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Chapter 769: Bribing a Lord of Flame

With his part in Valentina’s interrogation over, Leon made his way back to his villa while Narses took over following up on the leads she’d given them.

Along the way, Xaphan did not remain quiet, and he and Leno argued incessantly all along the way. The argument wasn’t over by the time Leon made it back home, so instead of seeing to some of his other duties, Leon decided to head to one of his meditation chambers and dive into his soul realm.

Upon opening his eyes on his granite throne, he was almost immediately confronted by a very angry fire demon.

“You have some nerve, boy,” Xaphan crackled as he loomed over Leon’s throne. “Offering me up like a cheap whore. What kind of bitch do you take me for? My ass is not for you to rent out!”

Leon smirked as he stood up, undaunted in the face of Xaphan’s obvious attempt at physical intimidation. Though he was now only in his magic body—fragile at the best of times—he not only had greater power over fire, he still had his contract with Xaphan backing him up. Just as he’d thought it would, the fires that perpetually covered Xaphan’s body retreated as Leon advanced, even as the demon stood firm.

“Aren’t you one of the ones constantly telling me to impose my will upon others, or something to that effect?” Leon said, his smirk growing into a full, unabashed smile. “You can help me to end this vampire threat, which threatens not just me, but you as well. You can help me to give Amon quite the black eye here on Aeterna. And all it requires you to do is sign a contract with Valentina. It doesn’t have to be permanent, you can end it for all I care as soon as she’s no longer a vampire.”

“Few vampires ever manage to return to humanity,” Xaphan growled. “Her forging a contract with me would mean that I am risking taking Amon’s sloppy seconds on for a very long time. And for what? I would get no power from her, yet I would have to provide her with power?! You’re trying to extinguish me, human!”

Xaphan raised his voice as he spat out his frustrations, but Leon kept walking forward, enjoying the sight of Xaphan’s fire receding like water from a beach. Eventually, Xaphan’s body was barely covered at all as his fires were blown backward as soon as they erupted from his obsidian skin. Leon could practically see Xaphan himself within the fire, rather than just a shadow of his form.

“I’m not trying to do anything detrimental to you,” Leon said a little more reassuringly. “We still have our contract, don’t we? To support each other as much as we’re able?”

“You have a fine way of showing it,” Xaphan sarcastically grumbled, though he took a step back.

“There’s something I’ve been quietly wondering for a while, demon,” Leon explained in a seemingly unrelated tangent. “You see, my Ancestor can exist in all of the soul realms of my Clan that bear her power—or so my understanding of her existence goes.”

“You’re not wrong!” Nestor called out. “She’s not ‘physically’ present in all of our soul realms at the same time—she’s basically limited to only appearing in one at a time—but she can fly between them all equally!”

“Exactly,” Leon said. “Isn’t that rather like what we’re doing right now, demon? You’re existing in my soul realm just as she is…”

“The pigeon is bodiless,” Xaphan retorted, “I am not. I was able to come here when you were still third-tier thanks to our contract building a connection between us. Were I not bound by contract to not harm you, I could’ve drained you dry of all your magic and left you as little more than spent ashes, if I were to so choose. But I’m a benevolent Lord, one that plans long-term. And so I’ve not consumed your meager power.”

“But couldn’t you forge connections to other soul realms?” Leon asked. “Wouldn’t that speed up your recovery if you could receive magic from multiple mages?”

“Our soul realms are linked!” Xaphan shouted. “I can trust you because of our history and our contract! But I never would’ve created that contract with you in the first place if you were not so weak and I not so desperate! If such a contract were to be made with someone stronger, who has a better understanding of what she’s doing, then she could strike at me! Possibly even kill me! Certainly cripple me terribly!”

“Would this be any different from any other demonic contract? Couldn’t you have a contract that prevents such a thing?”

“You make it sound so easy. Boy, demonic contracts have to be enforced by the demon, and so are almost never forged between beings of equivalent power. It gives us a certain amount of power over you humans, yes, but if Amon’s fucktoy were able to kill me in one hit—as she very well might given our relative powers and the connection that would exist between our soul realms—then she might escape the resulting devastation. She might even be able to reforge her contract with Amon and gain even greater powers. It’s a dangerous risk to me, and one that I can’t take!”

