Foresigh

by Sophia Schmidt

  Red and Lith both understood what was happening. The former had studied hard to master such spell, the latter had already fallen for it once.

  The teleporting array moved the whole unit in the attic on the third floor.

  The entire floor was occupied by a single room, encircled by a dome made of light which pulsed with a rhythmical beat like it was alive.

  "First you interrupt my meal, then you steal my food." The man speaking was the most handsome and the most repulsing that any of those present had ever seen.

  "I won't let you go away without proper compensation."

  Chapter 282 Unnatural Part 1

  Saying that the attic was furnished would have been an understatement. Tapestry, carpets, even the chair the man was sitting on were embedded with precious gemstones the size of a nut.

  Piles of coins and jewels were laying in random spots of the room as if a creature composed of living gold had a tour of the place while having a bad case of diarrhea.

  A magic eight pointed star inscribed in a circle made of pure white energy encompassed the whole room. At each extremity of the star, there was a small altar made of white marble.

  The surface of the altars was covered with runes that Red and Lith both would easily recognize as the same light magic runes that were empowering the array below their feet, if only they managed to take a single glance at them.

  If they did, they would have also noticed that on some of the altars there were dried up bodies, while the others had their pristine white surface tainted by an ashen powder. All the corpses were dried up like they had been dead for quite some time.

  Not even the fact that the body on the altar right in front of them was rapidly collapsing on itself, like it was a closed paper cup being sucked with a straw could make any member of the unit take their eyes off their unwanted host.

  The man literally sitting in the middle of that mess was on paper the embodiment of perfection. 1.9 meters (6'3") high, with black hair of such a light shade to almost seem blue. His clear blue eyes were rested on a face that seemed to have been carved out by an artist in love with their own creation.

  His muscular body almost bulged out of his tacky clothes, like he could tear them up simply by taking a deep breath.

  Yet no man of the unit felt the tiniest tinge of envy nor any woman thought about anything outside pointing their weapons at him and fire them at will.

  He was too perfect to be natural. Each piece composing his body was flawless, but more than a person, he seemed like a patchwork of different humans assembled together. There was no harmony in his features.

  'That guy looks like the handsome brother of Frankenstein's monster.' Lith thought.

  After a split second of stupor due to the teleportation array, Captain Yerna pointed her wand at the man, quickly followed by all the members of the unit. They didn't give orders or made demands, they simply shoot a barrage of fire, ice, and lightning bolts until the man was turned into an half charred half frozen corpse and the chair into a bunch of golden splinters.

  'I have bad news and I have worse news.' Now that they were inside the array, its mystical energies didn't impede Solus's senses anymore. With everyone busy and Red scared out of his wits, Lith was free to use his skills to get a grasp of the current situation.

  'I think I know what this array does.' Solus explained while Lith used Invigoration on the array and Life Vision on the man.

  'It's filled to the brim with powerful energies, yet none of them belong to the unnatural man. My mana and life sense perceive at least nine different signatures currently coursing through the array. I think they belonged to the people on the altars.'

  The unnatural man was lying on the floor, but no one managed to relax. Despite its owner death, the light dome was still on.

  Seargent Khran tried to open the door, but the array also worked as a barrier, pushing him back with a jolt of light. Khran yelped in pain, the contact had badly burned his hands.

  "Who the heck was that guy? How do we get out of here?" He cursed.

  "Is, not was." Lith pointed at the body on the floor. "He is still alive and well." He could see how even after so many attacks, the body's life force was as strong as before.

  'Exactly.' Solus continued. 'The array keeps slowly injecting those energies inside him. I don't know why, though. The transfer's not fast enough to be some sort of healing device.'

  "Are you kidding me?" Khran scoffed while Hren helped him to drink a healing potion for his injured hands. "That guy is as dead as a doornail."

  "Am I?" Said a silvery voice coming from the corpse as it tried to get up. A second barrage of spells stuck it before the sentence was completed, sending it sprawling on the floor.

  'Let me guess, that was just the bad news. What about the worse news?' Lith was putting together all the pieces of the puzzle. The picture taking shape in front of his eyes wasn't good.

  'The worse news is that the unnatural man seems to be a human Abomination hybrid.'

  Her words left Lith speechless.

  'Is he¡­ like me?'

  'Not at all. I can see two cores inside of him, a bright cyan one and a smaller black one. I believe that just like Kalla's, his second core is artificial.'

  The corpse got on its back for a second time, getting blasted once again. This time no one stopped shooting until there was no charge left in their wands.

  "We need to get out of here!" Captain Yerna wasn't scared. She and her people had gone through worse situations in the past, keeping her cool had always turned out to be the winning move.

  "White, Warp us away from this sh*thole."

  Lith didn't make her repeat herself, but the dimensional door shattered as soon as it was formed. A second attempt bore the same result.

  "What's happening? Why it doesn't work?" Khran was starting to freak out, his voice rose of an octave.

  "I have no clue." Instead of despairing, Lith placed both of his hands on the array. He was certain it was the root of all their problems.

