Chapter 66 – Resonance
When Orestis walked over to the well, Eirene and Maxim followed him there.
Orestis constructed a diagnostic spell, letting it flow through the well and down into the water. Contaminating the water sources was one of the easiest ways to spread an infection after all—magical or otherwise.
“Didn’t they already test the water?” Eirene asked.
Orestis was about to reply when Maxim answered, “For biological contaminants, yes. What he’s casting examines the soul-level properties of matter. Residual soul energy, necromantic traces, life force contamination—the kind of thing standard testing wouldn’t look for.” He tilted his head. “Although, I’m not familiar with that particular version of the spell.”
“This is something I redesigned after I acquired soul affinity,” Orestis said, processing the feedback from the spell.
The water was clean; there were no necromantic traces, no altered life force, no soul-level contamination of any kind.
Rules out the water as the source.
“The original spells were adequate,” Orestis continued as he released the spell. “But the data they returned was quite limited compared to what demons could inherently sense. This version removes that limitation.”
“Nice,” Maxim said. “I’m adding it to my collection.”
Right. The idiot can copy anything after seeing it once.
It had made things quite convenient back in the day. With every other hero, Orestis had to construct elaborate schemes—disguising himself as some unknown master, arranging chance encounters, or manufacturing situations where the hero would ‘discover’ a new technique.
The amount of effort required to teach someone, without revealing who was teaching them, had been an unnecessarily complicated process.
With Maxim, however, all he had to do was just go and attack him. Whatever spell or technique Orestis used, Maxim would replicate immediately. Very convenient.
But kind of irritating now, since he’s learning something I had no intention of teaching him.
It became even more annoying when Maxim immediately started casting the diagnostic spell on everything in sight.
The well stones were logical. The bucket? Sure. But the rope? Questionable at best.
Next was the wooden frame supporting the pulley mechanism. After that, the patch of ground beside the well. Then the fence post next to that.
Why? Just because he can, apparently.
It was completely unnecessary. And he kept on going.
“What could you possibly learn from a wheelbarrow?” Orestis finally asked, having gotten fed up with the idiocy.
“I was just curious to see how long it would take before you said something,” Maxim replied, before casting the spell on a chicken that had wandered too close.
Orestis gave him a look that made his lack of amusement obvious.
What’s even more irritating is that, unlike the rest, the chicken actually makes sense to test.
Just then, he felt Eirene draw power.
When Orestis glanced at her, he saw that she was also constructing his spell. It seemed that, while the idiot was fooling around casting it on everything in sight, she had been studying the sigil structure. With her aptitude, seeing it that many times was more than enough for her to be able to reproduce it.
Once she finished the construction, she cast it on Orestis. He let it land.
Since he was shielded twice over, he obviously did not have the necromantic infection. But the spell would still give her data on a soul’s structure—and any data was useful when learning a new diagnostic tool.
So much more reasonable than what the idiot was doing.
She contemplated for a moment, then cast the spell on herself without releasing the one on Orestis. He smiled; she was comparing their souls, cataloguing differences.
“If you want an accurate comparison, you should use the same gender,” Orestis said. “There are structural differences based on that.”
In response, Eirene decided to cast an additional one on Maxim. Now she had three running simultaneously.
Ok, fair. But that wasn’t what I meant.
“I meant you should check other people,” he clarified. “Maxim and I are the worst examples to look at; our souls are unusual due to the curses.”
“Oh, hey, good point,” Maxim’s voice came from somewhere behind them. “I should examine that.”
He sensed the idiot sending a couple of spells their way. Orestis allowed one to land on him but—with a flicker of power—swatted away the one aimed at Eirene. Maxim could scrutinise their souls if he wanted, but there was no reason to examine hers.
Meanwhile, Eirene didn’t seem to mind. She was concentrating on the spell’s output—what she was sensing from all of their souls.
A moment later, she said, “These links… are they the connections we have to the goddesses?”
She had no way of indicating what she was referring to, but Orestis did not need her to. A divine tether would be unmistakable from a soul-vision perspective; far too distinct and unique to be mistaken for anything else.