Leon frowned in thought. He’d never probed the contract he had with Xaphan too much, reasoning that it was a kind of magic that he had no real hope of understanding, and not wanting to risk the connection he had with his demonic partner with clumsy prodding. However, if Valentina could strike at Xaphan through it, then the same should hold true for him.

‘Something to ponder, even if I never actually use that option…’

Turning his thoughts away from his options and toward potential solutions for this problem, Leon asked, “Then how about we set about making you stronger? That enchantment array that you’ve been using to absorb the Mists of Chaos… how’s it been working for you so far?”

Xaphan glared at him for a long moment before answering in a low, frustrated growl, “Not as well as the last one.”

“Well, that last one was so overloaded with power that you shattered the gems I used for it. This one is much more durable, but I thought that would’ve made it more powerful—the enchantments could be better anchored into it.”

“Don’t forget that everything here is still made of the Mists of Chaos, even the land beneath your feet. Though it feels solid to the touch, try to keep in your tiny human brain that your tiny human body isn’t here. You’re here in your magic body.”

“Why should that make much of a difference? There’re many things that I’m storing here that are physical, yet they interact with everything here just fine…”

“You can interact with things just fine using magic, too. Like when you fly by carrying yourself with your magic. Look, boy, the point is that my array could be stronger. Would’ve been stronger had the pigeon not—”

Xaphan was cut off by a blast of thunder and a flash of lightning. His massive frame was suddenly bent over at the waist like a gigantic hand was pressing down on his shoulders.

“Had I not… what?” the Thunderbird asked as she landed upon her perch in avian form.

“Had you not threatened me!” Xaphan shouted. “I could’ve been so much stronger by now, but you were the one to be all ‘don’t play with the mists!’ and ‘be a fucking loser coward with me and don’t build that fucking majestic demonic array!’ I haven’t healed a substantial amount of my power in a terribly long time, Leon! And that bitch-ass enchantment array is the reason!”

“The Mists of Chaos are magic at its most primal,” the Thunderbird intoned as her tremendous aura pushed Xaphan even further down. “It is dangerous in its raw form. It can be absorbed by a mage seeking quick strength, or a broken has-been demon trying to put himself back together again, but such raw power can easily fly out of control and destroy your soul realm, leading to great power loss at the least, and even death at the worst! I will not allow you to put my last descendant in such danger!”

“With all due respect, Ancestor,” Leon said as he calmly walked between the Thunderbird and Xaphan, though given how short he was compared to Xaphan and the Thunderbird up on her perch, he didn’t cut as imposing a figure as he would’ve liked, “I believe that’s my decision to make. My risk to take.”

“There are four lives riding on your continued well-being, Leon,” the Thunderbird replied, her tone softening. “Or, I suppose three lives. Or two, depending on how you count.”

“What about the golems?” Leon asked half-sarcastically as he stuck his thumb at the massive domed archive he’d built for the library golems he’d taken from beneath Teira.

“Hardly,” the Thunderbird said as she turned her gaze momentarily to regard the domed structure.

“And if I count only two, then what?” Leon asked. “What risk is there then if both of those people, the only people I’m counting, want to build a bigger and better enchantment array for absorbing the Mists of Chaos? What would then be the problem?”

The Thunderbird glared at him for a moment before sighing. “The impetuousness of youth,” she murmured aloud, more than loud enough for Leon to hear. “Leon, you should listen to your elders. We know better and hold your interests closer to heart than some.” She sent a withering glare at the still-bent-over Xaphan.

“That may be so, and I would never argue against such a thing being true,” Leon conceded. “However, I need Xaphan’s power, too. And under our contract, Xaphan’s power is mine, too. Increasing his power is increasing my power. And if allowing him to absorb the Mists faster results in the both of us getting stronger, then it’s a win. And if allowing him greater power can also grant us power over Valentina, then even better.”

