Solus tried to disengage from the King of Kolga and go help Lith, but Ykrah exploited the moment when she turned around to check on her partner to strike at her heart.
An Adamant knife from his dimensional amulet appeared in his palm and pierced through the armor until its hilt struck at her ribcage. Solus froze as her mouth became filled with her own blood, yet her eyes burned with anger.
She grabbed Ykrah's wrist with one hand, crushing it with a strength that surpassed that of an Emperor Beast before moving it away from her chest. At the same time, Solus punched him in the face, pulverizing his nose.
A second punch shattered his jaw, yet amid the tears that not even darkness fusion could stop, Ykrah noticed that the wound he had inflicted on her was already healed.
'That's what makes the Usurper so confident. The Forbidden Sun empowers her just like it does with me.' He thought while Blinking away, only to be hit by a powerful kick that broke his kneecaps and slowed him down.
Now that Solus couldn't see Lith amid the fighting crowd anymore, she had no reason to let Ykrah off the hook. The only thing she could do was to not let the advantage slip and finish her enemy off as fast as she could.
Even together they had no chance against a full army. Not until Solus could claim the full power of the geyser as her own.
As Lith's consciousness started to fade due to the many wounds that kept piling up on his battered body, Mogar seemed to slow down as his three lives flashed in front of his eyes.
Even in such a state, Lith didn't stop using the power gushing from the cracks in his life force to release more souls. Yet every time he did it, he could feel like an itch on the back of his skull.
As if he was making the same mistake over and over but without realizing it.
A mace hit Lith's back, forcing him to grit his teeth in the effort of not being sent in the middle of a group of enemies. Exhaustion clouded his vision and Lith blinked to regain his focus.
In the split second his vision went dark, the world around him changed.
Lith found himself in a white space that extended as far as the eye could see, without any up or down, left or right. His feet didn't touch any ground of sorts, making him feel like he floated in the emptiness of space.
He could still hear the clanging of metal and the battle cries, yet everything sounded muffled and overly stretched. Lith had no idea what kind of place was that, but at least his mana core had stopped hurting and he could finally think clearly.
"This looks like the place I went when I died but the feeling is all wrong. Before I get back to Kolga, I need a damn good plan." Lith thoughts echoed throughout the white space as if he had talked out loud, making him flinch.
"You surely do, my child." An all too familiar voice said from his back, forcing him to turn around.
"Mom? What are you doing on Jiera?" Lith couldn't believe either his eyes or ears.
Despite being in her early forties, thanks to Lith's treatments and a good genetic pool Elina was a good-looking woman that seemed to be in her late twenties. Even back when the family didn't have much to eat, she had always been well-endowed in all the right places.
Plenty of food and a much more relaxed life had made her even more beautiful, especially thanks to her fit body that she honed through hard work.
Elina usually had shoulder-length hair of beautiful light-brown color, with shades of red highlighted throughout. Yet the odd light of the white space distorted the brown into a multi colored mess.
"I came to check up on you since you keep refusing my calls." Elina replied with her usual warm, motherly smile.
"What did you do with your hair?" The moment those words came out of his mouth, Lith realized what was happening.
"You are not my mother and this is the Mindscape. I thought that it was possible to reach it only from inside a Fringe." Seeing Mogar as Elina made Lith sigh with relief big time.
Had she taken the appearance of someone like Phloria, Solus, or Kamila, his life would have gotten even messier than it already was.
"I am your mother. I watched you being born and you took nourishment from me right after you drew your mother's milk for the first time." For an ancient being like Mogar, there was no difference between seconds and hours.
"As for this place, you should already know that I make an exception during a tribulation." The Elina-Mogar said.
"I'm pretty sure I didn't let it start. There was no pillar of light from the sky nor metamorphosis. Until a second ago, I was fighting alone. Like always."
"That's exactly the reason why we're here. At this rate, you're not going to last for long." Mogar said with a sigh.
"So what? Are you going to offer me your help if I allow the tribulation to start? Thanks, but I don't remember it ever doing one shred of a difference. Whatever it's going to happen, I can face it without being your puppet." Lith replied.
"You've never been my puppet and I have no issue admitting that I never helped you. I only came here to offer clarity and give you a choice." Mogar-Elina stepped aside, making space for someone else.
"Hi, grandpa D-Rick." A man in his early twenties said. He was about 1.78 meters (5'10") tall, with light brown eyes and hair.
He wore a t-shirt depicting an old man in a lab coat and a kid passing through a portal while being chased by a bunch of giant ants, blue jeans, and a pair of sneakers.
"Carl?" Lith's eyes went wide in shock. No one else had ever called Derek McCoy/Lith Verhen like that ever since his first life.
No one else could possibly know about it, since they would never use their respective moniker in the presence of others.
"Yes and no. I mean, yes, I'm your brother but you were supposed to call me M-"
"I remember our routine." Lith cut him short. "What the heck are you doing here on Mogar? Have you been reborn as well or are you dead again?"
"I'm here because of you. I don't plan on being reborn and dying once was more than enough, thanks." Carl placed his hand on Lith's chest and thick metal chain binding the two of them appeared.
"What does this mean?" Lith asked.
"Do you really think that the afterlife is either an eternity of boring walks on clouds or fire pits?" Carl replied. "Death is no judge, only the end of all struggling. When people die, they reunite with everyone they loved and cared for. That's why I am here."
"What about Katherine, your fiancée?"
"She's still alive and kicking. With two kids and a husband, she has no need for me, unlike you." Carl shrugged.
