Chapter 40 Fear of Death?

“Oh, I am… Nira…” The voice was trembling, but the look in her eyes was not. It carried the weight of something much older. “Nice to meet you, Renzo…”

Lydia’s voice cracked, strained as though forced through clenched teeth. “I can’t control my… body…” Her hands glowed, light gathering before I could even react. Then a holy bolt of silver fire flew straight at me.

Stabs, ever the reckless fool, lunged from the side, his dagger flashing as he aimed at the little girl who wore Nira’s face.

“DON’T DO IT!” I shouted, the command tearing from my throat. My cry cut through him, and the man froze. His blade hovered an inch from her throat, trembling.

“Yes, that’s right… please behave…” Nira’s tone was almost mocking. She flicked her small hand as though brushing dust away, and Stabs was thrown to the ground with bone-cracking force. He lay sprawled, groaning faintly.

“Don’t worry,” she continued with calm cruelty. “He is still alive. I can use a minion, after all.” Her eyes, half gleaming with blue fire, turned back to me. “Now, this could be a bit problematic. You said you wanted to move on to the afterlife, correct? I think I can help you with that. So, just behave yourself.”

Lydia’s face twisted, veins of silver light crawling up her neck as she fought back whatever was inside her. With visible effort, the bind she had cast on me began to unravel, dissolving into threads of fading brilliance. She was weakening, but she had freed me.

The impostor had been clever, waiting for me to possess the skeleton before making her move. She wanted me trapped. Fine. I unpossessed the giant and let my form slide free, the cold chains of its bones no longer my prison.

The blackened skeleton roared as if sensing betrayal and charged at Nira with its greatsword raised.

“You just have to make it difficult, don’t you?” Her voice dripped with amusement. Then her entire body burst into azure flame. The fire licked outward, swallowing both her and the lumbering undead.

“NOOO~!” My scream echoed in the cavern, swallowed by the crackling inferno.

Lydia collapsed at that moment, fainting with no cry, her body going limp as if the strings holding her upright had been cut. I staggered toward her, but the flames forced me back, their heat unholy and suffocating.

When the blaze finally receded, the dungeon boss was gone. In its place stood someone else, someone familiar yet not.

Nira stood taller, her childish frame now reshaped into the figure of a grown woman. Her skin gleamed pale beneath a gown woven of blue fire that licked her form like silk. Her silver hair spilled long down her back, and on her head rested a dark crown that glimmered with sickly light.

She gripped Lydia’s staff, and I watched helplessly as the flames coiled around it. The wood twisted and warped, reshaping until it became a dark scepter, long and dreadful, humming with power.

The figure smiled with regal cruelty. “Let me reintroduce myself. I am the Witch Queen, Anira. For so long, I’ve waited for the prophecy to come true… that in the bloodline of the ancient hero, I shall be reborn. And you, my dear, are going to be a hindrance.”

Her hand flicked as casually as before. A void opened behind me, a hungry darkness that pulled at my very being.

“Leave me at once.”

I tried to resist, clawing at the stone floor, but the force swallowed me whole. My last glimpse of her was that cruel, radiant smile, and then the world dissolved.

When the darkness receded, I found myself gasping for breath. Aspalth pressed against my palms. My eyes lifted, staring at the familiar street that stretched before me. It was the same street where I had died.

I didn’t expect to come back here on Earth of all places. I remembered my death, being struck by lightning and a powerline, and for a long moment all I could think was… fuck.

“FUCK!” I shouted into the empty street. I sucked in a deep breath that wasn’t really a breath at all and screamed louder, “FUUUUCK!”

The sky above grumbled as if it agreed, and then the rain started. Heavy, merciless drops came pelting down. I clenched my fist, slammed it into the brick wall beside me, only to have it phase straight through, like I was trying to hit smoke. “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” My voice cracked in the downpour. I didn’t know what the hell was happening anymore. I wanted to go back there, back to her, but how? “Shit.”

I slumped down in the corner of the street, letting myself slide against the wall, my body pretending to weigh something even though it didn’t. The puddle in front of me rippled as the rain thickened. My reflection warped in it, pale and ghostly, just like me.

“What are you doing, sulking around?” a voice asked.

I turned my head slowly. Sitting next to me was a woman with silver hair, strikingly familiar in a way that made my heart drop. Nira’s mother. Maria.

She lowered her gaze, voice soft. “I am sorry. I could only do so much. Now, the ancient Witch of Calamity has taken my daughter’s flesh—”

I cut her off, sharper than intended. “Her trauma. Does this witch have something to do with it?”

Maria nodded once. “Yes.”

My nails bit into my palm. I imagined flesh splitting if I still had any. I needed a way out, a way to save Nira. “Bring me back there.”

“I won’t,” she admitted. “Not until you calm down.”

I scoffed, the bitterness rising quick. “What good are you then? How are you even here?”

Her answer froze me. “It’s because you created me… to haunt you…”

I frowned. “What?”

Maria didn’t flinch. “Otherworlders like you, once brought to my world, experience mutations. It allows you to wield powers beyond anything native to that land. Moreover, you absorb the essence of the world at a faster rate than any other lifeform. The ancient hero who slew the Witch of Calamity had also been an otherworlder.”

“Sounds like a B-plot to a trashy novel.”

“So…” Maria turned to the street ahead of us. “This is what the otherworld looks like?”

I looked around at the bleak, rain-stained street. “Yeah, I know, it looks miserable. Can you at least tell me why you picked me?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t. It was random. I just needed someone to protect Nira and magically bind him to a contract.”

That left me with more questions than answers. My voice dropped, heavy. “Are you a witch, too?”

“No,” she replied firmly. “I am just a very powerful mage who happens to possess the ancient art of summoning otherworlders.”

That sounded bad. Really bad. Like people were getting kidnapped across dimensions for someone else’s interest.

Maria sighed. “However, I didn’t expect the otherworlder summoned would be… something like you.”

I felt my jaw tighten. “Like me?”

“There is no time,” she insisted, her voice now urgent. “The more we idle, the stronger the witch becomes. Have you stopped sulking?”

I stared at her, teeth gritted. “I need a solution.”

“You need to calm down first, so that you will listen to me.” Her eyes bore into mine. “You have more power than you realize. For example, the weather in front of us… it’s you. You’re causing it. Anything related to your death can manifest as your power. In theory, as an otherworldy ghost, that shoulde be true… The concept of ‘costs’ in magic applies differently to you. It is possible to wield your abilities in your ghostly state. You’re only holding yourself back because you fear death.”

I almost laughed. “Me? Afraid of death?”

“Of course, you are,” she said without hesitation. “You just don’t realize it.”

The weight in her words cut deep, sharper than I expected. I closed my eyes and forced a thought… Enough rain. When I opened them again, the storm was already fading, the street falling into eerie silence.

Maria smiled faintly. “Now that you’ve heard my advice, go, and save my daughter.”

A void appeared in front of us, swirling, dark, and endless. I stood, stared into it, then paused at the threshold. “Aren’t you coming?”

Maria shook her head gently. “I can’t. I have to maintain the magic in order for it to work. This is as far as I go.”

I looked back at her. Parts of her body were already unraveling into motes of light, drifting away with the remaining drizzle. The sight tightened something deep in my chest. Maybe I was watching her die all over again.

Still, in the end, I walked through the void.