Thagos didn't answer immediately.
He just… stopped moving.
For the first time since the fight started, the pressure around him shifted.
Not gone.
But… distant.
His gaze drifted upward, unfocused.
And for a moment—
he wasn't in the chamber anymore.
A flash.
A girl.
Red skin, warm like embers instead of flame. Obsidian horns curving back from her head. A laugh that didn't belong in a world like this.
Another flash.
Her standing beside someone else.
Not him.
Never him.
And he… didn't fight it.
Didn't rage.
Just… accepted it.
Stayed.
Helped them.
Trained them.
Protected them.
Because that's what he chose.
Because she chose.
The memory shifted.
Fractured.
Blurred.
Stone halls again.
Silence.
He walked through them, slower this time, something already wrong.
Then—
her.
Encased in crystal.
Frozen.
Still.
Empty.
The world around that memory cracked, details slipping away like broken glass.
Sound vanished.
Color dulled.
Only that image stayed.
And the feeling.
Too heavy to name.
Back in the present, Thagos' jaw tightened slightly.
For the first time—
he looked… pained.
Just for a second.
Then it was gone.
His gaze lowered back to Lith.
Sharp again.
Grounded.
"…I fight for her," he said simply.
Lith didn't respond right away.
Didn't crack a joke this time.
Didn't dismiss it.
He just lay there, breathing hard, staring up at him through blood and dust.
"…yeah…" Lith muttered after a moment, voice quieter now. "…that sounds about right…"
Thagos exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulder once.
The weight came back.
Heavier than before.
"So," he said, stepping forward again, eyes locked in, "what about you?"
He stopped just in front of Lith.
"Because right now?"
His voice dropped.
"You're still fighting like you've got nothing worth protecting."
And somehow—
that hit harder than everything else.
Lith didn't answer.
Not out loud.
But something in him shifted.
Thagos' words didn't just land, they dug in, scraping against something buried deep under all the instinct, all the motion, all the reckless fighting.
Nothing worth protecting.
For a second, Lith's vision blurred again.
Not from the damage.
From memory.
Abella.
Her voice, soft but steady, telling him the words that had nearly stopped his heart.
"I'm with child."
The way everything in him lit up in that moment. The stupid grin he couldn't hold back. The way his mind raced ahead of itself, already thinking about names, about a future, about finally doing things right.
He was going to be a father.
He was going to ask for her hand properly.
Not in passing. Not like some reckless kid who thought love alone was enough.
He was going to build something real.
Something permanent.
And then—
It was gone.
Ripped away.
Her.
Their child.
Torn from him, locked behind borders he couldn't cross, laws he couldn't break, a kingdom that had cast him out like he meant nothing.
No way back.
No power to change it.
Just… silence.
Lith's fingers dug into the ground.
Hard.
Stone cracked beneath his claws.
"…don't…" he muttered under his breath.
His body trembled.
Not from weakness.
From something building.
"I had something," he said, voice low, rough, shaking with something deeper than pain. "I had everything."
Thagos watched him carefully now.
Lith's head lowered.
"…and it got taken."
Silence.
Then—
"…so yeah," Lith said, lifting his gaze, golden eyes no longer dim, no longer scattered, but burning with something sharp, focused, alive.
"I've got something to protect."
The air changed.
Subtly at first.
Then violently.
A pressure rolled off him in uneven waves, cracking the ground around him as something inside finally… answered.
His body started to shift.
Bones cracked.
Not clean.
Not controlled.
Violent, jagged sounds as his frame expanded and twisted. His muscles tightened, then surged, skin stretching as if it could barely contain what was forcing its way out.
Lith gritted his teeth, a low growl ripping from his throat as his spine arched—
then snapped back into place.
His form rose.
Larger.
Sharper.
More defined.
The line between beast and man blurred completely.
Jet-black skin replaced flesh, smooth and dark like polished obsidian, faintly reflecting the dim light of the chamber. Gold spread across his hands and feet in intricate, vein-like patterns, glowing faintly as if something ancient pulsed beneath the surface.
Claws lengthened.
Fangs sharpened.
His tail lashed once behind him, heavier now, stronger.
His eyes—
burned.
Not just gold anymore.
Something deeper sat behind them.
Older.
Hungrier.
The ground beneath him cracked as he stood fully upright.
Breathing slow.
Controlled.
Different.
Thagos' expression shifted.
For the first time—
interest turned into something sharper.
"…there it is," he murmured.
Lith flexed his hand slowly, watching the gold light flicker across his fingers.
"…huh…" he muttered, voice deeper now, layered slightly with something not entirely human.
