The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Everyone's attention had been fixed on the swirling dust when a streak of blue-green sword-light suddenly fell from the sky, driving straight down toward Abraham the Shadow Punisher's skull. Abraham never saw it coming — by the time he felt it, the blade was already upon him. Not true sword-force, exactly — something closer to a wind attribute. In that critical instant, he split his body into several shadow-forms, scattering in every direction. The strike caught only empty air — though not entirely empty; as the blade passed through, it seemed to clip something solid on its way.

Xiaoshuang appeared out of the sky, one flick of her wings carrying her down beside Jessica and Shirley, settling on Jessica's shoulder. The small sword darted up to hover in front of her.

"How did you get here? Weren't you off on your own?" Jessica asked, curious, her eyes fixed on the little blade. "Is that a magical item?"

Jessica had never seen a magical item quite like it before. Xiaoshuang answered, thoroughly pleased with herself. "This is a flying sword. Wang made it for me — told me to hide up in the air and catch the enemy off guard when the moment came."

Jessica remembered the crescent blade from moments earlier, spinning with whirlwind and thunder-fire, shielding them from the throwing knives — much the same idea, she realized, and found herself no longer surprised that Xiaoshuang's little "flying sword" worked the same way.

Then it struck her — that throwing-knife attack had come from somewhere strange. Her chest tightened, and she glanced around warily, aware there was still another enemy out there somewhere.

Xiaoshuang said, pleased with herself, "No need to look. Whoever threw those knives is tangled up with a half-elf right now — the two of them are locked in a standoff somewhere else in the woods. I was flying high, saw the whole thing clearly. The moment that scoundrel threw his knives, the half-elf cornered him."

By then, Abraham had reappeared some distance off, one arm nearly severed, the bleeding already stopped, new flesh visibly knitting itself back together at the wound. Deep as the cut had been, it counted as nothing especially serious for the Shadow Punisher — just one less arm's worth of fighting strength for the moment.

The whole scene went briefly still. The dust hadn't fully settled yet, and everyone waited anxiously, though for very different reasons — Jessica and Shirley silently praying Evan had come through unharmed.

As the dust thinned, a deep gash lay carved into the earth, testament to the force of that single strike.

"Xiaoshuang, aren't you worried about Wang?" Jessica asked.

"He's got plenty of life left in him," Xiaoshuang said with a small pout. Privately, though, she was puzzled too — she'd clearly sensed the lich take a grievous wound just now, and yet something had shifted since. His presence had turned strangely insubstantial, his vitality dropping at first only to surge back stronger than before, even stronger than his usual baseline. What exactly had happened?

While she puzzled over it, a figure walked out of the settling dust — apparently unharmed at all, eyes clear and bright, looking up at Augustin hovering in the sky. "The Creator's Sword — is that really all the power it has? I'm disappointed. Nothing but an illusion, in the end."

"How is that possible?" Augustin lost his composure entirely. He knew exactly how devastating the Creator's Sword was, especially against a heretic creature like a lich — he'd watched it tear through that thick wall of bone like paper. How could this lich — even setting aside whether he truly was one — walk away without a single visible mark on him?

That strike had, in truth, left Evan gravely wounded, barely able to stand. And yet, in that same instant, something had stirred within his mind — no, deeper than that, within his very soul — strange phrases surfacing unbidden: He who wanders briefly through the shadow moon, the Great One guards the corpse, the three souls tend the bone, the seven spirits attend the flesh, the embryonic spirit records the breath... along with fragments of cultivation diagrams, all of it feeling somehow innate to him, as though he'd always known it.

Without meaning to, his awareness sank into complete blankness, his body seeming to dissolve entirely into void in that instant. The Great One — true intent itself. His whole form stayed perfectly, unnaturally still, and the countless cultivation diagrams dissolved into pure illusion. Moments ago he'd clearly seen those diagrams — now he couldn't recall them at all, not because memory had failed him, but because the very notion of them no longer existed for him. This single instant felt like eternity itself. The holy light, the Creator's Sword — all of it mere illusion, and somehow, in that state, everything felt lovely, entirely benign. He'd already understood, intellectually, what fantasy-born creatures were — and here was the same truth again, laid bare: everything was illusion. Not that any of it was false, exactly — from a higher vantage of understanding, everything was illusory regardless, though in ordinary reality, one still couldn't see through it, treating the false as real.

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He came back to himself — no more than a blink's worth of time had passed — and found, to his own astonishment, that his condition had improved remarkably, as though he'd suffered no wound at all. The moment the thought of injury crossed his mind, pain flooded back through his body all at once. Since becoming a lich, he'd felt almost nothing of physical pain — no matter now. Everything felt ordinary again.

He walked forward, eyes clear, and spoke those words aloud. Augustin nearly lost his mind. However he looked at Evan, the man showed not a trace of injury — and yet there lay that terrible gash in the earth. He couldn't make sense of it. How could he have come through entirely unscathed?

