Chapter 3470: Undying Cancer (Part 1)

“Is everything alright, Phaso?” A pale-yellow mist asked. “Why so tense? Our guests haven’t taken a single step forward or conjured a spell.”

“Murderer.” Phaso muttered, the words and intonation identical to those spoken by the Fae living inside Esor. “Death walker.”

“Murderer?” Zarta laughed while merging with the grey mist. “Everyone here is, Phaso. Each one of us has killed more living beings than most Abominations. What matters is not the number but the purpose. We only kill to feed and in self-defense, not for pleasure. We are not monsters.”

“True, but…” Phaso tried to come up with a reason to trick the other Hordes into attacking Lith, but fear clouded his mind. “Verhen is scum, I mean, dangerous. He killed the World Tree!”

“So what?” The grey cloud shuddered and touched the blurred red figure. “The old fool was crazy. All the members of the Yggdrasill bloodline sooner or later go insane and need to be put down.”

“How can you say that, Shen?” The infected Horde said in outrage. “Like it or not, the World Tree is one of the key figures for Mogar’s survival. You should honor their sacrifice, not mock it.”

“Since when do we Hordes give a single fuck about that rotten piece of bark?” A silvery fog coalesced into a dense humanoid form. “Is there something you want to tell us, Pharo?”

One by one, the Hordes were establishing hidden mind links and sharing the information brought by Loma. The infected Phaso was unwittingly exposing himself the more he talked.

“No, Ygri. Why are you saying that?” Phaso tried to look away but Lith drew his attention in a way the Horde couldn’t ignore.

’The Hordes seem to be on my side but I’d better give them some time to prepare their spells.’ Lith had taken Ragnarök off his hip. The angry blade was still sheathed but that made it even more terrifying.

Phaso stared at the twitching latches, afraid they might come off at any moment. The Tiamat engulfing himself in silvery flames only made the vision more dreadful.

“Don’t you see? He wants to kill us all, brothers. We need to-” The words buzzed off Phaso’s quasi-mouth as Lith opened his palm, revealing the shiny fragment pointing straight at the Horde. “Where did you find a fragment of the World Tree’s essence? How did you extract it from its host?”

The greed exuding from Phaso’s gaze and voice was the straw that broke what trust the Hordes had left in him.

“How do you know what that thing is, Pharo?” Ygri’s voice was so cold that even in his frenzy the infected Horde couldn’t ignore it and turned around.

“Yes, brother.” Zarta said. “Explain to us how you learned so many things from the last time we met.”

“What things?” Lith asked.

Loma gave him the signal that the Hordes had agreed to help so he started to prepare his spells and the others did the same.

“Before you arrived, Verhen, Phaso was telling us how he had reached enlightenment. About how he had found a way for us Hordes to reproduce if we become something similar to what you call a male.” Shen said.

“We were discussing the merits and risks of such an idea when we perceived your presence.”

“Tell them how you know, Phaso, or I will.” Lith spoke with such confidence that Feela, Lotho, Zoreth, and Aalejah believed him.

’Wait a second!’ They all thought after a while. ’That’s bullshit.’

“Don’t believe him, brothers!” The Horde snarled, feeling cornered. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I’m not a thief. I attacked the World Sapling of Qish because they refused to pay me for my services.

“We were engaged in battle when the fragment of the World Tree reached the Sapling. I was feeding on them and somehow, I absorbed it along with their life force. I didn’t kill the Sapling. You can check it.

“I simply took the fragment as my payment and left.”

’Great Mother almighty!’ Everyone but Phaso thought. ’A Horde can actually assimilate the World Tree’s essence? That’s dangerous/interesting.’

While the Awakened considered the revelation a threat, the Hordes considered all the possibilities such knowledge opened.

“Was it that hard?” Lith shrugged, pretending he knew all along. “Now be nice and let me retrieve the fragment. It’s not yours and the hatred and madness it contains make you a danger for yourself and others.”

He weaved Ragnarök around, drawing Phaso’s attention and sending him into a panic.

“Help me, brothers! He wants to kill us all with his damned spell, Extinction. He will kill me again!”

’You are right, Loma.’ Zerta sighed and the other Hordes agreed. ’A fragment of World Tree would be a priceless asset, but if not cleansed from the remains of the previous Tree, it’s a liability.

’If the madness spreads to our newborns, the Hordes would become a living, undying cancer that would devour Mogar until there won’t be enough food to sustain other forms of life. We need to help Verhen.’

“Lith won’t kill us.” Loma replied. “And he never killed you, Phaso. It’s the World Tree talking, not you.”

“Of course it’s me, you ungrateful runt!” Pharo snarled. “I’m the one who found you wandering and brought you into our fold. I helped you learn Tyris’ universal language. How can you turn your back on me like this?”

Loma recoiled from those words, his resolve faltering.

“And you, my brothers, how can you betray me? I summoned you here to offer you a solution to our eternal problem. I even know the secret of the white core. Help me against this executioner and I’ll share it with you.”

“The secret of the white core?” Feela echoed in disbelief. “If that’s true, why didn’t you use it on yourself?”

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“She has a point.” Ygri said. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”

“I didn’t use it because…” Phaso hesitated, afraid to lose one of his many advantages over the other Hordes. “Because it makes us more powerful, yes, but easier to kill. In the past, a few Hordes achieved the white core and died.”

“Died?” The Hordes sneered. “That’s preposterous. How can white cores die so easily?”

“Madness.” Phaso admitted. “And Chaos Magic. Our apex form doesn’t have countless spores like we do now. It requires the merging into a single entity that can’t renew itself like us. There is no hive mind, just one mind.”

“Are you kidding me?” Zarta said. “That would be a curse. Without the constant turnover of my spores, without their fresh minds and youthful optimism, I would have killed myself millennia ago.”

“And so would I.” Ygri agreed and the other Hordes joined them. “What you offer us is no salvation. Just a different and more dangerous, painful existence.”

“You can’t be serious!” Phaso yelled in outrage. “How can you turn down my knowledge without even listening to it? After you spent millennia whining about it? Just trust me and…”

He tried to extend his tendrils of blue spores but the other Hordes recoiled at his touch. The seven fungal creatures had formed a circle around the infected and the Awakened, sealing the cave with an emerald barrier and compressing the space.