The OP Lich is a Returnee (Patreon)

Chapter 119 – Radiance

With the guardian defeated, and the rest of my entourage on the way, I turned my attention to the center of the room. Where the space had been empty before, now, there was a crystal of purest black. Shadow sealing Light, just as Light had sealed Shadow before.

This was the fifth time I had performed this ritual, so laying out the circles was child’s play for me. Of course, that didn’t mean I rushed things, or that I didn’t bring out my fellow archmages to ensure that I made no mistakes. I did not survive a forty-year war in the other world by being a fool.

No, I went slow, laying out the circles alongside my subordinate mages. Reflecting on my actions, there was a chance that I had gotten complacent by the fourth seal. Three flawless successes had made me confident, and while I didn’t think that there was any error in the circle I’d made for the Seal of Wind, I couldn’t say for certain that there was not one.

Oh, the flaw, if there was one, wouldn’t have been a major mistake. A major mistake in the circle would have had the array blow up long before the sacrifices could lose control of the flow of mana. However, a smaller error? One that ‘merely’ increased the instability of the mana stream, making it harder to control? I couldn’t write off that possibility entirely. Hence, the attention to detail and ensuring that everything was double and triple-checked for the slightest error this time.

I could not shake the feeling that the Azores had been a failure, on my part as well as the sacrifices. I was no stranger to failure, of course. The Elven philosopher Meorise Pakrana had said it best, “The most successful being is not one who never fails, but the one who fails, but gets back up, and does not fail the same way again. For the one who never fails does not know how to recover when the world hands them defeat. Because they know no other way, they try the same things again and again, squandering their strength. But the one who has failed, and rose again? They know how to change their strategy when it fails, and so, while the failures hurt, they never waste their strength pointlessly.”

It sounded better in the original elvish.

“Mistress! How went the battle?”

I looked up from my fourth check of the circles to see Naya approaching me, with Ya and Chihomi behind her. The rest of the delegation was behind them, at a respectful distance. Hah, it must have been hours since I started working, if they managed to get everyone packed up and moved up to the mountain. Stretching out with my senses, I could see that it was just after dawn, while it had been the middle of the night when the fight ended.

“The battle was a grueling one. Light is resistant to Death, but not immune. I could probably have overwhelmed the Guardian with pure power, but it would have been risky, and there is always a chance that I could have been defeated. Fortunately, I had numbers on my side, so I could sit back, and play the role of support, ‘healing’ my Death Knights while they fought the Guardian, and wore them down in a battle of attrition.”

“What form did the Guardian take?” Ya asked.

“It was an angel of light. However, the damned Guardian performed a perverted version of the Hero Summoning ritual, to strengthen himself. Which is why I captured his soul, so that I could properly punish him later.”

“A Hero Summoning!” Naya gasped, knowing my thoughts on that ritual in general.

Chihomi had a frown on her face. “Perverted how? The knowledge I have from Lord Dagon has given me some knowledge of Summoning, but I have not yet gone through it all.”

“I’m not surprised that Summoning was part of the power gifted to you. It is one of the ways that beings from outside our reality manage to ‘condense’ themselves into forms that do not break mortal minds on sight. Summoning an aspect of your patron, for instance, or a priest summoning an angel, would allow powers that are usually beyond comprehension to become more human in form, though they would be a shadow of their true power.

“As for how the ritual was perverted? The angel skipped steps, and only summoned the souls of the heroes through, before merging them into himself, to increase his own power. It is a worse abomination than the normal Hero Summoning.”

Lieutenant Soyer nodded respectfully as she approached. “What happened to the Heroes, then? Were they fully consumed by this ‘merging’?”

I shook my head, sadly. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. The truth is, it depends on how much of their souls were ripped away for this horrid amalgamation. If their entire soul was taken from their body in the summoning, then their soul would have been destroyed, and their body left an empty husk, worse than those left in a persistent vegetative state by an injury. If, however, a fragment of their soul remained, then they will survive, with a wounded soul.”

Sous-lieutenant Moreau frowned. “How does a wound to the soul affect someone?”

“The soul regenerates, over time. It is why a succubus, who saps a person’s soul as she feeds, can take just a little, if she chooses, and the person will be back to full strength within a few days, or a week. However, that is the least traumatic type of soul damage, performed by a creature specializing in such things. Remember, a succubus is an intelligent hunter whose prey are social creatures. Leaving behind bodies with their souls ripped out is only something the short-sighted or the criminally insane do, and it usually ends up with them being put to the sword, sooner, rather than later. A succubus that shows restraint, and even finds willing partners? She can continue gaining power and strength for far longer without ever becoming a problem that someone is encouraged to solve.

“But it is different when you are dealing with a traumatic soul injury, like this. In my opinion, the lucky souls were the ones who were consumed completely. The damage done to any that were not wholly destroyed would be intense. They would likely never be the same person as they were before, and it would be a shock if none of them exhibited fewer than a half dozen psychological maladies moving forward. The best of them would likely be sociopaths, if not raving psychopaths.”

