Supreme Magus

2900 Collapsing Eternity (Part 2)

'What's your name, scum?'

'I'm Thaymos the Eternal Fortress, woman. No pair of glasses can-' The Guardian cut him off as soon as she learned what she wanted.

"Thaymos."

"By my Mom, you are right!" Solus couldn't believe her own stupidity. "The limit of the Eyes is that they need to be close to the power core, or in this case, the pseudo core to study it.

"No lost city would open their doors to us and let us study their weak point but now it stands defenseless right in front of us!" A holographic interface appeared in mid-air, depicting the recovered schematics and the progression bar of the scan.

0.2%

The Eternal Fortress was old, but not so much to not understand basic math. Also, as the scan progressed and more lines connected, he recognized the blueprints holding the secrets of his existence.

'This is bad, but I have lots of time to find a way out. Based on how little of my schematics they have recovered until now, it should take this damn tower hours to finish the job.' Thaymos said to himself in the attempt to calm himself down.

The Mirror Hall was full of world energy but it was under Solus' control and it ignored his call.

He then used a sensory array to find a weak point in the containment field trapping him and when he found none, Thaymos conjured tendrils of mana to reconnect with his body outside and use it to absorb the world energy.

Tyris noticed his attempts and increased the power of the containment field.

"This is a great idea but the scan is going to take hours and I don't know how much time we have left." Lith said. "Orion has no idea what you are doing and Thaymos' body is still out there.

"If he decides that the Gate is compromised and follows the original plan to leave Jiera, the moment people notice that Solus and I are not onboard they will start looking for us."

"Don't fret." Tyris shook her head. "I've already covered for your absence and this is not going to take hours."

She placed her hand on the nearest wall of the Mirror Hall, releasing the Life Maelstrom she had left and injecting it straight inside the tower core.

At the same time, the Great Mother expanded her aura and conjured more of Mogar's world energy so that even in its enhanced state Menadion's masterpiece would be at its full strength.

Solus' mana core went from blue to bright blue, breaking through to the deep violet and then growing in power until it reached the bright violet. The tower rumbled under the pressure she exuded, recovering floor after floor and expanding deeper into the ground to keep its existence hidden.

"This is amazing! I-" The happiness in Solus' voice was replaced by pain and her words turned into a scream as too much information flooded her brain too fast.

Her floating spell failed and she doubled over in pain on the floor, quickly followed by Lith. Their bond allowed her to share her suffering with him and lessen her burden but it was too much to bear anyway.

The information about the new floors and the abilities that the old floors gained as the tower core reached completion were burning their synapses. On top of that, the Eyes were still scanning Thaymos' pseudo core.

Lith and Solus shared the burden with Tyris and the tower, but it wasn't enough, not even with the help of the Sage Staff in the Armory. The Eyes were enhanced by the Life Maelstrom as well and with the Guardian's brain supporting the Eyes, the artifact's capabilities were amplified way more than ten times.

The scan progress had already reached 25% and it increased by one percent more in less than a second.

'Well, Thaymos, how does it feel?' Tyris asked as the counter reached 30% and kept increasing. 'How does your so-called eternity collapsing into less than a minute feel? Because that's what you have left to live.'

The Eternal Fortress would have never believed her if not for the blueprints taking form right in front of his senses. He spent what little energy he had regained before the Guardian had sealed him in a futile attempt to escape.

Then, he tried to self-destruct, to bring everyone else down with him, but Tyris' aura blocked that too. Her Mother Earth breathing technique had invaded his crystal body, giving her absolute control over the mana that was his lifeblood.

It was then that Thaymos realized that his life was literally in the palm of her hand.

Her earlier words were no empty banter. She knew all of his thoughts and struggles and was enjoying seeing him squirm just like he had done in the past whenever a worthless insect dared stand against him.

His sensory arrays had managed to analyze the tower and the containment field only because the Guardian had allowed them to. Tyris wanted Thaymos to understand how desperate his situation was while leaving him the illusion of having still a chance of survival.

The revelation shocked him to the point that he lost sight of the progression bar until a pinging snapped him out of it. The scan was already complete and the blueprints of Thaymos' power core laid in plain sight for everyone to see.

"I'm sorry, guys. I would have avoided hurting you if possible but I had no other choice." Tyris helped Lith and Solus to sit down on a couple of chairs she had conjured.

She offered them a delicious honeyed tea that cleared the acrid taste of bile in their mouths and eased the blinding pain in their heads.

"W… what?" Lith stuttered, even forming a single word renewed his pain.

He had to take another long sip of the tea to ease the tension in his brain.

"Shush. It's going to be over soon." The Mirror Hall quaked again as the Life Maelstrom wore off and the tower returned to its original size.

Without the boost from Tyris' bloodline ability and world energy, the new floors collapsed and the old ones lost their newfound abilities as quickly as they had gained them.

Solus felt the pressure on her mind ease as the sudden influx of knowledge disappeared from her memory and her mana core degraded to blue. Yet the relief she felt was matched by the disappointment from losing everything once again.

Amid all that pain and confusion, the only silver lining was the idea to be whole again. That maybe, once the tower had stabilized after recovering all of its strength, she would have been free to roam Mogar like a normal person.

"What do you mean, you had no choice?" Solus finished drinking her tea and fought hard to repress the frustration and anger she felt for the Guardian.

"As Lith said, I can cover for your absence, but if the Wayfinder departs, my ruse will be exposed. This isn't my turf and to maintain such perfect hard-light constructs I need to be close." Tyris replied.

"Couldn't this wait until we relocated the Wayfinder or returned to Garlen?" Lith wrapped Solus' lithe shoulders in his arm to console her.

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