The darkness darts killed Gerla on the spot, leaving Trion flabbergasted.
'I thought that Night would protect her, giving me the time to escape, yet she abandoned Gerla like trash. No matter, someone is bound to notice the bursts of fire!' Trion threw a handful of fire seeds at the Horseman and jumped down the roof again.
Unfortunately for him, Night grabbed the seeds in mid-air with Spirit Magic the moment Trion tossed them, keeping them from exploding.
"Pity. I pegged you for an ambitious lad who would jump at the opportunity of getting even with his family, not a for a mommy's boy." Night said as a tendril of Spirit Magic touched his uniform and activated the Blank Slate spell.
Trion's uniform temporarily lost his imprint, making the fall lethal. Night destroyed Gerla's body and put the fire seeds back into his pocket along with the darkness wand in his hand before leaving, staging what looked like a drunken suicide.
Necromancy fixed Trion's body so that the only damage left on it was that the used charges of his wand would have caused. Night had made her homework. Trion's envy for Lith was well-known for years and so was his guilt for abandoning his parents in their hour of need.
'The only way I've left to get revenge on Lith is to get a host who will slaughter his family of their own will. That way, I'll be akin to a blade in their hands and not responsible for their actions.
'Let's hope it goes better with the other brother. I would love to see the terrified expression of the Verhens while they get ripped apart at the hand of their own son. On top of that, if every one of them has the potential to evolve into a Wyrmling, I could help Mom with her research. So many birds with one pathetic human.'
***
Solus's dream, now.
Sometimes, during her sleep, Solus would remember bits of her past so deeply etched into her brain that they had left a permanent mark even after being destroyed. Before Lith found her, she had been forced to give up on everything that made her human just to prolong her existence.
Just like Lith, she had been born thrice. The first time as a human, the second after Menadion had turned her into a hybrid, and the third when her bond with Lith had allowed her to awake from the slumber she had put herself into to make her damaged core last as long as she could.
Yet even if Solus managed to repair both her bodies as her mana core regained its full strength, her memory remained broken. There was no trace of the person she once was and she had no recollection of her life as a human or a tower.
To make matters worse, most of the memories she regained through sleep were about insignificant aspects of her past. Like hammering a piece of Davross to give it the proper shape but without having any idea where it came from or how the technique worked.
'Is it really possible that I was exactly like Lith? Why there is no memory of a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or even a single damn friend?' Solus thought while watching herself refine crystals, smelting metals, or casting spells.
Sometimes she used fake magic, others she used true magic, leaving Solus flabbergasted.
'I guess I was everything now I criticize Lith for. My life was all work and magic. That's why I died alone. I had no friend that knew about the tower or me. No one cared about my disappearance.' Solus started to sob.
Her sadness was so deep that honey-hued tears streamed from her energy body's eyes. The mana that comprised the tears quickly dissolved into specks of golden dust that made Solus look as if she cried pure light.
In response to her emotional distress, the vision changed into that of a sunny morning where she was looking into her closets to pick up a dress. Some looked funny like roman togas, others were gala dresses in use centuries ago, and she even had a few casual clothes. All of them were tailor-made and heavily enchanted.
For a moment, Solus hoped that her past self would look in the mirror. In all her dreams, she saw the world in a first-person perspective so the only part of her body she could clearly see was her hands.
Much to her disappointment, her past self not only didn't look in the mirror, but it also turned out that she hadn't picked the sleeveless dress with a knee-long skirt for a date, but just to take a walk around the tower. Alone.
'By my maker, how could I be so self-centered? There was nothing in my life but fancy clothes and work! Compared to me, Lith is a people person. At least he loves his parents whereas I didn't give a damn about them!' She started to hiccup in her sleep so hard that it almost awoke Tista.
Almost.
Once again, the vision changed but Solus didn't even bother looking at it. Only when she heard someone else crying as well did she dry her tears and looked up. In the new dream, Solus was walking along an unknown corridor in what she assumed was the lair of an Emperor Beast.
Everything was too big for human standards and aside from the necessary for magical experiments, the place was empty. It reminded her of both Faluel's lair and Scarlett's lab because it was filled with wonders yet devoid of warmth.
"Mommy, why are you crying? Did I do something wrong?" Those words froze her in terror.
'Did I have a daughter? What kind of monster I was for forgetting something like that?' Solus's fear turned into shock when she realized that the small high-pitched voice she heard was her own.
"It's nothing dear. One of Mommy's friends just passed away and it makes me sad." Menadion wiped her tears with a sleeve and tied her long hair that had covered her face until that moment in a ponytail, to keep it from being drenched in more snot.
Her long hair streaked with the seven colors of the elements all over.
'Menadion was my Mom?' The ancient Magus looked like a woman in her early twenties as she bent down to pick Solus up and made the baby sit on her lap.
'This isn't a beast's lair but our home. My home before the tower. It looks so big only because I'm a small child.' She thought.
"Aunt Loka?" Baby Solus asked.
"Lochra, sweetie, not Loka. And no, thank the gods she's fine." Menadion chuckled, blowing her nose before kissing the baby's head while holding her tight.
"Uncle Valeron is gone, sweetheart. You will not see him ever again." Menadion said.
"What happened to uncle Val? Why did he have to go?" The affection in her own voice surprised Solus.
'Did I just call the First King 'uncle'? When did this happen and how old I am?' She thought.
Menadion opened her mouth but no words came out.
Not even a master of deception like Jirni would have found the words to explain to such a young child that after Arthan's death, Valeron had stopped using the breathing techniques Tyris had taught him.
Without them, his white core had stopped burning world energy instead of life force and it had taken death just a few decades to collect a prize that was never meant to be hers.