There was a moment of stunned silence at my pronouncement. Understandable. “There is a reason, beyond my own situation, that I have publicly stated that I will descend upon any nation attempting a Hero Summoning like the wrath of an angry goddess. Such magics are not trifles to be toyed with, and all your nations are mere babes when it comes to magical knowledge. You are learning, yes, but you are at the stage of understanding the difference between a circle, square, and triangle. Jumping from there to Grand Rituals is as foolish as expecting that baby to run a nuclear reactor. And potentially just as dangerous.”

Commandant Tremblay nodded slowly. “This is why the teachings you’ve spread are all focused on fundamentals and basic power cultivation, rather than high-level spells and rituals, right? Because without the proper foundation to build on, it would do more harm than good?”

“Exactly,” I said, approvingly. “Just like you don’t pick up some kid from a random fútbol field and try to immediately make them a special forces operative. It takes years of training and education to make that happen. Personal education for the soldier, and institutional education for the force that would wield him. Give a modern tank to Alexander the Great, and he wouldn’t know what to do with it, because it is far outside the institutional knowledge that formed his training.”

Seeing that there were no further questions, I clapped my skeletal hands together. “All right, that’s enough of that. My mages and I have finished making the circles. Lieutenant, Sous-lieutenant, if you would get out of anything you don’t want to lose?”

The soldiers quickly got down to business. They weren’t entirely comfortable stripping off in front of an audience, that much was clear, but, just like the other soldiers who had participated in the rituals before, they didn’t let that break their composure. After all, basic training and barracks living forces one to become comfortable with a certain degree of immodesty.

However, that didn’t stop either of them from complaining about the cold, as both their bodies reacted to the temperature. Something I truly didn’t miss about being mortal. I might never have had the Sous-lieutenant’s problems with shrinkage in the cold, but I was all too familiar with how a frigid breeze made wearing a bra mandatory, if I didn’t want to risk poking someone’s eye out.

Once naked, the two vessels stepped into the circle. Not quite in synch, but I didn’t expect them to be constantly on the same wavelength. It would be enough if they were able to forge the connection and hold it through the ritual.

“The two of you know what is to come, and what you must do. However, I must ask you one last time. Knowing the trial that awaits you, and the consequences of failure, do you wish to continue? There is no shame in acknowledging your limitations, and I will not allow any to gainsay you, should you decide to turn away.”

The Lieutenant was the first to shake her head. “No, your Majesty, I knew what this would entail, and the likely outcomes, before I came out here. I’m not turning back now.”

Moreau shook his head, as well. “Even if no one else commented, I would know I backed down from a challenge. I didn’t make it through Commando training by backing down from anything. Let’s do this.”

“Very good,” I nodded. “Then join hands, and begin circulating your mana, as you’ve practiced. Let me know when you’re in synch, and we will begin.”

They joined hands, as expected. For a moment, they had their eyes closed, as the mana started circulating. Getting a feel for the push and pull of their mana as it moved through one hand and into the other, without the distractions of their eyes. It wouldn’t do for the whole ritual, but for a starting point? They could do far worse.

As one, they opened their eyes, gazing at each other. Not in a sensual or romantic way, but staring into each other’s souls all the same. Watching with my magical senses, I could see them moving into equilibrium. Balance. The flow of their mana evened out, became a smooth circuit. And then, they spoke, in perfect unison, ““We’re ready.””

“Excellent.”

As before, I entered the second circle, with the seven archmages that held the other seats of the Athelian Spire, for the other elements. The mages and I began chanting as one, our voices melding together in the High Athelian tongue. Our words of power, invoking elemental Light, caused spots of brilliant gold to form upon the amber crystal, like the first rays of dawn. Like the dawn, the Light began to quickly spread across the shadow, and the shadow pulled back. More and more black was replaced by gold, as the Light mana spread through the seal.

CRACK!

As with all the seals before this, the crystal cracked. Light mana shone forth, like looking into the very Sun itself. As intended, the primary magic circle caught the mana, and focused it, directing it into the smaller one where the two vessels stood, still gazing into each other’s eyes, hands clasped, mana flowing through and between them. The radiant mana shone down upon them, and they floated up, off the ground, before being swallowed by an orb of purest Light.

As I chanted, I watched the two vessels carefully with my magesight. Their hands never left their partner’s. Or, rather, they couldn’t let go. The flow of mana was overwhelming, and locked their bodies together. Two into one and one into two before swirling back again, the Light mana hid them both from view, but I could still hear their screams, a harmony of pain and suffering as they underwent a torture no living soul should endure.

As we had done before, at the other seals, the mana flowed through the circle, guided by the undead hands of the Magelords of the Athelian Spire, under my leadership. Light was blunted by Shadow, and softened by Water, Fire, Wind, Earth, Life, and Death. Channeled and focused, so that it did not just spray about randomly, but moved with purpose.

Light shone in utter brilliance, blindingly bright, pulsing bright as the Sun. None could look upon the orb with mortal eyes. Even with eyes closed, there was some risk of damage to those who turned directly to the light. While the Light mana was contained, that did not mean the light itself stopped at the circle’s edge.

And then, it broke. And a voice—or was it a pair of voices in harmony? The voice spoke, and it was music to the soul, even in an undead like myself.

“What in all creation is this?”