318. The War of the Puppets (15)
Hoati was a warrior. A mother of two, a War Captain protecting the prosperous city of Quis, and a renowned swordswoman with her bold swordplay.
About a hundred years ago, she died in the conflict between Quis and a neighboring city. Awakened by Mumto, she was buried again after Mumto was sealed, her name forgotten in the sands of time.
In the present era, no one remembers her name, her achievements, or her life.
Except for one person.
* * *
“Forward.”
* * *
Mahotan was a priest. A moderately corrupt, moderately fair, petty bourgeois priest. He spent his entire life in the temple of Eshras until he died of old age, leaving his name on the city’s steles for discovering a new method of preserving remains.
That was over fifteen hundred years ago. The steles weathered away with the city over time, and his remains, save for a piece of kneecap, no longer retain any form.
But Mumto’s spell captured his soul, preserving it through the ages until now.
Now, only one person listens to his words, understands his life, and respects his journey, rewriting his stele anew.
* * *
“Stand there, catch their eyes. If they start chasing, retreat immediately and disrupt them.”
* * *
People die. Where do their souls go afterward? Time is the most powerful law, existing across this world, no, across dimensions, and even gods are not eternal under it. Even souls cannot be immortal within time.
Even the light of distant stars fades within time. How much more so for humans? How can such small, fragile souls achieve eternal life?
But some say, as long as we are remembered, we are eternal. A romantic view, but an unrealistic hypothesis.
“500 years…”
If human souls have a lifespan limit, Fernandez, as a dark mage, can assert that no human soul can endure without a body for more than 500 years. To surpass that time, something beyond the soul’s level is needed. Something divine.
Yet, fifteen hundred years. In that vast time that erodes everything, these souls, now mere traces, preserved moments of life like still lifes, still shine over this wasteland.
“…Cough…!”
One by one, the souls of twenty-seven thousand individuals cry out.
Their lives, their deaths. Those glorious moments. Like rusted, worn coins dug up from the grave, polished and shone anew under the sun.
Twenty-seven thousand wraiths cry out in unison. We live eternally in this moment.
Souls of a hundred fragments. Even if pieced together like rags from shattered fragments and broken memories, “I” still “exist.”
Fernandez nodded, facing each one within his mind. They are alive, and as long as they are remembered, their souls are eternal. A highly romantic view, but—
Mages are those who distort reality by painting romance. In this moment, they are eternal.
“Cough!”
-Stop. The resonance is too deep!
“How much… did it cost?”
-It’s impossible to gauge the cost of a spell used for the first time, Fernandez. But… but, there must have been a toll. You don’t have much left now.
Three years to maintain bodily functions. Five years if just staying alive. Short or long, that time has been cut down.
Fernandez wiped the blood from his mouth and stood up.
“Good thing Kirhas and Abel didn’t see this.”
-Is that what you’re saying at this point?
“Faijashi, how much of our lives have we spent just struggling to survive? Fifty years? Sixty?”
-…
The time the wanted dark mage spent evading the attacks of “heroes,” the daggers of assassins, and the rosaries of Inquisition Officers. How much time did Wildcast spend wandering aimlessly through life?
Faijashi didn’t answer. Fernandez looked at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Was any of it meaningful? Was our life just about survival? You know it too. We realized it in our later years… Now, with a second chance, we can’t find a reason to stop.”
-But Fernandez, that’s not a reason to die. We have a more noble purpose than just living or dying.
“Was our purpose really just… that one child?”
-What…?
Faijashi’s eyes widened in disbelief. Fernandez stared at him with gleaming eyes.
“Just one child’s life… Can we really say that was everything to us…?”
-Shut—up!!!
Sparks flew from Faijashi’s eyes. Not a metaphorical expression, but his anger as a spirit manifesting, engulfed in the flames of the abyss.
Darkness gathered with his breath, and pale flames rose from the depths. It was Faijashi in his prime, the grandmaster of the Ensorcery school.
The dark mage who commanded countless demons, the villain cursed a thousand times, the one whose name cannot be spoken, “Faijashi the Destroyer.” The spirit before him now was not the old man who cracked bad jokes and laughed.
“Don’t deny it, Faijashi Wildcast. We called our lives a gallows because our lives were regrets.”
‘Do you regret it, teacher?’
Even if I were to relive it a thousand times, how could I regret?
‘Then I will become your regret.’
So be it. Kind Aria. Your heart is too pure, even for someone like me to pass by.
‘It was a lie, teacher. Even the moment I met you, I never regretted.’
I knew, Aria. You were too kind to hate me. So stay with me. Pity me more. Don’t go. Don’t go.
‘Ah, teacher. Who will cry for you now?’
“I regret it, Aria. I regret it.”
Fernandez trembled as he looked into Faijashi’s eyes. The scene from back then, the moment he looked at the cold remains of his son, was so vivid. The emotions, the despair and regret of that time, came rushing back.
His heart was being gnawed at.
A surge of emotion, tears of blood flowed. It wasn’t the recoil of the great magic. It wasn’t the shortened lifespan. The screaming soul affected the body, and the crumbling flesh was sobbing. During the Faijashi era, all tears had dried up, so now the only thing his eyes could shed was blood.
“I regret the days I held you, the moments you smiled by my side. I regret my weakness in not being able to protect you and what you left behind. I regret every moment I lived just to survive. Even my choice to die for death.”