  "It's actually quite simple." The corpse of the unnatural man stood up from a pile of half molten jewels. Wands were once again aimed at him, but no spell was fired.

  "Dimensional magic requires a perfect balance between al the six elements." The unnatural man explained while his skin and hair regrew at an astounding speed.

  "This room is so filled with light magic that it makes impossible for a lowly human mage to find the balance necessary to tear up space. Don't blame the kid for his incompetence." He said with an amused look.

  "Even if he managed to do it, it would take me a simple wave of the hand to disrupt his focus. As I said earlier, no one is leaving until I get compensation for all the losses you have inflicted me. Kneel!"

  The unnatural man apparent kindness turned into a mask of fury. At his command, a new array overlaid with the already existing one. It increased the gravity of all those present by several folds, forcing them to fall on their knees.

  Only two people weren't affected by the new array. Lith, who was already hands on the ground studying the room, and the unnatural man, who kept standing as if nothing happened.

  Chapter 283 Unnatural Part 2

  "Do you have any idea how hard it was to find humans smart enough to help me manage my business? How difficult it was to round up among the dregs of society the right ingredients for my path towards godhood? You¡­"

  The ramblings stopped. Suddenly the extra gravity had disappeared and the unnatural man could feel a stinging pain in his abdomen, along with a sensation he had never experience before in his life. Nausea.

  "You!" He screamed at Lith. While the others had jumped up on their feet assuming a defensive formation, Lith was still crouched. Several tendrils made of light and darkness came out of his body, tampering with the energy coursing below him.

  The array's magic circle was distorted, turning the clockwork formation into a shoddy mess.

  "Don't mind me." Lith replied with an innocent smile. "Keep talking, I was reall
y caught up by your narration."

  'It seems you are right.' Solus kept observing the alterations in the man's cores.

  'The array is linked to his black core, feeding it of the accumulated energies inside the array. The black core absorbs and refines the energy before transferring it to the cyan one.

  'It's an artificial version of Accumulation. By my maker, I can't imagine how many lives it took for him to reach a bright cyan core.'

  'It was the only possible explanation for keeping those people prisoners.' Lith shrugged. 'He needs quality cores. That's why he fed and healed them. Probably he wanted them well ripened before squeezing them. So kind of him giving me a path straight to his mana core.'

  "How dare you touch a dragon's treasure?" The unnatural man turned into a blur, charging at Lith while ripping to shreds all those standing on his path. Three members of the unit died without even managing to slow him down.

  'A dragon?' That word along with the man's speed sent a cold shiver down Lith's back.

  'I thought it was just some psycho, but to be so quick he must be able to use fusion magic. Why the heck an Awakened need this contraption? Could a dragon really have just a cyan core? It doesn't make sense.'

  He didn't fear to fight another Awakened one, hybrid or not. Nor did he care about the rest of the unit, since they were dead the moment they would see his real skills. Lith was experiencing what all of his past opponents felt facing him.

  The confusion deriving from not having a clue about what he was against.

  The unnatural man jumped, extending towards Lith his hands that had turned into razor sharp claws.

  'What an idiot.' Lith sneered while getting back up. By leaving the ground, the opponent had actually slowed down. Once in the air, fusion magic was useless and the trajectory was easily predictable.

  Instead of freezing up in fear like his opponent expected, Lith took a side step. He then grabbed the arm while pivoting on his right foot, executing an overhead throw. Lith added his strength to the opponent's momentum, slamming him against the light dome.

  'This guy has no technique, just brute strength. Revealing his abilities just to scare me is stupid beyond reason.'

  'Why the throw?' Solus was confused by the turn of events.

  'Because normally one can't be harmed by their own magic. Yet I think he is trapped as well as we are.'

  The impact was strong enough to make the unnatural man penetrate into the light wall for a second. His flesh turned black while the energies trapped into the array reacted to the foreign body with a violent assault.

  The unnatural man screamed in agony like he never did when the unit had showered him with tier three spells from their wands. The light dome pushed him away, making his body bounce on the floor writhing into spasms.

  Lith didn't wait for him to recover, using wind, gravity, and spirit magic to toss him again against the wall.

  'Bingo! The array is so filled with different energies that it's unable to recognize its master. I can kill him and not blow my cover. Two birds with one stone.'

  Alas, the unnatural man had no intention to cooperate.

  He roared with fury while his body covered with golden scales. Two membranous wings formed under his armpits, connecting his little fingers to the hips. The neck got longer while his face deformed into a long snout.

  His nostrils dilated doubling their size, his open mouth now bigger than a manhole revealed the rage burning within. The following breath of fire turned everyone on its path into cinders, making even the gold piles boil.

  When the jet of flames ended, the creature was over four meters (13 feet) tall, forced to bend over to avoid his head to graze the ceiling. His long tail whipped the air furiously, generating sparks whenever it briefly touched the array.

  Lith was taken by surprise, managing to dodge at the last second only thanks to air fusion. Yet his right leg was grazed by the flames, not even the Skinwalker armor could resist such intensity.

  Even using water fusion wasn't enough. The fire burned through the protective enchantment, covering the whole limb below the knee.

