2157 The Good, the Bad,and the UglyTruth (Part 1)

'No sacrifice is too big if it means always having your back and making sure that even in your darkest hour you are never alone. No matter how deep your suffering is, I want to be there to always remind you how loved you are.'

'Whatever the Royals want from you, we'll face it like we did everything else. Together.' Solus said.

At those words, the darkness and the light merged further until they became one.

The tower trembled as it gained several new floors and every room became larger. The world energy from the geyser was assimilated with enough efficiency to turn the stones that comprised the walls into a material as hard as Adamant.

'Fuck us sideways.' The newborn hybrid thought while staring at their four hands.

After examining their condition with Invigoration, they discovered that Lith's mana core was now bright violet, Solus' was bright blue, and the tower's power core was now capable of converting the world energy into their mana.

Lith and Solus refused to move anything but their neck and eyes. They could feel their body brimming with great power just like they knew they had no control over it. The slightest gesture would've pierced through the tower's wall while the weakest spell was likely to raze the mountain.

'Dammit, I would love to see our reflection in a mirror, but I don't want to bring a new ice age and kill everyone who lives on this mountain.' Solus thought.

Judging from the odd weight on their back and the shift in their center of gravity, there were more than two sets of wings. As for their chest, whatever creature they had become had its body covered in golden and black scales, both with their edges blood-red from the heat sealed within.

It also had four arms of which the first set was entirely black while the second was entirely golden. Each of them was identical to how they were supposed to be when Lith and Solus used their respective body as a base for the fusion.

'It makes sense. This time we both have a physical body and neither side is weaker than the other. Whatever this is, it's supposed to be greater than the sum of the single parts.' Lith thought.

'Big time.' Solus added after the act of taking a deep breath to calm down caused a shockwave that opened a crater in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room.

They both immediately used the tower's control system to make sure that the damages hadn't spread to the nearby rooms and checked on Kamila's position.

'If anything happened to her, I'll never forgive myself.' Luckily for Solus, the effects of her sigh had affected only the bedroom they were in and thanks to the soundproofing spells, Kamila had noticed nothing from the kitchen.

'How do we split?' Solus asked. 'Kamila is here, but since now she knows about me and our relationship, it's not enough to make our minds go out of synch anymore.'

'I don't know.' Lith's paranoid mind was panicking, quickly infecting Solus'. 'More importantly, what about our privates? Are they just neighbors or…'

He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, conjuring instead the mental image of creatures capable of having an offspring by themselves.

'Are you telling me that once we split, I might have gotten pregnant too?' Solus started swallowing non-stop as the harmony of their union was disrupted by its possible consequences.

'How am I supposed to know? I've never fused with anyone else!'

'Me neither!' Lith was terrified at the idea of Kamila finding out and asking for a divorce for something outside of his control while Solus didn't want to pay the ticket for the amusement park just to skip all the rides.

Long story short, their fusion ended as abruptly as it had started.

'Are you-'

'Unless we visit Grandma, we'll have to wait about a month to be sure!' She replied, cutting him short.

'I was about to ask you if you were alright, but that works too.' Lith said while pacing nervously around the room now that he had regained his human form.

The fusion had solved his inner conflict, setting at peace the different wills imbued in his life forces. At the same time, however, it had added jet fuel to the fire of Lith's and Solus' uneasiness about their relationship.

She was in her human form as well but she was so flustered that the blushing extended down to her shoulders and she was so red that she seemed to suffer from a heat stroke.

As for Lith, he couldn't even bear to look at her. He kept moving around the room, avoiding even to get near the bed where she was sitting.

Then, his eyes fell on the Camellia on Kamila's bedside stand, making his stomach churn and color drain from his face as he remembered the reason she had left him alone with Solus.

His pacing resumed and minutes seemed to last hours while he waited for Kamila's return. He couldn't help but check on her from time to time via the tower's security system, but he didn't want to spy on her and just checked her position.

According to the logs, she had gone often to the kitchen and the bathroom, staying most of the time in the guest room.

'At least she hasn't made calls.' He inwardly sighed in relief. 'If she wanted to leave, she would have just needed to call Faluel or any of our friends to pick her up.'

'She's not the type to just run away like a thief.' Solus replied. 'Kami would face you first and tell you what's on her mind.'

Lith recognized the truth in those words, now fearing the idea of Kamila's return as much as of her leaving the tower.

They kept waiting, and minutes turned into actual hours but aside from them regaining their cool nothing happened.

'Do you think I should go talk to her?' Lith asked when he reached the point that uncertainty had become unbearable.

He kept picturing scenarios where Kamila divorced or worse, she would stay with him only for appearances' sake until the war was over. In some of them, she allowed him to help her with the baby while in others she just ran away from him, never to return.

The more time passed, the more he could see things getting worse and worse. When he started picturing Kamila telling the truth to his parents before leaving, causing them to abandon him as well, he couldn't take it anymore.

He stood up, determined to face her once and for all and face the consequences, come what may.

'Absolutely not.' Solus' reply shattered his resolve like a stone thrown at a mirror. 'No matter how good your intentions were, you are responsible for this mess. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to you for putting everything at stake for me.

'Yet by lashing out you forced Kami to face your darkness. She has every reason to be upset and she deserves all the time she needs to make up her mind. If you to her now, you will put even more pressure on her.'