Then he looked up.
Straight at Thagos.
A grin spread across his face.
Not tired.
Not strained.
Predatory.
"This…" Lith said, rolling his shoulders as the new form settled into place, "…feels a lot better."
Thagos let out a low chuckle.
"Finally," he said. "You brought something worth hitting."
Lith lowered his stance, claws flexing, aura now steady and heavy, no longer scattered or empty.
Something ancient had awakened.
A form not seen in decades.
Abyssal War-Panther.
And this time—
when Lith moved—
it wasn't just fast.
It carried weight.
The air collapsed the moment Lith moved.
The ground shattered beneath his feet as he crossed the distance in a single step, his claw already buried deep in Thagos' side before the sound of movement could catch up. This time it did not scrape. It sank. Flesh split open as dark blood spilled out in thick, steaming ribbons, the gold lining Lith's hand glowing faintly as it carved through scale and muscle alike.
Thagos' grin widened, something wild lighting behind his eyes.
"There it is."
His jaws snapped forward and clamped into Lith's shoulder, teeth punching through muscle with a brutal crunch. Lith did not pull away. He leaned into it, his other hand driving upward and ripping through Thagos' abdomen in a savage tear that spilled heat and blood across both of them.
They stayed close.
Too close.
Trading space for damage.
Thagos slammed his forehead into Lith's, cracking bone. Lith answered with a knee driven hard into Thagos' core, forcing a violent exhale from the demon as something inside him ruptured. Thagos' tail wrapped around Lith's leg and yanked him off balance before slamming him through a pillar, stone erupting around them in a violent burst.
Lith came out of the rubble like something that had forgotten pain. He tackled Thagos through the next wall, their bodies tearing through stone and support as the structure gave way under the sheer force of their clash. Fire exploded outward from Thagos in violent bursts, each one ripping apart sections of the castle. Lith tore through it, skin burning and healing in the same breath as he forced his way forward again.
Thagos caught him mid charge.
Clawed hands plunged into Lith's torso, digging deep before tearing free a chunk of flesh in a wet, brutal motion. Blood sprayed across the shattered ground but Lith only snarled, biting down hard into Thagos' neck and ripping away a piece of him in return.
Thagos laughed.
Even as he bled.
Even as his body was being torn apart.
"That is what a fight is."
He slammed Lith into the ground with enough force to cave it in again. Stone cracked and dropped beneath them, but Lith twisted through the impact and came up again, one arm barely holding together but the other already driving forward. His claws punched straight through Thagos' chest, burying deep as both of them froze for a brief moment, close enough to feel each other's breath, blood pouring between them.
"I am not losing," Lith growled.
Thagos looked down at the arm in his chest, then back at Lith.
And smiled.
"Good."
His hand shot up and grabbed Lith by the head before slamming him into the ground once, twice, the force shaking the chamber with each impact. Then he lifted him and hurled him across the room. Lith's body ricocheted violently, slamming into the wall, bouncing to the ceiling, crashing down into the floor, then back into another wall before finally skidding across broken stone in a trail of dust and blood.
For a moment he did not move.
The battlefield went quiet except for the crackle of distant flames and falling debris.
Thagos stood there, breathing heavier now, his body torn open in several places as regeneration struggled to keep pace with the damage. He rolled his shoulder slowly and began walking forward again.
Lith stirred.
Barely.
One eye opened, still glowing gold through the blood.
"Get up," Thagos said.
Lith's fingers twitched. He tried to push himself up and failed. Then he tried again and forced his body upright, shaking, broken, but still standing.
Thagos stopped a few steps away and looked at him properly this time.
Then he exhaled.
"That is enough."
Lith blinked, confused and irritated.
"What?"
"This war is meaningless," Thagos said, glancing upward toward the distant chaos above.
Lith steadied himself, breathing hard.
"Then why fight it?"
"Because fools only learn through blood," Thagos replied before looking back at him. "You have something to protect. So stop wasting time down here trying to prove it to me."
Lith said nothing.
"Go," Thagos continued. "Help Syrax. End this."
He paused for a moment, his expression shifting slightly as something quieter passed through it.
"Save her."
Lith stared at him, then let out a tired, crooked smirk.
"You are a strange guy."
Thagos gave a low huff.
"Leave before I change my mind."
Lith did not argue. He turned, took one heavy step, then another, before launching himself upward through the broken structure, disappearing back into the war above.
Thagos remained behind in the ruined chamber, blood dripping to the floor, the fight finally leaving his body as silence settled in around him.
"Rokash, you've raised quite the monster."