Why Did You Summon Me?

Baiyi asked everyone to be quiet and wait for him to sieve through the memories they sent him. He pieced together the memory fragments he got from the Voidwalkers and Vidomina to obtain a clear picture of what had happened while he was gone.

After sending Baiyi, the biggest obstacle to his conquest, away to another universe very far away, the Grandruler used what was left of the Law Fragment to launch a devastating blitzkrieg on Isythre without giving the Voidwalkers a chance to warn the residents of the realm.

The Grandruler proved that he had some cunning to go with the immense power in his possession; instead of sending armies of undead into Isythre, typical of an undead invasion, he superimposed Duat directly onto Isythre itself  — something he had tried on the two villages from before!

It was an unprecedented phenomenon, unimaginable to the ones who had never experienced it, and nigh-indescribable to ones who had. When Duat was superimposed onto Isythre, both  realms became tangible and intangible, at the same time, like mirages phasing through each other. Mountains were overlaid whilst existing independently. The ground of both realms merged with each other, but they were still separate entities; their colors were easy to tell apart. Some mountains appeared atop clouds, while rivers coursed through ruins. The cities were undamaged, but they were now situated at the center of a barren wasteland.

The entire realm of Isythre had become corporeal, and both realms shimmered and shifted between each other erratically. It was as though this perpetual-transitional state would collapse at any moment.

The uncertainty of the world around the people of Isythre unearthed a primitive existential fear from the depth of their hearts, causing the masses to fall into uncontrollable hysteria. Amidst the chaos, the undead swept through the realm with their weapons drawn, reaping through people as though they were cattle. Heads and limbs were chopped, and rivers of blood rushed down the streets.

Current estimation placed the number of casualty on about fifty millions people; yet, due to Duat’s unique property, the fallen on Isythre instantly rose from the dead and joined their killers, picking up their weapons and—blindly, without even the slightest awareness of their old family and comrades before them—swinging them through the living. More than thirty major cities had been completely decimated, their ruins painted scarlet by the blood of its previous dwellers.

The only small victory that came from this was that the humans of Isythre, despite the bloodshed and casualties, managed to win a war they had not even been prepared for. The road to such a monumental feat was a long and complicated one, and it was best to start from the beginning…

Placing each perspective in order according to the time it had occurred, the war could be said to have started almost immediately after Baiyi disappeared from the face of Duat while the other Voidwalkers were whisked away to different battlefields alone.

Thanks to the Grandruler’s strategic machinations, the Voidwalkers had all been separated from each other to fight a single vassal and their horde of undead. Every Walker was practically deposited right in the middle of the undead army, and if they were any other normal Soul Armatures, they would have been ground into metallic dust after a few swings and hacks.

“Huh. How familiar it is, to be trapped and surrounded by swarming enemies…” The Hitman muttered to himself as he drew out two axes from his storage pouch. Wielding each on his hand, he spun faster and faster, the blades springing into an enlarged coat of golden combat chi blade that only a Demigod-level warrior could produce.

From far, it was as if a golden lotus had just blossomed among the ghastly horde of undead fighters.

His enemies were launched into the air by his swift swings, their bodies fragmented in the air, before landing down in pieces like a storm around him. It took only a few seconds before an area of a hundred-meter was completely cleared; Even the otherwise fearless undead stood on their grounds, refusing to fill up the opening as if they were terrified of his aura.

Only a being with the power of a reaper could elicit a modicum of self-preservation in what was already dead.

“You must have been a legend among warriors while alive,” Galthran, the Skeleton King, murmured under its breath, waving its underlings to back away from him. “I have lived thousands of years to clash swords with a worthy opponent such as yourself… It is my pleasure to be that lucky skeleton for such an honor.”

Two bone swords manifested in its hands out from thin air. They took the form of two claymores in each of its hands, hinting at the Skeleton King’s own immense strength as a warrior for dual-wielding swords known for being too heavy to be held on one hand alone.

The Hitman, however, shook his head upon hearing his opponent’s assessment. Earnestly, he replied, “No, that’s an easy mistake to make. I’m not a warrior, I’m an assassin. ”

His words barely left the air when he suddenly hurtled forward, the two axes in his hands completely encased in his combat chi dazzling so brightly they left two long trails of golden lights as the Hitman aimed right at the Skeleton King’s head.

The Skeleton King was taken aback by its opponent’s words, not understanding the impetus of making such a joke about his career at this moment; However, as a seasoned fighter, its instincts kicked in even when its mind was occupied—with two bursts of green undead energy surging into its own swords, it raised them to its head and blocked two axes just as they arrived.

The impact of two opposite forces halting each other caused an explosion followed by a deluge of shockwaves spreading out of the battlefield, dismantling whichever skeletons who had the misfortune to stand nearby into a bursting pile of bones and dust. Every time their weapons clashed, they created similar explosions of shocks.