-Fernandez…!!
“Didn’t you think so!! That life itself was regret, and now I finally have the chance to reclaim that last regret! Faijashi Wildcast! Now you think about lifespan, now you think about purpose? Don’t talk nonsense!”
-…
The fire in Faijashi’s eyes died down. A thin, twisted old man weakly sat down beside him.
“Every action we took had a purpose beyond just living and breathing! To turn back regret and start anew. From the moment we dug the first shovel to the moment we piled the last mound of dirt! All of that was our purpose!”
-Even if the epitaph on the completed tombstone says failure?
[Death is neither the final destination nor a new beginning. It’s just a process.]
At that moment, a clear voice rang out behind him. Fernandez frowned and turned around. Though he had been sitting alone on the vast prairie, now Lavirata stood behind him.
Lavirata looked at the bleeding Fernandez and Faijashi standing opposite him.
-Did you notice me, Pharaoh?
[Yes. From the moment I crossed into the Soul Realm to kill Mumto, I could see you.]
-That’s a relief. It means my existence isn’t just a hallucination created by Fernandez’s schizophrenia.
[You never thought that, yet you say such amusing things, spellcaster.]
Lavirata approached Fernandez and placed her hand on his shoulder.
[I have much to say to you, but now is not the time. However, will you swear to our deal?]
“…Swear?”
[A vow is sacred, our deal made before the temple is already a contract, but I want to hear it directly from you. I have something I want from you now, but you need time. I will postpone your fulfillment of the promise.]
“What is it?”
[After you die, fulfill three of my conditions. As I said, death is just a process. I want to buy the time of the dead Fernandez, not the living one.]
Lavirata smiled quietly beneath her golden mask.
[This is my respect for you, Fernandez Sernerd. Do you understand what you’ve done?]
After mastering the Ashit necromancy, Fernandez had been sitting on the prairie preparing spells. It had been a week. Communicating directly with the Soul Realm trapped beneath the earth, he raised the dead and organized them to disrupt the enemy’s advance.
Sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, sometimes exposing themselves. Fernandez confused the enemy. Karadskar’s forces were now scattered across the wasteland.
The great army that should have marched as one towards the empire was now scattered across the land. Appearing occasionally to ambush, then disappearing silently like wraiths.
The vast prairie had turned into a maze. The enemy forces, once spreading like wildfire, were now stagnant on the prairie.
Two hundred thousand troops. It’s impossible to stop with just twenty thousand. But the sporadic, wind-like movements of the enemy were enough to cause chaos in Karadskar’s advance.
It was a miracle. Stopping two hundred thousand cavalry with just twenty thousand. No one would acknowledge it, but Fernandez was quietly creating a miracle on this prairie.
Using spells beyond his limits, his lifespan dwindling, and meticulously coordinating each soul, his own spirit wearing away in the process—
“What I’ve done…?”
[Yes. You have now created your own dynasty.]
Lavirata smiled softly.
[A Pharaoh is not just a title, nor a simple sovereign. They are a god, the sun itself, an eternal light, and the parent of all people. The existence of a Pharaoh ensures that their people will be remembered forever. Thus, a Pharaoh’s reign becomes the name of an era.]
Now, those you have raised on this land, whose name do they fight and die for?
[You. You gave life to those buried and decaying below. They will die calling your name. Something simple spellcasters could never do. You called each of them forth and respected their lives.]
Now it’s your time to be respected by them.
[You will live forever. They have made it so. I am the god of Ibalis. And now I have met the god of the Great Wilderness. You have become their sun.]
As her words ended, Fernandez finally began to hear the cries of the twenty thousand wraiths connected to him. The cries of the wraiths, following the traces of the magic stone veins beneath the earth, now trampling the enemy in unison.
Each cry small and faint, but together they echoed.
A tribute to the one who remembers their eternity. A vow to remember that existence forever.
-Sernerd!
One wraith shouted as it charged towards the enemy camp. In another place, another battlefield.
-Sernerd!!
The wraiths charged, calling his name. Flames rose from the enemy’s wagons and supplies, people and horses screamed in terror.
[Upright and just. Whatever your past, your present is not. Would you call the epitaph on the tombstone a failure? I would call it ‘effort,’ and I would name the one who rises again through that grave after you. If life was your gallows, your sentence is about to end. After finding freedom and liberation, you will finally recall my contract in the same vision as me.]
Lavirata supported the staggering Fernandez. She lifted the half-closed-eyed Fernandez and wiped his blood-stained face.
[Your days may be ending, but your era has just begun. You have worked hard enough, now rest for a while.]
The advance of the two hundred thousand troops stopped at that moment. Since the great northern march began, there had never been a day like this.
Kirzat gained time to manage the situation, stepping away from Karadskar’s advance path.
The empire’s conscription centers operated normally, gathering troops from across the empire.
The Beastman Nobility could retreat and reorganize in the desperate scattered battles.
The war wasn’t over. Just postponed. The situation still hung precariously on the edge of victory and defeat—
But the time to prepare for a counterattack. That brief time was what the civilized society needed, and finally, the opportunity had come.
![[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return](https://i3.wp.com/novelhitam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/TS-Obsessed-Gamer-The-Ultimate-Return2.png?resize=85,105 "[TS] Obsessed Gamer: The Ultimate Return")
