Immortal Paladin

Morning arrived with a whisper rather than a blaze. The sun had not yet crested the horizon, but Sandthorn Village was already stirring. A faint breeze carried with it the scent of dust, cactus blossom, and baked clay, weaving between clay-brick homes and crooked awnings stretched from one side of the narrow street to the other.

Alice sat on the edge of a window in their rented room atop the old inn. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and watched the early risers shuffle past with baskets, jugs, and the occasional curious goat. From here, she could see Joan already setting up their stall, if one could call it that. It was just a foldable stool, a clean mat, and a wooden sign carved with awkward, shaky characters that read:

“Healing Offered – Trade in Herbs, Plants, or Organic Goods.”

Alice scoffed lightly. At least the sign looked rustic enough. Joan hadn’t even bothered to write in the local dialect properly. But that hadn’t mattered. Sandthorn was the kind of place where people judged character by sweat and work, not titles or script.

Joan, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a long pale scarf to hide her more foreign features, waved lazily to a passing auntie.

“Morning, Granny Su,” she called in decent enough pronunciation.

The old woman waddled over, holding a bundle of thorn-leaf cactus wrapped in a basket. “My back’s been acting up again, Mistress Cho An. I brought what you asked.”

Joan motioned for her to sit. “Lay down here, Granny. I’ll fix you right up.”

She slipped a hand into her pouch and pulled out a small phial of cooling tonic, extracted from the root of some creeping vine she’d found behind the village bathhouse. With her Alchemist subclass, creating a simple tonic was easy enough. However, working on foreign materials was easier said than done. Yet, Joan proved herself plenty capable.

Alice watched as Granny Su sighed under Joan’s touch. The old woman’s spine gave a series of audible cracks, and the stiffness left her body like steam rising off a hot pan.

Granny Su cooed. “Ooh... it’s like when my husband was still alive.”

Joan didn’t miss a beat. “Then he must’ve had good hands. Shame he died before he could teach me.” Her lip service was on point as always. The reason she wasn’t using spells was to avoid attracting attention and so that she could test her alchemical concoctions.

Laughter peeled out between them.

Joan chuckled as the woman hobbled away. Alice shook her head and finally stood up. She stepped lightly over the sleeping form of Lu Gao, who was snoring on a mat in the corner of the hut, limbs sprawled out like a collapsed horse.

His hair had gotten long again. The desert sun had bleached it at the tips. At some point, he’d kicked his blanket away and was using a sack of dried lizard jerky as a pillow.

Alice stepped out into the brightening morning, blinking against the dry wind. The air was still cool, but the sun was creeping higher, and with it came the promise of heat.

Joan already had a small line. Villagers brought her everything from dried weeds to dead beetles, offering what they could in exchange for herbal help. Most had stopped trying to guess their origin. Alice and Joan wore their roles well… young mistresses of uncertain background, possibly noble, possibly rogue, but certainly not from around here.

Their water was clean. Their cures worked. And they weren’t stingy.

Alice wandered over and crouched beside the mat. “Any luck with the root you wanted?”

Joan pointed to a gourd-shaped sack hanging nearby. “Got a lump of ‘shiver marrow’ this morning. The old hunter said it grows near snake burrows. Feels cold to the touch. I think I can use it for a blood-freezing salve.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “And you paid him in…?”

“A song,” Joan said with a perfectly straight face. “Told him I used to be a bard.”

“You were never a bard.”

“I didn’t say I was good.”

Alice exhaled through her nose in amusement.

Sandthorn had accepted them faster than expected. Word had spread quickly about the soft-spoken one who healed, and the stern one who traded clean water for stories. Nobody knew what to make of Lu Gao, but they liked how he lifted carts with one hand and talked to animals like they were old friends.

The villagers didn’t press. Life was hard enough out here. If strangers wanted to help, they were welcome to try.

Alice glanced back at the hut. “How’s Lu Gao?”

Joan adjusted her scarf. “Still asleep. I dosed his tea again.”

Alice frowned. “You drugged him?”

“Just a little. He was up half the night trying to fight the firewood pile again. He thinks it’s a spirit. I believe the boy might be either paranoid… or he has a condition.”

“I’m going to start recording his delusions,” Alice muttered. “However, I imagine it has something to do with nightmares.”

A little boy stepped forward with a fistful of strange red moss. “My sister’s got a rash,” he said.

Joan took the moss gently, inspected it, and nodded. “This’ll do. Tell her to stay out of the creek. I’ll make something for her before noon.”

The boy ran off. Joan tucked the moss into a pouch.

“Your Common is getting better,” Alice said, folding her arms. “We’ll be safe here for a while.”

“Of course, it is getting better,” Joan nodded. “Day-to-day conversations help a great deal.”

Alice tilted her head, watching the little boy disappear around a bend in the dusty road, then turned her gaze toward the sky. The clouds were high and wispy, stretched thin across the pale blue. The kind of sky that promised dry heat and no rain for weeks.

She dusted her hands on her disguise, some shawl, trousers, and baggy tunic. “I’m going to wake Lu Gao up. The sun’s already climbing, and he still hasn’t done his stretches.”

