Chapter 623 - Hybrid (Part 4) (1/2)

Scarlett didn't fare much better. Darkness magic was slow, but she was still close to its source and she was wounded.

She managed to only partially dodge the incoming attack and crashed to the ground with half of her side destroyed by Xacha's spell. She gritted her teeth to keep from losing consciousness and used Invigoration to escape from the jaws of death.

After she recovered from her wounds, Scarlett was surprised to notice that she was still in her pseudo Guardian form. She waited until she was back to her peak condition before taking the Eyes of Menadion out of her pocket dimension.

Much to her surprise, the artifact could still perceive Xacha's life force running under the Gheluan forest in the form of an intricate network of hybrid tentacles. They were all converging into the cave from which the mad Nue had emerged.

Scarlett stepped inside the cave, finally able to make sense of Xacha's ramblings about her offspring. In the middle of the cave, inside two gelatinous pods, there were the remains of two smalls Nues.

The tendrils that Scarlett had seen and fought up to that point were coming out of the pods, providing the cubs with a constant flow of nutrients.

They were the size of a ten year old child, but they were skeletal and on the verge of death. Up until Xacha's death, the tendrils had harvested life force just to keep them alive.

Thanks to her pince-nez, Scarlett could see a black core inside their bodies. Somehow it had taken a deep root, to the point that without it the small Nues wouldn't be able to survive.

”They must have been infected during the monster outbreak.” Scarlett pondered.

”Judging from what I see, the Abomination must have been killed before its seeds could properly develop. Once the creature died, Xacha's children must have started to slowly die due to the black core fading.

”Emperor Beasts have an amazing vitality, but in this case, it would be a curse. It must have taken them weeks to get to this point. Weeks during which Xacha could only watch them suffer. It must have driven her mad.”

Scarlett was really close to the truth. The creatures involved in the so called monster outbreak weren't actually monsters, just Abominations hidden behind a meat mask. One of them managed to spread its disease to some of the creatures of the forest before being captured.

When Xacha had realized her cubs were among the victims, she had begged the Lord of the Forest, Myshar the Unicorn, to spare the Abomination. To keep it alive long enough for her to safely extract the black cores or at least find a cure for her cubs' condition.

Yet Myshar refused. She knew that any attempt would have been pointless. That a corrupted core was beyond saving and that leaving the Abomination alive would only mean giving it more chances to escape.

Xacha wasn't the only one struck by that tragedy, but unlike the other parents, she couldn't find the strength to put down her small, innocent pups. She had used all the ingredients she had, all the artifacts she possessed just to buy them one more week, then one more day until she struggled to prolong their lives for even one second.

It was then that her mind had snapped, making her turn to Forbidden magic to solve her problem. The other beasts called it madness, but to Xacha it was an epiphany. If they needed the black core to survive, then she only needed to find a way to make it thrive.

The answer was so simple that she almost couldn't believe it. Her research needed test subjects, but luckily the forest was full of life. By the time Myshar had realized what was happening, it was too late.

Xacha's hybrid form fueled by her madness and countless sacrifices proved to be too strong for her.