At a snap of her fingers, several skeletons erged from the ground and gave chase to the terrified Fluffy. They wouldn't tire, relent, or stop before he was done with his twenty laps.
"Garrik, why don't you help ?" It was barely the second lap, and the Byk was already panting.
"I don't mind that we always get last place, Fluffy, but I'm worried about you. You do nothing but eat and sleep all day." After a life of imprisonnt and loneliness, Garrik wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone put his best friend on a diet.
Yet he had no problem letting soone else do his dirty job.
"Thanks, Mister Nok."
"Don't thank and call Nok, kid." The real Nok had taken Fluffy's place as Garrik's steed in the children's magical gas.
"Only if you call Garrik. I'm not a kid!" The young Fomor-Tyrant hybrid grunted.
"Sure thing, kid Garrik." Nok laughed while scoring with a powerful earth spell.
"That's not funny! But since we are winning, I'll forgive you. Did you really trick your mom like that in the past?"
"Many tis." Nok replied. "Once I helped her look for just to see how long it would take her to recognize as I scread my own na right by her side."
"You're an, Nok." Garrik said while laughing his head off. "How did it go?"
"A ddleso vampire pointed out to her that I was the only Byk in Lightkeep." Nok sighed. "Mom was so shocked by my prank and embarrassed at the idea she had failed to recognize that she now thinks I'm the only Byk in this house, too."
"But this is no Lightkeep." Garrik said.
"Mom is a bit slow to adapt to changes." The Byk shrugged.
Nok had stopped being a squishy furball soon after moving to Lightkeep. With no other Byks to mate with, no prey to chase, and surrounded by deadly predators, his appetite had waned.
He had gone from the king of his small hill to a small fish surrounded by sharks. He had been kicked out of the food chain and relegated to the role of mascot. The Undead would pet and feed him like they would with a cute little dog, which destroyed Nok's pride.
With so much free ti and a burning desire to be respected, the young Byk had trained regularly without skipping a day. Nyka tutored him in magic whenever she had the ti and defeated him in their spars as gently as she could.
She had beco stronger than Nok soon after her birth, but he was still her big brother. Nok loved her even more for her kindness and redoubled his efforts to offer his little sister a better challenge.
The current Nok was a spare, muscular Byk with a bright cyan mana core who could match the strongest magical beasts of the Trawn Woods. He wouldn't reach the blue until he evolved into an Emperor Beast, but he had no clue how to Awaken.
Slash and Crash had the sa problem, so the three pooled their resources to search for a solution.
Lith and Solus also adjusted their schedule to accommodate their new guests into their training routine. Kalla and Nyka followed them to the Garden of Mogar and helped them to master the Ears of nadion under Ripha's supervision.
"Since you'll get the Apprentice Ears in six months, you might as well learn the basics." Lith said.
"Thank you, Scourge." The Wight nodded. "But why bring Nyka along?"
"Because I'm his partner," Solus replied. "Nyka will work with you. She needs to learn how to take the Ears away from you once you master them."
"Hey!" Kalla growled.
"What, Mom?" Nyka growled back. "Do you really think you'll part from the Eyes and Ears when your six months end? Can you afford to anger an entire Dragon clan?"
"You make excellent points, dear. I'll be in your care."
"Also, you two can share your experience to learn faster and better." nadion said. "The pair that at the end of the day teaches the least insights to the other does the dishes for the night."
"Why is that?" Lith asked.
"A little competition always spices things up." Ripha shrugged.
Kalla and Nyka were beginners. They washed many plates before they returned the favor. The Wight's talent was the real deal, and Nyka's undead nature gave her a few unfair advantages.
She didn't sweat, had no need to wash herself, and she could slurp her al during practice to instantly regain her full focus.
"Undead are such cheats." Solus panted after a grueling session of training that made her head throb with pain. "I've spent nearly two decades to reach the violet, and she got it in what? Seven years?"
"You're telling !" Lith put an ice pack on his head and offered Solus another. "I had to gain enlightennt for the deep violet and break through a bottleneck for each advancent. Nyka did none of that."
"Undead have no bottlenecks." She smirked with pride. "The more we eat and the tastier our al, the faster our strength grows. Our cores don't have all those silly colors. We just go from a red-black core to a full-red blood core."
"And she suffers no headache because her brain is just for show." Kalla whined. "Her core and heart store everything she knows, and they both need a sip of blood to recover."
"My blood, to be precise." Lith wheezed.
"Well, duh!" Nyka shrugged. "You are a great mage, and the only reason I got this far so fast. No other vampire had a blue-cored Awakened feeding her from the start. The stronger you got, the stronger I got."
The training with the Ears wasn't the only thing making progress.
Lith's deal with Phillard bore many fruits. The Lindwurm brought Lith many Awakened, and not, who looked for soone willing to kidnap Elina on the black market.
No matter what they admitted or who they pointed their fingers at, Lith always threw them in Salaark's Pits of Agony for a week. After rescuing them, he only accepted information in the form of a mind link.
Making up a story with words was easy, but a mind link was much faster and gave the interrogated no ti to think. On top of that, while rembering sothing took but a second, no one could forge words, features, clothes, and the place where the conversation had taken place in so little ti.
Those who Lith caught lying would spend another week in the Pits. One might think it gave those captured ti to prepare their lies, but there was no ti in the Pits of Agony, only pain.
Pain filled every second of the day and replaced every thought, plan, and ambition. Pain was all the prisoners knew, save the breaks they needed to retain their sanity. In those monts of respite, they prayed for the torture not to resu, but no one listened.
After the second week, only a few with indomitable will would try to trick Lith with false confessions. They were sent back into the Pits, and this ti for more than a week. At that point, even wills of iron were beaten and bent.
Lith loved interrogating his prisoners and loved even more killing them along with their associates. The only part he didn't like was paying the gardener.
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