Chapter 4590: Runs in the Family (Part 2)

The Redcap attacked the living rock from every side, using her vines as barbed whips and their points as spears, but even with the boost from Life Maelstrom, they failed to open so much as a single crack in the elemental.

’The silver lining is my transformation made me faster while hers slowed her down.’ Rinfen thought. ’Yet this doesn’t make sense. Dryads aren’t supposed to be this strong, let alone harden like stone.’

That was the Redcap’s first and last lapse in judgement. Abthot was no Dryad, and she hadn’t hardened like stone. She had become one.

The transformation came at the cost of a significant fraction of her usual swiftness, but Abthot gained a much sturdier body in return. Seeing that none of her attacks were effective, Rinfen changed approach.

She wrapped her vines around Abthot’s limbs, restricting her movements and squeezing the life out of her like a snake with its prey.

"Seriously?" The Eldritch-Vanir hybrid erupted into a mirthless laugh. "I’ve never met someone dumb enough to try and grapple with one of my kind."

Much to the Redcap’s surprise, Abthot’s limbs fell off, and her elemental form became as soft as clay. The stone-like vines found themselves trapped deep into the Eldritch’s body and suffered the effects of her Abomination touch.

Rinfen felt her life and the precious blood she had painstakingly collected from the most dangerous species on Mogar over the years abandon her. She tried to escape the clay’s embrace, but it turned back into solid stone, and the fallen limbs formed a cocoon that trapped her deeper and drained her faster.

"I yield!" The Redcap screamed with air magic as her body withered and the Chaos-filled stones inched closer to her Root. "I relinquish my claims on the Essagor Region forever. I swear it on my Root. Just let me go."

"Who cares about your oaths?" Abthot scoffed. "You tried to kill me, little weed, and the only way I know to settle a score is to feast on my opponent and scatter their ashes to the winds. I’m not going to make an exception for you."

The Fae burst into tears for the first time in her life, sap dripping from what little of her vines protruded from the stone trap.

"I’m very sorry for this, but I have to ask you to let Rinfen go." Orosir patted the black rocks without suffering so much as a scratch. "Council rules state I can’t kill pretenders to my Regional Lord spot, let alone let someone else do it for me."

"Are you serious?" Abthot snorted as the Redcap’s yell became fainter and fainter.

"Yes, friend." The Pixie nodded. "Rinfen may be an idiot, but she’s a strong idiot. I can use someone like her to protect the Essagor Region in case the forces of the Incontinent King attack us again."

"I’m not your friend!" The Eldritch-Vanir replied. "But you make a valid point, and I don’t want something bad to happen to you."

The black stone reverted into what looked like a green-skinned woman with a body as lithe as an elf and the soft, generous curves of a Dryad. Her pointed ears and strawberry-blond hair only made it harder to understand which side of Abthot’s life forces was dominant.

"Looking after each other is what friends do." Orosir picked the tiny, quivering red bramble that was Rinfen’s Root and planted it at a safe distance from the Eldritch. "Your oath still stands, Rinfen. You can’t challenge me ever again."

"As if I would be so mad!" The Redcap’s body regenerated in a matter of seconds, but it was still too slow for her. "I would have never come here if I knew those things were your friends!"

"That’s rude. We’re not things." Theseus stepped out of the Pixie’s Warping Array, the leafed wings coming out of his back bumping into the doorframe until he managed to furl them tightly around his body. "We’re living beings just like you."

"You’re nothing like me!" The moment Invigoration gave Rinfen enough of her mana back, she stepped through a Warp Step, leading her far away, never to return.

"See? That’s why you kill people like her." Abthot snorted.

"I never thought the day would come when I have to lecture someone about mercy." Orosir chuckled. "Still, thank you, Abthot."

"Don’t mention it." The Eldritch-Vanir sighed. "I should be the one to thank you for all the help you’ve given us so far and keep giving us. I really appreciate it."

"We appreciate it." Theseus cursed in many dead languages as his limbs, claws, and the mane around his neck grew uncontrollably. "Being a Fae, or whatever I have become, is way more annoying than I expected. We need all the guidance we can get."

"Please, the honor is all mine." The Pixie gave them a flawless curtsy. "You bless me with your presence and friendship. I still can’t believe I’m in the presence of an evolved elf-ogre hybrid and an evolved Meneos-Bastet.

"Until I met you and the rest of your friends, I thought that such miraculous encounters happened only in legends."

"There’s nothing miraculous about us, and I’d like you to keep the details of our nature a secret." Abthot sighed. "We are not ready to reveal the details of our condition, yet."

"Don’t worry, my lips are sealed." Orosir waved her hand, and a wooden table and chairs sprouted from the ground. "You don’t have to worry about Rinfen either. I doubt she understood how you defeated her, and even if she did, she’s not smart enough to figure out why.

"I’ve met you two many times, but I would have never guessed your secret if you hadn’t told me yourselves."

Theseus and Abthot were very different people. They belonged to different races, came from different continents, were born in different eras, and their beliefs and morals rarely aligned.

Yet there was one thing they had in common. They were the only two members of the Organization whose monster side belonged to the plant race. Truth be told, Theseus’ Meneos side was a Fallen Fae while Abthot’s Ogre was just a plant folk, but the origin of their powers was the same.

After Leegaain rescued Xenagrosh from Raum’s lab and Lith fixed her mauled life force, the Master learned a lot from the Shadow Dragon’s improved condition even though she never disclosed any detail of how she achieved it.

Tezka used the collected data to devise a procedure that similarly advanced his evolution, and from there he and Vastor applied everything they had learned to the rest of the Organization’s members.

As the monster and Eldritch sides merged into one, Theseus and Abthot had quickly realized their plant half wasn’t just a meat suit that gave them a couple of extra bloodline abilities on top of a physical body.

The ogre and Meneos sides were an integral part of the hybrids’ being and altered the very nature of their Eldritch powers. Abthot and Theseus grew closer to true life and gained new abilities with each passing day, but they were unable to use them properly.

Neither of them had been born a plant folk, and there was no one in the Organization who remembered enough about their old lives to help them.