Chapter 3931: Fallen Goddess (Part 2)

"After all, it will be the Master’s duty to help you in case you’re injured in the future and to further your evolution, Big Sis." Lith said. "Yet he has no claim on me or my legacy. He chose me as his heir, not the other way around. Do we have an understanding?"

"We do." Zoreth finished her teas and offered him both her right hands.

"Good." Lith shapeshifted into his Indech form and shook them both with his fiery-red hand. "We’d better start immediately. I can’t wait to go back home."

"Oh, my!" Zoreth held his head in her hands and turned it left and right to observe the Indech’s striking features from different angles. "Now that I see you without the life support liquid and the crystal tank blurring my vision, I have to admit you are much more handsome in this form, Little Brother."

"Thanks. I can’t help but wonder why you got angry with Bytra when she treated you exactly like you are treating me now." Lith replied drily as she moved on to pat his muscular arms and chest.

"That’s different! She’s my wife, and she should like me for me." Zoreth tried to defend her double standards, but her flaming red face now matched Lith’s and exposed her honest thoughts. "You are my little brother, and this is just scientific curiosity."

"I would believe you, if Kami hadn’t used those same words arranged in a slightly different order to justify her experiments last night."

"I see." Zoreth became even redder and let go of Lith. "Please, promise me that we’ll pretend this never happened and never talk about it with anyone else. And I mean anyone."

"Deal." Lith nodded. "Before moving on, we need a name for your hybrid form. What about Arke?"

It was the name of a mythological goddess of rainbows from Earth who had her wings ripped off and was thrown into the abyss as punishment for her treachery. In more ways than one, she reminded Lith of Zoreth’s current condition.

"It doesn’t mean anything vulgar in any language I know, and it sounds much better than ’that thing’. Arke it is." She nodded.

***

During the following days, Lith explained the basics of how the abilities of an evolved human worked to Zoreth. He taught her the relationship between his wings and his eyes, and performed tests with the Infirmary to check if the rune patterns on her arms had a similar connection to her eyes.

"My theory is correct." Lith said while studying Zoreth’s Arke life force on the holographic display.

It resembled a humanoid four-armed colossus made of colored strings, blocks, rods, and gemstones. Most of the threads comprising the colossus were red like the blocks of a regular human, while the rest were black, white, blue, and crimson, and spread evenly.

Past the shoulder level, the colored threads took over, each elemental color forming one arm intertwined with a few red threads. A gemstone was studded on the back of each hand, shining with an inner light of the same color as the arm.

Four whirlpools enveloped the arms and absorbed the surrounding world energy, but there was no way to tell if they were connected to the threads, the gemstones, or both.

More gemstones constellated the colossus’ feet, hips, chest, and head. They shone with black and white light, resembling the life force of an unfallen troll, but instead of light and darkness, the gemstones shone from within with Chaos and Decay.

Four elemental spheres enveloped as many colored gemstones in place of the colossus’ eyes, each connected to its corresponding arm by a thick bundle of elemental threads.

Last, but not least, a gray star burned where the heart was supposed to be, storing all the Eldritch energy that the black and white gemstones failed to contain.

"Your arms serve a purpose similar to my wings, but we have different mana organs."

"Any idea what they do or how to activate them?" Zoreth asked while keeping her four hands on the tank.

"Do you think I would need Ryla’s help discovering and mastering my own abilities if it were that easy?" Lith snorted.

"Point taken." She replied. "Let’s get outside. I don’t want to mess up while we experiment on my Arke life force and hurt Solus."

Lith taught Zoreth how to imbue her eyes with the elements, but not how to focus her willpower into them. He had no interest in teaching her Domination since that wasn’t a human bloodline ability but something all races could do.

’I’m not serving another powerful weapon to dangerous people like Vastor or Tezka on a silver platter.’ He thought. ’I know it’s only a matter of time before they learn it on their own, but I’d rather it happens later than sooner.’

Right after evolving into an Arisen, Vastor had described Lith the weird experience of seeing the focus points in the spells of his enemies and his newfound ability to tamper with them.

The Master had only two eyes and was limited to the light and darkness elements, but Lith didn’t doubt that Zoreth would be able to do the same with fire and water after receiving Vastor’s guidance.

Moreover, if the Master were to manage to replicate Baba Yaga’s treatment for the rest of the hybrids and Kigan mastered his human aspect as well, the Organization would have gained access to Domination over all elements but Spirit Magic.

When Lith and Zoreth encountered a hurdle they couldn’t solve on their own, he asked Ryla and Morok for help, hoping that either the legacy of the Balors or the uncanny intuition of the Tyrant might help.

"Your friend is amazing." Ryla said after Zoreth demonstrated the ability to amplify the Fomor’s elemental powers with her eyes and also store them in the rune patterns in her arms for later use. "Yet she belongs to a different species.

"Are you sure you don’t want to ask Carana for guidance? She could teach Zoreth about her arms and help her discover abilities she possesses and we don’t."

"I’m sorry, but that is off the table." Lith shook his head. "Carana would ask questions we can’t answer. Like how we managed to create a Balor-troll hybrid and why we can’t stabilize her like we did with Zoreth."

"We didn’t create her. Zoreth was already like this." Ryla replied. "Also, it’s not our fault if Baba Yaga refuses to help Quylla."

"Do you honestly think that Carana will gracefully accept that Baba Yaga has helped Zoreth to this extent and yet turned her back on the trolls and Traughen, her own blood, after they begged her?" Lith asked.

"No." Ryla sighed. "Carana is no friend of mine. She despises me and would probably expose this project to whoever is willing to listen to her."

"That’s what I feared." He nodded. "I would trust Carana if we could offer her something in return for her guidance, but we can’t. Quylla has already examined Zoreth’s Arke life force and said that it’s of no use to her.

"Zoreth is stable, but her troll side is still Fallen. What works for her wouldn’t work on another troll, let alone a Traughen like Carana."

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