Chapter 183: Soul Gem
In the same instant Evan and Grawvor traded their opening blow, Eugene broke from hiding, countless bolts of lightning tearing from his body straight toward Evan's back.
Had Evan not already prepared for exactly this, the strike might well have caught him entirely off guard. He'd taken out a double insurance policy of sorts. Though he'd seemed to throw everything he had into the clash with Grawvor, he'd actually held plenty back — magic had grown far more second nature to him than it ever had for Grawvor, as natural now as eating or drinking water. Ever since learning that advancing to legendary rank required the Path of Legend array, he'd made a point of refining his own control over magic as precisely as possible, no longer chasing raw power for its own sake. Where another mage needed two parts effort to achieve a given result, he could manage the same with one.
In other words, he'd trained himself to extract the greatest possible result from the smallest possible effort — enough, to some degree, to hold his own against a legendary mage despite lacking the raw strength to match one outright. Skill compensating for what strength lacked. He carried a constant, low-grade sense of danger about this — after all, he was a lich, and his enemy was the towering weight of the entire Creationist Church.
The second insurance policy was Jessica. The moment he'd sensed someone tailing them, he'd quietly warned her through the link. She'd appeared to be guarding against Grawvor, but in truth, she'd been watching Eugene far more closely.
The instant Eugene struck, countless bolts of lightning crashed down like something out of a thunder god's own hand — but Jessica moved faster still, a sphere of pure white electric current expanding out from her position, sweeping Evan and Jenny inside it in an instant, naturally curving to meet the incoming lightning. Both currents flared bright even in daylight, but where Eugene's lightning spread outward in jagged rays, Jessica's took the shape of a perfect sphere — in matters of magic, her understanding seemed to run deeper. Her spell had come to her through natural feedback after publishing her own paper, and her grasp of electricity, in truth, ran far more fundamental than his.
There was a crash as Eugene's attack was caught and held. He hadn't expected a woman to be the one blocking his strike. Evan, meanwhile, had already spun and struck with his blade in the same motion — his swordsmanship had sat at the peak of knighthood for some time now, sword-intent already present in every stroke, though he'd never consciously chased a breakthrough in his own technique. Somewhere along the way, without his noticing, it had happened anyway. In this very instant, with his whole mind and body thrown fully into the fight, his swordsmanship broke through quietly into Great Knight territory.
Calling it "Great Knight rank" undersold what actually happened. The moment his blade left its sheath, Evan felt the whole world seem to move in step with it — nothing existed beyond the blade, an unstoppable forward momentum, and something like contempt for the enemy rose in him unbidden, as though this opponent were beneath any real threat at all. In this single instant, he felt he held another man's fate entirely in his own hands.
Something surfaced in his mind — the paths Eugene might take, several branching possibilities, though one grew clearer and more certain than the rest by the moment. Eugene moved along exactly that path, and Evan's blade followed it precisely.
Eugene had never imagined Evan's swordwork could reach this level. No technique guided the strike at all — a simple swing, and yet sword-force stretched dozens of cubits, condensed to an unnatural density. His own movements felt locked down by some overwhelming will, as though he stood a naked infant before a charging tiger. His face went white. He pressed a hand to his chest, white light surging, and a puppet-like figure appeared before him in an instant, too fast to properly register, matching his own body's size exactly — and in that split-second window, his real body twisted aside.
Polarized aside, precisely like light itself. There was a crack, the decoy and the white light shattering together, and a long gash tore through the ground where he'd stood, dust billowing upward.
Jenny, needless to say, stood stunned by the whole sequence — but so did Grawvor. He'd already sensed several people closing in around him, known they meant to surround him quietly, and hadn't been afraid of it. He'd held back some strength when striking at Evan, true enough — but he hadn't expected Evan to catch his blow and match it evenly. What followed surprised him even more.
Someone behind Evan had struck at him. Grawvor had assumed they'd all move against him together, and instead found them fighting among themselves. Still, he had no time to spare thinking about it, since the moment of distraction gave the others their opening, and several spells came crashing down on him at once. The rest of the ambushers, equally startled that Eugene had turned on Evan, had no intention of wasting the opportunity, unleashing everything on Grawvor together. Wind blades, fireballs, ice lances filled the air, earth spikes burst from the ground, the whole scene dissolving into chaos.
Eugene, having just narrowly survived, went pale. Evan had proven far more vicious than he'd expected, and he found himself regretting, too late, having burned through the precious decoy talisman he'd worn at his chest. Before he could recover, Evan was already closing in — whoever had struck from behind, whatever their reasons, they were as good as dead now.
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Black smoke surged up beside Evan, rushing forward and reaching Eugene almost instantly. Barely recovered from his own shock, the smoke was on him again before he could react, and he choked out two words in a rush. A shield flickering with electricity appeared before him, catching the smoke — the shield fading rapidly as it absorbed the blow. He thought of the oldest strategy of all, retreat, but before he could act on it, a streak of blade-light fell from above and passed clean through his body.