In a span of minutes, the only thing that animated within the perimeter were the two as they fought among a sea of bony, ashen grey ruins around them.

“Tsk, tsk. How barbaric. Savages who know only to fight with their own hands will always lack the capacity to understand grace and reservation. So what if you were borne with greater strength than your peers? You still look like a stupid bull desperately trying to upend your enemy with no strategy beyond butting as hard as you can. There’s no hope for simpletons like these to understand the mysteries of the souls, and the beauty of death which liberates them,” The Lich Walker sneered, feeling the reduced shocks bursting from the violent clashes of weapons between the Skeleton King and the Hitman in a distance.

With its metallic skeleton fingers curled around its borrowed Saint Quartz Staff, it stood on a dune surrounded by countless undead creatures who had all turned against their previous master. Then, turning its attention back to its opponent, the Lich finished its remark, “I’m sure we agree on that, don’t we?”

Its opponent—another lich standing at a distance—did not answer. Far from the Demigod Lich’s calm and composed countenance, the green flames of souls burning in this lich’s sockets were dancing maddeningly as it tried to wedge control of their battle back to itself.

“Hmm, why the agitation? You would expect one who’s already dead would be more sedate,” The Demigod Lich mocked, amused at its opponent’s distress. “Having learned nothing from death, why do you even dare go up against me?”

With a gentle wave of its green Saint Quartz, the Demigod Lich commanded its subjects to attack their previous master.

Mordor was very much on edge. When it first saw the enemy its Grandruler had picked for it, the Lich King was quite excited to see its opponent bearing the same skeletal appearance with a staff in its hand like Modor itself.

Back then, the Lich King thought that its opponent was nothing but a contemptible imposter—a lich among the living could not possibly understand the art of commanding the dead as a lich who had lived with the waling dead. Hence, haughtily, the Lich King had said, “Ah, you pathetic fraud. Will you not try to entertain me? Please me enough, and I might just show you the true art of necromancy in my delight… And perhaps a miserable fraud like yourself would finally understand what it means to be a real lich.”

The Demigod Lich, back then, had only one undead servant with it. When it heard what its opponent had said, the two orbs of green flames in the dents of its face mask cackled a little, as if it was laughing. “Wow, you’re tough and brave huh, like a twelve-years-old gaming fortnighter in basement’s mommy?”

Yes, it seems that a bag of old bones does occasionally want to learn something new, like snarking—but it still doesn’t mean it’s not bad at it. Case in point, this, Baiyi thought.

However, no matter how bad the Lich was in snarking, it was far from incompetent in the craft of the dead. The Lich King’s soldiers had not even marched through half of the distance when the Demigod Lich lifted its green staff into the air—and the soldiers suddenly made a complete 180 in both attack direction and allegiance.

The Lich King was beyond shocked—in fact, its grey skull had paled into whitewhen it happened. The flames in its eyes were blaring wildly as it cracked its head trying to understand what had its opponent done to so forcefully yet utterly assumed control over its very own soldiers. The worse thing about it was probably the fact that the Lich King was not even given the time to struggle for their control at all!?

Hence, the tug-o-war between the two liches began. Quite unfortunately, as time passed, more and more undead subjects and soldiers had accumulated around the Demigod Lich, effectively rendering the Lich King into a literal one-man army.

“H-how is this possible?!” The Lich King, who had marked its debut in this war with its fierce confidence, cried out in a squeaky voice, its previous kingly mien and badass boast ringing hollow. “How is a stupid imposter from the land of the living doing this to me?!”

“Hee hee, you’ll never understand the sort of fate the undead had to face among the living. In fact, you won’t even live long enough up there to know anyway, weakling,” the Demigod Lich said. As it succumbed into a spine-chilling cackle, it waved its green staff and performed its favorite invention and most prized forbidden spell— Gehenna, updated version 1.3.

This newly-updated version of Gehenna was a lot more homely than the one the Lich had used back in the simulated battle with the Archmage; Instead of the looming, skyscraping mirage of the grim reaper, it now took the form of an adorable, smiling hammerhead shark plushie standing on its dorsal fins—yes, exactly like the one that Mia owned—but draped in ragged cloak with its head covered. On its two pectoral fins was a single scythe even taller than itself.

With a flap of its tail, the hammerhead shark reaper swung the scythe downwards onto the Lich King.

Just like that, Mordor, whose incompetence most likely laid in the fact that its life as a lich was too easy, had most of its own soul erased from that single attack. Although it did not exactly die—a lich of any kind would always know to separate their souls into parts, or place parts of their souls in a sealed soul container to protect themselves from being completely gone.

