"That traitorous fake Dragon promised to call me in the case he faced a Horseman, yet he kept Night for himself. He called Faluel instead of me because she lacks the guts to merge with a powerful relic. Isn't one omni pocket enough for that bastard?"
Actually, Lith had promised to call the Wyvern if he met Dawn again. With his family at stake, Lith had called only those he knew that would focus on killing the Horseman rather than worrying about taking her alive.
"An omni pocket?" Scarlett was flabbergasted.
Back when she had met Solus, she had a yellow core, making the Scorpicore assume that a cursed object that weak had to be some kind of failure. Yet only the most powerful artifacts, like Baba Yaga's Horsemen, possessed an omni pocket.
Suddenly, Lith defeating Dawn didn't seem impossible anymore.
"Hi, aunt Scarlett. Long time no see." Sedra, Faluel's youngest son and Xedros's apprentice, said.
The young Hydra was now over six meters (20') tall, with three fully developed heads and judging from the space between the necks, a fourth was about to grow.
Yet it wasn't the sudden development that Sedra had undergone during the past year that turned Scarlett's shock into outrage so much as the sight of his blue core now Awakened.
"By the Great Mother, Sedra, I always knew you weren't as smart as you thought, but I would've never guessed you could be this stupid!" Scarlett roared at the Wyvern while spreading her wings in an act of defiance.
Xedros inwardly gloated, hoping that the Scorpicore would be so stupid as to attack him inside his own home while surrounded by enough arrays to take down a small battalion of Awakened.
"What do you mean, stupid? Unlike you and my mother, Master Xedros recognized my talent at first sight. He Awakened me right after taking me in as his disciple and since then I've grown stronger than you can possibly imagine."
The eyes of Sedra's three heads glowed each with a different color, showing the early signs of Dominance.
"No, you idiot, he turned you into a slave! For the next one hundred years you belong to him and even your mother can't oppose his judgment. The reason why no one offers their apprentice to be Awakened right off the bat is that anyone with half a brain would refuse." Scarlett said.
"That's not true, that Lith-" Sedra attempted to say.
"Lith was already Awakened, you moron. Your mother only judges him as a member of the Council, but she has no power over his right to live. If she kicks Lith out, he can ask another Emperor Beast to take him in whereas if Xedros kicks you out, you're dead." Scarlett cut him short.
"M-Master Xedros would never do such a thing! He even offered me to become his Harbinger and teach me the secrets of Light Mastery." Sedra tried to sound confident, but he stuttered the entire phrase.
"Why shouldn't he? That way, Xedros gets a permanent slave who cannot disobey any order nor hide anything from him, including all the powers of your bloodline, you moron!" Sedra's stupidity kept shocking Scarlett to the bone.
"Why do you think your mother never taught you anything? Because secrets can be stolen and entire legacies can be squandered by a single idiot who flaunts their techniques just to look good."
Sedra's three mouths opened and closed several times as he tried to find a single fault in her logic, yet no word came out. For once, his tongues remained as still as his brain. The young Hydra turned to the Wyvern who didn't even bother denying Scarlett's allegations.
"Relax, child. One hundred years goes by pretty fast. Either you decide to become my Harbinger or not, you have my word that as long as you behave, I'll let you get out of here alive." Xedros said.
Sedra shuddered at those words, glad for the first time in his life to be as ignorant as he was foolish. Xedros was going to squeeze everything he knew and that meant that Hydras would likely mark Sedra as a traitor and kill him the moment his apprenticeship ended.
The Wyvern had forced him into a corner, leaving him no choice but submission. All other roads led the young Hydra to a lawful death either at the hand of his master for attempting to escape or at the hand of his kin for his stupidity.
"As for you, cat, if you want my help I expect to be properly compensated. I would love to ask you for Menadion's Eyes, but only death can remove your imprint." Xedros sounded truly sad as he expressed his inability to kill Scarlett and get away with it.
"Yet we can still come to a deal. Tell me where to find another piece of Menadion's set or find me an ownerless working omni pocket. Either of them will buy you all lessons about Light Mastery you might ever need and even the release of this moron from my service."
Council's law allowed to pass a disciple to another master, but only if all parties agreed.
"Are you really that ignorant?" Scarlett scoffed. "There is no such thing as Menadion's set. She crafted each one of those pieces to help her best disciples to overcome their limits and kept only the Fury for herself.
"After her death, her apprentices scattered throughout Mogar to hide from the monster who had stolen the Fury, fearing that the creature would come for them as well. No one knows where they went. Even I found the Eyes by chance." Scarlett said.
"I don't care how hard it is to find them, those are my conditions. Of course, feel free to tell Faluel that in the case her disciple has an accident, I'm willing to trade her son for his omni pocket.
"As for our esteemed leader, tell Feela that I'm not going to participate in your battle against the undead until she gives me her reassurance that the beast Council will oppose the motion that would allow the Abominations to join us as peers.
"Those bastards have always treated us as food, killing most of my most promising heirs! If not for them, I would have already found a way to evolve into a Dragon with my children's help."
Xedros couldn't forgive Xenagrosh for restoring her Dragon form after willingly abandoning it nor the Master for having led his son Gadorf on the path of forbidden magic.
Xedros firmly believed that the end justified the means, but to him, feeding upon the mana of inferior races was an unforgivable act. The First Wyvern had been glad to hear about Gadorf's death. He considered it a fitting punishment for tainting his bloodline.
The idea to agree with Xedros on any subject caused Scarlett such a disgust that, for a moment, she reconsidered her position. Yet he was right, letting the Abominations join the Council was too dangerous.
No one had listened to Scarlett back when she had petitioned to take action against the Master, considering him like nothing but another madman. Now that his Abomination hybrids had proved to be capable of taking Baba Yaga head-on, the elders of the Council were torn between fear and hope.
Fear that by trading knowledge and resources with the Awakened, the Abominations would become unstoppable. Hope that between Bytra's crafts and the might of the hybrids, fake mages could no longer threaten the Awakened's supremacy.
