The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

For a moment Evan froze. Space seemed to shimmer, and countless insects surged up like a great wave — the domain unfolding around him a second time. The instant he saw it, his form flickered as he moved to blink away, but it was already too late.

Evan let out a cold snort, anger rising in him now. Don't mistake a tiger's silence for weakness, he thought, and turned his hand over. Lightning cracked through the air in an instant — he'd use the storm to tear through the man's rule. It wasn't an elegant solution, but lightning struck fast, and against a rule this poorly understood, brute force could work well enough.

Space shimmered again, but this time it didn't break. Evan frowned. In his mind, the flower on the World Tree blazed bright with the light of his Divine Domain, and in that instant, he seemed to rise above himself, chains of rule suddenly visible before his eyes. Without a second thought, he reached out and closed his hand around them, lightning crackling across his fingers.

Shailen stumbled back a step, every last insect vanishing at once. He hadn't imagined Evan could actually break his domain. "Impossible. How did you manage that?"

Before Evan could answer, the world blurred, and he vanished from in front of Shailen entirely. Shailen felt a crushing weight of pressure settle over him — the World Tree's own presence.

Evan and Shuang found themselves somewhere else entirely, some singular space unlike any other. Evan stayed on guard, watching his surroundings — boundless on every side, ribbons of green mist churning and swirling, slowly gathering together into the shape of a beautiful, radiant woman.

"Who are you?" Evan asked.

"I am what you call the World Tree. Right now you're standing within a space of consciousness — or, to use the language of magic, within a Sea of Consciousness," the woman answered.

"Do you know everything that just happened?" Evan asked. Beside him, Shuang's eyes had gone wide.

"Everything that happens here, I know."

"You already knew all of this. Then why do you tolerate Shailen?" Evan asked.

"Why shouldn't I? To me, what he intends to do is simply one choice among many. He acts out of concern for his people — his idea is a valid path, in its own way. And besides, his wife truly did give her life for the elves. The throne should have been hers, but she died protecting her people instead, and ever since, he's clung to the belief that all of it was his fault. He's dedicated his life to carrying out her unfinished will. His mind has grown fixed on the idea that the elves need to suffer some hardship. In truth, even if the flower fairy agreed to do as he asked, it wouldn't accomplish anything. But there is a force quietly growing among the elves even now — and it's about time for a change," the woman said.

"You already have everything under control. What exactly are you?" A wariness rose in Evan despite himself.

"I am an intelligence of a different kind than humanity's — though to make communication easier with you, I've taken on this human form. Humanity truly is the darling of creation. But the Creator was fair — he granted you boundless possibility, while stripping you of any direct sense for the deeper workings of heaven and earth. To my eyes, everything is simply the outcome of energy in motion. You're a strange one, though — a lich's body, and yet a heart that isn't a lich's at all. There's a secret of life and death held inside you, and something of divinity's own mystery too. I wonder whether you might walk a road no one else has walked yet," the woman said, her tone even.

"Great Being, you've drawn us in here. What is it you want from us?" Hearing her speak this way, Evan hadn't fully let his guard down, but he'd already switched to addressing her with respect.

The woman smiled. "At first, it was only curiosity. But now there's something I need you to do."

"Why choose me? You have tens of thousands of elves under your care, several of them Legend mages among them. I'm nothing more than an Arcanist. What help could I possibly offer you?" Evan asked.

"All life is equal. Don't think so little of yourself — you simply haven't yet awakened to your own true nature. What I need is simple enough. Only pass along a message. When Shailen and his people move to split the elven race apart, tell them I've allowed it," the woman said.

"That's all?" Evan asked, so simple a request that he couldn't help suspecting some hidden scheme behind it.

The woman glanced at him. "Humans are a suspicious lot, just as I expected. Nothing here is nearly so complicated — it truly is that simple. As it happens, the elves have picked up something of that same human habit. I've tried passing my meaning along to the Elf Queen, but most elves won't believe her. By elven custom, only the Elf Queen has the standing to speak with me directly, and elves are a people bound tightly to their customs — stubbornly so, on this particular point. So I had no choice but to find someone else."

"There are plenty of visitors here. Why choose me, of all people? Is there some token, some proof, to go with this?" A thought struck Evan, and he angled the question toward asking for some advantage in return.

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"I simply picked someone at random. As it happened, you walked into Shailen's house right as he meant you harm, so I stepped in and saved you while I was at it. As for a token — of course I've prepared one for you. Only, it isn't meant for you. It's meant for her." The woman pointed at Shuang.

"Elder — yes, give it to me, not that lich. What is it?" Shuang said.

Light and shadow rippled through the woman's hand. Beside Shuang, her own wand appeared, tiny and short as ever, while a much larger wand materialized in the woman's grasp. Both wands rose into the air together — the larger one shrinking smaller and smaller as it went — until the two met and merged into one, intricate magical patterns surfacing across its length at once. "Shuang, this wand is yours. It carries the authority of nature itself — with it, you can call upon the guardian magic unique to the elves. Consider it your token."

