Lucius took a moment to savour the sheer volume of energy he had just unlocked, its cold weight like pure ecstasy. He stared at the kumulipo with a satisfied expression as it pulsed in excitement, sending waves of the darkest black around the room. It was larger than before, about the size of a pineapple —same as the Solar crux.
~Did it always feel this good?~ he thought to himself, as he sent the kumulipo towards the Morrentor. Tendrils of energy writhed out of the kumulipo as it got closer to the cage.
"Imbue."
In that instant, the tendrils surged with even more energy, becoming something more akin to tentacles. They thrashed through the air towards the Morrentor, phasing through both the cage and its skin like a ghost plague.
The creature howled, its entire being trembling in pain. The stink of its rotting flesh became even stronger as its shivering tore open old wounds.
Lucius sent his energy rushing through the creature's channels, aiming to finish this as fast as possible.
He quickly discovered that the creature did not have a manacore, and even after doing several circuits, he couldn't find the source of the curse energy. Which was strange since he could still sense it in there.
"I see, so that's how it must be," he whispered. At that moment, he sent his energy rampant, filling every channel all at once.
The creature howled even louder, now struggling to get up.
It was just as he thought; the curse had been hiding in the channels he already searched. From this, it was obvious to him that it had 'some' sort of intelligence. The only way to catch it was to remove every place it could hide, all at once.
Once he had it surrounded, he began to devour it, breaking it down into millions of particles; food for his kumulipo energy.
The howls became ear-piercing shrieks, enough to make Lucius's ears ring. The creature began convulsing, its massive body shaking the entire cage.
The curse tried to fight back, tried to infect the kumulipo energy as they clashed. However, it was a futile effort; the kumulipo devoured all, whether it was the curse or its own infected limbs.
The Morrentor's shrieking stopped a few seconds later, and its breathing returned to normal.
~A new addition to the commune. It will serve my children well, ~ he thought to himself, before turning to go get Pagan. Now that the fight against the curse was over, they could heal it and go home.
"Can you guys morph it?" he asked.
The Castor stared at each other for a moment, before nodding their heads.
Of course, bringing the cage down proved to be anything but easy. The Castor were at their absolute limit, just trying to bend one bar.
Lucius tried to help, but he couldn't 'feel' wood in the same way he could leaves and other plant material. It felt like pulling a cinder block with a thin rope, there wasn't nearly enough strength in the medium for him to use his full might.
However, he did learn a bit about 'wood elmando'. The paths, or methods used were completely different from what he knew. It was almost as if they were different dances, 'leaf elmando' was vibrant and a little fast, 'wood elmando' on the other hand was slower, more grounded.
~Am I not trying hard enough for you?~ Lucius thought, regarding his true elmando tail. However, there was no response.
After trying and failing a few more times, he accepted that his efforts were wasted here. 'Wood elmando' would be learned, just not right now.
He pulled out the green gems he had looted from the venari mages earlier. He was calling them rejuvenation gems, based on the regenerating effect they seemed to have.
"Here, have these," he said, handing them to the Castor.
As they held it, he could feel their energy presences rise slightly. It wasn't so noticeable as to change the outcome of a battle, but perhaps it would help them with the task at hand.
And help it did. After 15 minutes of heavy labour -and all but one of them passing out- the Castor had managed to break down the cage and morph it into a wagon —at Lucius's request.
Once that was over, he pulled the wagon towards the other cavern.
"Make sure we have all the Aternite, light and green runes. If we don't have enough 'furtong' power to carry the rest, you can leave some of the other minerals," he ordered, once he arrived.
*
Before long, they started their journey back up the tunnels.