Chương 157: Book 3 Chapter 35 - Experiencing Death

Kane stared at the words in front of him Entity: Kane Vondeer Species: Human Age: 31 Class: Mage Status: Deceased The last thing he remembered was fighting Shian, with her somehow winning, and then… this. He had been young, with a full life ahead of him, and he hadn't wanted to die. There was still so much he had planned to do. Within a decade his career would have reached its pinnacle. Maybe he would have fallen in love someday and had a family.

Being beholden to the Silver Serpent Clan made family life difficult, but it wasn't unheard of for clan members to have families. He had even imagined a potential future with Shian before… well, all of this. Congratulations! You died. You have shed the shackles of mortality, and can now proceed to the next phase of existence. Please take your time, and then confirm when you are ready to proceed. The text was odd. Why was it so jubilant? Was the next 'phase of existence' really so great?

The next part was even stranger. The entity Kiara Dunsun, now known as Shian Yountal, has a five minute window to decide whether or not to use a [Delayed Resurrection Token] on your soul. Should she do so, you will be resurrected in six months' time in the same place you died. Otherwise, you will proceed to the next phase of your existence. Should you wish to proceed immediately to the next phase of your existence, you may do so. Kane was confused. The name Kiara Dunsun wasn't familiar to him.

The family name Dunsun seemed like he had heard it before, but he couldn't place where. Why had Shian changed her name? What was a [Delayed Resurrection Token], and how did Shian Yountal get her hands on one? What the token did was laid out for him to see in the text in front of him, but what was it? Some kind of artifact? Could he get one? He had never heard of such magic. Was there such a thing as an [Immediate Resurrection Token]? Why the delay, and why six months?

That amount of time was incredibly inconvenient. The clan would move on once Elsa got the report of his death, and his sudden re-emergence would raise questions that he wouldn't have good answers for. What about his soul oath to the clan? Would he still be tied to the clan like he had been before? He could no longer feel the familiar sensation of the soul oath connecting to his spirit, enforcing certain behaviors and actions. Would it return if he was resurrected? If not, what would that mean for his future?

Most importantly, what is the mechanism behind this post-death exposition? Who or what is communicating with me? You are currently interfacing with the World Engine. Kane jumped. Or would have, had he had a body. The World Engine? And apparently it could hear his thoughts in here? Before he could interact more with the World Engine, his perception suddenly shifted. He was staring down at his dead body, lying in the center of the arena where Shian…. Or Kiara?... had killed him.

Kiara was standing over his body, looking down at him. She suddenly crouched, and a coin-shaped artifact appeared in her hands. Even body-less, Kane was able to sense the immense depth and complexity of the enchantments on the artifact. She placed the coin on his chest, and it melted into his body, disappearing completely. It left behind some runes on his skin, almost like a brand or a welt.

The runes welted onto his skin were simple, compared to the ones on the coin, and Kane got the sense that they were simply marking him in some way. The truly complex runes that had lived on the surface of the coin, the ones that carried all of the resurrection magic, had melded with his body and he couldn't sense them anymore. More words surfaced in his vision. Kiara Dunsun has elected to use her [Delayed Resurrection Token] on your soul. You will be resurrected in six months' time in the same place you died.

Kane felt immense relief and gratitude wash over him, surprising himself with how emotional he was suddenly feeling. So far, death hadn't been too unpleasant, but he really really wanted to keep living. There was so much more he wanted to do before moving on. Kiara's actions had provided him that opportunity, even if it would take six months to get there. Kiara stood and walked away. He would have called out to her, but couldn't move or speak.

Almost in response to that realization, his consciousness was suddenly wrapped with his spirit form, and he found he could move again. He called out after Kiara, trying to thank her, but the sounds came out different, like they operated on a separate wavelength than the physical world. He knew intuitively that if other spirits were here, they could converse with him just fine, but the physical forms all around him lacked the ability to see or hear him.

He could see them and hear them just fine, but that was a one-way street. Kiara left the arena, and Kane watched as other people began to file out as well. An invisible man approached his dead body. Kane's magic sense was still alive and well, and he instinctively shrank back when he realized the man was a tier 6. What was someone like that doing here? He somehow was able to tell that the man was masking his true level, and others would only perceive him as a tier 5.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Kane also realized that no one else could see the man, apart from himself. Something about being in his spirit body instead of his physical body had opened up Kane's spiritual senses in a way he had never experienced before. His physical body allowed him to interact with the physical world, and provided numerous benefits, but also limited him in some ways. The man crouched, studying the runes on Kane's chest.

He looked up a time or two toward where Kiara had exited the arena, then glanced back at the runes on Kane's dead body. He reached out and traced the runes with his finger, as if committing them to memory. Kane crouched near the man, who suddenly looked up, right at Kane. Kane flinched. Can he see me? He was a tier 6, after all, Kane didn't truly know what this man might be capable of. The man glanced around, as if searching for Kane, then shrugged to himself.

He floated off the ground and rocketed into the sky, leaving Kane hovering there by himself again. Kane wasn't really standing on the ground like he would have in his body. He floated there, nearly touching the ground, but not quite. His steps left no footprints, and he found he could simply move around by willing it to happen. Much the same as he had just seen that tier 6 do, although much more slowly. He tried flying up into the sky, only to find himself geo-locked to where his body lay.