“Yes,” he replied.
It was also not surprising that she had focused on the link. It was likely the only part she could reasonably identify or interpret.
The spell returned far more than simple visuals—it conveyed structure, relationships, variations in density and flow, and more besides. But without the necessary knowledge, most of it would be little more than noise.
It was like being handed a page of dense script in a language one did not know; to understand the meaning, one would first have to learn the language.
Eirene frowned slightly. “It feels… fragile. Like I could sever it without much effort.”
Orestis scoffed, amused. “It’s not as fragile as it looks. But yes, it can be broken with a bit of effort. Although, if you do break your bond with Eleuthera, you should expect her to bother you every waking hour until you agree to re-establish it.”
Unlike Lyse, she would not re-establish the bond without consent. She would just annoy you until you give in. Which might arguably be worse.
He then added, “Come to think of it, even if you do sever your link, you won’t lose Eleuthera’s Blessing. That’s permanent.”
“Why?”
“Eleuthera’s primary Blessing releases restraints—it doesn’t create anything, so there’s nothing to break. That link you see is just a placeholder, mostly there so that other gods can see you’re connected to her.”
At that point they heard Maxim’s voice again. “Guys, I found something.”
Orestis and Eirene both turned to look. Maxim was standing near the consecrated building, the diagnostic spell cast on multiple people.
Rather than casting the spell again on that many individuals himself—which would be inefficient and therefore unnecessary—Orestis chose a different approach: creating a sensory link. He established one link between Maxim and himself, and another one connecting himself to Eirene.
The arrangement was obviously less efficient than a direct link to the main source of the sensory data. But Orestis did not like the idea of creating one directly between Maxim and Eirene.
He had enough self-awareness to recognise that the thought was ridiculous. He kept himself between them anyway.
Through the link, he saw what Maxim was seeing.
The souls of the infected were emitting something like a rhythmic oscillation. It was subtle and barely perceptible, but consistent across every infected individual. By itself, that was not unusual; souls were never static, after all.
What made these significant was how, when an uninfected person moved close enough to someone infected, the uninfected person’s soul also began to resonate in sympathy. It was like placing a vibrating tuning fork beside another, where the latter started oscillating at the same frequency.
And this particular frequency, was creating a necromantic framework—a magical formation using the person’s own soul—that would convert and repurpose any dead cells within the body into a pathogen.
It was remarkably creative. Impressive, even.
Since Eirene would not be able to interpret all of that, Orestis walked her through what they were seeing.
“That’s why none of the healers have been able to find a source for the infection,” she remarked. “It’s not coming from the outside; it’s being created from within.”
At this point, Maxim dismissed the diagnostic spells from the villagers and healers, thanked them for their cooperation, and walked over to Orestis and Eirene.
“Based on how it’s spreading, the source was most likely some random person directly infected by the necromancer,” Maxim said.
“Far more likely, he infected himself and simply took a walk through the village,” Orestis replied.
It’s what I would have done. Less chance of being detected casting something.
Then, if the necromancer were to disinfect himself within the hour, the loss of his personal life force would have been negligible to non-existent.
“Makes sense,” Maxim nodded. “So, what’s next?”
Orestis gave him a sceptical look. “Why are you asking me? You’ve done this sort of thing countless times.”
“Well, yeah. But you have a quota to fill for My Goddess,” he said. “I’m being considerate and letting you take the lead to solve this.”
The fact that Maxim knew about it meant that Lyse was nagging him about it too.
Figures.
As if summoned by the thought, her voice helpfully rang in his head: You will gain at least two ranks if you catch this necromancer.
Orestis shook his head and said, “We know the source and the propagation method now. What’s left is to find out how the life force is being collected.”
“And you have an idea,” Maxim said. It was not a question.
“I do,” Orestis replied.
There was a reason he was still maintaining the sensory link. It would be easier for the other two to perceive what he was about to show them rather than explaining it afterwards.
Orestis brought his hands together, palms facing each other with a gap between them, and channelled a necromantic spell. This particular one would enable him—and by extension, Eirene and Maxim—to detect all life force in the area.
