Supreme Magus

"Who… are... you?" Chyrsha took the first deep breath in months, her lungs free from the liquid they had drowned in until a moment ago.

"I'm Supreme Magus Verhen." Lith shapeshifted his helm away and opened his five extra eyes to prove his identity. "Rolam is okay now. I've sent him outside and many healers are taking care of him. You have nothing to worry about.

"I'll have you-" Lith broke the straps binding Chyrsha's arms and she put a hand on his mouth.

"Thank you." She gasped, clenching her teeth in a desperate effort. "Please, tell him-"

The last spark of blood-red mana in Chyrsha's core died out and so did she. Her head fell and her body slumped forward.

Chyrsha of Zeska died of relief in Lith's arms.

Her tortured body had long outlived itself and kept going on thanks to sheer willpower.

Lith knew Chyrsha was beyond saving the moment he had examined her, yet he had allowed himself to hope. To hope that after years of practice and countless hours spent training, he was strong enough to make the difference.

Strong enough to save just one more life.

Chyrsha's body had been too weak to deliver her final message to Rolam but her soul had lingered enough to tell Lith everything she needed to say before moving on.

Lith saw her memories as a young woman when the local healer of Zeska told Chyrsha that she would never have children. Lith heard her cries and experienced her despair after she realized that no normal job would earn her enough money for the procedure.

Everything changed the day someone left a wicker basket outside her door. Inside there was a baby boy wrapped in a warm wool blanket and nothing else.

Chyrsha had thanked the gods for their mercy and adopted the baby as her own. She had named him Rolam, which meant blessing, because he was the only blessing she had ever prayed to receive.

Mother and son led a simple but happy life in Zeska until the War of the Griffons. Chyrsha never trusted Thrud's sweet words and escaped at the first opportunity, afraid that her son would become another victim of the Mad Queen's experiments just because Chyrsha was poor.

She had come to Kophar, where she had started a new life, hoping to be safe. Chyrsha had endured the fear and coldness of her neighbors. They thought her a spy and showed her no kindness.

Chyrsha ignored them and worked hard to give Rolam a roof over his head and food on his plate. Then, Kugoh's thugs had come and the nightmare had begun. Continue your adventure with My Virtual Library Empire

Lith experienced Chyrsha's suffering, her days of agony and worry as she struggled to keep her baby boy, her miracle baby as she called him, alive for just one second longer.

Lith felt her relief and joy upon seeing the face of her savior. Upon Chyrsha realizing that her suffering was finally over.

His body tensed like steel as his own memories flashed in front of his eyes. Carl's corpse on the metal stretcher of the Morgue. Raaz's maimed body on Hogum's dinner table. Phloria dying in his arms. Elina lying in bed after the attack.

Lith's emotions stirred, his rage burned, and his old wounds ached like they had never healed. He took everything and sealed it deep inside of him. Everything still seethed but the lid was closed, letting it simmer.

Lith took another deep breath and a violent blast of Origin Flames flooded the room. The Knight Guard's members raised their arms to protect themselves but the fire was cold to the touch.

The chairs and the people trapped on them didn't suffer a single burn. The toxins and parasites inside their bodies, however, evaporated like a snowball on the sun.

The prisoners moaned and sighed in relief, every fiber of their beings cleansed from the burden of feeding a hive. The nutrients dispensed by the drips finally reached their weakened organs without being intercepted by the hungry worms.

Most of the people strapped to the chairs regained their color, some even had their skin become less taut. Relaxing their jaws hurt after clenching their teeth for so long, but it was a pain they welcomed with joy.

The Knight Guard's members rushed to check the conditions of the prisoners and looked for burn signs but they found none.

"You are going to be fine, sir/ma'am/kid." The soldiers said while cutting the restraints open. "The hostages on the second floor have already been rescued with no casualties. Your family is waiting for you outside."

"Thank you." The prisoners wept weakly, their voices hoarse from the prolonged screaming.

Two more people among the hosts of the anti-mana parasites died while the Knight Guards helped them to stand up, their bodies past the point of recovery as well. They first lost consciousness and then what color was left in their cores turned to grey before dissipating.

They passed away peacefully and without pain, smoothly transitioning from sleep to death without noticing it.

Yet none of that mattered to Lith.

He could feel Chyrsha's corpse in his arms getting cold. The stillness of its heart produced a deafening silence only matched by the lack of pulse.

Lith gently combed the brown-reddish hair with his fingers, cleaning the woman's face from snot, tears, and saliva after closing her eyes. The light in the brown pupils was gone and he couldn't stand looking at them anymore.

He was aware of being thousands of kilometers away from Lutia. Lith knew he was on a mission for the Royals that nothing had to do with his family.

Yet, in that moment, he wasn't holding the lifeless body of Chyrsha of Zeska. Despite what his eyes and nose screamed at him, he was holding the body of Elina of Lutia.

The image of his mother overlapped with the dead woman he had just met, making his heart bleed. They were very different in appearance and upbringing. Their fates were nothing alike but their hearts were the same.

Both women had raised a boy who wasn't their own and protected him with everything they got. Whether his name was Lith or Rolam was just an insignificant detail.

Lith removed the tap from her abdomen with great care, as if to lessen her discomfort and make the procedure as painless as he could. Then, he fixed the gaping wound in her flesh with a chore magic Necromancy spell.

"Mom wouldn't want me to see her like that." He mumbled. "She wouldn't want me to know how much she suffered."

Lith couldn't stop picturing that was exactly how Elina might have ended without Shargein's protection. She was innocent, yet those Awakened didn't care. The Emperor Beasts didn't care. No one but him seemed to care.

Lith wrapped Chyrsha's body in the mantle of his uniform and handed it to Captain Thaas.

"Take the prisoners outside and stay there." He said. "It's not safe for you here anymore. I'll deal with the rest of the Emperor Beasts alone."

Lith's voice was cold to the point of sounding absent-minded. His eyes stared in the void, lost in places and times only he could see.