The Outsider, an organization originated from the far past of the Ancient Era, with incomprehensible influence and information network.

Although they had been set back and fell from their peak during the Timeless War, their power was still the force not to be reckoning with.

With their leader and personnel unknown, it was impossible to go against such a behemoth.

As the saintess read the documents about the history of the Outsider at the Pantheon's headquarter, the door had been gently opened, a female wearing priestess uniform could be seen walking toward the saintess.

She stopped in front of the saintess and stretched her hands to embrace the saintess before she kissed the saintess' hand.

Satisfied by the maid greeting, the saintess caressed the young girl's lovely face for few seconds before resuming her dignified appearance.

The Priestess' face darkened, she respectfully kneeled on the floor before she announced the bad news.

"Your Highness, the daughter of the Grand Noble has disappeared overnight, it seems that the Outsider has kidnapped her."

Her voice was trembling, afraid of the wrath of the saintess.

The saintess frowned, she did not expect the sudden change of the overall situation.

"What about the witness, anyone who travelled with her?"

She asked the priestess, hoping for something useful.

But contrasted to her expectation, the priestess shook her head.

"There were some traces of offensive magic and healing magic but those were merely one of the normal tiers of magic spell, indicated that there was no wizard nor spell caster involved."

She continued to ponder for a while, suddenly, she seemed to remember something important so she quickly told it to the saintess.

"There were a lot of skinless male corpses and a skin of a female human but no female corpse was found."

Her face was pale as she remembered the gruesome scene that she experienced.

"No, that shouldn't be the Outsider's doing."

The saintess muttered to herself.

Although the Outsider was a mysterious organization with an unknown background, they were in the end, a human organization.

They would never do something out of the line like tortured the innocent humans.

Did the demi-human or the Undying successfully sneak into our empire?

The possibility wasn't high, but it wasn't low either.

"This might be the plot from the demi-human, send the message to the pope about the news immediately."

She instructed the priestess and gestured her to leave.

The priestess kissed her hand lightly before respectfully walk away.

After a long while, the saintess waved her hand, the temperature around the room suddenly dropped, the magic formation that was hidden in the room shone brightly, a figure could be seen appear as a shadow in the middle of the formation.

But the shadow of that being wasn't that of a human.

It was a floating skeleton.

"Lich..."

The lich was one of the upper echelons of the Undying race, they were master of schemes and dark magic.

"Why did the demi-humans appear in the Human Empire?"

The saintess demanded the answer from the lich.

"Huh, why did you think that it was the demi-human and not the demon?"

The lich didn't move but it used some sort of mental communication to tell its intentions.

"Do you think that I am an idiot?"

Although the saintess was very upset about this humiliation, still, she maintained her dignified exterior, she had some self-control.

Unlike those fools.

Of course, the Undying wouldn't leave the useful corpses behind, and the demons were too busy with their own problems to come out from Hell.

The lich laughed, the sound that it produced was only some distorted noise that couldn't make sense of.

"I am surprised that the saintess of the Pantheon would be willing to stoop so low to made a deal with us."

The lich teased the saintess lightly.

"Do not mistake me for a traitor, I will do anything for the survival of humanity."

Even if she needed to play the role of a villain.

"It's better to continue to exist with you, the Undying than be massacred by the demi-humans."

The saintess spoke seriously.

The situation of the empire was far worse than it appeared to be, although the citizens were living in peace, the nobles and officials were trying to pledge their loyalty to the demi-human and abandoned the Human Empire.

"We don't know why there are the demi-humans at your empire, they might be a part of the Masked."

The lich explained in detail about the possible circumstances.

"Because of the unpredictable change, I will compensate you with these things, for your own safety."

The lich said and, at the same time, manipulate the magic to take a ring and a scroll out and opened a warp to toss it at the saintess.

The saintess stepped sideways to avoid the floating ring and the scroll that came toward her.

"You sure are generous, gifting me such useful artefacts."

The saintess was startled, but her face didn't show any of it.

