Chapter 4512: Lifting the Veil (Part 2)
Chapter 4512: Lifting the Veil (Part 2)
"Why are you telling me this?" The Dryad swallowed hard. "Are you trying to scare me?"
"I’m trying to reassure you." He took a deep breath, checking the strength of his life force and testing his ability to focus. "You’re the perfect patient, Althika. If anyone can survive this, it’s you.
"Are you ready to begin the second step of your treatment?"
"What about my baby?" She asked, placing her hands on her swollen womb to protect it.
"I won’t even come close to him." Lith replied. "He’ll be safe. You have my word."
Althika used her breathing technique to check on the small life growing inside her, and her heartbeat steadied after listening to her son’s.
"I’m ready." She nodded. "Do I need to close my eyes again?"
"Meln can no longer interfere, but I’d rather you not watch. As Lady Yaga said, let’s avoid pointless stress."
"Okay." The Dryad leaned her head against the pillow and closed her eyes, trying to convince herself she was just about to take a nap.
Lith placed his hands on her forehead and chest again and listened to the other aspects of his life force.
’Wrong! This is wrong!’ The Voidfeather Dragon was still loud and angry, while the Void had gone silent.
A deep breath ignited the Dread Flames, and a second breath wreathed Lith in them, covering him from head to toe.
"Listen to me, Althika. No matter what happens, don’t fight me. Fight him." Lith’s words made no sense to her until the Dread Flames seeped inside her body.
They phased through the Dryad life force without harming it and encroached on the Upyr side. As a hybrid, Althika had one mana core and two distinct life forces that weren’t supposed to overlap.
In her case, however, the Upyr had silently invaded the Dryad side, and the two life forces presented several contact points. Lith focused the Dread Flames there, burning the Upyr life force even at the cost of harming part of the contaminated Dryad side.
Althika clenched her teeth in pain, but followed Lith’s instructions and kept her regenerative abilities in check. Her Dryad life force remained still, accepting the Dread Flames’ liberating touch as it drove the Upyr side away.
"Now you can heal." Lith said. "Tap my hand once you are done."
Althika nodded and tapped his hand.
"Now, fight with me." Lith released one more breath of silvery flames, and this time it was a sword, not a scalpel.
It cut deep into the Upyr life force, opening a path that the Dryad side exploited to invade its hated enemy. The Upyr side fought back, but new tongues of Dread Flames burned it down and cleared new paths for the Dryad life force.
Every time Lith killed part of her Upyr side, Althika felt pain, but it was a pleasant kind of pain, like bursting a boil or sewing an open wound close. It was the kind of pain that promised the end of suffering, and was followed by relief as her tissues healed.
Lith destroyed the Upyr life force one burst of Dread Flames at a time, allowing the Dryad side to reclaim Althika’s body piece by piece. Once the treatment ended, she was no longer a Divine Beast.
She felt weaker than she had in months, and her body seemed to have turned into trembling jelly. The loss of her raw physical might pained her plant folk’s innate thirst for power as a real wound, but she didn’t care.
She also wasn’t corrupted anymore. With her Upyr side gone, the veil cast by Orpal’s bloodline was lifted from her eyes. Althika could think freely again and finally realized the steep price she had paid in her dogged quest to become a Divine Beast.
"Gods!" She cried warm tears of relief and regret. "What have I done? What have I become? How could I have been so stupid?"
"That’s how corruption works, child." Baba Yaga wiped the sap-sweat off the Dryad’s face and caressed her hand. "Only evil people and those who just pretend to be good fall into its clutches in one go.
"Stupid people like you, instead, start by taking a small bite, telling themselves it’s not a big deal, and they can stop anytime. Then they take another, and a bigger one next, until they get so used to the taste that they consider it normal.
"That’s how most people fall into corruption without even noticing. You take one step away from your original self until you’re not able to see what you looked like anymore and convince yourself you’ve always been like that."
Being called stupid hurt the Dryad’s pride, but realizing the depth of her stupidity was much worse.
"How do you feel?" Lith was back sitting on the floor, his breathing more ragged than before.
"Stupid." Althika sniffled as tears and snot ran down her face. "Like the dumbest person on Mogar. Yet I know that’s not what you’re asking. I feel better than fine. I feel like I’ve been born again."
"That’s good." Lith took a barrel of tonics and gulped it down.
"I’m sorry for raining on your parade, but I need to ask." Baba Yaga said. "What’s the point of this? Althika will revert into a Upyr in a few months, if not even weeks. You’ve solved nothing; you’ve just delayed the inevitable."
Those words hit the Dryad like a slap and made Lotho’s eyes go wide.
"She’s right." The Treant’s voice sounded like the rustling of leaves. "The baby’s Vurdalak blood is always flowing through her veins, and she gets more by the second. The more the baby develops, the faster her transformation will be."
Althika bent forward in a defensive position, shielding her child from those she now realized would always be her enemies.
"I know that." Lith replied. "I never said I’m done. I’m just recovering before I start the third step of her treatment."
"The third step?" Althika echoed in disbelief. "The Dead King’s fragment is destroyed, and I’m no longer an Upyr. What are you-"
The words died on her lips as she reached the only possible answer to her own question.
"My baby? You want to breathe your cruel fire on my baby?"
"No, I promised you that I would save your baby, and that’s what I’m going to do." Lith replied.
"Save how?" Althika snarled. "He’s too small and weak! He’s not like me. I was never supposed to have a Upyr side, whereas my son Vurdalak’s side is an integral part of him. He’ll die if you burn away half of his life force."
"Have you forgotten what Lady Yaga said after examining you?" Lith’s voice was calm, yet there was no warmth in it. "What she recommended us to do? Your child is a threat to every form of life on Mogar. He’s the seed of a plague waiting to spread itself."
"I know, but-"
"There’s no but." Lith cut her short. "If you send me away, your son will be hunted down all his life. There will be people who want his blood for themselves and those who want to kill him, yet no matter who finds him first, he’ll never know peace."