"We'll ask Lith about Strider's motives when and if we find him." Zoreth replied.
"What do you an, if? Can't you track him?" Kamila asked.
"I can try, but it's not going to be easy. I can follow his trail on the ground from the craters he left while running away, but if he has taken the sky, I'll only have his sll to find him and that doesn't last long. Abominations take, they don't leave. I'll give it a go anyway. Byt?"
"I'll protect everyone until your return." The Raiju conjured the Absolution and set a detection array field.
Zoreth nodded and ran along Lith's footprints. When they disappeared, she took flight, hoping that Dragonspeed would be enough to catch up with the lingering sll before high-altitude currents scattered it to the wind.
"What do you want us to do?" Quylla asked Kamila.
"We wait until Zoreth returns." She wrung her hands, trying to suppress the horrible feeling that sothing was wrong with Lith. "If she can't find anything, we'll contact the Royals, the Council, Vastor, anyone who can help us.
"Just leave Solus out of your report. We can't risk exposing their bond and I doubt that whoever worked so hard to kidnap her is going to make it easy to find her. Lith is our first priority and only clue to rescue Solus."
***
Sowhere on the Garlen continent, Fringe of the World Tree, the morning after.
Solus had been locked inside a cell made from living Yggdrasill wood. It was a small square room, barely 2 ters (6'7") per side, and it was completely empty. The walls were over 5 ters (17') thick and there was no door or window.
Whenever a Chronicler entered or a al was delivered, an opening would form in the wood and let light in. The rest of the ti the cell was completely dark. It was supposed to wear on her nerves and undermine her willpower, but Solus didn't care.
Her arm was still missing and the wound on her stomach was still open. The mont the elves had left her alone, Solus had gone back into her ring to save her strength and heal faster.
For sothing that small, the cell was spacious and the darkness didn't bother her.
'The World Fucker must be really into if they didn't cut off the world energy with a Sealed Space.' She thought. 'The only things I don't understand is why they haven't sent soone to imprint already and why the Fringe still bears the energy signature of the tower.
'In the Tree's shoes, I'd have gotten rid of that imdiately. Otherwise, the mont I get to touch the ground again, I can activate the Predator Engine.'
'Cursed be Ripha nadion!' The World Tree's plan was exactly as Solus had predicted.
They wanted to get their vines on the tower imdiately and destroy its hold over the geyser, but wanting and doing had turned out to be two completely different things.
'I can't use my Chroniclers to imprint the tower and now I have to find a Librarian trustworthy enough not to run away with it the mont they understand how powerful an artifact it is. Then, I have to teach them how to control Elphyn!
'This is a disaster. My quest for Guardianhood will be delayed for Mogar knows how long. Even worse, the accursed Ruler of the Flas dared taint my Fringe! When the tower engaged the Predator Protocol, its energy signature infected the world energy of my ho like cancer.
'The more I try to purify it, the more it spreads and multiply!'
Ripha nadion had worked until the day of her death to prepare for the mont when her legacy would be passed on to Elphyn and ensure she would not end up like Threin.
It was just two decades, a short ti for Awakened standards. Yet it was plenty of ti for soone who already was at the peak of her profession and had shalessly asked the help of older Awakened like Baba Yaga and Lochra Silverwing.
The Predator protocol and the Bleed were the culmination of nadion's research about Forbidden Magic and undead, now made even worse by Solus' modern magic and Lith's Abomination half.
The imprint left by the tower was hard to cleanse because it fed on both the world energy and the mana of the spells used to destroy it, converting their strength into its own.
"Do you want us to give Elphyn another beating to soften her up?" A female Chronicler asked.
'I can't risk damaging the tower further and wait years for it to repair.' The Yggdrasill shook its foliage. 'nadion made Elphyn the priority, the tower is programd to sacrifice itself for her.
'Besides, once the ring gets imprinted, she'll be under my leaf. No, Q'porr, I haven't called you here to take care of Elphyn but of Verhen. Find him and kill him. Take whatever you need from the armory and as many Chroniclers as you need.
'We must stop him from asking the help of the Eldritches. They are the only threat to my plan. Also, his head on a silver platter will be the best revenge you can exact on her.'
"Excellent point, my Liege." The elf smiled at the idea. "She killed the people I love. It's only fair we return her the favor."
***
Hessar Region, near the borders with the Gorgon Empire, Mount Marala.
Derek returned to the place of his crash landing, the best next thing to what he could consider his base camp, by sunrise. He was covered in the blood of his prey. Bears, stags, eagles it didn't matter if they were at the top or bottom of the food chain.
As long as they lived, they were food to him.
"This was weird as fuck." He still talked out loud, a habit he had taken after quitting his job. With Carl dead, Derek had no one he wanted to talk to, and slow death by cancer was no easy ride. "I could follow tracks.
"I recognized the footprints of animals I've only seen on TV and others don't even exist on Earth. I moved like a ninja, always following the wind and without making a sound. And I have no clue why I'm dragging this with ."
The Void carried a deer carcass with wind magic, to keep his Abomination Touch from destroying it.
As the sun rose above the horizon, spreading light and heat, Derek felt his restless hunger subside. It had tornted him the whole night, the only monts of respite when he sucked his latest prey dry.
Yet the mont the corpse turned into ashes and slipped through his fingers, the hunger would return anew, barely abated. The Void had kept hunting because albeit short, those monts of relief allowed him to think.
Ever since he had woken up near the tiger man, he had reacted to his surroundings by instinct and taken everything that ca to his mind as a plausible explanation. The only good thing about the hunger was that it overpowered everything else.
It had cleared his mind and forced him to focus on the task at hand, instead of rambling like a maniac.
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