Supreme Magus novel Chapter 167

Aside from the pungent smell of decay and his once again tattered clothes, there was no trace of what had just transpired in Lith’s tent. Solus’ gauntlet form had completely recovered from all her injuries, and was now brimming with power.

- "What the heck? Death Call shouldn’t work like that. It was like an entirely different spell."

"Well, for what’s worth, you also seemed an entirely different person. Your eyes turned inhuman, and when the energy flow reached its apex, your whole body started to pulse according to its rhythm. You had started to mutate into a..."

Solus couldn’t find the words to describe the monstrous silhouette that had almost overlapped with Lith.

"...thing, but thanks heavens everything stopped before it was too late." –

Lith had no recollection of such changes, but by checking Solus’ memories, he was able to see what exactly had happened. After his eyes had turned yellow, glowing from the inside with a vertical slit pupil, the dark aura around him had taken a physical form.

Instead of shadow tentacles, his body had released emerald flames, while the shadows in the tent had seemingly taken life, attacking the Talons along with the flames.

The result was sadly impeccable. Nothing had survived the joint assault, not even the weapons, leaving him empty handed for his troubles.

Lith had never experienced anything like that, so he sat cross legged on the floor, activating Invigoration in search for answers. He first scanned his body, then the mana core, finding out that nothing had changed.

Then, he did the same thing on Solus, but the results remained the same.

Everything had happened so fast that it seemed to be just a dream. Yet he felt emptier than ever, like he had grasped something meaningful just to forget it a second after waking up.

He tried several times to conjure those energies and sensations, but to no avail. More confused than ever, he wore his plague doctor uniform. Kilian would arrive any second now, and Lith was eager to iron out the last steps of the cure and get back to his life.

****

Despite their strong, almost friendship-like bond, Tyris didn’t like how Leegaain had left their communication channel open, while he was discussing the anomaly with his new apprentice.

Not only because that had triggered Salaark’s hilarity at her expenses, but also because it had struck a nerve. The anomaly was in her turf, adding another responsibility to her already heavy workload.

Unlike him, she hadn’t slept peacefully over the last centuries, giving the middle finger to the all the problems of his country and only taking action when something major happened.

Nor she had a fine-grained control over her subjects like Salaark, allowing her to delegate at least some of her duties to trustworthy Awakened ones. Her role as a Guardian wasn’t to keep, or dominate, it was to spark the change.

Tyris had triggered the unification of the Griffon Kingdom, prompting others to follow its example and putting an end to centuries long wars.

She had taught true magic to Lochra Silverwing, who in turn had managed to adapt it in forms that ordinary people could use, spreading a ground breaking knowledge that had improved the lives of millions.

With every passing century, she was more tempted to throw in the towel and just mind her own business. Nudging a country in the right direction without directly interfering, while keeping the balance was a mammoth task.

The plague itself was proof of how desperate her situation was. She hadn’t taken care of it personally not because she didn’t care, but because her plate was already full. In the recent years, Tyris had noticed an increase in the number of Abominations appearing in the Griffon Kingdom.

Normally they were rarer than Awakened ones, but now they were popping out like mushrooms, two or even three each year, too fast for the phenomenon to be a natural occurrence.

The origin points were always near the borders of the Kingdom, where her senses were at their weakest, so that Tyris would notice only when it was too late. She was convinced to have understood the twisted logic behind the Griffon Kingdom being the only target.

Leegaain wouldn’t have cared, while Salaark, thanks to her servants, would have found the source of the threat faster than Tyris ever could. Someone was using her to test the powers and resources of the Guardians, but Tyris had no idea why.

She would have loved to ask her colleagues for help, but Guardians were highly territorial. Even if each one of them supervised one third of the biggest continent on the planet, it was never enough, they could barely tolerate each other.

The anomaly was but a small potato, it could wait. First, she had to put an end to the Abomination threat, then she had to make sure that Arjîn was really dead and give the Corpse a new seventh member. Only then she would take a look at the anomaly.

All the while hoping that the Kingdom would still stand by her return, that her descendants would manage to avoid a civil war.

Just the thought of all she had to do, gave Tyris an headache. She sighed deeply, while Mother Earth, her Invigoration technique, informed her that another Abomination had appeared near the northern borders.

"I really need a vacation." She said before Warping away, to catch her mysterious opponent before it could flee again.

***

After learning that her treatment was almost complete, and that Lith would leave soon after he was done with her, Nindra had become quite assertive. She would often sit straight as an arrow, emphasizing her breasts, fiddle with her hair or laugh heartily whenever he would say something barely close to being funny.

Not to mention she would prolong physical contact for a couple seconds longer than it was appropriate.

"Can’t you at least tell me your name? I don’t think your parents were so imaginative to give you an abstruse name, so there’s no harm in me knowing it."

She said while Lith was removing the last parasites from her arms. After that, she would be completely healed, and after giving his final report to Varegrave, Lith would be able to go home.

He couldn’t wait to get out of the tent. With the excuse of privacy, Nindra had convinced him to close the curtain, and was whispering every word in his ear. _{freeweɓnovel.cѳm}

Being subject of a woman’s affections that wasn’t his relative or a kid, was arousing ancient instincts, of which the rumours about their death had been greatly exaggerated.