too small and weak to withstand the full scope of such powerful conflicting energy. During a breakthrough, his human body would break down just to be reshaped into a more suitable host for Lith's core, whereas his hybrid form was forced to grow so that the Wyrmling could unlock its true potential.
Thanks to the world energy stirring Lith's life forces, not only did they evolve, but also their fight for dominance changed. The Abomination side, in the form of a hollow black sphere, grew in size and attempted to swallow the others.
Yet the human side suppressed it from the outside while the beast side, in the form of a burning star, struck at the Abomination from the inside. The human and beast life forces' joined efforts allowed them to stop the Abomination side, reaching a new balance.
All three of them had grown not only stronger, but they had also seeped into each other, thinning once again the boundaries that separated the human life force from the hybrid and generating something that one day might become greater than the sum of its parts.
During the whole process, the conflict between life forces released a powerful energy that ignited the emerald flames of life. They burst out from Lith's body, covering him from head to toe.
Yet instead of hurting him, the flames nurtured his Wyrmling form, making it grow larger and taller until the Wyrmling stood almost 4 meters (13'1") tall, before reverting to its normal height once the energy was spent due to the lack of mass necessary to support such huge build.
"No new eye opened, correct?" Lith said amid pants once he managed to gather enough air in his lungs to speak.
"Sorry, none. They must be linked to your mastery over the elements or catalyzed by your world tribulations. The Odi made you open the blue one and…"
Lith's head hit the floor with a thud and his snoring cut her short.
"And I better put you to sleep as well." Solus had the Skinwalker armor cover Lith again and then tucked him in his bed before going to meet the others in the Mirror Hall.
"How are they?" Friya was pale as a ghost.
The screams of two of the people she loved the most were still echoing in her head. Neither her nor Quylla had moved from where Solus had left them, not even to go and check on Phloria.
"Dead tired, but otherwise they are as fit as a fiddle. Breakthroughs are heavy on the body and only rest can help them to recover their strength. They'll sleep for eight hours minimum." Solus's words made the Ernas sigh in relief.
"You're horrible friends!" Quylla poked Nalrond's and Protector's chest with a finger. "How could you be so calm? What if any of them died or worse?"
"I don't know your sister and I'm not going to pretend I care for her." Nalrond's honesty bordered on rudeness, making Protector sigh. "As for Scourge, he's bound to Solus. He can scream all he wants, as long as I don't hear her screaming and the tower quaking, I know he is fine."
'Good gods. I really hope I've never been so clueless in the past.' Protector thought. 'Even though I have to admit it would explain why at the beginning Selia insisted so much to accompany me everywhere I went.'
"Forgive him, Quylla. Nalrond went through a lot and because of it, he has a hard time caring for strangers. I'm sorry if I appeared indifferent, but I was just confident in Scourge's abilities to save Phloria.
"On top of that, if you saw him fight as I did, you would never think that something as trivial as a breakthrough can hurt Scourge. Solus, can we please check on them? I think it would help our friends to relax." Ryman said.
"Sure, just be quiet. I don't want to wake them up and Lith is extremely jumpy when he sleeps. He could react to the intrusion with extreme prejudice."
Solus let only the girls inside Phloria's room. Its sight made them gasp in amazement and almost moved them to tears. The room was a perfect mix of Phloria's bedroom from the academy and of that in the Ernas household.
It was furnished with exact replicas of all ornaments and pictures she loved the most. Lith and Solus had prepared the room for her ever since he had decided to bring Phloria to Faluel.
After Friya's and Quylla's diagnostic spells confirmed that their sister's condition was nothing that a power nap couldn't fix, they let her rest.
"By the gods, Phloria didn't look that good even after the cosmetic magic treatment. You would never guess she's survived several life and death situations in a single day instead of going to a spa. I'm so envious of her." Friya sighed.
"How many rooms you got here?" Quylla noticed the several doors.
"As many as I want." Solus shrugged. "At the moment there is Lith's, mine, Tista's, and Phloria's room, but I can always add another. The tower is a dimensional magic's wonder and it's much bigger on the inside."
"So, could you make ours as well?" Quylla had yet to give up on the idea of joining Lith in his apprenticeship and a home away from home was a dream come true.
"Why not." At a flick of Solus's wrist, another door appeared on the wall.
Inside, there were the living quarters that the White Griffon had assigned Quylla as Assistant Professor alongside her room from the Ernas Mansion.
