“Stop it?” The liches started laughing, though it was more of an evil hissing sound than anything Velik thought of as actual laughter. “That was never our job. We were supposed to keep people like you from poking at it and waking it up. We all knew that eventually this would come to an end. We’ve fulfilled our role, and Darshu will free us from this cursed existence.”
“If that’s how you feel, then why are you here?” Velik asked, confused.
The lead lich sneered back at Velik. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be immortal? To be unkillable? None of us want to be buried for eternity in a tomb made out of a collapsed city. Darshu will shelter us in his providence, but just in case he takes a little while to get around to it, why risk it? The time scales a divine being operates on are unfathomable to creatures like us. We’d rather wait it out in comfort and freedom.”
That’s… fair. But I do feel like I’m missing a lot of context here. And the other lich didn’t seem quite so confident the gods would do right by them. I guess there’s a difference of opinion there.
“What about you?” the lich asked.
“I’m the guy the gods tapped to kill the fucker,” Velik said glumly.
“You think you can? You’re not undead. You’re not a golem. You’re not one of those world pillar automatons. My understanding of the humans and monsters here is that the system has complete control over your essence generation. Will you not be as weak as a newborn babe before the beast?”
Velik shrugged. “Supposedly not.”
The lich waited, perhaps expecting him to give a reason for his confidence, but Velik just stared at it. After a few moments that stretched into an uncomfortable silence interrupted only by the rustling of tattered old robes and the clicking of even older bones, the lich finally spoke. “We wish you the very best of luck with that endeavor, young human.”
The implied, ‘but we think you’re going to fail and die a swift, horrible death’ was left silent. Velik ignored it and asked, “You going to stick around and fight?”
“Not unless you try to hinder my people’s escape,” the lich said.
“I meant ‘help me fight the divine beast,’ not us fighting each other.”
The liches looked at each other, none of them saying a word. If Velik didn’t know any better, he’d have thought they were scared. But they’re ‘immortal and unkillable,’ or whatever he said. They don’t even have essence, so an essence devouring parasite shouldn’t threaten them, not even if it’s a divine beast. Then again, they do have a lot of tricks. Maybe it can hurt them.
“We… would not provide a meaningful impact against an enemy of that caliber,” the lead lich said as diplomatically as it could. “Our efforts would be wasted, I fear.”
“Really? Thirteen liches and several thousand more undead and you’re running away from an enemy before you even meet it?”
“Shut your mouth,” one of the lesser liches snapped. “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. That thing could—”
“Silence!”
The lead lich glared at the mouthy one for a moment, just to drive home its point. Its jaw clamped shut, but the way it glared back promised vengeance. Velik would have been amused by the obvious power dynamics at play, but he was more concerned about an idea that had just occurred to him.
If the undead weren’t going to fight with Velik, he wanted to convince them to fight somewhere else. The way he understood things, the biggest loss of life here—assuming he won, of course—was going to be the hordes of monsters still out there preying on people who no longer had the levels and skills they needed to defend themselves.
“You were humans once, right?” Velik said quietly. “Flesh and blood. Hopes and dreams. You worship the god of civilization. You were his most devout. That’s what you said.”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
“What about it?” the lich asked.
“This could be the end of it. The divine beast is going to tear apart the system, and humans will be defenseless against monsters. Even if none of them have any essence, the monsters will win. Overwhelmingly, people are going to die over the next day. But your people are whole armies. You could defend the walls. You could rescue the people trapped.”
Several of the liches scoffed at the idea, but their leader commanded their silence with an upraised hand. “An interesting proposal,” he murmured. “However, my people have done their duty. For thousands of years, we’ve served. What makes you think you have the right to demand even more from us?”
“I’m not demanding anything. I can’t force you to help. I’m going to be busy right here, probably very soon. All I can do is ask that you safeguard the remnants of civilization left in this world. I’ve seen what’s beyond the boundary, past the sand sea. Civilization goes no farther than primitive huts unless it’s under the heel of an immortal tyrant monster. If you’re interested in preserving Darshu as a god, this is the only place to do it.”
