The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Even that faintest flicker of motion gave Evan away instantly. Raphael's dragon lance locked onto him at once, pointing straight at the tree — only to find, to his genuine surprise, that his target had somehow slipped free of that lock entirely. Something tightened in his chest. This was a true master he faced.

Evan hadn't expected his own momentary lapse in focus — that faint, unconscious adjustment — to expose him so completely either. Something sobered in him too; he'd underestimated what it meant to face a Great Knight. He stepped out from behind the tree. Raphael's eyes narrowed. "You. You lich — you still dare show your face before me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Evan said flatly. Facing a Great Knight directly, he finally understood what the rank truly meant. He'd crossed paths with Great Knights before, but never with this kind of clarity — his fight against Joshua had been the first time he'd genuinely felt how a Great Knight's power operated, though only because Joshua's own breakthrough had come mid-battle, his footing still unsteady. Evan had thought he understood what a Great Knight was after that. Only now did he realize how far short that understanding had actually fallen.

The moment the two of them faced off, their wills clashed at once. Evan hadn't held Great Knight rank long — a matter of days, really — but those days had been enough to plant his own foundation firmly.

Evan stepped forward, the motion looking ordinary enough on the surface, but each step carried the elusiveness of a drifting ghost — every time, landing somewhere entirely beyond what Raphael expected. Raphael understood then: the lich before him had grown into something capable of standing against him on genuinely even footing. He held no doubt he could still win — but Evan's strength could no longer be dismissed, not with the man standing right in front of him.

Evan advanced, seemingly at ease, though he was watching closely, trying to lock onto Raphael. The man stood there plainly, and yet he was as impossible to pin down as drifting mist — nothing about him could be locked in place at all, standing perfectly still, no movement whatsoever. Only now did Evan understand just how much luck had carried him through his previous escapes from this man.

Raphael moved. The dragon lance leveled, a surge of pressure shooting skyward, resolving into a streak of light with a thunderous crack — his speed suddenly breaking past the speed of sound. A single, unadorned strike, and yet it carried enough weight to shatter anyone's nerve.

A thin veil of black smoke rose around Evan, his body blurring, a vague, oversized hand reaching out from within it to strike at Raphael. There was a crack, and the two of them switched places entirely. Evan coughed once, and the two faced each other again.

Raphael's expression stayed perfectly blank, while Evan's own face carried a rueful edge. He really was weaker than Raphael, no question about it — he'd used magic there, not swordsmanship, and Raphael had come away entirely unscathed, while he himself had taken a minor wound.

This time, without waiting for Raphael to strike first, Evan attacked — with his blade this time. Steel rang as it cleared its sheath, sword-force rising skyward, trembling faintly, humming with a low resonance. Twenty cubits out, that force split into dozens of separate threads, scattering like a field of stars, wrapping Raphael on every side at once.

And more insidiously still, the crescent blade rose silently behind Evan, streaking suddenly toward Raphael — nothing but a flash of silver this time, no lightning, no whirlwind at all.

Raphael raised the dragon lance, body and weapon fusing into one motion, and struck without hesitation — red light flared violently the instant the lance moved, blazing brighter still at its tip. There was a boom, ripples of force spreading through the air, dissolving Evan's assault entirely.

He was moving to press the advantage when the crescent blade arrived, touching the faint red glow shielding his body. Lightning erupted violently in that instant — only then did Raphael realize he'd miscalculated.

He'd noticed the crescent blade earlier, of course, but hadn't thought much of it — a hidden weapon, nothing more, and even a proper magical item couldn't hope to breach his own sword-force. So he'd paid it no mind. But the instant it touched him, lightning flared and a whirlwind tore loose at once, and he understood, too late, his own carelessness. He let out a roar, releasing both hands, the dragon lance hanging suspended in midair for an instant as he drew the blade at his hip, red light flaring again, both hands gripping the sword now, forcing a hard block against the strike.

There was a crack, and the crescent blade was thrown clear — but he too found himself wrapped in crackling lightning-fire, coughing up a mouthful of blood laced with sparks of electricity, his body driven back several steps. Even as he retreated, he shifted the blade to his left hand alone, his right hand snapping open, reaching out into empty air — the dragon lance hadn't even finished falling before some force snatched it back into his open palm, his body still skidding backward from the impact. All of this happened in nearly the same instant.

Evan gave silent, private credit for that recovery — but he wasn't about to let the opening pass. Black smoke shrieked outward, resolving into two massive skulls, lunging at Raphael from either side at once, while the crescent blade, thrown clear a moment before, spun back through the air and swept in for another strike, giving him not a single breath to recover.

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The situation had turned genuinely dangerous for Raphael, and it was here that he showed exactly why he'd earned the title Blade of Gabriel. Mid-retreat, his right hand drove the lance backward and down in a blur, the butt of the dragon lance planting itself into the ground with a crack, its head angled to meet the crescent blade, his whole body rising up off that single point like a rearing centaur. His left hand swept out, a crescent arc of red light lashing across one of the skulls, shattering it instantly — but the second skull had already arrived.

His right hand tightened, the dragon lance still planted in the earth, its shaft flaring red, the glow wrapping around his own body as well. The second skull slammed straight into the lance's shaft at his side, shattering apart with a crack. The impact sent a shudder through the weapon, its head flickering with a scattering of afterimages — and it was into that exact spot that the crescent blade struck, ringing off it with a clang and falling to the ground.

