Mages are a type of spellcaster, but not all spellcasters are mages.
If one were to rank spellcasters on Earth based on their relationship with the Abyss, then Abyss worshippers would occupy the far left of the spectrum, Celestial kin the far right, Druids positioned in the middle, and Mages slightly left of center. Between Mages and Abyss worshippers lies another category: "Witches."
Crafts as inscrutable and trace-less as shadow sorcery are hallmarks of the witch.
"Newly awakened dragonborn or remnant of the Abyss?" the shadow spoke—no one knew how that flat shadow could vocalize—"How deeply disenchanted with the world must you be to seek out the heart of Eryan?"
"That's precisely what I wish to know," Tashar inquired. "What compels a witch to linger near the capital? If you sought to protect someone, you could have sent them away instead of keeping them in danger."
"Who told you I was nearby?" the witch chuckled.
"This inn's protective array is at least a decade old, and that Mr. Edwin clearly studied an introductory spellbook. These traces are far too obvious. Even if you weren't nearby, you'd still be far more conspicuous than I am," Tasha said.
"To call my traces 'conspicuous'... I'm more curious about what you are," the witch replied.
Her voice was sweet and alluring, pleasing even to the ears of her own kind. Conversing with a shadow required no strict observance of the etiquette of meeting eyes. Tasha drew her dagger, twirling it playfully in the moonlight, appearing even less hurried than the witch. Their probing back-and-forth lasted several minutes before Tasha sighed softly.
"At any other time, I'd gladly engage in your roundabout chatter," she said. "But I'm in a hurry today."
Dragon wings flared fiercely, like some carnivorous beast possessed of its own will. The basement was ill-suited for flight, yet her tail feathers, hawk-like, and swordfish-like fins accelerated her speed, allowing her to execute abrupt turns in the blink of an eye. Swift as lightning, striking like thunder, the silver dagger did not pierce the wall but slammed into the shadows behind her. Like a red-hot branding iron plunged into water, a vast swath of darkness screamed and boiled.
Tasha used the blade's edge as a mirror, scanning every shadow in the basement until she found the one swallowing the light. The silver knife, stained with her blood, pierced the darkness. Shadows scattered like startled bats, revealing the spot where the reflected light should have shone. The shadow cast upon the wall dissolved like a puppet severed from its strings.
The witch might truly be absent, but she required a vessel to cast spells here. It could be a possession, a duplicate, or something else—irrelevant, for as long as a fragment remained nearby, Tasha could seize her tail.
A woman's form emerged from within, swelling from flatness until it burst like a ripe fruit, collapsing into a swarm of rats. Red-eyed beasts scattered, audaciously charging at Tashan. With a flap of her wings, a gale swept the vile creatures away. Yet the place seemed to have spawned a black hole, spewing rats in endless waves, relentless and unstoppable. The barbed claws on her dragon wings dug into the wooden pillars of the basement. Tashar climbed upward against the pillar, her back to it, like a bat scaling walls with its claws.
A shriek rang out at the basement entrance.
The cellar door remained open, swallowed by shadows—it shouldn't have been found at all.
The witch's shadow paused, then swiftly grasped what was happening. A giant hand of shadow swept toward the doorway, but before it could block the entrance, the person at the door had already tumbled inside.
The girl with braided hair was a disheveled mess, jumping frantically and screaming incessantly at the rats covering the floor. "Rats!" she cried, utterly terrified, on the verge of madness from the sight. "So many rats! Aaaah!"
Abigail's voice cracked completely as a giant rat scurried across her foot. Finally, she screamed hysterically, clutching her head. In that instant, the rats and discarded junk in the basement froze, suspended like slow-motion film frames. Then, rootless ghostly flames ignited midair, setting everything ablaze.
What a pleasant surprise, Tashar thought. Who would have thought the Shadow Witch's daughter possessed a gift for fire?