There were some mixed reactions to that, but Velik thought he’d said something right. At least a few liches seemed to be onboard with the idea, which gave him hope that the rest might follow with a little convincing. He knew nothing about their society, neither what it was now nor what it had been originally, but hopefully the ones who still worshiped Darshu could convince the rest.
“A moment to discuss this,” the lich leader said. All thirteen of them retreated a few hundred feet, not that that was nearly enough distance to stop Velik from hearing them. But then a dome of mana went up around them, and no sound came out.
Without lips to read, it was impossible to guess what they were saying. They didn’t attack me, though. That’s a start. I don’t think resorting to threats would help my case, and if these liches can control the rest of the undead, they might actually be a shield for humanity. If not… I guess I just hope I can kill the divine beast quickly and get back to monster hunting.
He’d rested for a few hours. It was almost enough to get him to full strength. Another hour or two would see him in as good a shape as he could get, though he wasn’t sure he had that long. The tremors were growing more intense, and even with all the movement and noise of a whole city of undead beneath his feet, he could tell the parasite divine beast was stirring.
They spent twenty minutes talking about whatever points were being raised. The lead lich seemed to be acting as a sort of moderator for the discussion, but of course without being able to hear any of it, Velik was just speculating. The group seemed divided with eight liches on one side and four on the other, while the lich in charge remained neutral.
With any luck, the bigger side was the one in favor of helping to prevent the collapse of society and wholesale slaughter of mankind, but it wasn’t until the magic faded that Velik finally got his answer. All twelve of the lesser liches flew into the air, then shot off in different directions, while their boss drifted back across the mountain slope to stop in front of Velik.
“I’m not sure I believe in your sincerity, human,” the lich announced. “Perhaps you are some man taken by insanity, living a life of solitude out in the wilderness, but two of our number vouched for your personal power. It… It will not be enough, not for what you intend to face. For your sake, I hope you are much stronger than you revealed.”
“But?” Velik prompted.
“But you are right that when the divine beast emerges, the system the gods devised will shatter. Even after thousands of years, we’re still not sure where the essence will end up. Whether the beast keeps it or it remains in the individuals tied to the system is a mystery, and it’s my personal suspicion that the truth is a little bit of both.
“Even if every human alive keeps the essence they’ve generated or stolen thanks to the system, my understanding is that not a one of your kind knows how to use it. And so we’ve judged that you are correct. We are the only chance humanity has of surviving, and even that assumes you’ll be able to kill a divine beast.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard,” Velik said. “I’ve already killed four of them.”
The lich’s red flame pinprick eyes shrunk in on themselves and its jaw flopped open so far it was only magic keeping it from falling off completely. “That… That would have been useful information to have before we started the debate,” it said. “Ultimately irrelevant, however.”
“Well don’t beat around the bush about it then. Are you in or out?”
“There were persuasive arguments to abandon this corner of the world to its fate. We’ve more than held up our end of the bargain with Darshu, and even if your civilization collapses, when we are restored to flesh, we’ll still have our own. Unlike you system-dwellers, we know how to wield essence, and even how to bend mana to our wills without it, though that likely will prove untenable once we are reincarnated into human form once more.”
“Yes or no,” Velik pressed.
“Yes,” the lich growled. “Are you always so rude to your elders, flesh bag?”
“Are you always prone to rambling on and never getting to the point?” Velik shot back.
Their bickering was interrupted by another large tremor, the biggest one yet. A small landslide started on a nearby mountain peak, and the pair watched it pick up momentum as it charged down the slope. Velik had already killed every monster there, but their corpses were washed away in the disaster.
“We’ll help. I am bringing up the legion now while my brethren figure out where we are most needed.”
Well, that’s one problem solved. Now I just have to survive doing my half.