2080 A New Life (Part 2)
Almost answering their silent question, black clouds filled the sky. Silver bolts of lightning painted the sands white and the thunders following them sounded like the angry screams of a god.
***
Mogar's moon, Inxialot's secret lab at the same time.
The King of the Liches looked at the events taking place on the planet below with a puzzled expression on his skeletal face.
He rubbed his eyes a few times, believing that it was just a hallucination induced by his centuries of sleep deprivation before he remembered that he had no eyes that fatigue could trick.
"Nero, is it me, or do you see this nonsense as well?" He asked his house pet, an alleged black cat.
"Meoyes. I do." The ancient Emperor Beast in disguise pointed his small, fluffy paw at the cosmos visible from the other windows.
The sun and the stars were still there, but some force on Mogar was sucking their energy, making them invisible from the planet and barely a blur from the moon.
"Fascinating phenomenon." Inxialot stared at a point on Mogar that had started to emit all the stolen radiance, shining like a second sun.
The amount of light energy it emitted destroyed the undead too close to the point of impact, while those who were far away or deep underground enough found themselves awake and back to life.
The imbalance in their blood cores had been temporarily fixed, giving them all the powers of undeath and the mana core of living beings. Abominations would die as well if they stayed close for too long, but their black cores with their endless hunger bought them enough time for a Chaos Warp, if they were quick-witted enough.
The rest of them experienced the first break from the ravenous thirst for life that plagued them just to replace that overbearing feeling with a bottomless fear. They ran, and they kept running until they reached the opposite side of Mogar.
The only reason they stopped was that there was no place further from death where they could move.
As for Liches like Inxialot, they still had their mana core so fixing the imbalance in the blood core of their physical vessel just doubled their prowess. He could feel his whole body brimming with energy like never before.
"I could use this extra mana for an experiment, but I don't know how long it will last and if it goes out in the middle of the procedure, I'll blow my house. I'd better use this opportunity to understand what's between the violet and the white core.
"But first…" The King of Liches called his mother, Aylen the First Lich.
She was already a white core and Inxialot was dying to know if the unknown phenomenon was affecting her as well, bringing her core to the next hypothetical level.
"Hey, Mom how is it going?"
"Good gods, it's everywhere! Help!" The Mother of all Liches was panicked, something that had never happened before.
"Cool, cool." That and Inxialot's madness were the reasons he didn't catch the not-so-subtle subtext. "Look, there's something wrong going on with Mogar. Can you tell me if you feel any different?"
"I feel like I'm dying! Help!" Along with her voice, the amulet carried the rumbling of the earth surrounding her underground lab, the clinking and crashing of crystal vials, and the desperate meowls of her feline assistants.
"Interesting." He steepled his fingers as he activated the device he used to take notes. "Define dying. I know you are being metaphorical since Liches are physically incapable to, but I appreciate the vivid imagery nonetheless."
The tool consisted of an undead small spider whose poisonous glands had been replaced with inkwells. The creature would run along the empty pages of his notebooks, filling them with everything it heard, no matter how senseless.
"I mean dying as in what I'll do to you if you don't move your bony ass and get me out of here, now!" Inxialot's words made Aylen say many things a mother should never even think of their child and what they regretted not having done when she was bathing him as an infant.
Nero groaned in annoyance and operated the Warping Array that connected the moon lab with Mogar. Usually, it needed to be aligned with the location they wanted to move from, but the surge of Inxialot's power allowed the cat to bend the rules a little.
[Get small or you'll blow this place and we'll be sent drifting in the void space!] He said in beast-speak to his brethren.
The white-cored Lich and a small army of cats appeared in the living room surrounded by a pillar of light.
"I'm going to murder you, fucker!" Ayleen grabbed Inxialot by the neck and started squeezing, but to no avail.
"In a sec, Mom. My neighbor has just arrived and I want his opinion on this." He leaned out of a window with the First Lich still attempting to strangle him. "Hey, Fenagar. Any idea what's going on?
"Quakes from the Empire, black light from the Desert, and-"
"Run for your life!" The Leviathan closed every access to his lab shut before making it burrow underground. Just to be safe.
***
Griffon Kingdom, Ranaku Region, Sazar Household, present time.
Orbaf the Treant had already unleashed the tier five spells from the magic holding rings on his fingers. Failing to capture the female would be bad, but at least Verendi's Council would still have its revenge.
Also, he had no intention of waiting for the Royal Guards to arrive. No matter what his master had promised him, it wasn't worth dying for.
A delicate, minuscule hand compared to his bulky size caressed his cheek while another reached for his hip with sensual grace. Then, they pulled in opposite directions, ripping him into three huge chunks of wood.
With his focus lost, the spells were supposed to fade away. Instead, they turned around and rained upon his allies. Tier five spells had a huge area of effect and had been fired with the intent of killing everyone in the room.
Yet not a single spark of energy reached the humans as their power was focused into beams of elemental laser.
"How dare you attack my blood?" From behind the mangled but still living body of the Fae, Salaark's voice sounded like a frenzied storm.
The Overlord of the Desert was seething with an anger that made the volcanos that were also erupting all over the Kingdom look like matchsticks in comparison. Flames burst from her eyes with increasing intensity until their blazes reached the ceiling.
Every single muscle of her visage twitched in fury, making red feathers emerge from her skin. It was a vision that would have terrified the most foolish and mad individual on Mogar, but it was made even worse by the equipment she wore.
The silver armor and the black blade were Guardian-level weapons she only used when facing a member of her kin and only if they both agreed on putting their life on the line.
"We didn't-" Much to Jirni's surprise, Pilmo was just playing dead. Ganglia allowed insects to keep moving even after their head was destroyed and breathed through the exoskeleton for Invigoration.
"Shut up and die!" Salaark's voice was filled with so much mana that it hit the Mikuna like a mind link, forcing the Emperor Beast to obey and her heart to stop.