Centered around Abigail, flames blossomed like a crimson lotus, illuminating the room brightly. The girl, eyes tightly shut, remained utterly unaware of her actions. Amidst the fire-filled basement, only the patch beneath her feet remained spotless, untouched by smoke or flame. Tasha, suspended from the pillar, felt no discomfort from the heat. Her dragon-kin physique possessed formidable spell-breaking properties and exceptional resistance to fire and heat—one of the assets that gave her the confidence to confront the witch directly. Only a small patch of shadow remained undispersed in the room. Before the flames could leap again, the witch's shadow clone suddenly swelled.
The crimson flames arrived with great fanfare, yet departed without a whisper. No crackling sound remained unquenched by water, no ripple disturbed the air—the entire room's inferno vanished as if a shadow's gaping maw had broken through the surface, swallowing the red lotus floating upon it.
Abigail collapsed.
As the flames receded, the shadows surged back, countless tentacles coiling toward the girl's feet. But someone was faster. Tasha dove forward, like an Angasor lion leaping from a tree, her hands scooping up the girl's swaying form.
The rustling ceased. A furious gaze pierced the darkness.
"I've discovered something..." Victor chuckled softly.
His whisper echoed in Tasha's mind, his amused tone sealing their victory. Tasha's heart settled completely. She knew she had won this battle against the witch.
"I think we can speak openly now," Tasha said.
Her arms cradled the unconscious girl like a fallen bird, yet one hand rested on the bird's slender neck—bones far less sturdy than a dragon's. A gentle press...
"What do you want to know?" the witch asked, her voice icy.
A witch is a witch, not merely a female mage.
Mages were practitioners who, through study, could wield spells for combat and daily life. They could be male or female, human or non-human. Witches, however, were different. Their origins were shrouded in conflicting legends, but two things were certain: Witches were not human; they were a distinct race. Children born from their unions with any other race would only be witches; The knowledge they pass down is largely focused on concocting potions—their love potions and deadly poisons that cause bizarre deaths are renowned throughout Erian. As for how to wield magic? That requires no study at all.
Witches are born spellcasters.
They need not apprentice themselves to masters, nor toil over memorization, comprehension, or formal learning like mages. Each witch awakens her abilities around puberty, falling into distinct categories (Shadow Witches, Flame Witches, and so forth). Within their chosen domain, they achieve extraordinary mastery with minimal effort, while remaining utterly inept in other magical arts—no choice in the matter, nor any ability to choose.
Tasha's midnight sabotage of the inn's magical nodes did not go unnoticed. Curious, imaginative, and adventurous, Abigail quietly followed her—and Tasha had no intention of shaking off the innkeeper's daughter. If the hidden caster was protecting the inn, the innkeeper's daughter was likely within his or her sphere of influence. Having this self-imposed hostage along offered no disadvantages—Tasha had intended to lure the caster out anyway. Upon discovering the guardian spell's creator was a witch, Tasha formed some conjectures and plans.
That protective array might not be meant for external threats.
Its principle was energy decomposition. Within the array's range, any attack—be it magic or a high-powered arcane weapon—would be broken down before completion, unable to truly manifest. No one could cast magical attacks on those inside the array, and likewise, no one within could cast magic.
Thus, no one would reveal themselves. Edwin, the bookworm buried in ancient texts, would never know how right he was—he couldn't cast even a spark spell, making magic nothing more than a story to him. Abigail, growing ever older, yearned for magic yet believed it was beyond her reach. She reached seventeen without realizing magic flowed through her veins.
Abigail was the daughter of a witch.
She was never destined to become a mage. The mechanics of witches and mages operated on entirely different principles. The latter's spells were the result of precise logical calculations, while the former's were born from intuition, perception, emotion, and such things. A fish born to swim need not study swimming techniques. She neither needed nor could learn spells, yet from the very start, she held the ticket to the magical world. Abigail only needed to wait for the time to come, for the door to open, and then stride forward with head held high.
The nodes guarding the protective array had been dismantled one by one, now completely shattered. At the end of the second-floor corridor, Edwin, who had stayed up all night, felt a wave of relief wash over him. He glanced out the window in puzzlement; the moon seemed brighter than before. The "exhaust fan" enveloping the entire inn had been shut off. Now magic and energy could accumulate. With just one more attempt at casting, the unsuccessful writer would step into the realm of a mage's apprentice. Seventeen-year-old Abigail had unleashed her bloodline for the first time today. The mysteries of fire magic would gradually unfold over the coming decades, and she was destined to shine brilliantly in this field.
