I never joined the Empire because I cared for the glory or the riches. Everything you see here is mine. I collected it overtime from forgotten cities and sunken ships. I never stole or pillaged; I salvaged these things like I hoped to salvage your people.
The promise was that in exchange for my knowledge, they would have built a fair society, whose long-term goal was equal rights for everyone. Instead they chose once again the easy way, betraying their own people, betraying me for the last time."
Chapter 166 Retribution
The use of slave collars marked one of the Gorgon Empire's darkest pages of history. Milea was young, but not stupid, she could hardly blame Leegaain actions, especially considering that she would wear one too if things didn't change for the better.
It took her a few days to find the courage to ask the dragon about one of her worst fears.
"Leegaain, what's the origin of violent monsters like goblins, orcs or trolls? Are they an evolution gone wrong of magical beasts, or are they man-made?" The question haunted her mind after reading some books.
Seeing her Mentor outrage towards human, she had started to doubt her kin more and more, especially after Milea found out that aside from rare exceptions, undead were all artificially created by humans.
"Some of them, yes. Humans have performed countless experiments trying to rob magical beasts of their magic, giving birth to the werefolk. Undead are simply a by-product of their search for immortality.
Those you mentioned, though, are what we Guardians refer to as the Fallen. Races that lost most of their magical abilities by going down the wrong branch of the evolutionary tree. As humans keep doing, if you ask me.
Why, what did you think?"
"I hoped they were the result of the Abominations' work, to destroy mankind and rule the world." She blushed in embarrassment. The idea sounded incredibly silly now that she had said it out loud.
Leegaain softly smiled at her, patting Milea's head with one of its giant fingers.
"Kid, don't fool yourself. The world is in danger only if you small guys decide so. Abominations are natural magical disasters, they do not plot against anyone, nor do they care about world domination. They only care about survival, just like you."
***
Two years later, Milea left Leegaain's lair, with a new set of clothes and a cape that covered her from head to toe.
Her mana core wasn't yellow anymore, but bright blue, and as soon her body finished adapting to the changes, she would be ready to turn it violet. After expelling most of the impurities in her body, she had become faster, stronger and sturdier than most magical beasts.
The reason for her disguise, was that during those years, it wasn't only her mana core to have changed. She had entered as a scrawny girl, 1.52 meters (5') high, with frizzy unruly hair, and had come out as a 1.75 meters (5' 9") high woman, with long wavy honey-hued hair and twenty more kilos (44 pounds) all in the right places.
Milea wasn't stunning, but she was a beauty nonetheless. Even Warping hundred miles at a time, she needed to rest, and didn't want to make a massacre on the way home.
Her achievements allowed her to join the Gorgon Empire's Magic Council at only twenty-three years of age, becoming its youngest member ever. At twenty-seven she was crowned Magic Empress, and her rule began.
***
Gorgon Empire, one week before Lith was summoned to the encampment.
After over a month of fruitless investigations, Milea's spies had found out the details about the situation in Kandria. The existence of a highly infective plague thwarted her plans of invasion.
The reports spoke about it as something that defied logic and all the rules of light magic, leaving flabbergasted even her best healers. Attacking now was suicidal.
If the plague could be spreaded through the deceased, the Griffon Kingdom could use the infected corpses as projectiles, turning the army of mages the Empire had spent years to train in the most expensive field hospital ever created.
In their shoes, that's what Milea would have done if cornered.
As long the plague was contained, it was their problem, she had no interest in making it her own. As far Milea knew, she was the only Awakened one in the Empire. Leegaain refused to create others, and she didn't trust anyone enough to pass her secrets.
If the Queen and the other seven Awakened ones at her service had yet to solve the crisis, Milea was afraid of what could happen if the situation spiralled out of her neighbours' control.
She was confident about finding a cure, her Mentor had trained her well. The problem was how much time would it take, and how exposed the plague would leave the Empire while she was unavailable.
For that reason, she had all the armies at the borders withdraw and alerted all the best physicians, healers and alchemists to stand ready if necessity arose.
She would read the reports along with the stolen medical files over and over, trying to understand the nature of the infection, but to no avail. Fake mages were unreliable sources, the only way to find out the truth was to examine one of the infected herself.
That, or get hold on the one that engineered that whole mess.
"Your Majesty, the prisoner is ready to be delivered to you anytime you wish."
Milea nodded at her attendant with a sigh. She had ordered to carefully search Hatorne after her capture. Milea had predicted that the genius alchemist would have left her home country and attempted to reach one of the small states surrounding the three great Countries.
In such a place, her abilities would have been greatly appreciated, allowing Hatorne to rebuild her life from scratch and never having to look her back again.
Going through the Blood Desert was suicide, only the tribes knew the safe ways to avoid storms and monsters, and if they caught her, death was the best ending Hatorne could hope for.
Her only option was passing through the Gorgon Empire, bribing her way to the border. Hatorne had discovered at her expenses that the Empire was much less corrupt than the Kingdom, getting caught in a matter of hours after her arrival.
