By nightfall, the conversation between the forest fairies and Baiyi’s posse was reaching its end. Everyone was preparing to retire for the night, including Baiyi, who had wrapped up his conversation. The forest fairy leader bid Baiyi and his group a good night, and the large ant left behind some fruits, vegetables, and unlucky little critters before disappearing into the night.
Right before the forest fairy leader left, the Ant produced something and tossed it to the soul armature. “You’re a friend, and you are someone who withstood the test. This is our little memento; I hope you’ll like it.”
Baiyi raised his hand to see what it was, and a Nota the fairy, who was also curious, flew over to have a look. A few moments after Baiyi raised his hand, the fairy screamed out loud.
It was a human skull! Although Baiyi did not know what the skull in his hand had been subjected to, he did note that every uneven vertex of the skull had been smoothened flat, making the skull look like it had been made out of crystal. The skull did look artistically unique, but it was still a pretty gruesome gift to give to someone. As things stood, one could not help but be impressed by the Ants’ dourness.
Oblivious to the reaction that its gift incited, the forest fairy leader began to describe the skull. “This came from the mightiest of the intruders! It should have been your own battle keepsake, but you were busy with your test; hence, you left it there… So, we kept all of the skulls, and picked out the best one for you!”
This meant that the skull in Baiyi’s grasp was the Northern Warrior’s! Baiyi scanned the skull using his psychic energy and found a wisp of elemental combat chi still lingering within the bone. More importantly, however, was the fact that he discovered something encased within the skull; it was a complete soul — the Northern Warrior’s soul!
The soul seemed to be in a deep stasis, and as Baiyi could not detect any other foreign powers influencing its state, he deduced that the soul had not recovered from death-shock, the shock every soul received upon the death of its body. It was still trapped in that exact moment when death had seized it.
In this universe, people who died could return to the world as soul armatures, but not everyone had a shot at it. The weakest of people — those who had not cultivated any power while they were alive — were too fragile to survive the impact of death, let alone the continued existence of their soul after death. Some of the stronger people, after death, do not end up getting summoned before the vital energy of their souls are completely exhausted; this is simply because they were not lucky enough to be summoned. There were also others who refuse to be yanked back into the world to live as a soul armature; these set of people believe death to be an everlasting respite, rather than a temporary rest. The Northern Warrior fell into this category.
In fact, this belief was the norm in the Northern lands. The culture and values in these parts differed greatly from their Southern counterpart. In the Northern lands, great respect is given to the dead; therefore, they shunned the soul armature arts, considering it utter heresy. This view was shared by those at the top of the Northern hierarchy, all the way down to the lowest commoners. The practice had been banned by those at the top, so the Northern commoners shied away from it. Hence, it was incredibly rare to come across a Northern soul armature practitioner and a Northern soul armature.
Hence, it was normal to see the Northerner’s Soul in such a state, despite his powers.
Nevertheless, this particular gift was incredibly valuable, for in the hands of a master necromancer, the soul of a Holy-level fighter was worth as much as a divine regalia or divine weapon.
“My sincere thanks,” said Baiyi earnestly as he kept the skull.
“No need! Fare thee well, my friend. You must remember: we’ll help you,” the forest fairy leader said as it slowly vanished into the cold air of the night; perhaps it had already traversed far enough into the horizon. However, when one remembered that these ants were technically everywhere and anywhere, then they would see deduce that these forest fairies did not “move”; they just appeared and disappeared.
As Baiyi pondered over the absurdity of the gift he had given, as well as the forest fairy leader’s parting words, he began to feel that the forest fairy leader returned to its somber, normal before it left.
However, he had more pressing issues to discuss, so Baiyi first calmed Nota down and sent her off to bed. After that, he found a cozy spot under the bough of a tree, sat down, and turned his attention inwards, towards the discussion currently being held among the Voidwalkers.
“Felicitations to Sir Hope for finally obtaining a live informant! — or so to speak, anyway!” The Lich Walker said, with an unusual friendly tone of voice. Then, with as much passion, he continued, “So… now that we have this extremely rare soul of an immensely powerful fighter, what do you supposed we shall do? Oh, we must talk about this hefty reward now! Other topics be damned… at least for a while!”
His alacrity was actually quite understandable. To a lich, being gifted a soul of this caliber was no different from obtaining a really rare card in a gacha game1 . After all, this meant that it was the time for the evil lich to do his thing 2 !
“How about… A Holy-level Revenant? This would be one of the best classes to express his talent… Ooh, ooh! How about a Vengeful Spirit 3 ? A Holy-level Wraith… A creation from the worst nightmares! I never had the chance to obtain it back then! Ahhh… It would be the universe’s most terrifying assassin, capable of completely evading detection as it cuts up its target’s soul directly into pieces! Now that is reliability and power, combined — unlike the two unreliable knives-users we know…” The Lich Walker continued to babble in excitement.
“Oy, Barfbone! Who are you talking bad about now?” A familiar female voice, which was known for its cold snorts, retorted. “You think I’m less than someone who can’t even fail to remain alive?”
“You want to fight, bro?! Demigod Lich?! You think I’m scared? I’ll send your minions to their second death; you wanna try me?” The Hitman Walker added in a berserk manner.