"Yes, I gave Edwin the spellbook. No particular reason—just found it amusing," the witch remarked indifferently, twirling her long nails.
This was easy enough to understand. Though both spellcasters, mages and witches—fundamentally different in nature—had always viewed each other with mutual distaste. Mages deemed witches barbaric creatures relying solely on innate talent, believing their spells lacked the discernment to be chosen and combined wisely—far inferior to the mage's intellect. Witches, in turn, saw mages as weaklings unblessed by magic, mocking their frantic struggles to cast spells that came to witches as easily as breathing. They were reason versus emotion, deduction versus intuition, order versus freedom... For centuries, their existence fueled endless contention.
Now, with mages vanished, a witch obtained a spellbook. She entrusted it to a novelist who resembled a mage—a prankish act of revenge. No wonder, under her misdirection, the mage's supporters introduced themselves using the old derogatory term.
Many questions demanded answers.
Why did the witch linger here? How long had she stayed, what did she know of the capital, and why give birth to Abigail before feigning death and departing? How many witches remained? Why had the mages vanished, and how had she acquired the grimoire? The newly emerged spellcaster held vital information to complete the world's lore, but for now, these questions could be set aside.
"I want to know where the entrance lies beneath the capital," Tasha said.
"Why do you ask?" the witch replied, making no pretense of denying her knowledge. "What you do is none of my concern, but I must ensure you won't drag me down with you."
"Have you heard what's happening in Tasmalin Province?" Tasha asked.
"You mean those overconfident rebels? Oh, so you're from there," the witch said, her interest waning. "I've never been to the capital's underground chambers, but I don't need to go to know there's no switch down there that could destroy the human empire."
"But you know where the entrance is," Tasha stated.
"Yes, I know. I've even been there. But what good would that do?" The witch said, "Inside, there are countless impenetrable barriers. Even the shadows don't know what lies beyond. Do you know what's down there?"
"Not for certain," Tasha replied. "But it's worth a try."
The witch laughed again, sounding like a drunken heiress, her laughter endless as she pinched your cheeks with her pink-painted nails. This peculiar charm somehow seeped through the thin veil of shadow, lightening the basement's mood while making Victor mutter under his breath. Charm to a witch was like intelligence to a mage—the more alluring the witch, the deadlier she seemed.
"Did you tell your people the same before you left? 'I don't know if I can save everyone, I'm just trying.'" the witch said. "Did they pin their hopes on you? Or were they simply desperate, grasping at straws, not caring if you died out there?"
"Not at all," Tasha replied with a smile. "Because I've never let them down, just as they've never let me down. That's why Tasmalin's 'cancer' has only grown worse—from a mere scab on the empire's skin to a festering wound in its very flesh."
The confidence in her tone silenced the witch for a moment. Seconds later, the witch laughed again. "Are you recruiting me?" she asked, cutting straight to the point. "Trying to lure me aboard as your ship sinks?"
"At least we still have a 'building,'" Tasha replied. "Look around you, Witch. The mages who once stood equal to you have vanished. The human empire holds absolute supremacy, and witches are both spellcasters and outsiders. Countless struggles have been swiftly crushed. The fact our message reached you proves human armies failed to extinguish the embers in the southeast corner. You may choose to fight alongside us with courage, or continue 'hibernating,' praying luck grants you a prolonged, half-dead existence like yours now."
As she uttered the final word, she took flight—this time propelling herself directly through the moonlit window. Her back shattered the frame as she plunged skyward. Almost simultaneously, the shadows in the basement erupted. An indescribable black substance instantly flooded the entire space, like a tank filled with black mud. Thick, spiked shadow tentacles surged through the gap torn open by Tashan, piercing straight upward toward the sky. They charged nearly a hundred meters before showing signs of exhaustion.
Tasha flew beneath the full moon, light as a butterfly escaping a spider's den. She looked down at the place she had flown from, where countless indistinct things writhed like a swamp bubbling and boiling.
