"It isn’t life, it is the sa as what I have. Necros would never willingly bring one that died back to true life. It is but a mimicry of such a thing. Though it isn’t that different from living."
Ludwig’s tone stayed flat, practical, like he was correcting a student who’d gotten romantic about chanics. He didn’t bother softening the truth. Soft truth was still a lie, just dressed better.
The lich smiled, it wasn’t that of joy, one could see the sadness in those eyes. "I could have obtained sothing like this if I continued serving..."
The smile didn’t reach anything. It sat on the mouth like a mask put on out of habit, and the sadness behind it was old and heavy, the kind that didn’t burn but weighed.
"You seem to have a greed for sothing I have," Ludwig said.
He said it with a faint edge, not accusatory, more like an observation made by soone who knew how greed slled because he’d worn it himself.
"No," Kaiser said as he stood up, "Not at all... it is only my regret for not seeing this possibility, though it isn’t life, it isn’t death either. If I had this ritual, I wonder if I could have brought her back with it..."
He rose carefully, testing balance on slick, wet stone, feet finding purchase among lting ice shards. His gaze dipped briefly, as though he could see sothing else in the water on the floor.
"Where is your wife’s corpse?" Ludwig asked, thinking he might be able to use this ritual on her too.
Kaiser shook his head, "It is too late for that. Far too late."
The words ca out with finality that didn’t need emphasis. He lifted his chin slightly, and even without theatrics, the regret sat plainly in his face. "I seem to have done a grave discourtesy toward Necros, I wonder if I’ll ever be forgiven."
"He gave you a second chance, use it well", Ludwig said.
It wasn’t comfort. It was instruction. Ludwig’s world didn’t have room for wasted chances.
"I shall, now, that," he said as he looked at the golden jar.
"This boy has too much mana in his body, even I am having trouble containing it. I’ll die again, or return to the lantern if I don’t resolve this..."
As he spoke, the air around his body seed to tighten, as if mana pressure was building under his skin. The corpse-body’s constitution was doing what Kaiser warned: generating, swelling, refusing to stay quiet.
"And how would that finger help?" Ludwig asked.
He didn’t step closer, but his eyes followed Kaiser’s hands with the sa caution he’d use watching a bomb being ard.
"You’ll see, I didn’t reach my level with rely fighting and summoning the Dead, necromancy is far more than just calling the dead to do your bidding."
He said as he walked toward the jar, he grabbed the finger and placed it on the missing spot in his hand.
Like if the finger was made of morphing flesh, it attached itself to the stub of the Kaiser’s missing finger.
The join was seamless and obscene in its simplicity, no stitch, no seam, just flesh accepting flesh as it had always been there. The air gave a faint hiss, not steam this ti, sothing thinner.
And suddenly began devouring. It didn’t devour flesh, but devoured mana.
The change was imdiate. Ludwig felt it in the room before he saw it: the pressure easing, the mana’s oppressive hum shifting direction, being dragged inward. The finger looked dead, but it behaved like hunger made solid.
"Quite the hungry fella," Kaiser said as he funneled all the mana he had inside the body into the finger.
The words were almost casual, but the act wasn’t. Mana poured into that finger in waves. The lanternlight flickered faintly, reacting to the movent of power.
Soon, the red, crooked, and mummified finger seed to fill up, as if satiated from a hunger that lasted eons.
The finger darkened, then lightened, then settled, its surface smoothing only slightly, as if centuries of decay were being politely ignored. The greed Ludwig had felt earlier made more sense now; it wasn’t just a relic. It was much more.
The finger absorbed as much mana as the body could produce, both healing itself and stopping the mana deviation of the body at the sa ti.
In no longer than a couple of minutes, the finger’s insane hunger subsided, and at the sa ti, the body of the young man seed no longer bloated with mana.
The room’s pressure eased like a held breath finally released. Kaiser’s shoulders lowered slightly. The tension in the body, visible in the stiff set of arms and neck, relaxed into sothing more stable.
"Finally, balance," he said as he sighed.
"I guess you used the finger like a leech..."
"Yes, and it is also now fully part of this body. This finger isn’t simple; it was the tool that cast many magic spells and powerful necromancy. It has knowledge, instinctive knowledge about magic, ancient magic. And now I’m able to use it, though..." he said as he looked down.
"I need to create this body’s magic circles. It is already generating mana after it was tapped out; without a mana circle, it’ll simply waste away.
His gaze stayed lowered, fixed on his hand as if asuring what it ant to have a piece of an Archlich attached to him. Water continued to pool around their feet, and the last ice shards lted into nothing.
"I’ll leave you to it then," Ludwig said as he turned toward the exit of the room, "I need to head to the palace soon. You’ll remain here and stabilize your magic first. I’ll call for you if I need you."
He didn’t linger. Ludwig’s hand brushed the lantern at his side as he moved, not as reassurance, but as a check, weight, presence, readiness.
"As you wish," Kaiser replied as he sat down and began creating the body’s first magic circle.
He lowered himself with care onto the cold floor, water soaking fabric, and his fingers began to move with practiced precision, sketching the first lines of a circle that would decide whether this new body stayed standing or collapsed back into borrowed death.
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