“And if it results in your soul realm imploding?”

“I will do everything I possibly can to ensure that doesn’t happen. What do you say, Xaphan? Shall we refine that array of yours to gain you more power, faster? Would that be an adequate enough bribe to ensure that you help out with this Valentina situation?”

Xaphan was quiet for a long time, but after almost enough time passed for Leon to repeat his question with much more vitriol, he said, “That would be… sufficient. Give me the power to defend myself against her absolutely, and I will lend as much power, experience, and knowledge as I have to curing her vampirism…”

“Wonderful,” Leon said with a gleeful look at the Thunderbird. “If you don’t mind, could you let him up? We have some work to do…”

The Thunderbird for just a moment looked like she was going to refuse, but after slightly tilting her head in thought, her power faded, and Xaphan straightened himself out.

Then, all three of them stood there in deeply awkward silence for almost ten painfully long seconds before Nestor sarcastically shouted, “You lot are killing me with all of this shouting; please, someone, take a breath and let the others speak for a change!”

Leon chuckled despite himself, and he said to all of them, “Then let’s get started. I don’t know when, or if, Valentina agrees to my proposition, but I’d like to be ready whenever her decision is made…”

—

Leon practically skipped out of his meditation chamber, the additional magical secrets that Xaphan and the Thunderbird had shared with him rocking around in his head.

The Thunderbird wasn’t happy about the situation, but after Leon and Xaphan, with a little help from Nestor, decided to leap directly into drawing up plans for the new enchantment array that would help Xaphan to heal, she decided to jump in, too. ‘Better to ensure something’s done right, anyway,’ she’d said as she’d joined them in her human form.

Regardless, with her, Xaphan, and Nestor all working on the same thing, Leon had learned quite a bit about handling the Mists of Chaos. He imagined this would also greatly enhance his own power as he learned how to more properly harness ‘magic at its most primal’, as the Thunderbird had described it.

But that wasn’t all that he’d learned: Xaphan had also started working on his demonic contract for Valentina—assuming it was something she might even want. Leon noted that the thing, once completed and rolled into a single fiber of light before disappearing into Xaphan, was much thicker and longer than his. He wasn’t out to compare sizes or anything, but he couldn’t help but think that Valentina was going to get the VIP treatment while he was left out in the metaphorical cold.

Thankfully, Xaphan had explained that her contract was to be much larger than his because she was such a greater threat. Xaphan needed greater protection and had worked in many more clauses designed to prevent either him from harming Valentina, or the reverse.

Curing the woman of her vampirism would be another herculean task on its own, though, but Leon was at least comforted with the knowledge that Xaphan was tentatively on board with that plan.

So, with that taken care of, he decided to focus on other business, and for that, he needed to see some of his retainers. He made his way down to Helen’s workshop where, given it as about midday, he knew that she would at least be. He wasn’t surprised to find both Tikos and Elise there, too, and Helen’s assistants hanging out in the less-secured atrium told Leon exactly what they were doing.

When he walked in, he found Helen, Elise, and Tikos quietly discussing something as they huddled around a table in the center of the room. The air, normally smelling of rich herbs and tinged with smoke, now had the distinctive smell of lightning, and sure enough, when Leon drew closer, he found that they were pouring over the piece of thunder wood.

The three were locked in what looked like pretty deep conversation, so Leon hung back a bit, unnoticed as they spoke amongst themselves, and listened in.

“… but how would it just get ‘stuck’ in there?” Elise wondered aloud. “It’s not like lightning is capable of freezing in place!”

“I would bet my life that it has to do with some way that the ambient magic was flowing through the tree,” Helen replied. “Maybe, when the tree was petrified by the bolt, the magic already within the tree was locked in place, or something. And that locked the lightning in place.”

Tikos’ leaf-hair fluttered, though Leon was unable to smell anything given the sheer number of other scents in the room. However, it quickly said, “Trees within our forest not have unusual magics.”