The shadow witch, struck at her weak point, momentarily lost her form.
The witch in the basement wasn't a duplicate—that shadow was her very essence, the only part of her still existing in this world. When the newly awakened young witch had attacked the entire basement with flames, elemental countering had briefly exposed the shadow witch's true form. Her disguise was exquisitely crafted—even a skilled mage would struggle to catch that fleeting flaw. But Tasha had Victor.
"I am a demon lord, after all," Victor remarked coolly. "A witch showing off her skills in front of the master."
Strictly speaking, the witch was already dead. Magic kept her lingering within the inn, existing here, bound here. Tasha didn't know her cause of death, didn't know her past, but she understood clearly that as long as she held Abigail captive, her standoff with the witch was a guaranteed win.
Not because of mother-daughter affection.
"Witches possess a secret art that allows them to resurrect within their own children." "Victor explained. "A prepared deceased enters a state like hers—half-dead. Seventeen years after the offspring awakens their gift, the half-dead specter battles the living daughter. The victor survives, inhabiting the living body while retaining all the deceased's knowledge and memories. This newly awakened fire witch is likely the resurrection method she left behind."
Witches straddling the line between life and death not only spent most of their time in slumber with severely limited mobility, but could only exist for a little over twenty years—a single failure meant certain death. As long as this shadow witch wished to survive, she would have to compromise with Tasha.
"You could just have her sign the contract directly," Victor urged.
"Forget it," Tasha said. "You said witches are creatures driven more by emotion than reason, right?"
Witches were notorious for their unpredictable magic and starkly defined loves and hates. It was common for them to shatter their power limits during intense emotional upheavals. In history, a furious witch once exacted revenge on her betrayer through self-immolation. That flame witch, later dubbed the "Nation-Burning One," ultimately incinerated an entire human kingdom. The unquenchable flames burned for a full month before finally dying out, leaving behind a wasteland of ashes that took a century to recover.
The yawning innkeeper emerged for his rounds. To his eyes, the inn remained unchanged. Unusual sounds and sights were obscured by shadows—at least, from this perspective, the Shadow Witch hadn't driven herself mad. Tashwa waited in the air for over ten minutes until the black mist below dispersed, then landed once more.
"Tell me how to reach the capital's underground," Tashan repeated, standing beyond the shadow's reach. "Let's make a deal. I care nothing for your past or future motives. As long as you don't lie or withhold anything, I'll leave as quietly as I came—touching nothing."
"How would you prove that?" the witch retorted coldly. "Am I supposed to wait until you return safely before retrieving Abigail? I won't accept it. Even if I tell you nothing but the truth, there's a ninety-nine percent chance you'll die down there."
"Let's make a contract," Tasha said.
The shadows froze as the floating contract appeared. Tasha couldn't see the witch's face, but she sensed her shock.
"The Abyss is sealed! There are no demons left on the surface! How could you possibly wield a demonic contract?!" she demanded, her voice unsteady. "What exactly are you?"
"An explorer trying to forge a new world in Erian." Tasha said, "A seeker who wishes for all creatures to thrive anew upon this continent."
The witch began to laugh.
Only now did Tasha realize this woman was indeed Abigail's mother. The neurotic edge in her laughter mirrored that of the little girl who'd seen the rat-pile. The shadow witch laughed wildly, her laughter mad and desperate.
"Reappear on this land? As before?" she hissed between fits of maniacal laughter. "If such a thing were possible, why would I have been languishing half-dead in a basement all this time!"
"One must try."
"Do you think I speak of humans?" the witch's voice sharpened. "Humans—they're merely fortunate reptiles! It was Erian himself who sought to exterminate us all!"
"What do you mean?" Tasha shuddered in horror.
"Guess how long I've lived... Oh, this isn't really living. Then guess how many years ago I was born. For a witch with a lifespan similar to humans, it's too long—so long I don't even remember the name I had back then. The witch's voice softened, tinged with an eerie, cloying sweetness. "My dear, I witnessed the Beast War with my own eyes."