Coirn Hatorne stepped inside the throne room, her hands cuffed behind her back, chained along with her ankles to her waist. The countless hours spent working on her experiments had left her with a hunched back, that made her hard to walk without a cane.
She looked at least seventy years old, with immaculate white hair in a bob haircut. Her clothes were in pristine conditions despite the traveling and imprisonment. The thing that struck Milea the most were the eyes.
Hatorne's face was full of wrinkles, resembling a spiderweb, but her eyes were young and full of energy. Most importantly, they were cold and soulless, like she was the one in control.
Milea looked at her with Life Vision, discovering several magical items that had escaped detection. Later she would examine them to determine if Hatorne's genius was to blame or her attendants' incompetence.
"Your Majesty, you are really as beautiful as the rumours say." Hatorne didn't even attempt to hide the envy in her voice. Milea was over thirty years old, yet she hadn't aged a day past her twenties.
"Spare me your niceties. Prove me you can be useful to the Empire and you'll live, otherwise, I'll send you back without wearing down my stairs again." Milea pointed at the balcony.
Hatorne scoffed at her words, spitting in disgust.
"You can't possibly be that stupid, if you managed to reach the status of Empress, child. What you already know should be enough to grant me safe passage through your Empire one hundred times, if not for you to be beg me to remain here."
Milea snapped her fingers, lifting Hatorne like a ragdoll with spirit magic and making her get close to the balcony at walking speed. Suddenly Hatorne didn't feel so confident anymore, she valued her life above everything.
"Wait! I can give you potions that can break any men's will, parasites that turn the most powerful mage into a lump of meat, hidden weapons that cannot be detected. Isn't that enough?"
Another snap and Hatorne stopped movin
g.
"What you are offering me are new forms of slavery, diseases that can raze a country, tools that even the lowliest of fools could use to kill a powerful mage. Just one of those things could destroy the world as we know it!"
Milea couldn't believe her own ears.
"Weapons don't kill men. Men do. I am only an artisan, I'm not responsible for what others do with my creations."
"That's where you are wrong!" Milea was outraged. "You create without thinking of the consequences, selling nightmares to whoever can afford them. Power without control is the greatest madness."
"Naive fool, with my help you could have ruled the world. Instead you chose to die for your pathetic ideals!" Hatorne pushed one of her teeth with the tongue, releasing from her mouth a barrage of poisoned needles, each one enchanted with a small array that would allow it to ignore air magic.
Milea simply raised her hand, blocking all of them in mid-air, like time had stopped. Hatorne was still shocked, when the needles turned around and darted again, striking her to death.
Milea destroyed Hatorne's corpse and belongings personally. The legacy of such a monster couldn't be allowed to survive.
***
Gorgon Empire, the day Lith killed the three Talons.
"Why are you staring so intensely at the window?" Milea asked.
"Because something unknown is happening, and it's baffling us Guardians." Leegaain replied, tapping with his clawed finger on the frame. After Milea had become Empress, she had managed to convince him to give the Empire a second chance.
The deal was the same as in the past, knowledge, not power, in exchange for whatever law or regulation he wanted to be implemented over time.
"Unknow how?" Milea considered her Mentor to be nigh omniscient and omnipotent, something unknown to him couldn't be good news.
"Look at it yourself." Leegaain's human form hand touched her forehead, allowing her to share his vision.
Very far, somewhere inside the Griffon Kingdom, the world energy was seeping violently into a small figure, while the small figure emitted a pillar of darkness that the world accepted as its own.
"That's the beginning of a world's tribulation. Someone has been recognized by the world and his offer accepted."
"Someone is becoming a Guardian?" Milea almost chocked at the thought.
"Heavens, no. Not even close, but it's a beginning. There are countless tribulations each year, and they end up in failure. What's baffling is that the darkness is typical of an Abomination, but it's not. The tribulation is the one that usually happens to beasts, but it's not. The mana it's drawing upon seems human but¡"
"It's not." Milea caught his drift. "So, what are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing. Whoever it is, is barely stronger than you were when you found me. Also, I don't care what it does, as long it doesn't mess with my turf. It's Tyris' problem, not mine."
***
Griffon Kingdom, Lith's tent.
Since the tribulation had started, the Talons had been experiencing excruciating pain. The darkness that surrounded them wasn't eating their life force like it was supposed to, if was robbing them of their life span.
They aged decades each passing second, their nails and hair growing non-stop to absurd lengths.
"Please, stop." One of the women managed to beg with a hoarse voice, her body dried up and thin like a mummified corpse.
"Shut up and die!" Lith replied, making the energy pulse even stronger. He didn't care anymore for information, their numbers or the contractor's identity. He wanted all of them to die, no matter if young or old, noble or commoner.
He had grown sick of mankind's madness; a culling was needed. Unbeknownst to him, the world had heeded his call, and was considering the offer.
The energy coalesced around him, into an aura that resembled a much bigger figure, enveloped in fire and shadows, with claws on his hands and wings on his back, before dissipating. No trace was left of the Talons, the energy storm disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving Lith and Solus flabbergasted.
Chapter 167 Hard Times
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." ¨C
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 Arj?n 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.
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