Chapter 4575: Peace is Poison (Part 1)
Chapter 4575: Peace is Poison (Part 1)
"Look at that. I’ve gained a lot of weight and muscle, but my new tissues don’t possess auxiliary cores. I’m not a perfect white core anymore, but I can easily fix that."
Silverwing used her aptly named breathing technique, Ascension, to identify the parts of her body made solely of flesh and blood and gave them as many pseudo cores as they needed to break through the barrier between matter and energy.
As soon as the white mana core and Balor body reached perfect alignment, the First Magus evolved again. Her skin went from pale blue to blue, and her body grew to a height of 2.2 (7’3") meters.
She developed no new limbs or eyes, but her hair turned into the six colors of the elements. The multiple small cores in her body reassembled at her navel’s level as more auxiliary cores replaced the small mana cores and filled the new flesh and bones to the brim.
The Fomor Silverwing developed more mana organs, gained superior physical prowess, and her mortal lifespan increased slightly. While Emperor Beasts grew in size and elemental affinities compared to their magical beast form, a Fomor achieved a more energy-efficient body and more bloodline abilities than a Balor.
When Silverwing became an Indech, her skin turned crimson-red and a seventh, vertical eye opened in the middle of her forehead. Her growth in size was negligible compared to the renewed strength of her life force, which flooded every fiber of her being and mixed with her mana flow.
The six elements were no longer split and compartmentalized in her body. They freely coexisted, mixing with each other and the life force in all their possible forms.
Once again, Silverwing had barely time to create enough new auxiliary cores to turn her Indech form into a white core when she took her final evolutionary step.
The pillar of green light around her expanded as the First Magus’ entire body seemed to be stretched, compressed, and kneaded like dough.
’What in Mogar’s name is going on?’ Silverwing experienced no discomfort or pain, but the intense radiance coming from her skin and Mogar blinded her to the latest changes in her life force and appearance.
When the green pillar disappeared and the First Magus looked down at her arms, she remained flabbergasted noticing that her skin wasn’t red anymore, nor was it emerald as she expected.
It was a white so pure that for a moment Silverwing thought marble had replaced her flesh, but a painful pinch proved her wrong. A swiftly conjured ice mirror showed her more unexpected changes she couldn’t explain.
The First Magus was almost three meters (10’) tall, with alabaster white skin, seven eyes, and a single pair of wings on her back. She felt different, but it didn’t mean much since the entire Mogar seemed to have changed.
Elemental colors painted everything around her, giving her the impression of having stepped inside the canvas of a colorblind painter on steroids. To make matters worse, everything was so bright that she felt dizzy and her eyes watered.
The melody of the life forces of grass, insects, and the small critters digging beneath her rest area’s ground mixed with nature’s noise in a head-spinning cacophony that tortured her ears even after she shrouded herself in a Hush spell.
Silverwing took deep breaths to calm herself enough to regain her cool and get a grip on her newfound perceptions.
’Calm down, Lochra.’ Keeping her eyes closed spared her from the tinted nightmare that the world had become. ’I doubt that Mogar’s plan is to drive any human evolving into whatever I’ve become insane.
’There must be a way to shut down all this noise, just like a newborn shields their eyes from sunlight with their arm. I just need to understand how.’ She instinctively wrapped herself in her wings, and the cacophony stopped.
’It was easier than I thought. Too easy, even.’ As soon as she furled her wing a bit, the clamor of the life forces overwhelmed her again. ’Okay, the good news is that I can hear myself thinking again. The even better news is that I can shut down this power at will.
’It has nothing to do with my wings. It’s just a reflex that my new body associates with my need for protection. I just need to understand how to control my hearing. How hard can it be?’
A few hours and countless tries later, the First Magus managed to turn the volume down enough for the natural sounds not to be covered by the melodies of the life forces.
’Okay, I need a plan, and a good one. Yaga probably can’t help me, while Verhen will likely ask me some ungodly price and a full scan of my life force with the Infirmary just to tell me he has no idea what I am.
’Going like this to Roghar is like asking to be imprisoned, while if I go to Leegaain there is no telling how long I will have to hear him babble until he finds a clue. I have only one option left.’
She took one step forward and found herself spinning out of control in mid-air. The grassland below her had become a meters-across crater, and the slight push against the ground had propelled her a dozen meters up in the air.
She landed with the same grace with which she had jumped, using her hands to cushion the impact. Two more craters opened, and Silverwing saw Mogar get farther and farther away.
"Seriously?" Her booming voice scared the birds for kilometers and almost burst her eardrums.
She landed like a sack of bricks, and this time she forced herself to remain still.
"Okay." Silverwing repeated the same word over and over until she adjusted the volume and pitch of her voice to her usual levels. "If this is what I get for walking, I don’t dare try to fly with my wings. I’ll do this the old-fashioned way."
A mix of flight and Warp Steps brought her to the nearest Fringe, and she needed no special technique to cross its boundary. The First Magus’ white core bestowed upon her the ability to reject Mogar’s will, so the countless voices scattered throughout the planet’s consciousness couldn’t hinder her.
Silverwing ignored the elves and the werepeople and went straight to an isolated area to perform the communion ritual. Unlike common visitors, she needed only a single set of elemental runes arranged into a magic circle to request an audience with Mogar.
Every rune she cast produced a silvery, clear note in her ears, the first pleasant sound she had heard since her recent transformation.
’Since when do runes produce musical notes?’ The realization had just hit her when she found herself in the white void of the Mindspace.
"Well, well, well, look who the cat dragged in. Or should I say, the lizard?" Mogar looked like Silverwing in her human form. The only difference between the original and the planet was a mysterious color that replaced the emerald of mana.
The First Magus had long since given up trying to understand what color it was or what it meant, so she didn’t even try to put it into focus.