Evan looked up to find Xiaoshuang, thoroughly pleased with herself, having guided her little sword straight through him. Evan gave her a smile. "Anyone who dares scheme against Wang deserves to die!" she declared.
A bone staff appeared in Evan's hand. He murmured an incantation, pointed at the corpse, and called out, "Soul Drain!" A thin thread of black smoke drew into the staff. Evan closed his eyes, then opened them again a moment later.
Jessica asked, "Who was he?"
"Gonuo Society. I'd assumed they'd gone entirely underground after our last strike against them. Didn't expect them to have the nerve to come after us again," Evan said.
Jessica understood. The fighting elsewhere had already ended — five mages had struck at Grawvor, only for him to injure two of them before escaping through his Random Door. The remaining five gathered themselves, conferred briefly, and set off in pursuit at once.
"Should we follow them?" Jessica asked. She understood well enough that Evan had already gotten what he needed from his conversation with Grawvor — Grawvor clearly had no real insight to offer about the Gate of Legend, so there was little point pressing the chase further.
"We'll keep following, at a distance. I expect Hollingburton's own people will meet up with us further ahead. No need to press too close, though — no one gains anything from that," Evan said with a smile.
Xiaoshuang spoke up. "Wang, search the bodies. Several people died here — bound to be plenty of gems and gold coins among them."
"Little miser." Evan shook his head. "Fine. Jenny, go help Xiaoshuang search the bodies. Split whatever you find between the two of you."
"This—" Jenny clearly had no wish to do it. Jessica said, "Go on, Jenny. It might feel beneath you, but going far in magic takes money, and there's no sense leaving it buried out here when you could put it to use. Bury the bodies properly while you're at it, and take a moment to note their anatomy. You won't need to dissect anything, but a bit more familiarity never hurts."
"Yes, Teacher." Jenny went off with Xiaoshuang to search the bodies. Evan said, "You really have your student searching corpses."
"Mages are meant to carry themselves with dignity, but they're also pursuers of knowledge above all else, and there's nothing base about pursuing knowledge. Wind-and-fire dual mages don't ordinarily dissect bodies, unlike you necromancers, but a little familiarity with the human body does no one any harm," Jessica said.
"The school's curriculum includes anatomy lessons. Students aren't required to practice hands-on, but that should be enough for most of them," Evan said.
"Enough for an ordinary student, perhaps. Not enough for a student of mine. Even without dissecting a human body, she'll be dissecting animals regardless," Jessica said.
"Her talent isn't especially strong," Evan said.
"Effort matters more in the long run. If she manages to publish a paper someday, she might get some natural feedback of her own — that would be her only real path to advancement. Otherwise, she'll spend her whole life stuck at fourth or fifth tier," Jessica said, clearly determined to raise the girl into a senior mage in her own right.
"You're right. I've probably put too much weight on raw talent. A person's own effort matters more than I've given it credit for. Newton was nothing but an alchemist to start — his own magical talent was likely weaker than Jenny's — and now he's one of the great mages of the age," Evan said.
"You've drawn several souls into that bone staff of yours now. What do you plan to do with them?" Jessica asked.
"What else? Release them after a while, let them find their way to heaven or hell, whichever fate decides. Depends on their luck," Evan said with a smile.
"Release them? What a waste. Why not craft them into soul gems instead? Soul gems fetch a premium on the black market — pity only necromancers can actually make them. If you do craft one, sell me a piece," Jessica said.
"Doesn't the mages' code forbid crafting soul gems?" Evan had held off on this himself all along, wary of drawing unwanted attention.
"The code does say that, but there's a clause — when facing a genuinely evil enemy, any method is permitted. It never says you can't turn an enemy's soul into a soul gem. The devils in Hell do it to human souls all the time without a second thought," Jessica said, unconcerned.
Soul gems were forged from a living creature's soul. With one, even an ordinary person could trigger a magic array, since a soul gem effectively made mental power manifest in physical form. But the Creationist Church condemned them, and the mages' code forbade their crafting outright. Legend held that a soul gem, used enough times, would eventually be consumed entirely — at which point the soul bound within it scattered forever, gone beyond any recovery.
Of course, a soul gem's uses ran far beyond that alone. As an unnatural gemstone, it served as the sole recognized currency in Hell itself — with one in hand, a person could trade with devils without being bound by any contract at all, and could even absorb one directly to boost their own mental power, though at considerable long-term cost.
Evan laughed. "Well, in that case, I suppose I'll give it a try. Wouldn't do to disgrace the title of necromancer, now would it. Heh heh." He broke into a wild laugh. Jessica took it in stride, unbothered, but Xiaoshuang, busy looting bodies nearby, felt a genuine chill run through her.
Wang's laugh is terrifying, Xiaoshuang thought. Wonder what he's scheming now. But her attention drifted at once back to the glinting gold coins in front of her, and Evan slipped entirely from her mind.