Augustin descended slowly, momentarily at a loss. Abraham the Shadow Punisher's arm had already healed most of the way, and he said coldly, "Playing games with us."

He pointed, and a surge of black mist shot forward straight at Evan. Evan gave a cold snort, his eyes flicking toward the mist, and it dissolved into nothing on the spot. Abraham felt a sudden chill run through him, and in an instant his body dissolved into scattering black smoke.

The crescent blade Evan had dropped earlier suddenly leapt up off the ground, wreathed in crackling lightning, and drove straight for Abraham's back — just as he'd scattered into smoke. Even so, a faint scream carried through the air.

The black smoke gathered back together beside Augustin, blood already trickling from Abraham's mouth. Evan reached out a hand, and the crescent blade spun once and settled into his palm.

The sight left not only Augustin but Abraham's own face shifting. Abraham coughed. "Fiso — get out here now!"

A voice answered instead. "Fiso can't do anything right now. Because I'm here."

A handsome half-elf appeared before them all as the voice spoke, a faint smile on his composed face, somewhere in his forties, an elven bow in hand though not yet drawn. Evan let out a breath of relief at the sight of him — this was the fourth presence he'd sensed earlier.

"What's happened to Fiso?" Augustin called out.

"Nothing much. Have you forgotten the agreement struck long ago? I'm in a generous mood today, so I'll let you go. If my mood were worse, none of you would be leaving," the half-elf said.

"You're Elder Senr Keith, of the Druids?" Augustin's face changed. Elder Keith was said to be one of the Druids' rare true masters, a longbow in his hands commanding respect even from legendary mages and Great Knights — famous for once loosing nine consecutive arrows to hold off a Great Knight of the Church and five of his knights, stopping them cold, an act that had made his name known even within the Church itself.

"Surprised you know my name. Ah, but of course — Inquisition men would know it," Senr said, his expression darkening. "I've no wish to bully the weak. Get out of here, now."

Augustin and Abraham's faces both changed. Augustin said coldly, "If anything happens to Fiso, expect the Inquisition's retaliation." Abraham flickered and vanished into the woods, going to check on Fiso.

Senr laughed, fury plain beneath it despite the sound. "Ha! A thousand years gone, and you've clearly forgotten the lesson taught back then."

The pressure in the air surged all at once, a razor-sharp intent of the bow settling suddenly over Augustin. His face changed, his body trembling faintly under that pressure. Evan caught a trace of that same arrow-intent himself — Senr had reined it in so tightly that only proximity let Evan feel it at all.

Just then, Abraham's voice carried back. "Augustin, Fiso's fine — just caught under some kind of oppressive force, knocked unconscious."

Augustin could only grunt in response, unable to speak at all under Senr's arrow-intent, sweat beading on his brow.

The pressure vanished abruptly. Augustin let out a silent breath of relief and turned to leave without another word. Watching them go, Senr said, "Young people these days. No respect for their elders at all."

Evan had plenty to say to that — you're the one who just crushed them with overwhelming force, and you're calling them disrespectful? — and found himself, absurdly, feeling a flicker of sympathy for the three who'd just fled. Enemies or not, at least Augustin had shown some real manners throughout.

Evan and the others offered their thanks. "Honored Druid Elder, thank you for stepping in. Without your help, we'd have been in real trouble."

"I wouldn't say real trouble — you put on quite a display yourself, breaking the Creator's Sword. That strike would have been difficult even for me to weather. Why were they after you three?" Senr asked.

"They said we were heretics — claimed Sister Jessica's paper was spreading heretical doctrine," Shirley said.

"Ah, that explains it. What age is this, that they're still throwing around accusations of heresy? I've read that paper of yours — the one on werewolves. Genuinely original work. Well, I'll be off. You should head back to Hollingburton and tell your headmaster about this," Senr said, and with a flicker of movement, he was already a dozen cubits away.

Once he'd gone, Evan's body swayed, and a wave of searing pain radiated through every part of him. He'd only barely managed to hold that transcendent state a moment ago — had Augustin pressed just a little further, his true nature might well have been exposed entirely.

He let out a quiet, private sigh. That state had served him well, but he couldn't call on it whenever he pleased — treating the false as real. Was it false now, or real? In the end, his own level of cultivation was simply too shallow to sustain it for long, and now his body was paying the price with genuine agony. Rare, this — genuinely strange, honestly, leaving him unsure whether he counted as a lich, or something closer to human again, or whether none of it mattered at all in the end.

"What's wrong?" Xiaoshuang was the first to notice something off.

"Nothing serious. That strike was more dangerous than it looked — I took real damage, held myself together with a bit of forbidden technique earlier. Now that he's gone, the wound's finally catching up with me. Fortunate to have made it through at all," Evan said, forcing a smile through visible pain.

Jessica and Shirley understood then — no wonder Evan had said so little, and let the three attackers go so easily. They'd assumed it had been out of deference to Senr alone.