The Lich Walker, however, did not bother to reply either of them. Instead, he continued rambling in excitement. “Oh man… I have an even better idea! How about we use this particular soul as our guide to search for other powerful souls, then we combined the souls we find and voila! We get a Leviathan Legion Monster! If it all goes well, it would become the ultimate Angel of War among the undead! … Or maybe, could we fashion that skull into a staff? Using a Holy-level soul as the core of a Spirit Rod should yield a staff even more potent than my old ‘Souls of the Enslaved’! C’mon; didn’t you just complain about not earning a weapon in the previous ordeal?”
To the Lich Walker, who was very excited, Baiyi could only shake his head helplessly. “Why are you this giddy? You fought many heroes and warriors in your lifetime. Have you really never gotten your hands on a Holy-level fighter’ soul? You’re acting like this is the first time.”
“Well,” the Lich Walker faltered a little. “As you already know, even I could not afford to slack off in battles against Holy-level fighters. They are powerhouses, after all; therefore, it is only natural that I had to resort to spells that would directly inflict damage to their souls, just so that I can have an edge over them. Plus, those who had battled me before knew what would happen to their souls should it fall into my hands, so all I could salvage after a battle was just unimpressive spirit fragments… But this! This right here is a complete Holy-level Soul. It’s the first time I have ever laid my hands on one! How can you expect me to not react in ecstasy… in jubilance?”
“Alright, I guess you do have a point. Furthermore, I admit that your ideas are all worth considering. But I have very bad news for you, man. I examined this soul meticulously just now, and it… It is lacking a consciousness. Look; I don’t know if the consciousness was lost because the Northern Warrior inflicted damage on his own soul, or if the ants did something to it. What I can tell you, however, is that this soul right here is just a blank slate,” Baiyi said woefully.
“Th-that’s… that’s not possible!” The Lich Walker replied in a hoarse voice, failing to hide his dismay. “S-Sir Hope, y-you’re jesting with me, right? I mean, I know you draw a line between yourself and necromancy generally; you could just say that out loud, man! There’s n-n-no need to be passive-aggressive here! I know we have some major divergence on a heap of issues; I honestly understand that!…”
Necromancy had a major problem. In order for one to create a useful undead from the soul of a deceased, the soul would have to have a certain degree of intelligence and self-managing capabilities; this relied on the amount of consciousness left within the soul. If a soul did not contain any consciousness, it was called a ‘soul container’, and even a Demigod-level lich could not make a soul fragment into anything other than a broken toy with no self-preserving capabilities. In other words, the product would be the lowest level of undead possible.
If the goal of a lich was to produce an undead that had all the experiences and skills of its past life, then the amount of consciousness required would be more demanding. If the Lich Walker turned a complete soul into an undead, if he was willing, he would not wipe the undead’s memories of its past life; instead, he would let it retain its past intelligence. Undead minions like these were the most devastating of the lot.
Unfortunately, the soul in Baiyi’s hand had already lost all of his consciousness. Baiyi had no idea why that happened, but he knew that if one was to stubbornly make an undead out of the Northern Warrior’s soul, regardless of this, the only type of undead they would get is a low-class undead with no experiences and skill. This kind of undead would just be there for display and to increase the body count.
That was why the Lich Walker was sullen and disappointed. To him, this was akin to one picking up a diamond the size of a soccer ball, only to realize later on that the “diamond” was actually clear plastic. The enormous difference between expectation and reality was enough to crush even someone whose heart stopped beating thousands of years ago.
Reality really was cruel. Baiyi really had not lied to him; after all, he really did consider the Lich Walker’s suggestion to be a very good one, despite how he felt about necromancy. It would always be helpful to have a powerful assistant at his side, either as a bodyguard for the girls or as a teacher in his academy. If they had revived the Northern Warrior, he may have been able to aid in their grand void escape plan, or he would have just been their informant within the Godsfall Cult, at least.
As such, there was little reason for Baiyi to lie. The Fifth Walker could only reaffirm his claim in a more somber tone. “I, too, feel deeply regretful. But that’s just the reality. I’m afraid this soul could no longer express its true powers.”
The Lich Walker said nothing. He silently turned his incorporeal back to the group in the Void and left the conversation.
“Alright. This skull was just an additional freebie gained after acquiring our leather bodysuit. The quality of goodie bags would always be less than the quality of the main item, yea? We could still think of some ways to make use of this empty soul, right?” Baiyi said.
The Void began to bustle once again, and it soon became apparent that many of the Voidwalkers had very little understanding of souls; this included the Soul Armature Practitioner, despite being the Voidwalker who began the art.
It could not be helped. After all, the subject of souls was a taboo topic. Without the Lich Walker, no one could provide actually useful ideas.
The best idea, which was suggested by the Devil Walker, involved exchanging the soul with any random being in the Abyss for some boons. However, could such a soul really be wasted like that…?
Just as the remaining Voidwalkers were debating on the best way to use the soul, Baiyi suddenly froze for a while, as if something had just dawned on him.
Then, with his voice raised, he cried out into the ding, “Of course! I got an idea! … And if it works just as I’m thinking, then another one of us…. might be able to descend to the real world!”