Gold veins pulsed through Lloyd's body as his muscles seemed to be rapidly increasing. His frame, slowly being rearranged to accommodate high amounts of power and energy.
Compared to when he first used the stim, extreme notes of pain now became noticeable on his face.
That pain pared with his anger and longing for revenge, made his expression quite ugly. His once beautiful, dream-like face, now relegated to that of an ogre. His eyes, once like dark amber stars of the vast universe, now narrowed into curved slits, burning with fierce demonic fury that seemed to consume him whole.
Colt, on the other hand, like before, stayed calm. He focused more on Winter and Luna. If immediate medical care wasn't given to Winter, she would join Bruce, Briggs, and Summer in the afterlife.
Luna didn't have any noticeable injuries, but her mind was scarred to the point where Colt could only perceive her as a living corpse.
The owl man stood firmly in the cold as the rain violently fell on him. Like a gargoyle, he remained motionless.
Not long after, Colt had realized what was happening. He was waiting. Waiting for Lloyd to achieve the task that made him ask for time.
Colt himself didn't fully understand why Lloyd asked for time, nor did he know the contents of the stim Lloyd had pierced himself with. He only trusted in Lloyd's Logical judgment. They all trusted in him. On his own, he wasn't much to ride home about. But with his concoctions and inventions, Lloyd was a formidable force.
Almost as quickly as Lloyd asked for time, two minutes had passed. Colt didn't know what was coming, but he at least hoped that whatever it was would be enough to free them from this dreadful predicament.
"Times up."
"It's time for the harvest." The owl man said, gently moving his feet towards Winter, each step it took crushing the snow with an almost gentle crunch.
Reaching Winter, it let out a sigh and said, "My hunch was wrong. There is no one worthwhile here. Not even you, swordsman with the saber of light."
Lloyds body began to quiver. It was a barely perceptible tremble at first, quickly escalating into a full-blown quake, his muscles convulsing wildly as if trying to shake off the very skin that protected him.
The tremors racked through him one last time before he suddenly froze, his body locking into a tense stillness.
Paying no attention to Lloyd, the owl monster stretched forth his hand once again, and he coiled it like a viper ready to bite at Winter's body. The air gave way as its hand lunged at Winter's frame, fully intending to kill her.
The moment the hand connected with the snowy ground, the snow beneath Winter's body violently erupted, temporarily blocking his vision.
Colt had been keeping himself calm with pure willpower alone, but he could barely manage his psyche. Understanding that when the snow cleared, he would see Winter's dead, mangled corpse. Colt simply couldn't handle it anymore.
He wanted to look away, but wasn't able to. Dying without someone being there to witness it was the saddest way to go out.
With this reasoning, he didn't bat an eye, but rather, he paid close attention.
As the snow fell with the rain, slowly making its way to the ground, he could clearly see what had happened, but he couldn't believe it.
The owl man's long, latex-like arm drilled deep into the frostbitten floor, but there wasn't any blood. Winter was not there anymore.
Behind the owl man, Colt could hear a slight chuckle develop into a sinister giggle, gently mummering behind the owl monster.
At the back of the owl creature was a man, no taller than six feet, holding summer in his hands, his frame large and boastful, depicting someone who had spent a few years honing their strength. The same feeling that emanated from Bruce and Briggs.
Looking closer, Colt could recognize this person instantly. His face changed with disbelief, almost completely losing his calm demeanor.
It was Lloyd, but Lloyd was never that tall, and his build had never given off such an aura.
Lloyds giggling intensified and soon transformed into laughter, his body quivering as he held Winter.
Colt's expression became even more grim as he recalled how Lloyd was shaking in the hangar of the carrier aircraft. Colt spoke to him not because he thought Lloyd was scared, but rather because he knew Lloyd's true nature.
Growing up, Lloyd had lost everything he ever held dear to humans and the creatures of the umbra lumen. Instead of being traumatized as normal kids would, he rather developed a deep, intense hatred for them.
He wasn't shaking in the hangar because he was afraid, far from it.
He was shaking from pure excitement. His predisposition towards creatures of the umbra lumen was abnormally sadistic. Back at the base, in the laboratories for foreign object research, he would make the monsters scream for hours at a time.
Every time he did that, his body would shake. Like he was on a drug that granted him a high he couldn't let go of. And to achieve this high, he repeatedly dissected all creatures that were captured, slowly feeding his obsession.
Lloyd held winter in his hands without saying a word. He glanced at the owl man with a fringe look and then walked deep into the forest with winter still in his hands.
Lloyd seemed different, but the owl man didn't care in the slightest about Lloyd's transformation and remained unbothered.
He simply removed his hand from the cavity he created and took a seat on the floor, once again not being bothered by anything happening around him.
When Lloyd came back, he communicated words into Colt's head telepathically. ' I dropped a vile of golden fluid next to you. Drink it'
Hearing this, Colt realized that even though Bruce had died, the marks he left on them were still active, meaning they could talk this way and use Bruce's complex for a little while longer.
Colt promptly asked, 'What's inside that vile?' and Lloyd answered, 'Chimera Blood.'
Hearing Lloyd's words, Colt felt uneasy.
What he was asked to do was unexpected. Lloyd had just asked him to drink poison.