Chapter 3873: A Rare Feat (Part 2)

It was the same way Raum had moved to outpace Bytra and hit Lith before he could react. An Eldritch ability that was supposed to be exclusive to the Wonderer, like Break was to Orulm.

Yet a mere Empowered Abomination could do just the same and move almost as quickly.

"Come on!" The Empowered stomped his claws on the fine carpet, producing sparks whenever its protective enchantments clashed with the Abomination Touch. "Run. Fight. Do something. You can’t have gotten this far by luck!"

The boy and the girl were weak, but the child was an insect. His mana flow and life force were so faint that the Empowered’s bottomless hunger didn’t register Owl as a tasty meal.

’Yet he’s excellent bait!’ The Abomination grinned, lashing with his spindly limb at the child to force the real prey to reveal their ability.

Aryk had no idea what was happening. To him, everything after he had left the soup kitchen made no sense. He still hoped it was just a nightmare caused by his upset stomach after eating old food.

Yet he still moved. Every fiber of his body drove him to throw himself at Owl and shield him from the blow. Much to his surprise, the young boy didn’t budge. Aryk’s feet slid on the floor as he pushed Owl down with all his strength, but the child didn’t move.

"Okay. This crosses the line." He raised his hand like he had done earlier to reveal the hidden arrays, and the Empowered’s arm froze in mid-air up to the elbow. "You shouldn’t have done it, Balagh the Corpseweaver."

"How do you know my name?" The Empowered Abomination tugged at his own arm, but it would have been easier to move a mountain. He tried to shapeshift into his lightning form, and when that failed as well, he severed his arm at the elbow level.

Or rather, Balagh tried.

His right hand froze as well, trembling as if he were amid a snowstorm and he still could feel cold. The trembling spread fast, and with it the paralysis.

"You are not the first Abomination I kill, and certainly you won’t be the last." Owl ignored the Corpseweaver’s question. "Yet you’ve performed a rare feat. You’ve done something very few of your kind have managed to achieve. You’ve made me angry."

The young boy’s eyes shone with white light that burned the Abomination’s limbs like sunrise pushes back the darkness of the night. Balagh screamed at the top of his mana, feeling the power he had painstakingly accumulated through the centuries fade.

Yet the white radiance engulfing him ate sound and darkness alike.

The only way to kill an Abomination was to consume the Chaos that comprised their energy body and kept their black core from fading away. Chaos was more than a Cursed Element to an Empowered Abomination.

It was the recipient of their mind, the measure of their strength, and the vessel that contained the life force they stole to perpetuate their existence. Chaos defined who they were, what they could do, and who they could afford to challenge.

Balagh the Corpseweaver faded, starting from his extremities and moving up toward his chest. In the span of a few seconds, only a tongue of darkness remained, no bigger than a candle flame.

Owl clenched his fist, conjuring a darkness-sealing array inscribed outside the Dark Shell spell. The magical formation prevented Balagh from casting Chaos spells, the only means he had left in his weakened state to break out of the Dark Shell.

The darkness imbued in the hard-light construct sealed the Empowered Abomination and prevented him from regaining his strength.

"It seems I’m lucky." The young boy said. "You must have left your communication amulet at your station, thinking you could retrieve it later. Your rune will stay on and be available. Nobody will come to your rescue, and if they do, they’ll have to go through me first."

When he turned to scold Aryk for the recklessness of his actions, Owl discovered that Aryk was staring at him. At his violet eyes that burned like flames and their vertical pupils.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not a child before you believe me?"

"Who... What are you?" Lilax had wet herself, but she hadn’t even noticed.

Her clothes and dignity were the least of her problems at the moment.

"I’m Leegaain. Father of All Dragons. Guardian of the Gorgon Empire. Imperial Preceptor. Keeper of Mogar’s secrets." Owl’s voice became deep and ancient, carrying the power to cleanse Lilax’s clothes and driving the fear out of the youths’ hearts.

"But you can call me friend. Now, if you’re done with your questions, I need to move. The Corpseweaver’s disappearance won’t go unnoticed for long."

"I’m not done." Aryk said as Leegaain moved past him. "I haven’t even started. What are you doing here, and what’s so important that you have to explore this nightmare place instead of blowing it up? You... you are a god.

"Can’t you just fix everything with a thought?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but there are no gods, Aryk of Dekari." Leegaain replied. "Make no mistake. I’m powerful, but not omnipotent. I’m knowledgeable, but not omniscient.

"As for your other questions, I’m here to rescue my daughter. To do that, however, I need to find the secret lab of her captor, my son, Azith. The last time we faced, he didn’t hesitate to escape because he had nothing to gain from a fight to the death.

"This time, I’m going to take everything he needs for his research away so that he can’t afford to run away. Azith has gained too much power and learned too much to turn his back and run if I put my hands on his secrets."

"Your son kidnapped your daughter and all of us to conduct his Forbidden Magic experiments?" Lilax asked. "If all families are so messed up, I’m glad to be an orphan."

"Definitely not all families." Leegaain walked briskly through a room filled with piled-up gold bars and precious gemstones. "To be fair, my son and daughter have different mothers and were born 49,000 years apart.

"I’m the only thing they have in common and, as far as I know, they never met each other until a few days ago."

"49,000 years?" Aryk echoed, having a hard time imagining what it would be like to live for such a long time.

He had lived for less than fifteen years and was already sick of it.

"Can we pick a souvenir?" Lilax pointed at a ruby the size of her eye. "Just one of those things will allow us to live in luxury for decades."

"Don’t touch anything." Leegaain opened the arrays, leading deeper inside the complex. "Remember that my son is a mage, and he laid protective spells all over this place. One wrong move and you’ll trigger one of the alarms."

Lilax sighed heavily, and the only thing she picked up was the pace.

"Besides, even if you could take one of those gems, it would get you killed." Leegaain deactivated a trap on the doorstep on the other side. "Do you have the strength to hold on to something that precious?

"Do you know someone who’d pay you a fair price instead of killing you and take it for themselves?"

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