  Lith's skin was no more, his burned flesh left exposed the burned muscles still throbbing in pain. Four more members of the tactical unit were dead. Only the mystical energies of the array had protected the room, leaving the wall and the floor pristine.

  'That's not a man, that's a wyvern!' Solus clearly recalled Kalla's words during their last meeting. Magical beasts once Awakened would evolve into monsters. They could still have offspring, giving life to a new bloodline of creatures that wouldn't be Awakened ones.

  He hid behind one of the altars, using light magic to heal his wounds.

  The wyvern roared in outrage. By slamming into the energy wall first and by recklessly using his fire breath, a good chunk of the energy stored in the formation had been lost.

  "I was so close! Curse you, human!"

  Gadorf the wyvern was aware of being really close to a breakthrough. Even though he was no Awakened one, the black core he possessed gifted him with several powers.

  The ability to absorb the life force of living beings, to detect the magical talent of those close to him, enhanced regeneration, and partial resistance to most elements. At that moment, the only person that Gadorf hated more than Lith was his own father.

  It was because of his father's refusal of Awakening Gadorf that he had spent the last two centuries experimenting all kinds of forbidden magic. None of his experiments bore any fruit. Not until he met that arrogant, insufferable human.

  It was only by becoming their test subject that Gadorf had acquired the black core and the Life Draining array. That human was obsessed with the idea of achieving eternal life through the Abominations.

  After obtaining what he wanted, Gadorf would have gladly awarded them for their services with a swift death, but the Abominations serving the Master were too strong.

  Chapter 284 Operating Room Part 1

  Gadorf had met the Master only a few years prior. Unable to assume a human form, the only way he had to acquire new techniques and materials was stealing them.

  Even if descending from the bloodline of an Evolved monster granted him the use of true magic on all six elements, the wyvern was still too weak to attack a major noble family or important merchants.

  Gadorf had already nearly got killed multiple times after raiding small cities. The Association responded quickly to threats, sending several mages at once to deal with him. Gadorf managed to survive only thanks to his mastery of light magic and arrays.

  In over two hundred years of practice, he had reached a level in those fields that very few mages could even start to comprehend. It was exactly because of his stubbornness that the Master had taken interest in him.

  Fighting the Master had been a humbling experience for Gadorf. Despite their experience gap, despite them being a fake mage, Gadorf's defeat took less than a minute.

  "You're lucky the Association put you on priority C until now." The Master wheezed. The fight had been brief, but exhausting for someone not used to fight like they were. Especially because they wanted to take Gadorf alive.

  "Me? A proud dragon, just a C-lister?" Gadorf's rage made the ground tremble, but the array keeping him prisoner didn't even budge.

  "A dragon? You?" The Master guffawed.

  "Good gods, your ego is bigger than Lady Tyris's a*s! Don't tell me that's the reason this dump you call home is full of gold and pieces of art?"

  Gadorf's reply was breathing fire with all the strength he had. The act almost resulted in suicide. The breath of a wyvern, just like those of a dragon, was neither normal fire nor a magical one.

  It was a unique effect caused by the mix of their life force with the world energy, no mana was involved. It was a similar effect Balkor had developed for his Valors, allowing them to emit rays of darkness from their eyes, without them being affected by slowness that affected all kinds of darkness magic.

  The downside of such powers was that just like a body ca
n damage itself, so that kind of attack based on life force, no matter how little was employed, would harm the user as well as anyone else.

  Gadorf's screams of agony only made the Master guffaw until small tears of hilarity streamed from his eyes.

  "Conceited and stupid. It's a miracle you managed to survive this far. That's a good piece of news, Lizzie." The Master simply replaced the most consumed magic crystals with new ones. The array was back to full force in a split second, adding despair to the wyvern agony.

  "I'm not a lizard!" He roared. "I'm Gadorf, son of Xedros the first wyvern! One day I will evolve into a dragon and feast on all those that belittled me. Be it you or my father, you'll end up the same way! Burned to death by my hand!"

  "The good news, Lizzie¡­" The Master continued after silencing their noisy prisoner.

  "...is that I believe that just like me, the gods don't play dice. We were destined to meet. My research can't go any further without a willing subject who allows me to study true magic, just like your pathetic daddy issues fueled quest can only get you killed if you keep acting on your own.

  Our interests are aligned. If you stop with your temper tantrums, we can make a deal."

  After summoning by their side an Eldritch Abomination to keep in check Gadorf's mood swings, the Master brought him to one of their labs. Gadorf was able to learn about Arthan's Madness and study its blueprints. The insane contraption turned out to be an endless source of inspiration for him.

  Together, they developed the Life Draining array for Gadorf and some of the technology the Master needed to fuse together Abominations in a stable form.

  "I don't get it." While sealed up in one of the Master's gene-tanks, Gadorf could still talk while daydreaming about how inflict to his partner in crime the slowest and most painful death possible.

  "If you are already able to create artificial cores, why didn't you make one for yourself?" Gadorf was a prideful creature, to the point of considering even an equal partnership as a dishonor. He believed to have been born a ruler.