"In the end, you still didn't trust me."

The lich said as its shadow slowly dissolved into the darkness.

"Farewell, I hope that the next time we meet, things would be different."

The lich said again, but weirdly, the sound that it produced wasn't distorted but filled with emotion.

As if it was a human.

The saintess didn't say anything but only nodded at it.

After the lich was gone, the atmosphere of the room regained its former temperature.

The saintess still didn't dare pick up those artefacts that the lich gave her, afraid of those unknown curses and corrupted methods of the Undying.

She used her holy magic to inspected the artefacts after nothing happened, she picked them up carefully before stored them in her pocket.

"If this plan succeeds, will I be able to help you?"

The saintess muttered to herself, the memories of the distant past played in her head as she gazed into the wildness.

He is everything to her.

If only he was still alive.

...

After the lich finished communicating with the saintess, it went back to its laboratory, doing its own research about the Ancient Era.

Why do I feel so familiar with this thing?

Its emotion was in disarray as it stared at an old painting for a long time, unable to move its gaze anywhere else.

It first found the painting in a ruin, possibly a tomb of a Sage during the Ancient Era.

The painting was about a young refined lady who wore a light-yellow robe, standing still while gazing at the sky.

She had the aura of holiness around her, like an immortal, like a saintess from above.

The lady in the painting was so beautiful, that anyone who saw her would admire her endlessly.

But for the Undying, these things simply mean garbage to them.

Despite that the Undying would have no interest in these things, this lich could only look at the saintess in the painting endlessly, it felt like the woman in the painting was someone it knew during the life before the Undying.

The Undying naturally came from the corpses of the living being, but they would retain no memory during their life, much less lingering feeling before their death.

But there will always be an exception to everything, like this lonely lich.

It was lost in the darkness, with no one to guide it, it didn't know anything about the living being, much less the emotions they felt.

The lich couldn't tell nor explain the emotions that it felt to anyone because the lich itself couldn't even begin to understand them.

So it kept experimenting with the emotions, by doing varies tests about the living being.

But the emotions that it got would only be "fear", "hatred", and "lost".

These emotions were useless to the lich, it only wanted to know what it was feeling.

After a long time of testing, they yielded no result.

So it turned to another way, to experience with the living being closely.

It kept making deals with the demi-humans, demons and humans.

Still, it couldn't find that sensation that it felt.

Until it found her.

Until it found that lady with the holy magic.

When it was dealing with those greedy nobles, it saw her, sitting on the carriage, admiring the flowers with her bodyguard.

For the second time in its existence, it felt that same emotion when it looked into the painting of the beautiful lady.

It felt happiness, like its existence, had a meaning, a purpose.

The lich had walked out of the void inside its mind, it had the answer to its question.

After it found her, the lich kept finding every information about her, no matter how useless it is, it wanted all of them.

Sometime later, it found out that she was a saintess from the organization called the Pantheon.

But it couldn't care about that, it only wanted to see her again.

The first thing it did was to make a deal with her, hoping to interact with her more in the future.

Despite the benefits that wasn't much at all, it still agreed to help the saintess, it wanted her to be happy.

After it knew that something irregular had happened, the lich immediately contacted her to see if she got hurt anywhere, it even gifted her two of its most valuable artefacts, just to protect her for every harm she might meet.

Although it wanted her, it feared that she wouldn't accept it, so the lich locked its emotions deep inside its rotten heart, waiting to be itself to be more perfect for her acceptance.

It couldn't afford to lose her again.

If it couldn't be with her in its life, then it will be with her in its death.

But after the lich saw her distrustful behaviour, it felt sad and heartbroken, it wanted her to accept it, it want her to be together with it, the lich only wanted to be with her.

The lich wished to get its own memory back and find a way to become a human being again, just for her, just to be with her, for all eternity.

Or if it could change her to be like it, so that she would be together with it, forever.

The lich kept pondering about its decision, that would change the saintess life permanently.