Shuang took it in her hands, unable to tear her eyes away, her voice turning sweet as honey. "Thank you, beautiful Goddess, Your Majesty. You truly are the best being in this whole world — ten thousand times better than that lich."

Evan's face darkened. Flattery was one thing, but did she have to drag him down while she was at it? Stingy, he thought sourly — the World Tree hands Shuang one measly little stick and buys her off completely. That dead little fairy had no shame left, throwing away every ounce of flower-fairy dignity over a single tiny wand.

He was still grumbling silently to himself when the woman lifted her gaze toward him, and Evan felt a sudden sense of dread. Sure enough, she spoke. "Are you slandering me in your thoughts?"

"No," Evan denied at once.

"Please. Within my own space, I know everything. I hear every thought that crosses your mind," the woman said evenly, not the least bit angry.

Evan felt a chill run through him. "You know all of my thoughts?"

"Under normal circumstances, I don't read anyone's mind — you needn't worry, I have no particular interest in you. If your thoughts hadn't been stirring so visibly just now, I wouldn't have noticed them at all. In cultivation, an impure mind is the greatest hazard. A person's heart tends to wander like a restless monkey or a galloping horse, and most forget this simple truth, then wonder why their own aptitude falls short," the woman said with a smile.

Evan let out a breath of relief, then went suddenly still. "Thank you for the guidance. It's made something clear to me. In cultivation, nothing can be faked — I've always loved my clever little tricks too much. Only now do I understand what true wisdom really is. A mind free of scheming is the only real one."

The moment the thought crossed his mind, his heart felt washed clean, as though a great deal of dust had lifted from it all at once. His cultivation hadn't advanced an inch, and yet Evan felt he'd gained something enormous all the same.

"You understand now. Anything else you'd like to ask?"

"I'd like to ask — how do elves reach Legend?" Evan asked. He already knew the human path to Legend, but the elven method remained a mystery to him.

The woman glanced at him and smiled. "So you're preparing to reach Legend yourself. The human method was, in fact, borrowed from the elves originally, though it's since diverged from ours. Elves carry magic patterns on their bodies — under normal circumstances, entirely invisible, but under certain conditions, excitement being one of them, those patterns will surface on the skin. That's the real reason elven magical talent so far outstrips humanity's. And those patterns evolve over time, and since elves live so much longer than humans do, they reach Legend through those patterns. Humans have no such patterns, but you're a clever species — you substitute magic arrays in their place, to trigger the spiritual vibration instead."

Evan felt a wave of disappointment settle over him. He'd hoped for something entirely new, only to learn that humanity's whole method had simply been borrowed secondhand. So much for that particular hope.

"Is there any method belonging to some other system entirely?" Evan asked.

"There is. Humanity, self-styled the spirit of all creation, was clever enough to devise a shortcut like that. Across heaven and earth, life transcending its lower state isn't limited to some borrowed method — there are many paths, though most of them have long since been lost to the flow of history. Generally speaking, they all start from one of two directions: body, or mind. In truth, the methods in use today lean too heavily on the external, and far too little has been done to cultivate the mind itself. I don't know the specifics of any such method myself, but most of them begin from the direction of the mind," the woman said evenly.

Evan sank into thought. Of all the possible methods, the magic-array approach clearly remained the most convenient — otherwise it would never have survived to be passed down at all. Starting from the mind, though — Evan sensed, however faintly, that this touched on the very nature of magic itself. He waited a moment. The woman seemed in no hurry, so he finally asked, "Then what is the true nature of magic?"

"The mind reaching out to interfere with the world." The answer came short and plain, and yet something lit up in Evan's eyes at once.

He asked another question. "Then is the elemental theory currently accepted throughout the world of magic actually correct?"

"Theory is a phenomenon unique to humanity — a summary of human experience. It aligns with nature only up to a certain point, and every theory derived from it drifts further and further from nature the more it's extended." She hadn't said the theory was correct, and yet Evan understood her meaning all the same. A theory rested on certain axioms, built up through logically sound derivation — and that alone left it flawed from the start. Whether the axioms themselves were true was itself a question, since they were nothing more than creation's own projection onto the human mind, with no guarantee of accuracy. And whether the logical derivation itself held up was a separate question again, since logic itself was simply another axiomatic system — if something existed that defied logic altogether, the implications were plain enough. She couldn't call any of it correct. In a sense, every theory was wrong; at best, a theory could only align with the true nature of things within some limited range.

And the further a conclusion strayed from its original premise, the further it likely drifted from its true target — possibly diverging from nature entirely. Evan believed he understood what she meant. He didn't notice that even as he told himself he understood, a flicker of something like helplessness crossed the woman's eyes. Some things truly couldn't be put into words — the rest was up to him alone.

"Thank you for your guidance." Evan gave a solemn bow. "I understand now which road I need to walk. I'll see to the task you've entrusted to me."