Chapter 1179 Conflicting Forces Part 1 ’Okay. First, we need to stabilize Lith’s human life force. I know that the Abomination side looks ugly, but the Beast side keeps it under control whereas if the cracks on the human life force spread any further due to the ongoing conflict, Lith might die.’ Solus said. She showed them how to listen to the melody of the different life forces and how to use it to find their real patient. Solus’s Scalpel spell produced golden tendrils that bypassed the hybrid life force and found the human side that was getting weaker by the second. The blue flame evaporated the black ooze, but the human life force had no defense against the noxious gas produced by their battle. Lith’s original life force was supposed to look like a mix of red lego bricks and structures formed by an erector set, but now the dark mist dulled the red. It seeped through the small gaps that allowed the single pieces to move and coated the surface of the red blocks with an ooze that poisoned Lith’s body from the outside. Solus used the golden tendrils to form a blanket that stopped the fog from reaching the bricks. She needed to constantly spend mana and vitality to fight the erosion caused by the Abomination side to Lith’s life force. As soon as the golden barrier stopped the onslaught, the human side started to purge the black ooze and regained its vitality with a speed visible to the naked eye. ’Okay, this is the most important part. We need to keep Lith’s human side stable and protected.’ Solus said. ’Remember that we can’t consider his life forces as separated as it happens with Nalrond. Here any action on one of them affects the others. ’On the one hand, it makes Lith incredibly resistant to effects like Huryole’s slave spell. On the other hand, however, it means that the moment I start the procedure on the Abomination side, the other two might mistake me for an enemy and attack my spell. If that happens, I’ll need your help to keep them at bay.’ Solus said. ’Good gods! Do you really have already found a cure for his condition?’ Phloria asked. ’That’s what I hope. Even though I could do nothing to stop it, I watched the whole process of Lith going Abomination and back. While you’re trapped in a stone body, incapable of doing anything, seconds seem to last hours. ’Despite the pain I endured, I never stopped thinking about how to help him. On top of that, I’m pretty good with the healing arts. My Mom even said that I’m blessed by the light.’ Solus chuckled, thinking back at Menadion’s words. ’By my Mom! That’s it.’ Solus suddenly realized how to further improve her technique. ’Earth and light are the elements of creation that balance darkness and fire, the elements of destruction. Chaos is still darkness, after all.’ She used earth fusion, but instead of making it circulate through her body, Solus used the earth element to coat the light that comprised her barrier. The orange energy of earth formed an external layer, greatly reducing the strain on Solus’s mana consumption. ’Can someone relieve me from keeping the human side stable?’ She asked after sharing her discovery with the others. ’That way I could fully focus on the hybrid life force and greatly increase my odds of success.’ ’I’ll do it.’ Tista already had a splitting headache that only Invigoration and light fusion managed to relieve, but she didn’t hesitate to further increase her burden. Feeding Solus with the vitality she needed while also sustaining the information exchange necessary for the treatment via the mind link weakened her body and poisoned her core. To make matters worse, Tista was a talented mage but keeping up with a genius required a lot of her focus already. Solus was so used to work with Lith that she shared every single observation she made and every idea that crossed her mind, bombarding her two companions with information that kept piling up. Tista produced golden tendrils of her own and replaced Solus’s. High tiered light spells were designed so to allow the imprint to be easily changed in the case the starting healer needed rest. She only had until the orange layer crumbled to learn on her own how to channel pure earth elemental energy along with her spell. Otherwise the protective layer would crumble and the black fog would drain her energy faster than she could recover it. Phloria noticed her distress and shared with Tista part of her own vitality without saying a word. Solus already talked for five people, oblivious of the mana poisoning she caused. ’Okay, now it’s time to fix this mess. My first idea was to use light magic on the Abomination side, to make the still lingering Chaos turn into darkness and restore the balance. ’Then I remembered that Chaos feeds on light and that the Abomination side is alive. Light might just feed it and make things worse. We must consider it akin to a parasite or cancerous tissue and treat it with darkness.’ Solus coated her Scalpel spells with darkness magic and cut with them at the swollen areas of the Abomination side of Lith’s life force. The burst of Origin Flames had failed to completely remove the excess of light element that had been absorbed during the fight and now caused the imbalance. Solus had to make one small incision at the time because she had no idea how much energy the Abomination side still stored and she wanted to avoid inflicting an injury on Lith’s life force. No matter how careful she was, with each cut she made, Lith’s body would experience a small seizure that forced Olua and Bodya to help Tista to keep Lith still. ’Can’t you anesthetize him or something?’ Tista asked while on the verge of tears. For a Healer, treating their own family from such severe injuries was a taboo because using Body Sculpting required a clear mind and a cold heart. ’Sorry, I can’t. I’ve never worked on an Abomination and its life force is akin to a black ball of goo. Without studying Lith’s reaction, I have no idea if I’m cutting too deep or too shallow. ’Too deep and I could give him new cracks, too shallow and we’ll run out of energy before the end of the procedure. Either way, Lith would die.’ Solus would have cried as well in Tista’s shoes, but her concentration while using Scalpel left no space for emotions. After each incision, it would take barely a second for the damage sustained by the Abomination side to heal, but Solus could see that it would also reduce the amount of black ooze it produced. After a while, the hybrid life force started to return to its original shape. The more Solus forced the Abomination side to consume the excess energy to heal itself, the more ground the Beast side regained. She would have rejoiced if not for the fact that her mana reserve ran dangerously low despite the mana geyser. Destroying the darkness element required to employ the same amount that plagued the patient, but Solus was dealing with Chaos. The treatment was the same, but every time she didn’t coat her Scalpels with enough darkness, the Chaos would feed on the light element and gaining more energy than what she had removed.