Chapter 107

Solus had no idea what Lith had done, to be exact, either of them did. The creature in front of them wasn't dead nor alive, her mana sense had never perceived anything like that.

A normal core was a mass of pure mana, that could be used to interact with the world energy to give life to spells. Awakened beings seemed to be the only ones capable of using the pure mana to obtain various effects, like Invigoration or spirit magic.

An Abomination's black core, instead, was a stronger but corrupted form of mana, that constantly required massive amounts of world energy just to not dissipate. To do that, Abominations gained unique powers.

The Wither they had faced in the past, had the ability to drain life force even from a distance. The plant thing could split his consciousness to overtake and consume the surrounding vegetation while searching for animal preys.

That came at a price, though. Both of them had proved to have a deadly but limited skillset, to the point of having lost the ability to use magic in all of its forms.

The blood core that Lith had accidentally created was completely outside their experience. It was a mass composed by blood and darkness magic, with the remains of Raghul's mana core somehow holding everything together.

Based on what Solus could see, it had both a physical and magical nature. The blood core was completely messed up, without an internal balance or proper structure. It continually expanded and shrank, changing from spherical to ellipsoidal, sometimes it didn't have a shape at all.

It was a creature of chaos, and as such it wasn't bound to last. Every second it would rearrange its host body and itself, causing massive amounts of strain on Raghul's corpse.

When he was alive, he had been a well-built man of average height, with short black hair and a well-trimmed goatee of the same colour, that helped smoothen his square features.

Now his visage was deformed in a perpetual scream of pain, his sharp nose sunk into his face until only the nostrils remained. The skin kept rotting, turning green and peeling off, revealing the muscle tissue underneath before regenerating and starting over again.

The body swelled tearing apart the enchanted clothes, his arms became longer and deformed, enough to touch the ground, the legs bent backwards with an unnatural angle.

- "That's definitely not a vampire. What the heck have I done?" –

The young Byk ran away without a second thought, sensing the impending danger.

The creature started to hiss, watching Lith with eyes full of hatred and contempt. It moved with incredible speed, not even using air fusion to its extreme Lith was able to avoid the charge.

Raghul's fingers had become ten centimetres (4 inches) long razor-sharp talons, that made easy work of Lith's iron heart protector and earth fusion alike.

The hook shaped claws slashed vertically, deeply gouging his chest. Finger-sized chunks of flesh hit the ground, while blood sprayed around. Everything happened so fast that Lith felt pain only when he was already moving to avoid a second strike.

The shock was so intense that in another situation it could have made him faint, but with his life on the line, willpower and survival instinct allowed him to stand it, even if barely.

Lith could feel the rhythmic bleeding over his chest at every beat of his panicked heart, drenching his clothes. It was like having a white-hot branding iron ravaging his flesh, while ice needles pricked the surrounding skin, giving him a numbing feeling that was slowly spreading.

He managed to avoid the second hit, but only because suddenly the creature became distracted, making the swing sloppy and predictable. He exploited the opening to get some distance and heal his wounds.

To his surprise the talon marks were brimming with darkness magic, making the recovery spell much slower and less effective that normal. The creature, instead, had picked the chunks of flesh, playing with them enthusiastically.

It tilted its head sideways, making most of Raghul's hair fall like autumn leaves in the wind, seeming to have realized something important. Then it brought them to its mouth, wolfing them down.

- "The good news is that whatever that is, it's not a vampire. The bad news is that I have no idea how to defeat it." Lith used light fusion, trying to neutralize the dark energy infecting the wound.

"You can either run away or stall for time. It can't live for long." Solus pointed out. –

She could clearly see the blood core falling apart, the strength coursing through the monster was too much for its body, despite all the changes it had went through. Every move, every attack would damage it as much as it did to Lith.

Maybe it was because the creation of the blood core had been purely accidental, maybe because the creature was vulnerable to the sun but being mindless it didn't care.

Whatever the reason, ingesting raw flesh had barely delayed its decaying process.

After the hair, all the skin was shed, leaving the muscles exposed, wet and shining under the midday sun. All its teeth had been replaced by fangs, giving it an alien look.

The creature screamed with fury, noticing that Lith had got away, forcing it to decide if to hunt the creator for whom it felt a deep-seated hatred, or the helpless Rodimas. The sweet smell of dripping blood and the delicious taste of the meat settled the deal.

While Lith and Solus where still talking, less that two seconds after the first blood, the nightmare began.