"That's why I advise you not to use that spell and why higher Necromancy will not help your friend. The corpses you would raise will already have a soul of their own, you can't just create an empty vessel. Nature abhors the void, in all of its forms."
Lith sighed. Suddenly lesser Necromancy was much more alluring. Mindless thralls were much easier to handle compared to sentient undead that would look at him as a father.
The idea of nurturing such creatures just to dispose of them like trash was cruel even for him.
- "I'm so sorry, Solus." Lith thought. I really hoped to give you a body through Necromancy. Kalla hasn't evolved from long, though. She might be wrong, maybe there is a way to give you a physical form. Are you sure you don't want to try a construct or something?"
Solus didn't know whether to laugh or cry at Lith's stubbornness.
"I told you countless times: I already feel like a monster. I have the body of a construct, I feed off your mana like an undead or a construct would. I want to get out of my cage, not exchange it for a new one."
Seeing that Lith was even more disappointed than she was, Solus embraced his soul with her own. A warm sensation invaded Lith's being.
"Stop worrying about me. I'm fine, I really am. You are already giving me so much, sharing your life with me, your joy, sadness, and tears. My tower form is slowly recovering, who knows if sooner or later my wisp form will evolve into something more?
"If you really want to make me happy, live your life to its fullest. Enjoy what you now have with Phloria. It should be most precious to you because it's completely unexpected. That girl is rushing a little too much, but she really cares about you. She's a keeper."–
Lith could agree on the rushing part, but the rest? He had never discussed his love life even with Carl, let alone with another girl. He found most embarrassing that his hormones and loneliness were making him crave for intimacy with Phloria.
- "I guess that not being with a woman for thirteen year and a few months it's really taking a toll on me. I even keep counting. Maybe Phloria is right, I do have a perverted mind."–
"Scourge?" Kalla called him, noticing he was spacing out.
"Please continue."
"Another thing I discovered during my travels, is that greater undead can actually be harmed by light magic, but not in the way that you may think. If used directly, light magic works on them like it would on lesser undead. It would feed their hunger, making them stronger.
"But if you use it on their blood cores instead, you can temporarily fix the unbalance that is their existence. When a ghoul eats living flesh, a vampire drinks blood, or a Wraith drains life force with its touch, they are all doing the same thing:
"Consuming the light energy that living being possess to keep their blood cores from collapsing. Even if it's an oversimplification, let's just say that undeath at its core is a condition where the body becomes incapable of producing light magic.
"Without its counterpart, the darkness magic that's naturally produced keeps eroding both the core and the body, needing constant transfusions of light magic from an external source to survive."
"Are you saying that…" Lith's hopes were almost restored.
"Yes, I am. If you use light magic on their blood core, they regain most of their emotions, lose their hunger, and can even eat normally for a while, be they beasts or humans.
"Yet it comes with a price. As long as their blood core is balanced, they also lose most of their powers, becoming vulnerable and mortal again."
"Why are you researching this field? It's almost impossible to direct mana to a core in battle. We need to use Invigoration to find it first and then send the light energy. It's not like you can ask the enemy to stay still for a minute or two."
Lith was fascinated by the theoretical implications, but at the moment he found all that chat useless. He desperately needed an edge against Balkor's creatures if he wanted to survive.
"Because for some undeath is a blessing, for others it's a curse. I don't want my child to live forever in the shadows, hiding from the living like a rabid beast. My goal is to find a way to turn her back to human, giving her a chance to a normal life."
"Why are you telling me all this?" Lith could understand Kalla being grateful to him for saving Nok. He could also appreciate her seeing a kindred spirit in him, but the knowledge and the burden she was imparting him were too much.
"Because, just like me, you are different from the others. I'm one of the few magical beasts whose evolution borders with undeath, yet you treat me no differently from before, unlike even those of my own kind.
"I don't care if you are a human like your friends think, a beast like Protector says, or a new kind of monster like Scarlett fears. You are someone capable of befriending magical beasts without looking down on us, of carrying an unknown life form at your finger and calling her a friend.
That's why I trust you to teach and care for my offspring like I would."