Supreme Magus novel Chapter 682

"Saving Protector gave me Death Vision because it crippled my life force." Lith said. He could only blame himself for losing his cool earlier.

"What does it mean?" Phloria actually knew enough about light magic to put the pieces together, but her brain refused to.

"It means that he is dying." Quylla said, making her sister turn pale as a ghost.

"I hope you haven’t focused on Body Sculpting because of me." Lith said.

"I’m not doing it only for you, but also for people like Zinya. Body Sculpting is the next frontier of healing magic, yet few people practice it because of its risks. I researched the Odi because I think they might have found a solution to your problem."

’What the heck? Quylla came here for the same reason.’ Solus was shocked and so was Lith.

"I’m not in love with you, but I care for you deeply. You’re part of my family." She said hugging him again. Hearing Quylla using almost the same words he had told Phloria at the beginning of the expedition, gave his cynical heart a blow too many.

Lith returned her embrace, not caring anymore about keeping up appearances and stupid rumors.

"Seriously, what the fuck?" Phloria demanded an explanation and this time Lith went into details, even telling her how much he was supposed to have left to live. By the time he was done, Phloria’s outlook on their mission was completely changed.

If before it was just a detail mission, now it was personal. Phloria took a walk to clear her head. To her, Kulah was no longer a threat to defend against, it was a fortress to storm which potentially held a priceless treasure.

Her instincts told her to put her suit back up and keep exploring the city, but it only lasted an instant. She knew that raw power and will could only take her so far. The key for that peculiar vault was knowledge, not violence.

The Odi had left too many self-destruct mechanisms that she was unable to deal with on her own. She needed to rest and she needed to wait.

Morok approached her to ask if since there were two of them and one of Lith they needed a fourth player, but before he could even open his mouth, Phloria glared at him.

It was a look that all of Jirni’s victims knew all too well, holding a promise of infinite pain and misery. In Morok’s case, it reminded him of the look of the Phoenix that had caught him in the attempt of taking one of her eggs to check if a Phoenix omelet was as spicy as legends said.

He had survived the encounter only because after throwing him off the top of her mountain with all of his spells sealed, the beast hadn’t bothered confirming the kill. Having learned from his past mistakes, the Ranger gave her a salute before remembering about a very important matter he had to attend to somewhere else.

***

In the following days, they kept searching one building at a time. The second facility had collapsed, leaving behind no trace of the Odi experiments to create artificial Adamant.

After discovering the records of the umpteenth failed monstrosity, the team had decided to explore the right area hoping to have better luck. What they found out, instead, was that while the left side of Kulah held labs and research facilities, the right side was composed of the personnel living quarters.

They found shops, restaurants, and even a library. Unfortunately, it was a civilian library, so it only contained books unrelated to the Odi research. It was a gold mine for an anthropologist, but just a pile of garbage to the expedition team.

Just to not leave any stone unturned, they explored one building of each side per day.