Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1178: Repented Lich (1)

"A Lich, you say?" he said without the expected infection of someone who was drowned in surprise as Soidon had thought.

Soidon gulped and glanced at Erlton. The Herald urged him to go on discreetly.

"Yes. I don\'t look like it, yes, but there\'s a story behind that," Soidon said as his face continued to look more and more strained, as though something soft, voluminous and invisible was pushing against it from all sides. "Aigas has many secrets, you know?"

Skullius kept his brow high, but said nothing.

He then looked to the side, his white eyes seeming to gaze at something that no one else could see.

"I\'m surprised. A former Lich? So, you once took on Undeath within you, did you?" he asked in a tone that hinted at his scepticism.

"Took on?" Soidon said with a humourless laugh and then he grew bold. "Seeing as you were - or rather, must have been - no more than a standard undead minion, you should know that Liches, Arch-Liches, are far more than beings who \'take on\' Undeath. I was the face of Undeath along many others in the service of the Eminence of Undeath. I was no different from all my companions and rivals - Solon, Sovas, Souwen, Sogmat. I was conformed to the edge that proceeded life and death."

Skullius said nothing. His empty gaze returned to fix upon Soidon, who took this to mean that he had captured the Hybrid Luman\'s attention.

How could he have not?

The revelation must be shocking on a number of levels to Skullius, Soidon imagined.

He indeed was a former Arch-Lich, one who was often referred to by his now-companions - Karima and the others - as the Repented Lich, despite his great dislike of the moniker. It was woefully misleading.

Often times, Soidon couldn\'t believe he had a heart, and he was especially frustrated by how fast it was beating right now.

He stared intently at Skullius.

Erlton had explained to him that Skullius had a lingering connection to Undeath. A rather potent one. This, to Soidon could only mean one thing. He had never seen anything quite like this himself in Deadmanland, but where trillions of Undeath vessels roamed, it would be surprising if at least one anomalous event such as the one he had suspected didn\'t happen at all.

"I... I suppose you\'d wonder how I came to be like this - flesh over bone? Oddly, we share that in common despite the different circumstances, eh?" he said, but the Hybrid Luman didn\'t respond, and he forced himself to continue after Azila gave a faint cough. "It happened during the Ashing of Time."

Soidon remembered it vividly. His memory wasn\'t limited to the confines of the fatty brain he now wielded, after all.

"I, quite like all the other ambitious Liches, had eyed Aigas among many other worlds for a long time. Rich Worlds are pretty easy to notice, even from the outside. I, like my competitors, had left my stronger Death and Calamity Knights to prowl the void, looking for an opportunity to invade among all the worlds I had a vested interest. Many sentinels with different allegiances watched and waited. I remember dawdling stupidly in my tower... or hmm... I might have been attempting to create a new series of Death Knight at the time, I don\'t recall quite... Ah, in any case, I was alerted by my sentinels that the Rules that held around one of the worlds I was interested in had slackened. This was, of course, Aigas. I was overjoyed."

"Before I knew it, I was using my limited store of Contiguous Sap - which was supposed to last me another millennia before I was due for a refill - to warp towards Aigas! I wasn\'t the only one. Many Liches crowded around Aigas at that time, though we did find to our surprise that the void had been bruised. Powerful beings had streaked through it, eradicating some of our sentinels as they left. Of course, I soon came to know this to be the result of Quintess and Listafelle leaving. Odd, really. They didn\'t bother with what they knew would follow after their departure."

"I didn\'t know or care about any of this at the time though. I sent more of my minions down into Aigas, fearing that the loosened Rules might tauten immediately... but they didn\'t. They did not recover for a while. I... we were enthralled. Though it was still difficult to pass through ourselves us Liches, I mean - it mattered not. We sent our Undead warriors with tools that would allow us to engage easily with them on the new world and command our armies. I sent forth my loyal Desdana - oh beautiful Desdana - with my Staff of Keen Watching. And I saw it. The ugly life, rich still, too rich to be that of a common world. The others saw it too and soon, it became a race."

Soidon paused.

He had drowned in his storytelling almost too completely. He had forgotten to observe and engage with Skullius who remained silent, staring at him with a neutral expression.

His silence was creepy.

Soidon glanced at Erlton again and the look he got told him that he needed to speed things up.

"The terror my kind brought on Aigas was immense. As it went on, I and the others felt the Rules weaken further. The temptation was palpable. After waiting for a while, some of us dived, hoping to break through and increase our chances of emerging as the true victors in the race, the first ones to reach the gem that made Aigas. I was among the first few. I was convinced I could be first and use that to my advantage," Soidon said with what looked like a forlorn look. "I was only half right. I was indeed the first to pierce through the loose Rules, but that was not to my advantage - as the Lich I was, I mean."

"I saw fire, fire that stood on equal footing with the Olden Flame of the greatest Arch-Liches. It was Jiggorrhax, the Abiding Madness. He was my scourge and also my salvation. The Divine flames that blazed from him melted away half of the whole of Undeath that I had known to be my refuge for countless years. I was... purified, in a sense. It\'s a haunting memory but also one I find enlightening. I can never forget that scalding heat that seemed to burn away half of what I was. Even though I was confident my phylactery would not burn away, I was also sure that with time, I would surely die. But I did not. I landed on Aigas, more than half of my powers gone. It was then, in those days, when mana turned to ash, that my journey back to humanity began."