"Man, and here I thought that my life was fucked up. You must be in love with your best friend who's also your sister." Ajatar laugh made the mountain under which his lair was located rumble.

His lizard form shapeshifted into a humanoid body that retained the scales and the original mass. Yet now Ajatar had legs, arms and stood as tall as Faluel, reaching over 20 meters (66').

"Jump in." The Drake placed his huge palm in front of Lith who was in too big of a rush to ask for an explanation and just obeyed.

"I can't open a Warp Steps leading so far from here and I doubt you have the time that I need to finish my business before I can give you a hand." Ajatar nodded at several cauldrons and magic circles that formed his experiment.

Life Vision revealed that the Drake was somehow keeping them stable from a distance thanks to several tendrils of Spirit Magic. They linked the caster with its creations, allowing him to put the unstable energies in pause.

'Am I a bad person for wishing that Faluel will teach us this stuff while our friends are probably risking their lives or worse?' Solus couldn't take her eyes off the magical apparatus, whereas Lith remained more focused than a laser.

"Which leaves us with best next thing. I know you have wings, so you'd better use them. Dragonspeed." A Warp Steps leading in the middle of nowhere appeared in mid-air, at a dozen meters distance from the Drake.

"Don't you mean 'godspeed'?" Lith asked.

"Nah, that's just an expression. Dragonspeed is real." Ajatar covered the hand he was holding Lith on with the other and then started to spin on himself like a shot-putter.

Yet instead of being done after one spin, the Emperor Beast became faster and faster, to the point that when Lith flew through the dimensional corridor, he had already reached a speed so great that the protective aura surrounding the Skinwalker armor caught fire because of air resistance.

That was before Lith activated his flight spell. Before he shapeshifted into his Wyrmling form and activated both air and fire fusion.

Lith's flight spell, Soaring Hawk, not only allowed him to move at several hundreds of km/h (mph), but also created a wind blade in front of his path that protected his eyes and boosted his speed by generating a slipstream effect.

Fire and air fusion, instead, gave his wings such power that each one of their flaps produced a thunderclap. Thanks to the Ajatar's Steps, Lith had skipped a couple of dozens of kilometers and started his flight at a breakneck speed.

He looked like a black comet shrouded by flames that soared the night sky, coming closer to its destination with each passing second.

***

Baba Yaga's hut, down in the mines, now.

"Are you saying that I've been betrayed?" Phloria asked.

"No, I'm saying that you would be dead and buried if I didn't send Nandi to help you. The moment you get out of here, nothing will stop your enemies from achieving their goal." Baba Yaga/Nana replied.

"So this is blackmail!" Friya was so angry that she overcame Baba Yaga's aura and managed to stand up. "Either we submit or you throw us into the wolf's maw, correct?"

"Blackmail is the coward's weapon." Nana shook her head. "If you want to stay here until the danger is over, you'll be treated as honored guests. As I already said, I will not move a finger against you nor will I force you to leave."

Her answer shocked them all, incapable of understanding what Nana's endgame was.

"Yet even after the army leaves the area and so do the undead, you will still die, dear Phloria. Do you remember what Nandi explained to you about Awakening and the risks it implies for an already powerful mage?" Nana asked, receiving a nod as an answer.

"That's what is going to happen to you. That's why I arranged our meeting here, down inside a powerful crystal mine. The pain you felt earlier is because your Awakening is imminent, but with so many impurities, with such a weak human body, you'll never survive the process." Nana said.

"That's bullshit! I can heal any kind of wound and even giving her my life force if that's necessary." Quylla stood up as well, refusing to believe such a preposterous lie.

"Heal?" Baba Yaga laughed. "Awakened can heal all kinds of wounds and replenish their vitality with just a breath, yet many of them die when their core evolves. Ask Nandi, if you don't believe me."

"She's right." The Minotaur grumbled. "Even if your body survives the shock of such a sudden transformation, if your core starts to crack there is no magic that can fix that. Without help, you have no chance of survival."

The word Awakened had no meaning for Friya, but its description fit what Phloria and Quylla had seen Lith do while fighting the Odi in Kulah.

'Can really Lith be both an Awakened and a hybrid? That sure would explain a lot.' They thought in unison.

"If I accept, will you help me to Awaken, then?" Phloria asked.

"Wrong again. Why would you settle for something so trivial? There are thousands, if not maybe tens of thousands Awakened on the entirety of Mogar. Why be one of the many when you can be so much more?" Baba Yaga's eyes lit with mana and enthusiasm.

"Didn't you listen to what I said earlier? Hybrids get the best from both worlds. Think about the Master's Abomination-monster hybrids or the werepeople human-Emperor Beast hybrids.

"Awakening someone is easy at my level, but you are a unique piece. A priceless gem for my research. You are a self-Awakened who has yet to complete the process, stuck in the middle between life and death.

"My children are flawed, broken if you prefer, and so is their blood core. That's why while an Awakened can always turn into an undead, the opposite is such a rare occurrence that I can count those who have succeeded on one hand.

"My plan is to bestow you a blood core while your life force is both very unstable and easily manipulable. Unlike my former creations, your blood core will not be devised to replace the mana core, but to coexist with it.

"This way, once the procedure is over and you Awaken, the blood core will lessen the strain on your body and use the massive amount of energy released to fix its imbalance.

"On top of that, the regenerative abilities and the toughness typical of the undead will guarantee your survival, no matter how violent the process is." Nana said.

"You want to make me a hybrid?" Phloria was flabbergasted.

"What is my role in this story? I thought you recruited me because you couldn't bear raising a hand against your children." Nandi's eyes were reduced to fiery slits as Baba Yaga's plan made less sense by the second.

He didn't fight his original self in those caves, the Returner Abomination actually came from far away. Baba Yaga had recruited him with the promise of curing his condition in exchange for his help.

They had moved to the crystal mines of Feymar and there she had tasked him to get rid of the undead that were digging out the crystals and keep the area safe while she prepared the field for their guests.