Through the link, all three of them were able to sense the life force drifting through the environment. These faint traces were being absorbed into the trees, drawn down through root systems into the soil, and then flowing through the fine network of mana capillaries that permeated the land.
“Oh. So he’s using the mana stream,” Maxim said.
Eirene looked around and asked, “Do trees naturally absorb life force?”
“Yes,” Maxim said. “But life force is also supposed to break down and dissolve into the mana flow. It looks like the necromancer is marking or modifying it in some way so that it can’t.”
“It’s both,” Orestis said, only half paying attention.
His senses were focused on how the markings were activated upon contact with the mana stream—how they subtly altered the concentration of the life force energy, preventing it from breaking down.
The method felt somewhat familiar. It was simple, and rudimentary compared to what he’d known. No—it was probably better to say this was unrefined. It looked like an earlier, cruder version of a technique he had become quite familiar with, before he regressed.
What are the chances?
Well, it was easy enough to check.
He turned to Maxim. “Let me borrow some of your life force.”
He did not wait before creating a transparent sphere—small enough to fit in his palm—and tossing it at Maxim. It passed through his body and emerged filled with a warm, faintly luminous mist.
“Hey!” Maxim protested. It was purely for show, obviously, since he could have easily dodged it if he had wanted to. Besides—
“You have an infinite amount of it. You’ll manage,” Orestis retorted.
“That’s not the point. You should have waited until after I said okay.”
Orestis ignored him, already working to modify the borrowed life force. He ensured it would not disperse and then put his own mark on it. Immediately, an awareness of its location bloomed within his senses. With that done, he allowed the sphere to crack open.
The marked life force dispersed, got absorbed by a nearby tree, and entered the mana stream. They sensed it moving away, slowly accelerating, until it was covering great distances at surprising speed. Soon enough, though, it came to a stop.
Maxim’s expression shifted into a sharp grin. “Is that where the necromancer is?”
“Possibly,” Orestis said. “But it’s far more likely to be at a collection node. One of several.”
If I’m right about who is behind this, that is.
“No matter,” Maxim said. “I’m ready either way.”
At the same moment, Eirene modified the protective barrier she had maintained since entering the infected zone—which was unnecessary, but still a reasonable precaution—into the combat shield Orestis had taught her. He smiled with approval.
Maxim, of course, did not bother with a magical shield. Even if he wasn’t immortal, the defensive strength of his aura would have made such shields redundant.
Orestis opened a gate in the sky above the location where the marked energy had come to rest. The signal was already starting to fade—which was expected. Now that it had reached its destination, the life force would slowly be converted into something neutral and easier to harvest. And the conversion process would break down anything that was deemed unnecessary.
Through the gate, they saw an unremarkable patch of forest. Unremarkable, that is, except for the fact that it was located at a natural convergence point. This was where several smaller streams of mana merged into a larger flow.
After choosing a suitable location, Orestis closed the first gate and opened a second one at ground level. They all stepped through and stood in front of the object that now held the last traces of the marked life force.
“A yew tree?” Maxim said, looking at it critically.
“It’s been modified,” Orestis said as he cast another diagnostic spell—this one used to look at internal structure.
And there, embedded inside the heartwood, was a life crystal; an artificial construct of crystallised necromantic energy, designed to pull in and store life force within.
More importantly, though, Orestis was familiar with that particular design. And it was a unique one.
Well, I suppose that makes it certain. He is the only one who ever used that.
“I know who is responsible for this,” Orestis said, with some mixed feelings.
“Really?” Maxim asked.
“Who?” Eirene added.
Orestis sighed. “If he’s not one already, he will eventually be known as the Lich, Varra.”
Maxim’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. Him.”
Eirene looked between them. “Who’s Varra?”
“A ridiculously powerful lich. Based on historical accounts, he was said to be almost as bad as Orestis,” Maxim replied.
Orestis didn’t dispute that. Instead, he added a more significant detail.
“He was also the one I learned necromancy from.”
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