Raphael sheathed his sword with a ring of steel, his right hand tearing the dragon lance free of the earth, leveling it, the red glow receding as he fixed Evan with a cold stare. "You managed to wound me — through methods beneath any honorable warrior, I'll grant, but I have to admit, you're a worthy enemy. Still, you're fated to be purified beneath my lord's radiance."

Evan couldn't help a flicker of genuine respect, watching how deftly Raphael had unraveled his own assault. "You're strong. What is real is rational, as they say. Your Creationist Church invokes the name of the divine to purge whoever it deems unworthy — but has your god ever actually spoken? All of it is nothing but the word of you priests. The true gods of this world don't belong to your Church alone. You're mortals yourselves, same as anyone — what do you truly know of the divine's own mysteries? Since the dawn of time, every living thing has stood equal to every other."

"Nonsense. Only my Lord's radiance is the true divinity. All you heretics belong in hell!" Raphael shouted, launching into scripture. A horn sounded in the sky, a rift tearing open above them, a hymn ringing out majestically as an angel descended — three pairs of wings unfurling behind it, Gabriel manifesting, holy light pouring down like fresh milk, a cross-star blade in hand, cleaving downward through the air, tens of feet of holy radiance crashing down in its wake.

Evan's eyes narrowed at the sight, a strange feeling rising in him — was this another fantasy-born creature? Some deep, unspoken sense stirred in him. He spread both hands and began chanting. "Great god of death, your servant calls upon you. Death is everywhere. Your power is everywhere. Death is only another beginning."

His mental sea surged violently, a tremendous force gathering. In that instant, Evan seemed to brush against something like a vast and ancient order — countless beliefs, spanning all of history, converging together at once. Understanding settled over him, faint but clear: this was the manifestation of untold billions of lives' fear of death, scattered across time and space itself. A black lotus bloomed in the sky, and Hadir, god of death, stood upon it, the Spear of Hadir in hand, clad in black robes — and behind him, another figure could be faintly seen, a black-robed shape carrying a long-handled scythe.

The holy light crashed down, only to be caught by black smoke rising from that scythe. The Spear of Hadir had already struck. Black fireballs seemed to roll across the sky, and in an instant, Gabriel vanished — and Hadir vanished along with him, only the black lotus flickering once before sinking into Evan's own mental sea.

Understanding settled over Evan. He hadn't truly summoned the god of death at all — no, if a mortal could summon the actual god of death, it could only ever be a fantasy-born manifestation. His own mental power was nothing more than a single drop in an ocean; what had actually taken the shape of Hadir was human consciousness itself — humanity's accumulated fear of death, and everything bound up with it, across all of history, converging into some strange phenomenon woven through time and space. Evan had simply happened, by chance, to give that collective consciousness a form. That was the true nature of what he'd just summoned.

His deep understanding of the true nature of summoning was exactly what had kept him from falling into the trap of believing this was truly divine. Raphael, though, was different — he genuinely believed Gabriel to be real, believed gods could be cultivated into being, that the power of faith was nothing more than a single wave in an infinite sea of consciousness. Which raised the question — was this world truly shaped by the consciousness of every intelligent being within it? Or was the universe itself, as the old teachings back on Earth once held — the Buddhist concept of emptiness, the Taoist concept of nothingness — nothing more than a projection of consciousness after all?

Evan turned all of this over in the span of a single instant, in the middle of a battle no less. Fortunately, Raphael was far too consumed with his own horror to notice. "You! You summoned the Archangel Hadir! Impossible — impossible! Something must be wrong somewhere! How could a lich summon a great archangel of the dark element? This must be an illusion — it has to be an illusion!"

He'd gone half-mad. Years of faith shattered in that single instant. He let out a wild howl, red light flaring across his body, unstable now, surging like a tide. Only one thought remained to him — kill Evan. He'd become a devil in his own mind now, more terrifying than any true devil could be. His body lifted off the ground, and unbidden, some fragment of the Book of the Dead surfaced in his mind — he'd thought he'd forgotten it entirely, and yet it had lain buried in his subconscious all along. He believed himself tempted by a devil, and that devil stood right there before him. Only one thought remained — kill the devil in front of him.

That wild howl snapped Evan back to himself, reminding him he still stood in the middle of a battle. Fortunate that he was a lich — an ordinary man would have been drenched in cold sweat by now. Evan dissolved into mist at once, his body scattering apart.

The dragon lance passed through empty air, doing him no harm. Raphael, half-lucid, half-consumed by madness, acted now on pure instinct alone. Seeing his strike miss, he spun around, red light flaring again — and Evan's Spear of Hadir was already in his hand, already loosed. There was a thunderous crack, an enormous mushroom cloud rising, a colossal ghostly skull screaming outward. Had Raphael been lucid, he'd have shielded himself with sword-force at once — instead, half-mad as he was, he charged straight into it.

The ghostly cloud dispersed, leaving his clothes in tatters, though his combat instincts had held even through the madness, shifting his body just enough to spare his vitals.

And then the fallen crescent blade, lying quietly on the ground, leapt up once more, streaking forward in a flash of silver, driving straight for the small of Raphael's back.