Darkness Falls

That long conversation had been pretty exhausting for Lith, adding new weight to his burden. However it was not for the information he acquired. All in all, he felt that his situation was still pretty good with or without an academy.

The only adjustment to his plans was that, after joining the Mage Association as a de facto outer circle member, a rogue magician, he would need to rack up merits as soon as he could.

He would need them to be taken as an apprentice by a good Forgemaster.

Normal merits would do him no good, he needed those he could earn as a magico, serving the Mage Association as best as he could.

The only real problem with his current situation would be wasting four more years of his time, like the proverbial frog in the well.

The reason why Lith felt so down, was that he had finally realized how much his friends had invested in him. Not only in terms of money, but also time, passion, and hopes.

It wasn't the failure bothering him, but the fact that with his brash and uncaring attitude, he had hurt their feelings, treating the whole thing as a joke. Lith had to admit that in their shoes, he would feel like he had cast pearls before a swine for years.

Sure, Count Lark wasn't as judgmental as him, but Lith could see how deeply he cared, and how wounded he was after the last rebuke.

It was the first time that Lith felt that despite the fact that he had won the battle, he had ended up losing the war.

Aside from second-guessing, there wasn't much he could do at that point. So, he promised himself to reconsider everything with a fresh set of eyes if the opportunity arose, and decided to move to a more pressing question.

Lith had yet to solve his issues with tier four magic, and asking Nana was out of the question. It would reveal too much to her and expose how deep his comprehension of magic was, despite the fact that he was just a self-taught.

The only card he had yet to play was to ask for the help of his friend, the Ry king in the west of the Trawn woods. Thanks to his cyan mana core, Lith had become less scared of it, and during the last few years they had developed an odd sort of relationship.

Lith would use it as a confident, sometimes asking it advice about fire and wind magic, the two elements the Ry could use. In exchange, Lith would help him with the problems in the east zone of the woods.

After Irtu's death, there wasn't a magical beast strong enough to take its place. From time to time the power struggle among the various factions would affect the balance of the forest.

In those situations, the Scourge and the Protector would join hands to force the magical beasts to a truce.

At the moment, tier four fake magic was a mental bottleneck that neither he or Solus could overcome. Despite being able to cast all the spells he had found in the Count's books, they kept making no sense to him.

It was something unacceptable, eating Lith from the inside.

He had always hated riddles unless he was the one asking them.

Lith had almost arrived home when he caught a familiar smell.

"What the heck are you doing outside the woods? If someone sees you, it could trigger a witch hunt. The last thing I need right now is for you to have a bounty on your head and me having to explain why I'm not interested."

"I know." The Ry replied. "But desperate times call for desperate measures. A monster has appeared in the woods, strong enough to pose a threat to my cubs as well as for yours. We need your help."

'I have never seen the Ry scared before, whatever this is, it must be damn important.' Lith thought.

After agreeing to help, the Ry asked him to hop on its back. The magical beast then launched itself at its top speed towards the woods. Between the use of air fusion and its physical prowess, Protector was able to easily reach the 300kph (186 mph), making it a short trip.

When running that fast, the Ry would conjure a wedge-shaped wind blade in front of itself. The wind blade was used as a windscreen to protect them from insects and dust. At that speed, even a fly would hit them with the energy of a bullet.

The wind blade also created a slipstream effect, allowing Protector to go even faster.

Lith's horsemanship ability amounted to a single lesson over two lifetimes ago, so he needed all of his focus and willpower to stay upright on the Ry without falling off.

The Ry had a thick and soft fur, but being unable to follow its movements, Lith was forced to use both earth fusion and light fusion to prevent permanent damage to his nether regions.

"What kind of threat are we going to face? Is it really necessary to go so fast? If you continue on like this, I don't know if there will be enough of me left to do anything!"

"Quit whining, we are almost there. And yes, speed is of the utmost importance when facing an Abomination." Protector replied.

Lith's mind went through all the bestiaries he had in Soluspedia and all his tabletop and video game RPG memories before giving up.

"What the heck is an Abomination and why is it so dangerous?" He asked.

"You don't understand. We don't call it an Abomination for what it does, but for what it is!"

They were headed north, into a region of the woods that Lith had never visited before. It started slowly, like the tension in the air before a storm. Only after they had gotten deeper into the woods, could Lith understand what the Ry meant.

Soon the grass started to thin out until there was none at all. The earth laid bare as if there had been a drought that lasted for the past few months. The undergrowth had disappeared and so had all kinds of life forms.

