“Aghh!” That sound had to force itself out of Gripha’s throat. As he forced himself to move forward, the sword pierced further past his body. When Gripha finally reached a close enough distance, he detonated.
A moment later, “(oh?)” He thought.
He no longer had a body, nor a mind. He was a spirit once more.
Memories of his past lives returned to him. A panel then became visible to his spiritual consciousness, displaying options that would determine what incarnation he would have next.
He had been given a construct—a special structure of the soul that would carry out some form of magic or supernatural effect—named [Cyclical Life] by the deity who had disappeared many years ago, it kept him from becoming completely unaware that existence existed.
“(Sigh… defeated again, huh.)”
From his time with the deity, he knew that ambient mana could kill a target within a second, but Gripha felt so distant from achieving that level of strength.
The most significant obstacle for him was that he just couldn’t hold much influence over the ambient mana, there was an apparent threshold wherein he could control only so much at a time.
It had become the case aplenty that some tough demon or a large enough group of demons would appear, and end up defeating him.
Since his soul was booted out of that connection into the physical plane, he would thus then do something he’d learned at some point in time.
To break out of his spiritual space—the void he is sent to upon death—and have some awareness in the physical plane, he had learned how to deposit a small portion of his soul to remain, keeping up a connection to the targeted spot.
With that remaining connection, he would then transfer wholly his soul over by shaping some mana to occupy space, creating an immaterial form with some level of physical consciousness in the physical plane.
“Wise Spirit Gripha, greetings.”
He was immediately greeted by the priestess of the holy church. Despite the absence of the deity, it was still quite an influential and powerful organization.
“Greetings, Itra.” He replied automatically, and then he thought, “do you have nothing to do at this time?” It was not usual for her to just be there, standing near where he would go to after physical death.
Though, it wasn’t too unusual, just that it would be some attendant instead of the priestess herself just standing by.
Ever since he chose the spot, choosing the church, as where he would be when he takes on his immaterial form, it was made quite a big deal by the people, he had turned into a substitute for the missing deity.
“None. I simply had nowhere to be, so I chose to stay here.” Itra replied.
Then, Itra continued to speak, “well, firstly, I shall inform you of the state of things while you were out fighting at the front”, Itra started, “the agricultural land managed by the Bavala family has been targeted by the demons. The sea-side attacks on the nation of Rhader has been increasing as of late, they’re receiving most of the attacks from the seas… We’re a bit troubled with where to station most of the troops at, the demons are still up to par with how sporadic they are in choosing whichever direction to attack from.”
Itra then paused, contemplating if she should mention a worry of hers, an estimation of when imminent doom would arrive, but she lightly shook her head, choosing to see it as just her subjective view, choosing to respect how humanoids had survived for hundreds of years while being constantly attacked.
Even if those many years were only of losses for humanoids, there was still hope supported by how they apparently persevered.
Itra then continued, “the elves are still growing in their discontent with how more and more land has been turning unfertile with how we’ve been accelerating plant growth.” She finished with that.
“So… no progress in resolving these issues?” (Gripha)
“Hm, none. Instead, the problems have been worsening.” (itra)
“… I see…” There wasn’t really much for Gripha to say.
Gripha had died so many times that his sense of danger and worry had become nonexistent, especially so since he didn’t have much of a physical brain to emulate such emotions at the moment.
He had contemplated at one point the reason why he still continued existing, after which he then just developed the mentality to just fight for the sake of a fight, only knowing that the humanoids were the side he should be allied to.
He did think of the possibility of reincarnating as a demon, but his construct of [Cyclical Life] didn’t seem to allow it, so he never gained the ability to manipulate the ambient mana of the demonic continent.
In the one life he used to try living in the demonic continent as a human anyways, he was awfully vulnerable to the native inhabitants, and the law of nature, kill or be killed, being predominant there that he died relatively quickly, so that train of thought became very unappealing to him.
He had developed doubts over how he would even kill the demon lord, so he ended up just fighting without much of a goal in mind.
“How much time has passed since my death?” Gripha grew accustom to asking that. His sense of time in his spiritual space was too vague to rely on. Back when he had yet to learn of the process of residing in an immaterial form, his perception of only minutes having passed in his spiritual space were often off by a day or, more often, more.
“It has been an hour since your demise.” Itra answered.
“What happened with the other cities that got attacked?” Gripha asked.
“… One has been… to say… wiped off the map.” She said with a gloom in her eyes. “As for the three cities that still stand…”
“Three? There’s one more?” Gripha, surprised, interrupted Itra.
“Yes… as the attack on Dazkas and Yao, and the destruction of Stod started, the demons appear to have planned an attack on Rax while you were occupied by one of the two… though it’s not the city of Rax itself that they were after, but the agricultural land that the elves agreed to use for the cultivation of food and herbal ingredients for us, and the mines that a group of dwarves were unfortunately at to acquire resources. The demons made it a bit problematic for the inter-species cooperation there.”
Itra paused, giving emphasis on what she said, and then continued, “as for the other two… Yao’s self-sufficiency took a severe hit. Dazkas, the closest city to Yao, will have to share their rations.”
“Hmm… is Dazkas going to be fine with sharing?” (Gripha)
“… They should be.” (Itra)
“… Any more problems?” (Gripha)
“Other than those… we are keeping things regulated.” (Itra)
Since she chose to end the talk at that, Gripha didn’t push forward on the topic as it was not as though Gripha could do much about it as a spirit, in a state where he was essentially putting forth his all just to stay conscious in the physical plane.
As an immaterial being which needed directly personal mana to keep up existence, Gripha wasn’t able to serve much for combat with magic, so he had to be somewhere peaceful while in such a state, and it was more so used as a way to pass the time while [Cyclical Life] was searching for a suitable incarnation.
Without a physical mind, one’s processing power gets severely hampered. It was quite the fortune for Gripha to have a construct that kept him spiritually conscious, which helped what little processing power he had as just a soul to sustain a connection in the physical plane.
“(I’ll go for better.)” Gripha decided. Although Itra’s reporting was of things that sounded quite severe, the territory the demons were taking over on the daily were at a lesser pace than in the past since the humanoids were less spread out, and thus had less territory to cover, so Gripha sensed that he had more time he could spend for waiting, for something of higher quality to come up and have as his incarnation.
“How is your father doing?” To pass the time, Gripha started some normal conversation.
