"Bravo. You killed the monsters. Monsters that treated us better than this fucking city ever did. When my daughter fell ill, there was no Healer, because my fellow citizens drove him away." Each of the farmer's words was coated with venom and spite.
"My wife fell ill while taking care of the baby, yet no one did anything. I was forced to leave Maekosh on my cart, hoping to find a Healer before death claimed them. I found the wargs instead.
"Can you believe it? Monsters took pity on me when even my own kin betrayed me." Lith could see the man's life fading away with every breath he took, yet his hatred was stronger than death.
"They cured them. Cured me of my humanity, making us all stronger. Now they are dead and so are we. I regret killing those farmers, they had done nothing wrong. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"When our alpha died, Etta and I lost our minds. The bond between wargs is something that a murderer like you could never understand." His breath became ragged, his voice barely a whisper.
"The wargs just wanted food and shelter. Is that so wrong? To try to escape from cold and starvation? Did my family deserve to die just so that fucking Baroness could pin a medal to your chest?"
Lith didn't reply. He had walked more than one mile in the dying farmer's shoes and knew that nothing he could say would matter to the man. Nothing would give the man his family back.
***
Free country of Lamarth. Beyond the eastern borders of the Gorgon Empire.
'Thank the gods I Warped both Xenagroshs outside my lab. According to an old saying, when two Guardians fight, maps get redrawn. Yet I believe the same can be said for Eldritchs!'
The real Xenagrosh had the advantage of being able to shapeshift her body at will, the wisdom of centuries, and most of her magical artifacts. Unfortunately, the troll Xenagrosh still seemed to be able to hold her ground.
Trolls were naturally attuned with the light element and it was their inability to process the darkness element in the surrounding world energy that had led their race to their fallen status.
Abominations, however, had a black core that was naturally rich with darkness and incapable of assimilating the light element if it wasn't leeched from other life forms. The Master's experiment had created a being with both the troll's and the Abomination's mana core, thriving together in a symbiotic relationship.
Their complementary nature had made the troll Xenagrosh into an almost perfect being. To make matters worse, by devouring her whole tribe, she had regained most of her original self's memories.
Also, before making her appearance she had taken the precaution of "liberating" from Xenagrosh's pocket dimension all of the artifacts she could get her hands on. She had got the first choice of which ones to use for this battle, but unlike the real Xenagrosh, she didn't know the strengths and weaknesses of each enchanted item.
The Master needed all of their energy and arrays just to prevent their battle from being detected from afar, since the destruction they caused had turned hills into plains and grasslands into barren lands.
The Master knew that unless one of them made a blatant mistake, their clash was likely to raze the entire country of Lamarth to the ground.
"Don't worry, old friend." The Master yelled at Xenagrosh. "As soon as I finish setting up this array, we will take down that knock off copy, together!"
The troll Xenagrosh laughed at those words.
"How low have you stooped to need the help of a human? Even if you win, I would not lose. I always strived to reach perfection and now I know I've made it. Think about all the pain and effort it costed us to become what we are now.
"Do you realize how much you are struggling despite your alleged superiority? You're a relic of the past, whereas I'm what we were always supposed to be. Not a weak human but not a filthy monster either. I've achieved the best of both worlds."
She released two tier five Chaos spells at the same time, Flames of Absolution and Judgment Call. The former was Xenagrosh's best attempt at imitating Origin Flames.
The black fire infused with Chaos magic filled the area within 100 meters of her, eating at all of the defensive barriers the original Eldritch had set up and also preventing her from Blinking away.
Flames of Absolution wouldn't so much cleanse as they would corrupt, but they were still capable of making it impossible to perform the fine mana tuning that complex spells like dimensional magic required.
Judgment Call was even trickier. It would conjure a twin stream of black lightning that would chase their prey leaving them only one of two options: take the damage in full or dodge them until the spell ran out of juice and leave the opponent plenty of time to set up something even worse.
Seeing her prized spell combination used against her, the real Xenagrosh roared in outrage. She assumed her true form, that of a Shadow Dragon so big that she could destroy the town of Lutia simply by sitting on it.
A jet stream of purple flames came out of Xenagrosh's maw, true Origin Flames, which consumed Judgment Call before unleashing their fury against the troll Eldritch.
"Not so cocky anymore, eh?" Xenagrosh said with a laugh. "Seems my little defective counterpart doesn't remember much, but she's right about one thing. This fight will prove which one of us is worthy of living." She said to the Master.
"If I don't win on my own, it would be a hollow victory. If I need someone's help, no matter the reason, then my whole existence would be a lie!" The Shadow Dragon roared her challenge before unleashing her most recent and powerful creation.
Tyrant's Will severed the light element from the surrounding world energy, turning all the other elements into Chaos magic. The hybrid could only conjure her best defenses as the whole Mogar became her enemy.
The air she breathed was toxic, the humidity turned into acid as the ground beneath her erupted, trapping her in a pool of black magma. Her barriers shattered one after the other, forcing her to sacrifice some of her artifacts to escape from the clutches of death.
When the dust settled, the troll Eldritch was still alive.
"Not bad, 'sister', but it wasn't enough." She had lost most of her body in the assault, only part of her head and abdomen remained. She had sacrificed the rest to make sure her twin cores wouldn't suffer any damage.
"Trolls regenerate fast. A dragon is indeed sturdier, but how quickly does that massive body heal? How much energy does it drain? I bet that was your last card and it failed. Once I get my arms back, you'll be a sitting duck until you recover from the exhaustion."
The Dragon Xenagrosh knew her other self was right, yet she still laughed her heart out.
"Well, what do you think I'm here for?" The Master used one of their arrays to completely seal the injured troll before throwing her inside the Dragon's maw.
"How could she possibly be you and still believe all of that bullshit? If you really were unwilling to get help, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have taught me everything I know about Awakened and Abominations."