The trees around them had their bark completely blackened out. They had no leaves nor branches left standing, resembling giant wooden stakes. There was no sound at all, everything seemed out of a post-apocalyptic movie, after a nuclear fallout.

The natural landscape was completely destroyed as far as the eye could see.

After a while Lith could clearly hear the sounds from a battle, so he focused his eyes, enhancing his eyesight.

They were closing in on some kind of moving shadow, locked in ranged combat with a Gylad, a stag type magical beast with a shoulder height of over two meters (7 feet), and weighing at least 900 kilograms (2,000 pounds). It had light brown fur with shades of blue.

Attacking the shadow from the flank, there was also a Shyf, a puma type magical beast as big as a tiger, with a shoulder height of 1.5 meters (5 feet) and weighing over 300 kilograms (660 pounds). It had a honey-colored fur with shades of green.

"The Gylad is the king in the north, Lifebringer, while the Shyf is the king in the south, Reaper." Protector quickly introduced Lith to their allies.

"That thing is the Abomination. Stay away from it as much as you can, or it will suck you dry like everything else."

The Abomination was oddly shaped. It could stand up on its hind legs, resembling a man with very long and thin limbs, or it could stand on all fours, becoming large and stumpy like a pig a kid had drawn.

"What the heck is that thing?" Lith unleashed five fireballs with a wave of his hand. The Abomination was surrounded by a thin black fog, with a radius of fifteen meters (16.4 yards).

By traveling through the fog, the fireballs shrank in size, and when they hit, the resultant explosions were diminished by half when compared to their usual effectiveness.

The Abomination emitted a low-pitched scream that sounded far more like desperation rather than pain.

The Ry howled, conjuring a pillar of wind that pinned the shadow creature down to the ground, allowing the other kings to rest and regroup.

"That's your idea of back up? A human?" If someone had ever thought that a stag could not look ferocious, he would be forced to think again when he looked at the Gylad.

"Less yapping, more catching your breath." The Shyf panted heavily.

"If he's good enough to take down Irtu and Gerda, he's fine by me."

Lith noticed that one of the Shyf four legs was actually made of earth. The real one was unnaturally atrophied and dried.

'A prosthetic limb out of earth magic? What an amazing amount of control it must have, to move it like a real one. I wouldn't even notice if the Shyf wasn't so close.' Lith thought.

Having noticed Lith staring at it, the Shyf explained:

"That's what happens when you are so arrogant that you let the Wither get close enough to touch you. I would be dead if Lifebringer hadn't caught its attention long enough for me to escape."

"Wither? Isn't that an Abomination?"

The Gylad scoffed. He wanted to reproach the Ry, but the pillar of wind was dissipating, so he preferred bringing Scourge up to speed rather than wasting time bickering.

"An Abomination is when a creature of the forest fails to evolve. Normally they die on the spot, but more rarely they lose control of the world energy and become insane. Abominations are incredibly strong, with exceptional powers that make them as strong as Emperor Beasts.

"Being them mindless beings, usually a king is more than enough to put them down. On very rare occasions, we all gather together to kill a unique Abomination, like in this case. It shouldn't be difficult to understand why we call it a Wither."

The Gylad pointed with its snout to the dead woods around them.

"How the heck did he cause all this damage?" Lith couldn't believe that three creatures of such power couldn't take down a single monster.

"Simply by existing." The Ry explained. "Wherever it goes, everything dies. Whenever we are about to kill it, its body becomes so formless that nothing we do can pin it down.

"So, it escapes to a healthy zone of the woods, heals itself and we have to start everything from scratch. We have been fighting it for three days, we can't hold out much longer. That's why I decided to ask for your help, Scourge.

Unlike us, all the elements obey your command."

Lith nodded, trying to assimilate everything he had just learned.

'They have been fighting for three days? Holy sh*t, that's some stamina. Solus, analysis!'

'Yes, skipper, I mean Lith. All the kings have a cyan mana core, but Protector is most likely to have a breakthrough in the next few years.'

'I meant the Wither! Misty aura, shadow body, is it an undead?' Lith watched the creature writhe and moan under the dissolving pillar. According to Earth's fantasy literature and the new world lore, undead were supposed to have red glowing eyes.

The Wither's orbits were pitch black, like the rest of its body.

'It's not an undead. Its lifeforce is nothing like I have ever seen before, nor is its magic aura. What the heck could a black mana core mean?' Solus replied.