Lith and Leegaain watched the Eldritch's face twist in agony, his Chaos body rejecting the Forbidden Magic so violently that it exploded at the slightest mistake. Yet killing an Eldritch was always hard.
Killing an Eldritch while he stood above a powerful mana geyser and was surrounded by dozens of pools of life essence was impossible. After every failure, Raum reford his body as though nothing had happened.
After every success, even the limited perceptions of the wandering souls were enough to perceive the steep increase in his strength. Lith and Leegaain watched the process over and over, but gained no clarity from it.
Then, the stream of consciousness ended.
Lith found himself kneeling on the ground with the Guardian standing by his side, slightly bent over, his hand still glued to the Tiamat's shoulder. His aura ensured that Lith's ntal wounds never exceeded what he could endure and left no permanent scar on his psyche.
The Demons of the Darkness born from the lab's ruins turned towards Lith, giving him and the Guardian a deep bow before departing. The black chains connecting the wandering souls to Lith shattered, and the Demons turned into beings of light.
Freed from their grievances, the souls shot up to the sky, spreading a sense of peace and joy in their wake. It repaid Lith of his suffering and almost broke nadion's will. The First Ruler of the Flas was no different from those lost souls.
She too longed to be free. To leave that world where she was an unwanted guest and reunite with her husband. She missed Threin for seven hundred years, and when the gate opened, she took one step towards it.
Yet even while nadion stared into that overwhelming light, Solus shone the brightest to her eyes.
'Not again.' nadion clenched her teeth and hands to resist the voices calling upon her. 'I've failed Epphy too many tis with my egotism. I won't fail her again. I'm her mother, and this ti, I'll be by her side for as long as she needs !'
"It's all right, Lith. I'm right here." Solus knelt to his side, wrapping him in a warm embrace. "Just tell what you need and I'll do it."
"Don't let go of , please." Even with Leegaain's touch, the coldness and pain left behind by the hundreds of souls still plagued him.
They brought out the worst in him and blocked out the best, blurring the mories of all the good things in his life to the point he couldn't tell if they were real or just dreams.
"I'm not going anywhere." She leaned her forehead against his and activated a partial mind fusion.
Solus made Lith relive the day they had t, the day they had healed Tista from the Strangler, the day they had t Kamila, and then the day they had saved Falco. She moved from one good mory to another, avoiding anything that might worsen his condition.
Solus connected the past to the present and forged a luminous path that led to Lith's greatest achievents. The day of Elysia's birth and the day before, when they had checked the unborn baby with Invigoration and witnessed Raldarak's perfect small fingers and toes.
Solus reminded Lith of who he was and who he fought for until the echoes of the lost souls beca just that, echoes.
'Mom?' She asked via a mind link the mont she could afford the focus to form one. 'Are you alright? I saw your body flicker for a mont.'
'I'm not going to lie, Epphy.' nadion replied. 'I wasn't fine earlier, but I'm fine now.'
'Don't worry about .' Lith had felt the black chain connecting him to nadion cracking and was aware of her struggles. 'Go to your mother. She needs you as much as I do.'
Yet he didn't tell Solus about it. Lith chose to respect Ripha's privacy and let her open up to Solus on her terms instead of being forced to.
Solus checked Lith one last ti, making sure that his body and mind carried no lingering wounds from the experience before tackling nadion in a hug.
"You scared , Mom." Solus sniffled. "I was afraid that I had lost you again."
"Oh, Epphy." nadion caressed her daughter's hair. "I'm sorry for making you worry. I-"
The tenderness of the mont was shattered by a flaming hamr crashing against the ground right beside Solus' feet and opening a ters-deep crater that sent mother and daughter tumbling down.
A second hamr landed in front of Bytra at the sa ti, but since she weighed much less than Solus, the shockwave sent her flying instead of just throwing her off balance.
"By you, Mom, that's the Fury!" Solus nodded at the hamr not to release her hold on nadion. "It wasn't destroyed."
"And neither was the Absolution." Bytra tried to lift her hamr, but it was so hot that her hand sizzled on contact, forcing her to let go. "Gods above and below! What happened to my baby?"
***
anwhile, thousands of kiloters away, two of the energy beams released by Death Blossom fused together in the form of Raum the Wonderer.
'The Guardian of this area is chasing . I can't afford a single mistake.' He thought as he opened a Chaos Steps, taking care of detonating and then relaxing the space as soon as he crossed over.
After that, Raum concealed his aura to the best of his considerable ability and flew outside of Leegaain's turf. His destination was an uninhabited island with enough dry land to let a man and a goat stand side by side.
The Wonderer opened a cloaked passage with earth magic and reached an ample underground room where a Warp Gate waited for him. He took several mana crystals out of his pocket dinsion to fuel the device before imprinting it.
Then, he manually set the coordinates for his destination, and once he stepped to the other side of the Gate, he stored the mana crystals again, shutting down the Warp Gate on the island.
It lost Raum's imprint and the coordinates of his destination, making it impossible to follow him.
"How much did we lose?" The Wonderer asked to Shogu, one of the Empowered Abominations at his service.
"Only the research facility and all the living materials." Shogu referred to the prisoners. "There was no ti to drag them out, so we gave priority to things that wouldn't struggle and are much harder to find.
"All the books and ingredients have been salvaged, but losing a lab that big and so many powerful arrays is a huge blow to-"
"It doesn't matter." Raum cut the Empowered short. "It's nothing we can't buy or find with a bit of effort. What about my sister?"
"We brought her here." Shogu sighed. "She died multiple tis during the transfer and killed Gurak and Tasshel before we could subdue her. Those Odi chains don't work well without a steady supply of world energy."
"Gurak and Tasshel were idiots." Raum snarled. "If they couldn't stand their ground against a half-dead sack of useless flesh despite my gifts, they deserved to die. What matters is my sister. She's the key to everything."
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