"This is the same thing that happened to Tista! This is amazing." The flames went from black to blue in excitement as Lith danced with joy.
"I told you. Phoenixes are creatures of fiery passion." The elf tapped her feet in annoyance at his rudeness.
Then, Lith tried to focus and make the mystical fire spread to his whole body. Great was his delight in noticing that the Origin Flames didn't harm the Yggdrasill staff nor anything else he touched unless he wished for it.
It lasted for over one second until he calmed down and the fire went out.
"Why was I so angry and then so happy for no reason?" Despite his best efforts, Lith failed to rekindle the flames. On top of that, he suddenly felt so tired that he needed to use Abyssal Gaze to recover.
"I've got bad news. It seems that your natures as both a Dragon and a Phoenix don't go along well. Without your human nature to tip the scale, you easily go from an extreme to another." Aalejah said.
"Are you telling me that this form's only bloodline ability is having mood swings?" Lith roared in fury, emitting a black burst of Origin Flames from both his back and mouth.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure about it." She nodded. "Yet I've never heard about black Flames. I wonder if they originate from the Abomination or from the mixed bloodline. Only one way to find out. Conjure your Demons."
"It seems that your Dragon half has performance issues." Salaark clicked her tongue as she threw a reproachful look at Leegaain.
"Yeah, right." He replied with a scoff. "Because your Phoenix half works like a charm. I've seen pendulums more stable than your-"
"Shut up and watch!" Tyris pointed at the shadows in the cave that had started to stretch as Lith poured both darkness and Spirit magic into them.
A thick layer of frost covered the cave while the Fire Dragon's body sapped the heat from the environment around him. The shadows quivered for a few seconds before coming to a halt.
"Another bad news. Your Demons definitely don't come from your Beast side." Aalejah said. "Let's try this again in your Abomination form."
"Are you sure?" Lith asked. "The last time I tried that, I went this close to losing myself in the hunger. If something goes wrong and my darkness body turns into Chaos, I'll die."
"No pain, no gain. Hold the staff tightly while you conjure the Demons of Darkness. It should help you to stay in control. If anything goes wrong, don't hesitate to turn back into your Tiamat form." She replied.
Lith took a deep breath, focusing on the soothing effect of the staff before calling upon the melody of the void and turning into an Empowered Abomination made of darkness instead of Chaos.
Thanks to the Yggdrasill, now he could feel his black hole-like life force drifting away. It allowed Lith to counter it and keep his body stable. Even though his body was now a living mass of destruction, it couldn't affect the wood from the World Tree nor its will.
Once Lith became accustomed to both the new form and to keeping the Chaos at bay, he called upon the Demons of Darkness. The skill had become second nature to him and Spirit Magic was but an extension of his will, yet he could feel a phantom pain where his stomach was supposed to be.
Even with the staff's help, moving the mana outside his body and into the shadows proved to be a mammoth task that required so much focus that his vision blurred. Then, something went horribly wrong.
The first Demons had barely formed when they jumped on Lith, becoming one with his body. Lith screamed in pain as his features deformed from that of Derek McCoy into those of people that Solus had never seen before.
'By my Mom, what the heck is happening?' She thought while even her Eyes form couldn't make heads or tails of the situation nor provide her with the information that she needed to help Lith. 'How do I stop that without killing Lith or exposing my presence?'
"Do you see that?" Roghar the Fenrir said. "Souls are passing through the cracks in the Tiamat's life force, flooding not only his body, but also his mind."
The gate that Lith created to conjure the spirits of the dead was much bigger than usual. To make matters worse, instead of leading to his surroundings, this time the gate had formed inside his own body.
The forced fusion between his mind and that of the wandering spirits forced him to relive their pain, driving Lith to the brink of madness. He experienced the lives, the hardships, and the deaths of countless people at the same time.
The fusion made the spirits akin to split personalities that now waged a war inside his head to control the only body at their disposal and become its owner. Lith screamed non-stop, his voice changing along with his body as he turned from male into female, from adult into child, and from human into other races.
"This might be the proof I've been looking for millennia." The god of mana said. "My theory is that black cores don't simply absorb energy, they are also a two-way gate that allows weak souls to move forward and to the strong ones to come back to Mogar.
"If I'm right, then they are the reason why Necromancy actually works. Without them, the number of wandering souls would be so little that such discipline would be impossible to practice.
"That's why Mogar never wanted us to completely get rid of Abominations. They are magical scavengers that serve the balance." Roghar said.
Everyone at the table shared his enthusiasm and curiosity whereas, inside the cave, Aalejah was starting to panic because the situation had just taken another turn for the worse.
She could see via Soul Vision that between the conflicting personalities and the endless pain, Lith's mind had started to fade, losing control over his body that was now turning into Chaos.
The Yggdrasill staff couldn't do anything against the will of its user and now it had dozens of them. The wandering souls had understood that there wasn't enough space for all of them inside a single body and they had no interest in fighting forever for it.
They had started to prey on Lith's innate light element, making it their own in the attempt to collect enough to form a full body and escape from their prison. The more light they took away, the more darkness turned into Chaos which in turn opened the gate more, letting more souls through in a vicious cycle.
"This is amazing!" Roghar said, uncaring for the life of the only Tiamat on Mogar and drawing only reproachful looks on himself. "I was right. This might really be the key to achieve perfect resurrection. Those souls only need enough light element to form their bodies!
"I need to move to the Garlen continent and study the phenomenon from up close."
"Fuck you." The Guardians of Garlen said in unison and created a dimensional seal that not even Spirit Magic could break.. "This is our turf and you are not welcome."
