"You are an entirely different creature"
Ashton walked around the lion, studying it, spotting the differences between its current make and its last model.
[Greater muscle mass despite its lager frame and limbs...] Molding his mana around his eyes Ashton doesn't enhance them. Instead, he pushes the mana from his eyes into the beast.
Like a telescope staring into the vastness of space, his mana connected his sight into the body of the lion. [Its bones are naturally denser than before, but its mana... no longer a finite core but circles around his heart]
It wasn't surprising to Ashton. All expectation he had disappeared the moment he realized the lion was alive, and all that remained was anticipation.
[Do you remember me?] Ashton didn't flinch as the lion's paw pressed against the earth, heavy as thunder.
Or as its flame inched closer to his body.
Ashton stood firm, his arms clasped behind his back came forward, reaching out and touching the flames on the lions bowed head.
As he grabbed hold of the flame, he whispered for it to stop allowing it. To stop embracing him and show him its power.
[It's no longer biting my skin in frost, it's hot to the touch] The mana protecting his hands was still being eaten, but not destroyed like before.
[So the flames eat mana like nutrients for its wielder...]
Starting to feel the burn in his hand, Ashton ripped his arm from the flame, but he noticed it wasn't hurt.
The flames hadn't targeted his skin, [It tried to seep into my pathways?]
[The flame is no longer is hungry for destruction, it's gluttonous for nutrients now]
"GRRRR" The lion with his head still bowed grunted before looking up, responding to Ashtons observations.
[I forgot you can hear my thoughts, proof of our Aetherly connection]
"Grrr" A softer grunt, but along with the nodding of its head.
[Can you hear me now?] Ashton thought again, but without the desire to communicate. After standing quietly Infront of one another, [So, I just have to want to communicate, and we can. Good to know you don't live in my mind]
"Where, am I going to keep you?" Walking in circles around the lion again, brainstorming ideas of where to keep it but coming up empty.
"You're too large to hide and too big go with me everywhere, what purpose can you serve me?" [Should I just take my flame back?]
Ashton's thought was reasonable in his mind, his desires and blackened spirit left him thinking with efficacy for the sake of his goals.
"Yes, I can't carry you for when you're needed, then I'll take what I can use..."
Reaching out his hand and calling the fire back to his body, the lion grunted again. It was almost like saddening for him, he had been killed once by Ashton, now it was happening again.
Except this time, he was unable to resist, he was chained to the will of his creator.
As his flames were stripping from his body, at first he was angry, but it quickly became washed as panic set. He felt his lifeforce thinning as the flames drained from his body, then he saw it.
The look in the lion's eyes, struck. Ashton [Why does it feel like betrayal to take back what is mine?]
What Ashton saw was panic, but the lion was looking Inside of Ashton's shadow not at him. It looked like water rippling without a clear depth, his instincts was screaming at him to get inside of it.
So it struggled, it tried to dive into the waving shadow against the invisible chains of Ashtons will.
Its struggle was primal, the last outburst of strength of a dying organism. However, the lion's resistance seemed with purpose, like it was trying to prove something but was unable to communicate through the panic.
So, Ashton eased up. The flame was only resting in his palm but ripped from it and back around the lion's neck as it fell into Ashton's shadow.
"Oh?" Looking down at his shadow, the ripples of its broken surface tension, it felt like the entrance to a separate world.
Bending over, trying to place his hand through the dimensions, but his palm only meets the earth the shadows is casted on.
He tried repeatedly but his body couldn't breach the boundary.
[Come out] His thought crossed the realms and pierced the boundary where his body failed. His command forced the lion from the shadow.
Its nerves were visible, it was mildly on guard and couldn't meet Ashton's gaze.
"Good job." Ashton's praise didn't reach the lion for a moment, but as he felt a hand pat his ribcage the lion eased up.
"Your presence alone proved your worth, but my shadow proved your keep."
Ashton's words reached the lion not just soothingly, it was felt through his entire body. Like a tiny volt of electricity played pinball and bounced off every atom he was made of.
It was exhilarating. It was his purpose, and in the moment, he realized it.
I must serve master and receive his recognition, the lion thought.
"You are no longer demonic, but heavenly," Ashton said softly. "No longer a force of destruction, but my will incarnate. As your sovereign, it is my right to name you."
As Ashton thought on a name for his beast, no longer a mana or spirit creature, but a divine creation, one of the assassin's corpses starts vibrating.
The vibration was caused by mana, it could be felt in its sound and seen through both of their enhanced eyes.
Both Ashton and the lion turned to the sound with their bodies ready for battle, but while Ashton recognized no threat his beast was hotter blooded.
It didn't know what caused the sound, but it was magical. The lion grunted faintly and released its flame. It no longer shot from its position on his body, as a unit it moved through the air. It was like it was an extension of his body, a limb he could move freely.
Ashton as impressed as he was, didn't allow himself to become beholden. He stepped forward and made the lion standdown despite his curiosity.
"Do not attack or battle unless under my order." Ashton's order made his beasts fighting spirit fade, and its fire to return to its sheath.
It took a seat, like a knight who is standing behind its lord, he was ready for any order at any moment.
Ashton, however, was retrieving the cause of the noise. [A magic communicator?]
Turning its dial to connect the mana of the receiver device, a voice opened up from the signaling device.
"What is the progress of the operation?"
[What language is this? It sounds eastern... but all of those languages are unused in the empire]
"I asked what the progress is?" Ashton couldn't ascertain the language and consequently what was being said, but he did notice the commanding tone of the voice.
[The leader of these assassins? Or a middle manager of their organization?]
There was no indication on the corpses despite Ashton's quick scanning of them, nothing his eyes could see, or his mana could reveal. He didn't know if this was a targeted assassination by a lord or a commission received by a group.
Then the voice on the other line shifted. "Do YOU have MY Prize?" It was still the same person, that was clear, but the tone of it was nasty. It was a tone of voice, and a depravity Ashton could recognize.
Bringing the communicator to his lips, "I don't know who you are dark mage, but your descent into depravity and the unnatural gave you the guts to step into my territory. To try and kill me."
"AshtonWhEy." The voice now sounded demonic, it was more of a screech then words, but in the language Ashton speaks.
"Yes, and you better hope there is not a single death on my side. For you have already earned death, but I haven't decided how painful."
Crushing the device in his hand, Ashton knew the mage on the other end wouldn't give any hints of his identity or location. Speaking with a dark magician past the point of no return, people who threw away their humanity for nothing in return disgusted Ashton.
Especially after what he just went through.
"Burn the corpses on the pyre then let's return, Judah."