“They have a higher-than-usual quantity of tree sprites,” Helen countered. “What about the trees that you make when you get set up somewhere? Or when your people set up shop inside of an existing tree? What kind of changes happen then?”

Tikos began to explain exactly how tree sprites merged with trees, but it was so immersed in advanced principles of light, earth, and water magic that Leon was barely able to follow along. Regardless, about when Tikos finished its explanation, Elise finally realized that Leon was there.

“Husband”! she exclaimed. “How long have you been there?!”

“Long enough to listen in a little,” he replied with an amused smile. “Not much progress has been made, then?”

Helen answered, “It’s only been a few days since we’ve gotten back to a proper environment for testing, so, no, not a lot of progress.”

“But ‘not a lot’ is not ‘none,” Elise pointed out.

Leon’s eyes widened and his eyebrows shot upward. He looked at his wife with expectation glittering in his eyes.

Elise, eager to show off, gestured at the thunder wood and explained, “This is incredibly old. And I don’t just mean that it was being studied by your Clan way back in the day; I mean that the tree that as struck by lightning was old. Probably a thousand years old or more.”

“That’s… worrying,” Leon replied. Achieving Apotheosis would effectively give him unlimited time to work with, but if he had to wait a thousand years just for another batch of thunder wood, then that wasn’t as practical as he would’ve liked. It would require a serious investment of resources and long-term planning to harvest any usable thunder wood, and while he couldn’t yet say how quickly those who’d achieved Apotheosis tended to move, he wanted something a little more practical.

“Kind of,” Helen agreed. “I don’t think we’d need that long if we were to try and replicate the process. Tikos can manipulate trees, after all—stimulate their growth and all that. And that’s not even taking into consideration if there’s a ‘most beneficial’ time for a tree to be converted into thunder wood. Or if a tree can survive conversion, allowing us to grow thunder wood straight-up! All we can say right now is that lightning struck a very old tree, and that it was trapped within. Somehow, after many thousands of years, that lightning hasn’t gone anywhere. If anything, given what I’ve been able to test so far, the thunder wood seems to be almost generating lightning!”

Leon’s closed his eyes and tried to blank his mind completely, momentarily afraid that his eyes were going to turn green with greed, and almost felt the need to hold his jaw shut to keep from salivating all over the floor.

And then Helen added, “And we’re pretty sure it can be replicated. Tikos can more thoroughly test the internal structure of the thunder wood than anything I could possibly do, and once we get through with those tests, we’ll have a much more in-depth idea of just how this thing was made.”

“How long?” Leon croaked.

Tikos held up both of its hand, seven fingers outstretched. “Days,” it said.

Leon reeled backward, smiling with glee and barely able to keep himself from cackling.

But then he froze, turned to look at Elise, his narrowed with desire.

Elise, sensing the change in his demeanor, pushed her chest out and smiling back with equal heat.

Not even five minutes later, Leon was carrying Elise back to their bedroom, Elise quietly whispering the more detailed results of their tests so far in his ear, which, for Leon in that state of mind, was more arousing than any dirty talk she could’ve otherwise come up with.

—

“Oooh,” Elise moaned as Leon finally disentangled himself from her.

He paused, took one last loving look at his wife, still in bed, her eyes heavily lidded with fatigue and satisfaction, little more than a thin bed sheet struggling to cover her body after their exertions.

It took a monumental effort on his part to rip himself away from that sight instead of diving in for yet another round, but a firm, but respectful knock at their door forced him away—though not before giving her one last kiss.

When he reached the door, he was fully dressed, though not entirely put-together, and he drew a curtain just inside the door that would ensure his wife could still have some privacy even as he opened the door.

Talal was revealed as the door opened, standing just to the side, looking like the very image of a stoic professional.

“Leon,” he said as he held out a sheet of paper. Without even the slightest waver in his tone, he launched right into his business, “This is a report from Utavi, the largest of the Pegasi States. The local Heaven’s Eye Tower Lord has sent an urgent request for help here. Apparently, a red seventh-tier wyvern showed up on their doorstep demanding she be brought to Occulara. And she bore your letter of introduction…”