What the Lich King did not expect was the extent of Gehenna’s might. Back when it was still struggling in the tug-o-war with the Demigod Lich, Mordor had gone out of its way to absorb every soul that had escaped from the soldiers in the hopes of increasing its own powers; However, as the more souls there were, the more devastating the damage Gehenna could deal, Mordor had inadvertently made itself even more susceptible to the strike, suffering such drastic damage that it could no longer fight.

“How fragile,” The Lich murmured, waving its hand to summon the hammerhead shark reaper back to its side and caressing its head with its metallic skeletal hands.

Baiyi had to stop the flashback by this point. “Okay, why did you turn your forbidden spell into this? Or have we all been wrong about you, Lich, that you have always been a stand-up comic in secret?” He asked in the Void.

“The effect of the forbidden spell doesn’t change regardless of its appearance, so what’s wrong with that? Besides, this is something you plebs like, isn’t it? Maybe with this, I’ll finally be allowed to take in an apprentice,” The Lich replied seriously.

Who in their right mind would want to learn how to summon a hammerhead shark reaper?! Baiyi snarked quietly before continuing to the other flashback.

Unlike the Hitman, who met his match, and the Lich, who completely destroyed its opponent—the Blacksmith’s situation was a lot less swimming. He was never an offensive type who could fight in a battle, and so the only thing he had left was his weapons.

There laid his problem: his enemies are massive in numbers, while all he had with him were his cosplay props “weapons”. When the battle became more and more heated, the Blacksmith very quickly understand the other, less badass side of using guns—when one ran out of ammo, a gun was even less useful than a bloody fire poker.

With his ammo completely exhausted and his magical grenades all used, the Blacksmith realized he had become utterly defenseless and without weapons, surrounded only by his ” (literally) for display purposes only” props.

He shook his head as he eyed the piles of bullet shells and ammo scattering all around him, murmuring melancholically, “Let it be known that the pathos of my current battered state is integral to the beautiful romance understood only by men like me! With that, I take my leave, with my only regret being sacrificing a body my friends had poured in their effort to make…”

He dropped his magically-crafted fake assault rifle onto the floor, kicking up the empty bullet shells into a shower as the gun slowly sank into the mud as if this was its final rest.

Its master, the Blacksmith, was soon swallowed by the stampede of the undead, his body being torn and ripped apart with their bare hands—

Suddenly, the ripped parts of the armor blazed in dazzling white light before they erupted collectively, resulting in a skyrocketing mushroom cloud which gradually took out the undead with the ensuing chaos and fire.

For some reason, Baiyi did find it quite an epically sad, yet stirring and badass ending…

Of course, the Blacksmith’s actual soul had always been inside the Void this whole time; he was never really there in reality, since he had only Pseudo-Descended, with his senses and experiences all simulated through magic not dissimilar than high-end VR technologies.

“So, what do you think, huh? Now, this is the sort of romance tailored to real men, huh?” The Blacksmith boasted haughtily in the Void. “A bit battered and rugged, sure, but I did destroy my enemy completely with my artistic self-detonation! I learned a lot from this fight, though… I now know that I should have made my students create even more bullets, grenades, and explosives! In fact, I missed out those sleek rocket launchers; That was why I lost! Hmm, but now it seemed that I would have to bring too many weapons with me… Maybe I should just make myself an Iron Man suit!”

Lessons my arse! All I hear is even more cosplay ideas—now with even more professionality!

The Blacksmith and the Lich had both ended their fights by this point, while the Hitman was still enjoying a fight with one whose strength was on par with himself. The only two Voidwalkers who had not been given the attention left would be the Scholar and Lady Assassin.

The Scholar’s opponent, after being whisked away, was the Phantom King Charnal. Unlike their undead brethren, phantoms had a major disadvantage in physical attacks, but a proportionately higher advantage on attacking the enemies’ souls on top of being adept in all kinds of necromancy and dark magic. Not only that, since phantoms were intangible souls, a lot of normal attacks became ineffective on them.

The most critical advantage to phantoms was that most normal people had no knowledge of protecting their own souls, which meant that they were very susceptible to the sorts of tactics phantoms employed…

However, as it turned out, the Scholar alone was enough to keep the entire army of phantoms and the Phantom King at bay as the two sides sank into a deadly battle of spells…

Why did the phantoms not use their most powerful attack—their attacks on a person’s soul?

It would be foolish of them not to use it, but it was not because of a lack of wit—it was because they could not . The Scholar was never an actual battle mage, whose best environment was probably a library or an office cubicle, yet when the phantoms tried to attack her soul, clawing and howling as they rushed through her body, the Scholar was completely unaffected.

As a matter of fact, she stood exactly where she was, completely unmoving and unperturbed, as she continued to chant her incredibly long incantations.

Charnal was stumped. Even if one had an indomitable soul or whatever, they still cannot possibly be unscathed by hundreds of phantoms phasing through their soul , right? No matter how powerful that soul could be, someone should at least follow normal logic, right?