Cursing at both the army and his bad luck, Lith activated all of his Body Sculpting spells at once. He had modified the basic version learned at the academy into a true magic one with a few kinks of his own.
'The situation is bad. I have to alternate Invigoration and Scanner, otherwise one's readings will block the other's. Plus I have to fill the hole inside Kalla's abdomen fast. If I take my time as usual, she's as good as dead.'
In her attempt to achieve Lichhood, Kalla had damaged her life force, leaving a gaping hole that was slowly dissipating both her mana and life force. It also prevented her to use Invigoration since the mana would be drained by the hole.
Lith went all out from the start and conjured ten Chisels at once. The Chisels started to probe into the healthy life force. Kalla wasn't a slime but an Evolved Monster, which made her a unique living being.
'If she was a human, at least I'd know where to start. I have never studied a Wight's life force, dammit. It's completely different from what I have ever seen before.'
Watching at Kalla through Scanner was like trying to follow a rollercoaster constantly changing its physical form, going from liquid to solid without warning. Her partial undead nature made unnecessary for her to breathe or possess most organs.
On paper, it sounded really cool because it made her resistant to most kinds of energies. On the other hand, for Lith it was a nightmare. Her life force was a hybrid, composed of the physical form of her body and the shadow energy that enveloped her physique to connect the various parts.
Lith had to alter them both without killing her nor having enough time to study Kalla's unique nature properly. Even though Lith was in a rush, he needed to assess how bad the situation was, so he had the Chisels checking the edges of the black zone.
'The situation is worse than I expected.' Lith sighed. 'The life force around the damage has stabilized, but even just poking it's enough to make it bleed life force that disappears immediately. I can't collect nor save it. The hole is like a drain.
Solus, I may need your help.'
'There is not much I can do with a deep green core. I can barely use a tier five spell by borrowing some of your mana.' She replied.
'Don't worry, I just need you to use Spatula to collect the life force in case I make a mistake.'
Lith could have conjured and controlled more than ten chisels, but that would lessen his accuracy. Kalla was already with one foot in the grave, he couldn't afford to make any major slipup.
Manipulating life force was different from any other kind of spellcasting Lith had learned. It required to keep your focus at all times, exerting surgical control on your mana as well as on the patient's body.
In any other circumstance, Lith would have used Body sculpting to repair the damage by redistributing the life force without altering its flow. The problem was that the procedure was slow and Kalla had maybe a couple of minutes left.
'Since I don't have time, the fastest approach is to transplant life force from a healthy part to fill the hole. It will create a new one, but at least if I cover Kalla's mana core, her condition should improve.
If I'm right, it will buy me the time I need to fix her.'
First, Lith used one of his personal spells, Mould, to take a magical picture of the life force in Kalla's left paw in order to be able to restore it later once the emergency was resolved.
A paw was far from all vital organs, making it the perfect life force donor.
After he made sure that no permanent damage would befall his friend, the Chisels worked in unison on the left paw to remove the energy and brought it over the black area.
Even transplanting the life force of the same individual was a very delicate procedure. First, a Chisel had to disconnect each single block unit's connection to the paw. Then, a few Chisels would use mana strands to weave it to the healthy life force near the hole.
Lith had to be fast, otherwise the dead zone would drain the energy.
Lith hated that kind of procedure. It was more like butchering than surgery, so he also had to focus on minimizing the damages. For a control freak like him, it was a worst case scenario.
He could either rush things, maybe saving the patient, but leaving a mess behind that he would be forced to fix later, or bide his time and let Kalla die. Lith worked non stop, expending his mana so fast that he needed to use Invigoration right after the two minutes mark had passed.
Despite the situation, he sighed in relief.
'Since Kalla is still alive, I count that as a win.' Lith thought. The light in her left eye seemed to have stabilized, but she was still too weak to talk or simply she had no energy to waste.
Kalla could feel that something was wrong with her paw. She was progressively losing sensitivity. Yet she already had a hard time staying awake, so she considered it just another sign of her imminent doom.
The more time passed, though, the stronger she felt. Kalla understood that whatever Lith was doing was working the moment she regained her sight. She had been blinded for weeks, so her first instinct was to scream in joy.
Yet when she saw how bad her children's condition was, her joy turned into despair. The only thing that stopped her from trying to reach them was the sight of Lith, sweating bullets, who emitted enough mana to fight three Wights at once.
He was sparing no effort, going down to the last shred of energy before using Invigoration.
'I don't want to lose another friend. Kalla and I never spoke much but there's a connection between us. Maybe it's because we are both anomalies for our species, but she always gave me more credit than I deserved.' Lith thought.
'I'm glad to hear that, but promise me this time it will not end like with Protector.' Solus was worried about him. Both his body and mind were approaching their limits.
'I promise.' Lith replied, leaving her shocked. She knew how stubborn he was.
'I have learned my lesson back then. Exchanging my life for another is idiotic, but that doesn't mean that I will not do my best to save Kalla.' He emitted a strong burst of energy, sending his Chisels after the shadow energy that composed half of the life force.
Operating on the space near the hole was already hard. The slightest mistake would result in a partial or complete loss of the transplanted energy. Yet what he was about to do was even harder.
Lith had done all he could for the body, now he needed to restore the flow.
To do it, he had to attach small chunks of life force to the shadows and reconnect them to the damaged parts. Weaving mana threads on a moving target was as easy as killing an elephant with a pea shooter.