Joan smirked under her scarf. “Tell him the firewood’s plotting revenge. Maybe that’ll motivate him.”

Alice snorted but didn’t respond. As she turned to go, Joan added, “Where’s the skull?”

“In my Shadow Space,” Alice replied, pausing mid-step. “It was either that or let him flirt with every passing tree root. He’s been getting annoying lately. Kept asking if I was ‘of age’ in this continent and whether marriage customs allowed polygamy.”

Joan raised an eyebrow. “You’re the only one I know who can trap a disembodied ancient sage in her pocket dimension and call it ‘annoying.’ That skull is rather problematic, isn’t it?”

“Well, he keeps humming when I’m trying to relax,” Alice said flatly. “It’s annoying. I don’t even know where he gets the tunes. Half of them sound like lullabies for demons.”

Joan chuckled. “Still, it must be nice, having that kind of space. I’ve been running out of room in my pouches. Think I could stash a few herbs in there?”

Alice glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t mind. Just don’t put anything that wriggles or leaks.”

“Deal.”

The Shadow Space wasn’t technically a spell. It was a skill: a rare one, and unique to Alice. Back in Losten, before the Fall, she’d seen Blessed warriors and archmages wield miracles like second nature. They’d walked with halos of light, listened to the Voice, and summoned swords and armor from nothing. Joan and David had both been Blessed. They had the Item Box, the System Shop, and even the Respawn Gate at one point.

Alice had none of that.

She remembered the envy well, watching them from the corner of her eye as they channeled divine artifacts or received divine quests. The Blessed were the Immortal Champions of the Realm, chosen by the Supreme, favored, and exalted. Alice had been just a Champion. Strong, yes, but without the Voice, without the grace.

But when the great tragedy fell upon their world, when the sky cracked and the systems bled, the Blessed had lost their blessings. The Voice fell silent. The shops closed. The respawns stopped.

Alice’s Shadow Space, however, remained.

A tiny sliver of a dimensional pocket she had forged herself. Not divine, not holy… just hers. It had grown over time, expanded with her will, deepened as she pressed herself beyond limits.

She entered the hut again. The air inside was dim and warm, a reprieve from the morning glare. Lu Gao was still sprawled across the mat, one arm thrown over his face like a man shielding himself from dreams. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Alice crouched beside him.

“Time to rise, Lu Gao,” she murmured, nudging his shoulder. “There is so much to do.”

Lu Gao groaned. “What…?”

“It’s time to train.”

He grumbled something inarticulate and rolled over.

“Get up,” demanded Alice. “The sun waits for no man, and neither does your sword form.”

Lu Gao stirred beneath Alice’s hand like a reluctant boulder being asked to roll uphill. He blinked once, then again, the haze of sleep thick in his eyes. His face was a mess of pillow creases, dust smudges, and the vague imprint of dried jerky along one cheek. When he finally sat up, his hair stuck out like wild reeds, bleached at the ends and tangled beyond hope.

His torso was bare, muscle-worn but lean, with old scars crossing his back and sides like forgotten brushstrokes. His pants were little more than threadbare rags held together by sheer will and the occasional patch of cactus fiber. The desert had not been kind to his wardrobe, and the locals had even less to offer. The Sandthorn folk were generous with bread and balm but stingy with cloth.

Alice pinched the bridge of her nose. “You look like a spirit who lost a bet and had to walk through a sandstorm naked.”

Lu Gao scratched his chest without shame. “I feel like one.”

“If I had known the extent of your idiocy,” she muttered, “I would’ve force-fed you twice the dose Joan gave.”

Lu Gao winced, rubbing his temples. “So I was drugged.”

“Yes,” Alice confirmed. “Because you were fighting firewood again.”

“…It hissed at me.”

“It creaked. Because it’s wood.”

Lu Gao sighed and looked around for his shirt before realizing there wasn’t one. Just a small pile of desert sand where a sleeve used to be. He turned back to Alice with a questioning look, only for her to wave him off and say, “Don’t move.”

She reached into the air with a practiced motion, her fingers drawing a spiral in the space beside her. A ripple shimmered, distorting the air like heat rising from stone. Then, from the folds of that ripple, she withdrew a neatly folded set of clothes, a tailored outfit wrapped in gray cloth.

Alice unwrapped it with care. The ensemble was unlike anything one would find in Sandthorn: sleek, functional, and oddly elegant. The shirt was dark, close-fitting but flexible, made of some stretch-weave that shimmered slightly in the light. The trousers were reinforced at the knees, with hidden seams for ease of movement. A sleeveless overcoat bore subtle embroidery, nothing flashy, but enough to suggest a touch of refinement. There were even boots.

Lu Gao took it as if handed a relic. He held the shirt up, brows furrowing. “This… isn’t from here.”

“No,” Alice replied. “It’s from my stash.”

The boy stared at it like it might grow wings. “It’s… tight-looking.”

“That’s the point. You’re posing as our bodyguard.” She crossed her arms. “Your cultivation is more obvious than ours. People see it when you walk, hear it when you breathe. Joan and I can do better off with our drabby disguises, since we don’t exactly exude spiritual pressure. But you? You’re like a lion hiding behind a basket.”

