The lost city of Kogaluga was plagued by a dimensional rift from which darkness magic seeped endlessly for no apparent reason. Any living being who died within the city would immediately turn into an undead.

Those reanimated by the rift would all start as lesser undead, like skeletons and ghouls, but they would get stronger over time. The sons of Kogaluga would evolve into greater undead if not destroyed, yet even that would only force them to restart from scratch.

Suddenly, the images from the propaganda video that Phloria and Tista had seen at the theatre made sense. Kolga was Kogaluga's twin city and provided it with the power needed to build a stronghold on Garlen where the merfolk hybrids would live once they conquered the sea.

While Solus put together the final pieces of the puzzle, the two healers finished their job. They deactivated the arrays, bringing the healthy child to its mother, who wept with joy, and their condolences to the other woman, who wept with anguish.

Images from what Solus had just spectated made her feel sick to the core. Her stone body burned with rage, grief, and shame. Shame that came at the idea of using Forbidden Magic to treat Lith's condition.

Solus had studied both the Odi and Arthan's workings enough to know that no matter the method they would choose, their victims wouldn't die a painless death. She had just witnessed the consequences of her projects, of her theories put into practice.

Her stone body twisted in self-loathing and disgust as the pain for her condition got worse by the second.

'Is this how people from Project Manhattan felt after witnessing Hiroshima?' Solus thought. 'Or is this just the effect of the sun's life force flowing into me without Lith's protection? I need him. I don't want to stay alone a second longer.'

Yet tears blurred her eyes and her knees were so weak that she didn't manage to stand up even by leaning against the wall.

'What the f.u.c.k?' She thought, sniffling as slimy snot dripped on her arm.

"What the f.u.c.k?" A male mage said after stumbling into Solus.

On the floor in front of him, there was a petite, pretty woman in her early twenties, about 1.54 meters (5'1") tall. She wore nothing but a stone pin in her long hair that was streaked silver, orange, black, red, blue, and yellow all over.

Under the colored streaks lay a brow so light that her hair shone like gold under the magical lights of the hospital.

The member of any other race in any other city would have been enthralled by the vision, but the merfolk hybrid had no time to spare appreciating her beauty. The only thing he could think about was how the heck had a female human infiltrated Kolga.

***

Blood Desert Fringe.

Kimo, the elder of the Dewan tribe had hoped until the last second that Nalrond would see the light and become a full member of the tribe. Nalrond would gain a new home, a wife, and in time he would be the forefather of the new Rezar tribe.

In exchange, the Dewans would learn all the secrets of Light Mastery, becoming the new Lightkeepers. It would grant them the power they needed to leave the Fringe and build a country of their own.

Kimo and his people had long given up on merging their life forces but after almost being kicked out of the Fringe, they had realized the limits of their haven. The peace that a Fringe offered was a sweet poison, but a poison nonetheless.

With no enemies nor predators, the population grew endlessly while the space inside a Fringe was finite. Its abundant world energy was useless without the enchanted metals and mana crystals necessary to exploit its full potential.

Sooner or later, someone would be exiled from the Fringe, forced to walk Mogar again without the means to protect themselves. Before that happened again, the Dewans wanted to become so powerful that no one would enslave them again.

Nalrond had turned his back on them, forcing their hand. Dealing with the elves meant to allow a potential future enemy to grow stronger as well, but it was the only choice Kimo had left.

"Remember our deal." The Dewan elder said to his elven counterpart.

With Nalrond down, the two humans had no way out of the Fringe. As for the Emperor Beast called Morok, no one cared if he died or escaped.

The Tyrant lacked both the magical knowledge and the artifacts that both ancient tribes living inside the Fringe so desperately needed.

"I'm not a human, human. I don't go back on my word." M'Rael said.

The elf lord looked like a man in his mid-twenties, about 1.75 meters (5'9") tall, with shoulder-length chestnut hair and green eyes. He had a lithe build and delicate features that made him look effeminate compared to the burly man standing at his side.

M'Rael wore a green silk shirt and brown leather pants, both with small mana crystals for buttons and embroidered in Orichalc.u.m that further boosted their enchantments. The suit fit like a glove, emphasizing the grace of every one of his movements.

Only the long, pointed ears coming out of his hair and his light golden skin betrayed M'Rael's inhuman nature.

"In exchange for the prisoners and their goods, we'll teach your people Light Mastery and provide you with enchanted items."

Kimo didn't like the elf's high and mighty attitude nor being called "human", but he could only suck it up. Elves lived inside the Fringe for long before the Dewans' arrival and had the monopoly of the mystical resources that had formed over time.

The Dewan elder nodded, making the elf lord inwardly sneer at the human's stupidity. All Werepeople looked the same under his Soul Vision. A human and a beast fighting against each other while tumbling down a cliff.

No matter which one would win, the result would be the same. In their bloodl.u.s.t, both fighters failed to realize that the longer they struggled, the more likely was for the fall to kill them both.

On top of that, the beast and the man were partly fused together. If one of them died, the other would quickly follow.

The humans, instead, even with their corrupted morals and weak minds were far more interesting. The woman with plenty of fat on her bosom and bottom that for some reason humans found attractive looked like an embodiment of Mogar itself.

Soul Vision showed how the elements flowed in harmony inside her body and orbited around her in the form of a star belt comprised of six small suns of different colors.

The shorter, slenderer woman appeared as a being of pure light that was tainted at her core by a darkness that fought to consume her. M'Rael could see in it Yurial's agonizing face and recognize the deep sense of guilt that had tainted her life, smothering her potential.

The moment he lay eyes upon the Emperor Beast, however, the elf lord had to close and open them multiple times to make sure that they weren't playing a trick on him.

Soul Vision showed him the tall figure of a Tyrant whose six eyes were returning M'Rael's gaze as if it could see him, even flipping him the bird and moving to other more explicit obscene gestures once the Tyrant understood that the elf didn't know the meaning of the first.