Cherreads

a lich's requiem

hexdemon
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
--
NOT RATINGS
416
Views
Synopsis
After centuries chasing immortality, the legendary demilich Marth uses a forbidden ritual to reincarnate into his twelve-year-old self. Armed with ancient knowledge and dark magic, he plans to rewrite fate, seize forbidden power, and conquer death itself. But the past hides new dangers, and time may yet betray him. The path to eternity begins again—in blood and shadow.
VIEW MORE

Chapter 1 - the beginning of the end

In a dimly lit chamber, the faint hum of arcane machinery echoed against the cold stone walls. Faint blue lights pulsed from crystals embedded in the ceiling, casting eerie shadows across the room. In the center stood a hunched figure, cloaked in worn, blackened robes, carefully tinkering with something atop an operation table.

"Another failure," the figure rasped, his deep, crackling voice breaking the silence like a curse.

He stepped back and looked down at the object in front of him—a malformed lump of flesh, grotesquely twitching and quivering. It pulsated as though alive, and small, misshapen eyes sprouted randomly across its surface, blinking at uneven intervals. Despite the horror of the sight, the figure's expression remained cold and still.

There was no disappointment in his eyes. No anger. No grief.

Nothing.

He simply observed.

As he turned away, his face caught the glow of the crystals, revealing a haunting visage. The entire right side of his face and his right arm were nothing but exposed bone—clean, dry, and white—while the rest of his body resembled that of a shriveled old man, his skin stretched thin over brittle bones, marked by time and knowledge.

With a silent gesture of his skeletal hand, he signaled a nearby metal golem. The automaton, faceless and smooth, clanked forward on heavy legs to begin cleaning up the remnants of the failed experiment. It made no sound, no protest—only obedient, mechanical movement.

The figure left the room, his long cloak whispering behind him as he entered a dark corridor that stretched forward into the unknown.

His thoughts lingered on the failure. It was the 322nd experiment to fail.

Three hundred and twenty-two times he had tried to bend the rules of reality—to recreate the impossible—and three hundred and twenty-two times he had fallen short.

It had all started over a century ago, when he discovered a strange stone buried deep beneath a collapsed ruin—an unmarked site untouched by man. The stone emitted a powerful space-time energy, unlike anything he had ever seen. It pulsed with a presence that seemed alive, ancient, and utterly alien.

From the moment he touched it, ideas flooded his mind.

That stone could be the key to achieving the dream he had chased for four centuries.

Immortality.

But the truth was, his story began even earlier—four hundred years ago, when he was reincarnated into the body of a human infant. His name was Marth, and he was born without nobility, without wealth, and without family. A nameless commoner in a world dominated by bloodlines, power, and magic.

The moment he became aware in that infant body, a fire ignited inside him. He had lived before. He remembered a world without magic. He remembered science, logic, and limitation. But now, he had been granted a second chance—in a world of swords, beasts, and sorcery.

And he would not waste it.

He made a vow: he would conquer death itself.

To him, there was no meaning in a life destined to end. What point was there in struggle, in love, in achievement, if death would erase it all in the end? No. True meaning could only come through permanence—through transcending mortality.

For centuries, he researched the arcane. He traveled across continents, infiltrated ancient ruins, deciphered forgotten languages. He studied necromancy, soul magic, mind magic, and even the forbidden branches of space and time manipulation. He dissected gods and conversed with trapped spirits. He absorbed everything the world had to offer—and still, the answer eluded him.

At eighty years old, as his human body withered, he made a decision.

He sacrificed his humanity and performed the Ritual of Half-Lichdom—a process that stripped away his mortality and extended his lifespan by five centuries. He cast aside his beating heart and replaced it with a soul anchor. His flesh began to rot, but he cared not. The transformation granted him power, longevity, and freedom from aging.

Of course, he had dreamed of becoming a complete lich. A true immortal with a lifespan measured in millennia—ten thousand years at minimum. But such a ritual required materials so rare and powerful that even he, with all his knowledge, had only managed to collect a portion of them. The rest? Nearly impossible to find.

Still, he had found the ritual itself. That was a start.

But the stone—the artifact—presented an entirely different route. A more radical idea formed in his mind.

He would not just extend his life.

He would go back.

Back in time. Back to his youth. Back with all the knowledge, power, and mastery he had gained over the centuries.

He spent a hundred years perfecting the ritual. The mathematics, the soul theory, the anchoring spell matrix—it all had to be flawless. A single mistake would obliterate his soul, scattering his essence across the void.

Twenty years ago, the spell was complete. But he hadn't dared to use it—not until his other goals were accomplished.

Yesterday, he completed the last of his critical experiments. The rest were minor, expendable. He had no more excuses.

It was finally time.

As he walked down the long corridor, torchlights flickered to life with each step he took, as though sensing his presence. He found himself thinking back—to when he was twelve, when he first entered the Imperial Academy of Starfall, the most prestigious magical institution in the empire. He had been nothing then. Just a poor boy with a sharp mind and a burning desire.

After graduating, he had wandered the world in search of knowledge that most feared to seek. He dove into the study of soul manipulation and necromancy to understand the architecture of existence. He mastered space and time magic in an effort to uncover the mystery of his reincarnation.

After four centuries, he had become known as the Black Hole Demilich, a name whispered in fear and awe across the continent. He wasn't the most powerful being in existence—he knew that. Ancient dragons, sleeping void-gods, and the undead kings of the Deep Sea still walked the world. But few could match his intellect.

At last, he arrived.

A towering black door stood before him. With a push, it creaked open, revealing the ritual chamber.

The room was cloaked in shadow. Hundreds of glowing runes crawled along the floor and walls—intricate patterns of crimson and sapphire. In the center, embedded in a magic circle carved into obsidian stone, lay the white crystal—the mysterious stone that started it all. It pulsed softly, like a beating heart.

Marth floated forward, his skeletal fingers twitching. He took his place above the stone, legs crossed, suspended by a levitation spell. With a wave of his hand, the chamber sealed, the entrance vanishing entirely.

There would be no exit.

He began to chant.

The incantation was unlike any mortal tongue. It sounded like an insect's whisper—buzzing, stuttering, warped by magic. The room began to tremble, the runes growing brighter, forming webs of energy.

A sphere of white light enveloped him.

Reality cracked.

There was a blinding flash.

Then—nothing.

A young boy with black hair jolted upright, gasping.

He blinked several times and looked around, confusion fading quickly into clarity. He sat up on a simple bed in a modest room. Dusty sunlight filtered through the window.

He rose and approached the mirror on the wall. Staring back at him was a twelve-year-old with dark eyes and pale skin. His features were young, his frame lean, but there was something ancient in his gaze.

"The ritual succeeded," Marth thought, expressionless.

He felt the faint flicker of emotion—excitement, relief—but reined it in effortlessly. Four centuries had taught him discipline. Emotion clouded reason.

"Twelve years old," he confirmed, checking his memories. Nothing was forgotten. His entire life was stored, catalogued, and organized within his Mind Palace, a mental construct he had built through years of mastering memory and mind magic.

He stood there for a long moment, absorbing the weight of his success.

"Two weeks until the academy begins," he thought. "That's time enough to prepare. And... to find that thing."

His eyes gleamed, not with innocence—but with purpose.