The nameless witch was born before the Beast War. Even within her fragmented memories—shattered by countless soul-stealings—some things remained unforgettable.
Let me begin at the start.
Nearly five hundred years ago, the Abyssal cultists of the west and the witches of the north secretly colluded. Their leaders deceived the demons, convincing them they could wield Abyssal magic without sacrificing to the Abyss. Thus, the Eryan Pact was signed. Roughly four hundred years ago, the inhabitants of the Material Plane emerged victorious in the Planar War. They expelled both the Abyss and the Celestials. Back then, everything was good. All creatures believed this prosperity would endure.
Then the elves and the great druids departed.
"They say we were heroes back then," the witch sang softly. "The Abyssal creations, fanatics, and Celestial kin left behind became vermin. But the blasphemers who stole Celestial power, the former Abyssal worshippers who betrayed the Abyss, and us who connected them—we were hailed as great heroes. See, in an age where traitors are celebrated, not the betrayed, people sing their praises."
Then came the Dwarven War, followed by the Orc War. Both conflicts, separated by a century, were brutal. The humans, victorious though narrowly, began championing human supremacy, leaving the status of other races precarious.
But this was neither the beginning nor the end.
When did magical creatures start dwindling? Witches noticed potion ingredients growing poorer in quality and harder to find. Then they realized their neighbors from the western seas—the sea nymphs who surfaced every decade to trade with them—had vanished.
Fairies had always shunned the world, sea nymphs dwelled in the deep, and magical creatures were inherently mysterious and rare. Thus, no one could pinpoint the exact moment of their disappearance, nor was it certain if they had truly vanished entirely.
Such peripheral signs did not yet constitute a massive shock to mainstream society. For humanity, the far more terrifying development was that powerful mages no longer achieved immortality.
While true immortality was unattainable, practitioners had always employed cunning to evade death—through lich transformation or other arcane means. Yet during the century bridging the Dwarven War and the Orc War, legendary mages began falling one by one. Every transformation ritual ended in failure, and soon, practitioners themselves grew scarce.
A new theory emerged after the Orc War.
Scholars discovered that spellcasters were depleting the plane's mana reserves. Erian's mana cycle had faltered, regeneration slowed to a crawl—or ceased entirely. The latter was too terrifying to contemplate, so people clung to the notion of "slowness." Regardless, in this environment, every spell cast by a caster drained the plane's mana.
Magic was Erian's fundamental essence, coexisting with the plane from its very first second of existence. What would happen if the plane's magic were completely depleted?
"They say the reason for this war is to utterly purge the remnants of the Abyss and the Celestial Realm—including traitors from both realms. In other words, spellcasters." The witch laughed with the innocent glee of a young girl. "How rare—witches, mages, and priests locked in a cage together, carried off like chickens to slaughter. The corpses of sworn enemies buried side by side."
On one side was the theory that spellcasters drained the plane's magic; on the other, the ideology of human supremacy. These two currents collided, transforming into a war—even a massacre—that seemed inevitable. Those holy warriors who had abandoned their gods for their kin, those Abyss worshippers and witches who had declared war on the Abyss for Eryan, those mages who had lost their powerful leaders... they were betrayed by their own kind.
"I was fortunate and strong enough to escape alive," the witch said. "I lived like this for decades, continuing my existence through my daughter's body—if you'd seen spellcasters slaughtered cage by cage, you too would understand the preciousness of life. Later, each body lasted shorter and shorter."
The witch was a half-magical being.
The nameless Shadow Witch had survived all this time, witnessing the subtle shifts in magical creatures over two centuries. New witches could live sixty years, fifty, forty... until today, when a witch would hurriedly bear a daughter after changing bodies, only for that young witch's form to die of exhaustion the following year.
Erian seemed determined to end her existence.
"That's enough," the witch said hollowly, as if her earlier narration had drained her of all passion. "That's enough. The entrance lies beneath a thatched cottage in the old quarter. I can give you precise directions, even teach you how to slip past the first guard undetected... Whether you win or lose, whether humanity triumphs or non-humans prevail—it makes no difference to me. Perhaps Abigail won't even live to the age where I can face her in battle."