He could only get about twenty feet into the air before he felt an invisible force prevent him from going further. Travelling to the sides gave him the same result, and he realized he was stuck. In a bubble forty feet across, with no one else that could see or hear him. It was going to be a long six months. The arena slowly cleared out, leaving Kane truly alone. City workers came to clean up the arena, and they hauled his body away.

He expected to be dragged along with it, but found that his little prison was locked in place where had died, rather than where his body went. Once his body was gone, he could see a faint shimmer in the air where his chest had been. Bending, he realized it was the spirit of the coin artifact that had merged with his body. Did artifacts have spirits?

If not a spirit, then at the very least it was the artifact's spiritual presence, the portion of the enchantment that connected to the spiritual world and allowed the magic to flow. All of the complex resurrection runes were still there - on the spirit of the coin - floating in the air, maintaining the bubble he was trapped inside, preparing for his resurrection. Only the runes that had marked his body were gone from the surface of the shimmering shape of the coin.

Kane wasn't an expert artificer, but in his spirit form he found that he could intuit more about it than he otherwise would have been able to. Even so, he was sure a professional artificer would likely understand more than he could, even in his current state. With nothing else to do, he studied the runes. Night came, and a new day rose. Then another. Arena workers finished cleaning the area on the first day, and he didn't see hardly anyone for weeks after that.

He studied the runes for hours, then days, then weeks, until he had them memorized. He didn't understand the magic fueling them well enough to create the same artifact himself, but he knew he could at least draw the runes once he was made anew. One of the two people he did see in the weeks following his death was a single arena worker, who came by to check the runes powering the arena's protective enchantments. The man got excited and left in a hurry.

Kane extended his own magic sense, studying the runes on the arena as well. They were expertly done, but nothing compared to the ones that the coin had left imprinted on the spirit world in his little bubble of a prison. The other person who came by was that same tier 6 that had studied his body after the duel. He came by the day after the duel, looking pensive and stoic.

He studied the area where Kane's spirit hovered, and at times it almost seemed like he could sense just the faintest whisper of either Kane's presence, or the bubble he was trapped inside. Kane got over his fear of the man, and tried talking to him, but got no response, or even any indication that the man knew he was there. He gave up after a few failed attempts at talking to the man. The same man came back a week after Kane's death, but never returned after that.

Kane figured he had come back a couple times either because he'd felt something that first day, when it seemed like he had sensed Kane, or else he was curious about the runes on Kane's body. If it was the latter though, Kane would have expected the man to go search wherever his body now was, rather than here, at the arena. The passage of time got weird.

It was sometime on the second day, in between his periods of studying the runes on the coin, that Kane realized he could sort of speed through the down time, ignoring the boring parts. The months passed, but it only felt like days for Kane. Whenever someone showed up, he chose to experience the flow of time like normal, watching and listening to whatever they said.

Once they left, though, and he grew bored, he could kind of skip forward to the next point that he wanted to see – the next thing that grabbed his attention. Not much did grab his attention, especially once he had memorized the runes on the coin and could learn nothing more about them. He didn't need to sleep or eat, the thought to do so never even crossed his mind. It was actually quite peaceful and beautiful, in a way.

Even though he was locked into a relatively small area, he never felt tired, hungry, or in pain. He watched the birds fly overhead and the clouds drift lazily through the sky, high above. He watched the sun rise and set every day over the walls of the arena. He enjoyed the simple beauties of nature and the passage of time as it flew by. His gratitude toward Kiara grew as well. He had started calling her that in his mind – Kiara – now that he knew her true identity.

Any hate or resentment he might have felt at first for her having killed him was quickly overshadowed by the fact that she had chosen to give him a second chance at life. The World Engine hadn't communicated with Kane since that first day, but it had made it clear that it was Kiara's choice to resurrect him. She could have let him stay dead, and pass on – something that he was surprisingly more comfortable with now than he had been at first – but she had used a priceless artifact to save him.

She could have saved it and used it on someone she knew better, someone that she loved, but she had chosen to use it on him. Why? That question occupied a lot of his thoughts as the six months passed. The more he considered it, the more grateful he grew. He planned to thank Kiara in person when he got the chance, and perhaps he could also ask her why she'd done it. Why she'd chosen to help him, after everything he'd done to her. Would she even talk to him? Maybe not, but he had to try.

He resolved to do everything he could to repay this life debt, once he was resurrected, even if she was reluctant to accept his help. If nothing else, he could try to help keep House Yountal safe – he knew how much she cared about her people. He'd have to try to persuade Elsa not to take any further action against them. His perspectives in other areas began to change as well.

He wasn't sure if it was due to him ruminating so often on Kiara's selfless generosity, or the fact that he was disembodied for so long, or peacefully watching so many sunrises and sunsets in a row without any distractions or worries, but he felt his mindset shifting. His feverish devotion to the clan was replaced with a more balanced view of what his future might hold.

He still loved the clan, it was the only life he'd ever known, and the closest thing to family that he had, but he saw how some of his previous attitudes and actions in that area had perhaps been a touch too fanatic. He would have to balance that in the future with his commitment to also protect Kiara and House Yountal. The deep seething resentment that he'd felt toward the nobility for his entire life slowly faded as well.

It was replaced by a calm acceptance of his past, and a calculative view of how he might use his second lease on life to foster more relationships that would help protect both House Yountal and the clan. By the end of the six months, he was quite at peace with the idea of the Afterlife. He was much less scared of dying and passing on, and had grown accustomed to his spiritual existence. Even so, he couldn't help but feel immensely excited to get his body back when the day finally arrived.