Lu Gao blinked.

“That was metaphorical,” Alice added quickly. “Don’t argue. I still need practice with my words.”

He didn’t. Instead, he nodded once, then murmured, “I understand, Mistress.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “Don’t call me that.”

“But the Skull said…”

“The Skull likes to mess with you.”

“Oh.” He paused, looking again at the clothing. “Will it… chafe?”

Alice rolled her eyes and turned toward the door. “If you complain, I’ll stitch cactus fibers into the collar.”

Behind her, Lu Gao chuckled faintly. “Understood.”

She paused at the threshold and looked back over her shoulder. “Ten minutes. Then stretches. Then training.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Lu Gao…”

“Sorry!”

Alice nodded approvingly as Lu Gao took the strange, tailored coat from her outstretched hand, still blinking the sleep from his eyes. The garment shimmered slightly under the morning sun, black threads woven with matte silver patterns, reinforced at the seams, and designed for both aesthetic and utility. It looked like something out of a different world. Which, of course, it was.

Lu Gao tilted his head, clearly uncertain. “Mistress… this doesn’t look like something a desert mercenary would wear.”

“That’s because you’re not a desert mercenary,” Alice replied, adjusting the hem of her sleeve. “You’re our bodyguard. Our guard dog. And your cultivation is painfully obvious to those who can see it. Joan and I don’t exude any spiritual pressure. You? You glow like a bonfire at night. It’s fine for you to dress in something… more eccentric. Moreover, I’d like you to be a bit more presentable when David finally collects us.”

“I understand, Mistress,” Lu Gao said obediently. He clumsily began to shrug the suit on, the fabric hanging awkwardly over his still-topless torso.

Alice smirked. “Try not to rip it.”

But before she could quip further, something in the air shifted.

Her body stiffened. Her Danger Sense, an old skill, not tied to any divine blessing, but one she’d sharpened through countless close calls, flared like a siren behind her eyes.

“…No,” she murmured.

The breeze had died. The sunlight felt wrong: dimmed and filtered, as if the sky had been painted over in a thin sheen of silence. She turned and stepped out of the hut.

The streets were empty.

Stalls abandoned. Dried herbs scattered in the dust. Half-filled buckets toppled over. Even the goats were gone.

Alice’s eyes scanned the alleyways. “Joan?” she called, but her voice felt swallowed by the stillness.

Then… her head snapped upward.

High above, in the sky that had once promised dry heat and a peaceful day, something shimmered.

They flickered into view one by one.

Single-winged creatures, drifting like puppets cut loose from their strings. Porcelain faces, cracked and painted with faint smirks. Limbs too long for their bodies, their skin pale like moonlight soaked in bleach. They hovered motionless for a heartbeat. Then two. Then more appeared. Dozens.

“Angels,” Alice hissed. “But not the good kind.”

These weren’t divine messengers. These were enforcers. Executioners. The kind sent when worlds went quiet and systems screamed in warning.

“This is bad,” she whispered.

She ripped off her desert disguise, letting the shawl and dust-dyed cloth fall to the ground. Underneath was her true garb: a gown of midnight black stitched with stormsilver thread, long frills whipping at the edges as if moved by unseen winds. Her heels clicked against the stone as she summoned her Shadow Space with a flick of the wrist.

Her umbrella dropped into her hand with a satisfying snap. She twirled it once and grabbed a rolled parchment, the Magic Scroll of Greater Teleportation.

She spun and sprinted back into the hut.

Lu Gao had just managed to get one arm through his sleeve when she barreled in. His eyes widened. “Mistress…?”

“No time!” Alice shouted, grabbing him by the shoulder and slamming the scroll into his chest.

His mouth opened to protest, but she silenced him with a glare, then jabbed him in the chest with her nail.

Just enough to break skin.

Lu Gao flinched, but she had already brought the bloody finger to her lips, tasting the copper warmth of his vitality.

“Blood link set,” she muttered. “I will find you, but first, you have to go.”

Outside, the light turned blindingly white. A keening wail descended from the heavens, like crystal swords being dragged across glass mountains.

Then the hut exploded.

An all-consuming blast of radiant energy tore through the building like a wave of purification. Walls disintegrated. Air turned molten.

But before it reached them…

Alice raised her hand, channeling raw energy into Lu Gao’s body. 

“Shield Drain!”

His skin flashed black as her own life force wrapped around him in a protective coil. Simultaneously, her other hand thrust toward his forehead.

“Great Charm.”

Lu Gao’s pupils dilated. Just for a moment, his instincts were not his own.

“Rip the scroll!” she commanded.

And he did.

With a sound like ripping silk, the Greater Teleportation scroll activated. Symbols blazed across the floor, surrounding Lu Gao in a ring of violet flame. The hut vanished in light… blinding, searing light…

But Lu Gao was gone.

The angelic detonation consumed the space where he’d stood only a breath before.

Alice, robes smoldering and umbrella now a shield of pitch-black wards, spun on her heel and vanished into the shadows behind the falling debris. She didn’t wait to see where the angels landed.

She had only one thought now.

Find Joan.