Meanwhile, in Urgamakka, Lith discussed the information he had just acquired with his team members.
'What do you think? Should we accept the undead's and the elf's offer for help or should we decline?' He asked.
'I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to trust an undead. Not after everything they have done to me and to my family. My answer is no. Yet sooner or later you might have to work with them and this might be a good opportunity to study them.' Phloria said
'I doubt that they would try to harm us while on a mission for the Council. Also, it's your secrets that are on the line so I think the final decision should be yours.'
'I agree with Phloria's reasoning but I vote for trusting them.' Solus replied. 'We know nothing about your life force and letting Aalejah study it might prove very useful to us.'
'If she shares her findings with us, we have the opportunity to exploit the knowledge of the World Tree. On top of that, if we help her with her mission, maybe Aalejah can tell us what she knows about my mother and the person who caused our deaths.'
On the one hand, Lith didn't like the idea of sharing anything with a powerhouse he knew only by name. On the other hand, however, learning from the World Tree and having the opportunity to study the breathing technique of the Chroniclers was too good to turn it down.
He entrusted Solus to Phloria, asking them to use the Eyes of Menadion to record what was about to happen. Then, Lith was forced to cut his own hand deeply and spill enough blood to sheathe War.
Without a full cover, the raging flow of energy that coursed through the angry blade made it impossible to store it in the pocket dimension.
'According to Faluel, the Scalewalker armor is nothing much for Awakened standards whereas War is a masterpiece. I'm not letting anyone take a peek at it.' He thought.
"I'll take your offer for help. I'm the first of my kind and with the war with Thrud nearing, I can't afford to spend months just to understand what I'm capable of. If you promise to share whatever you find out about my Tiamat form, I'll allow you to study it.
"You complete your task and I save myself a lot of time. Everybody wins." Lith said while shapeshifting into his real body.
"One second." Aalejah closed her eyes and activated the mind link with the Tree before answering.
'The terms are acceptable. His compliance will make your work easier. Be thorough and do not disappoint me.'
"We have a deal." The elf nodded while she put her hands on Lith's shoulders, using her breathing technique, Rainfall.
While experiencing Faluel's Lifestream felt like being neck-deep inside a river, Rainfall acted akin to a gentle spring drizzle. Her mana reached Lith's skin in small droplets that slowly seeped through his scales and skin as if he was a cracked wall.
It took Aalejah a minute to complete her scan.
"This is amazing! Even the Tree has never seen something like your life force. If there wasn't just one of you, this might be the dawn of a new race." The feverish light in the elf's eyes reminded Lith of Manohar, making him trust her even less.
"Can you shapeshift into human form? I want to study the effects of Body Sculpting on your life force. Even a harmless technique like that can teach me a lot."
"I don't use Body Sculpting to shapeshift." Lith replied.
"What do you- Great Mother almighty!" She said as Lith turned human again. "This is simply amazing! Gods I'm so happy to be here!"
Aalejah danced with joy, kissing Trevan and the other undead the moment they came in too close despite their best efforts to stop her from making a fool out of herself. Phloria took a step back while Lith remained motionless, just to be safe.
Only after a few minutes and several sneers from the onlookers about how elves deserved to go extinct did she regained her cool.
"I'm sorry for my outburst, but this is the first time I discovered something myself instead of just reading about it. The feeling is intoxicating." Aalejah said while blushing up to her ears.
"Now, do you mind shapeshifting into your other forms?"
"I beg your pardon? That's everything I can do." Lith replied in confusion.
"Don't be silly." She replied with a chuckle. "Your life force is comprised of stars surrounded by a void and joined between them by a red thread, correct?"
"Correct." He nodded.
"By focusing on the red thread, you had your life force reshape into that of a human by making its melody dominant over the others. Why should it be any different for the remaining two?"
Lith opened his mouth to reply but he choked on his words realizing that Aalejah was right. He had never thought of attempting something like that because he had spent his whole life considering himself a human.
He already had a hard time accepting to have turned into a Tiamat, making the idea of having completely inhuman forms far from alluring. Lith feared the answer to the elf's question but he didn't let it stop him in his pursuit of knowledge.
'Let's see how much is left of my Abomination side.' He focused on the void, making its anger-filled tune become louder and louder until it collapsed on itself.
The void turned into a shroud that engulfed everything else, compressing Lith's life force until only a black sphere remained. His body turned from flesh and blood into pure darkness, his skin was now a black slate, and his hair looked like a black flame moved by a strong wind.
He had shrunk down to 1.78 meters, with the haircut of an IRS employee on a Monday morning and a glare almost as friendly.
'By my Mom!' Solus thought, making Phloria worry that something was wrong with Lith even though the Eyes kept saying that he was fine.
Solus wanted to share the truth with her, but she couldn't. She wanted to tell Lith, but any Awakened might see the mind link and discover her existence. On top of that, she couldn't risk someone intercepting the link and discovering that Lith now resembled Derek McCoy.
He had turned into an Empowered Abomination that bore the appearance of his old self, the same he had back on Earth. Solus was the only one that could recognize it thanks to Lith's memories from his first life.
To everyone else, he has just become smaller and his visage was distorted by the quivering of his shadow form.
"Amazing! I'm the first person on Mogar that can see how an Abomination's life force looks like and live to tell the tale." Aalejah wanted to kiss Lith out of joy, but her survival instinct beat her adrenaline rush into submission.
She was unlikely to survive the experience since even touching him through the Scalewalker armor caused the elf unspeakable pain. The sphere now resembled a black hole that was slowly sucking in the stars and the red thread that comprised Lith's life force.
"How do you feel?" She asked while using darkness fusion just enough to make the contact bearable.
"I hunger!" Lith said while his now seven white eyes looked at the people around him like at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
