The road wound deep through the Hollow Pinewoods, a cursed forest older than any kingdom still standing. Trees like skeletal fingers clawed the sky, their trunks slick with rot and memories of ancient rituals. No birds sang here. No beasts dared linger.
Xerces pressed on.
His bones were still cracked from the encounter with the vampires. His soul-core remained unstable, pulsing with fractured magic. And yet, the fire in his eye sockets burned more fiercely than ever.
He had a purpose now.
Learn to walk among the living.
If he wanted to rebuild his power, gather allies, or manipulate monsters and men alike—he couldn't wander the world as a walking skeleton, no matter how powerful he became. To the average person, a Lich was death incarnate. A myth. A terror.
He needed to wear a mask.
A human mask.
But such magic did not come cheap. It was not a spell one could find in a village grimoire or pluck from a merchant's satchel.
He needed true illusion—deep soulcraft, the kind that reshaped not only the flesh but bent the very rules of perception. And only one place remained whispered in the darkness where such secrets could be found.
The Mirror Vault of Aelrath.
A ruin lost to time, swallowed by the Hollow Pinewoods. A place where illusionists once ruled, long before their minds turned to madness and mirror-spirits devoured their identities.
Xerces found it at dusk.
Half-buried beneath the roots of a tree older than civilization, the entrance was marked only by a polished, dust-covered obsidian frame—no door, no key, no handle.
Only a whisper on the wind.
"Reveal thy true self, or be broken by the lie."
Xerces stood still. He could feel the Vault reaching inside him—tugging at his soul. Testing him. If he lied, it would shatter him. If he revealed too much, it would consume him.
He stepped forward, and the world rippled.
Suddenly he stood not in a forest, but in a grand hall of mirrors—each one moving, twisting, showing thousands of versions of him: Xerces as a man, Xerces as a king, Xerces rotting, burning, screaming, laughing. A child. A corpse. A god.
One mirror glowed brighter than the rest. He approached it.
In its surface, he saw himself as a man—his old form, brown eyes, dark hair, the face that had once belonged to a nobody.
He reached out.
And pain—blinding pain—shot through his soul.
His bones cracked, his vision spun. The mirror rejected the lie.
[Soul Distortion: Illusion Attempt Failed]
[Warning: Core Instability Increased. Limit Nearing Critical.]
He dropped to one knee, clutching at his chest—not out of reflex, but as if habit still lingered in the dead shell of what he was.
"This is not… impossible…" he growled.
The Vault whispered again.
"You wear death. Death cannot pretend to be life. But it can mimic the memory of it."
A riddle.
He realized then—he could not truly become human. But he could become an idea of humanity. An echo. A memory wrapped in spellwork.
Not life. Not death. A phantom in disguise.
He tried again, this time pouring his magic not into imitation, but fabrication. He sculpted flesh from memory, eyes from forgotten emotion, breath from dust and light.
The mirror began to shift.
His form reflected now—a man cloaked in shadow, features flickering like flame. Vague, not quite real. But convincing. Enough.
[Phantom Mask – Learned]
Grants temporary illusion of humanity. High mana cost. Dispelled by divine magic, detection spells, or critical damage.
It wasn't perfect. It was fragile. Risky.
But it was a beginning.
Xerces staggered back into the forest as the mirror hall vanished into mist. The Vault behind him was gone. Buried once more.
He stood beneath the dark trees, now appearing once again as a man—pale, quiet, hooded. The flames in his skull still burned beneath, hidden.
He flexed his hands, now wrapped in the illusion of flesh.
He could speak to people again. Deceive. Walk in cities. Infiltrate courts. Learn. Manipulate.
He could move unseen.
And one day soon, when his power had grown enough…
He would walk into Lady Veralyn's palace as a man.
And leave it as a Lich—dragging her broken throne behind him.