"If you come here, we'll make sure you give resurrection a go yourself." The Guardians of Garlen said in unison.
"How can you be so blind? This might be the key to summoning a soul and injecting it inside an artificial body rich with world energy, like a crystal. To generate new life forms. It's a unique opportunity to learn both from and about death!" Roghar the Fenrir said.
"Your words are just the proof that you can't be allowed to step foot on Garlen again." Leegaain said. "Putting souls into artificial bodies would be akin to torture and destroy the balance. What if they learn how to spawn?"
"Agreed." Salaark nodded. "People keep being born hence they also need to keep dying. If you bring them back, life will choke on itself. On top of that, I'll be damned before I let you experiment on my blood!"
"I see that time hasn't changed you." Tyris said as her eyes brimmed with mana and fury. "It's because of your experiments with the living that so many races fell and turned into monsters.
"You still charge forward in your research about cores without thinking about the consequences. I banished you from Garlen once, but if you come back, this time I will kill you."
That piece of knowledge made the Awakened Council shudder. Its members now looked at the Fenrir with much less respect and much more fear.
"That's twisting the truth! I never caused anyone's fall. Those races came to me seeking answers and I simply helped them to the best of my abilities. I always warned them about the possible long-term consequences of putting untested theories into practice." Roghar snarled.
"How can you blame me for their foolishness? I just served my purpose, showing others the way to further their evolution. It's not my fault if-"
Tyris banished his hologram from the Council and stared at the young elf on the screen.
'How could I be this stupid?' Aalejah thought. 'I should have predicted that this would happen. Just like the Voidfeather Dragon couldn't connect to the shadows because it's alive, the Abomination can't project Spirit Magic outside because its darkness craves life.
'I've managed to screw up my mission and to endanger the life of a unique species with a single move. If anything happens to Lith, it will all be my fault.' The elf racked her brain, thinking back at everything she knew about Abominations and how to fight them.
"Lith, if you can still hear me, let them take over. It's your only way out!" Aalejah said while unleashing the biggest mass of darkness magic that she could conjure in so little time.
Lith couldn't hear her nor follow her advice since he required sheer willpower just to not let his mind be torn into shreds.
The darkness spell struck at the living mass of darkness and Chaos, weakening it along with all the souls closest to the surface.
The spirits of the dead had to join their efforts against the threat at hand to not be obliterated, giving Lith the time he needed to literally pull himself together.
'If it's life that you want, let me give you a taste of mine!' Lith struck at the invaders, taking control of the fusion and forcing them to relieve his three lives.
The souls experienced the abuse, the fear, the hardships, the loneliness, and the grieving he had endured during the past 45 years in a split second. It made life much less alluring, weakening both their will to fight and their desire to resurrect.
At the same time, the memories reminded Lith of who he was, of what he had overcome, and of the people he fought for, making his mind and soul stronger.
'I'm the master of my body and no matter how shitty my life is, it's all I have. Get out of my head!' While Aalejah attacked them from the outside Lith attacked them from the inside, banishing the souls back to where they had come from.
Thanks to Soul Vision, the elf saw Lith regain possession of his body. She reduced the intensity of her spell, targeting it solely against the areas still filled with foreign souls that he had yet to reclaim.
Once the Empowered Abomination looked like Derek McCoy again, Lith didn't waste a single second and turned back into his Tiamat form.
"I hunger." He managed to say before collapsing due to exhaustion.
Chaos had devoured much of his body mass, the souls had robbed him of his vitality, and the struggle to survive had almost ripped his mind to shreds.
'Gods, I would have never thought that I'd be happy to hear his crappy Sinistar impersonation.' Solus wished to establish a mind link, but between Aalejah and the staff still in Lith's hand, she could only hope for the best.
The elf rushed to his side, making him drink one tonic after another before using Invigoration on Lith. Only once she made sure that he had suffered no permanent damage and that his life wasn't at risk did she take care of the staff as well.
Even from a distance, Aalejah could feel the pain of the World Tree. The wood was charred by the touch of Chaos and its life almost drained. It took her time, effort, and a shred of her life force to restore the staff to its former power.
Then, she covered it with the special cloth that sealed the World Tree's senses and allowed herself to fall apart. She had no idea that her master was still watching her via Urgamakka's surveillance system along with the rest of the Council.
"I'm so sorry, this is all my fault." Aalejah said with a broken voice and eyes veiled with tears.
"I shouldn't have followed the orders of the Yggdrasill. No mission is worth an innocent life. This is madness, like everything that comes out of that accursed tree!" Her sadness turned into rage as she hit the ground with enough strength to open a small crater.
"First, I'm far from innocent." Lith recovered Solus with Spirit Magic while eating non-stop to recover his strength. "Second, I knew the risks and I accepted to perform the experiment. I'm an adult, not a child."
"Are you joking? Compared to me, you know so little and are so young that you're an infant."
"Third, what do you mean, accursed tree?" Lith asked.
"There's a reason why despite the passing of the millennia and the knowledge accumulated by the First Awakened no World Tree ever tried to achieve a white core." She replied.
"The Yggdrasill is capable of seeing most of Mogar, yet it's unable to take a single step their whole life. On top of that, being forced to witness terrible events yet being too far to intervene slowly erodes their mind.
"The longer a World Tree lives, the crazier they become. They see so many horrors that their mind becomes numb to them until the temptation to put the forbidden knowledge they have hoarded into practice becomes hard to resist.
"That's why they refuse immortality." Aalejah said.
The Council looked at the projection of the Yggdrasill in disbelief, yet the creature simply pointed at Inxialot, reminding them of the madness that followed every Lich like a shadow.
