Immortal Paladin

143 Alice’s Life

The dreamscape shifted.

I didn’t feel my body anymore, only the drift of consciousness as my soul merged with Alice’s. This wasn’t like when I entered Gu Jie’s soul, where lines blurred and I became her. No. This was different. I could still tell where I ended and she began. I was a passenger, not a replacement. A thread wound into her, not a needle driving the story forward.

Divine Possession wasn’t just possession. It was empathy, distilled into a technique. If she laughed, I’d feel the tug at my lips. If she cried, I’d taste the salt on my tongue.

It was compassion turned into a system mechanic. Honestly, it was kind of beautiful.

And right now?

Alice was pissed.

The scene opened in a stone hallway, arched with ivy creeping in through stained glass windows. The light was golden, casting pools on the floor where the sun filtered through images of angels and saints. Candles flickered in wall sconces. The air smelled of old parchment, beeswax, and incense.

“I said no, Sister Magdalene!” a girl’s voice snapped from around the corner.

I turned toward it instinctively, even though I didn’t have feet anymore. Just presence.

Alice stormed into view. Brown hair, cut messily, framed her face. She looked like she hadn’t brushed it all morning, which, judging by the fire in her expression, might’ve been true. Her cheeks were flushed with frustration. She wore a simple white and blue robe, clearly too big for her small frame, and her sleeves kept slipping down past her wrists.

She didn’t look over twenty.

“You can’t just keep me here like this! I have the right to leave!” she shouted.

Behind her, a plump, wrinkled nun followed, clearly long past tired of the conversation. “You are the chosen Holy Woman, Alice. The prophecy…”

“Screw the prophecy!” Alice flailed her arms, nearly hitting a candle. “I don’t even believe half the things you people chant every morning!”

Sister Magdalene’s eye twitched. “Watch your tongue, child.”

“I’m not a child!” Alice barked back. “I’m an adult! I know what I want… and I don’t want to waste my life stuck in a building praying to a golden statue for people who don’t care if I’m happy!”

I watched from the side. I couldn’t interact, not yet. I was just observing. But somehow, the emotion in the air seeped into me. My fists clenched. My chest tensed. She really didn’t want to be here.

And yet, I could also feel the guilt in her bones. That ache when you know you’re disappointing someone who raised you. The way she glanced away after yelling, not quite able to hold eye contact. She wasn’t a bad person. She was just trapped.

I remembered her lore, of course. Alice of the Silver Dawn. Born to a peasant couple who died during the Plague of Thorns. Raised by a traveling priest. Eventually taken in by the Church. I’d read it all back in high school while grinding achievements. At the time, it was just flavor text, something I memorized because I thought she was hot.

But now?

Now I saw the moments between the lines.

I saw her kneeling in front of a cracked altar, muttering prayers while hungry.

I saw her staring longingly out the convent windows at kids running through the town square.

I saw her clumsily swinging a broom like it was a sword, pretending to be a knight.

I saw her weeping once when Sister Magdalene fell sick, and she stayed up for three nights straight nursing her, not even knowing the proper herbs to use.

She had been so naive. Kind of dumb. But a heart of gold.

The memory looped again.

“I want to leave,” she muttered this time, voice quieter, more tired.

“You have nowhere to go,” the nun said gently.

Alice didn’t answer.

She just stared at the sun through the window like it was taunting her.

The memory ended there, fading softly like the last note of a lullaby. And in that moment, I felt it… a warmth, somewhere deep in the chest. Not mine. Hers. Loneliness. Hope. Anger. Confusion. All tangled together. This was the real Alice. Before she ever tasted blood. Before she ever became a vampire. Before the world twisted her into a creature that others feared.

And even now, part of her was still that girl. Still staring out the window.

Wanting to be free.

That was the problem with the Divine Possession skill.

It didn’t give a damn about boundaries or personal space. There was no line it wouldn’t cross, no door it wouldn’t open. When I cast it, I was allowed in completely: memories, emotions, dreams, and traumas. The whole messy spectrum of a life lived and still being lived.

And the worst part?

I liked it.

No, loved it.

It was addictive. That miracle of connection, of being able to understand someone else not just with words but with soul… it was intoxicating, like sex but many times better. Every time I used Divine Possession, I felt like another person and myself at the same time. I got to live lives that weren’t mine. I got to experience what made someone them, see the world through their eyes, love the things they loved, and hate the things they hated.

It was like eternity, compressed into a single heartbeat. An infinite stretch of moments folded neatly into a flicker of time I could revisit, again and again.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

That’s why I turned away.

Not out of guilt. Not even really out of respect.

But because if I stayed too long, I knew I’d lose myself.

A flicker of green light shimmered in my vision… a butterfly, translucent and glowing, fluttering on wings woven from my Soulful Guiding Fire. It danced across the dreamscape like it knew the way, like it belonged there.

So I followed it.

Down the stone halls, past memories stitched into shadow and stained glass. Through silence and dreams and the rustle of pages that no longer existed. I followed it because I had to know. I had to see how Alice ended up like that.

And then I was there.

The dream shifted around me like a held breath exhaled too quickly. The convent was burning.

Not with fire… but with blood! Crimson blazes so red they were like blood!

The air reeked of iron and incense and something wrong. Something that made my skin crawl, even though I didn’t technically have skin right now. The floors were slick with crimson, the walls clawed with scratches and symbols that hadn’t existed in any religious text. Moonlight poured through shattered windows, washing over the bodies of the Sisters. Some were still alive, twitching. Most weren’t.

Alice was running.

Her dream-body surged past me, barefoot, robes soaked and torn. Her eyes, those soft brown eyes, were different now. Glowing red, slit like a cat’s. Her hands trembled, nails darkening, warping. She stumbled over Sister Magdalene’s body and screamed. Not a battle cry. Not fury.

Just pure, unfiltered grief.

“No… no, no, no…” she sobbed, falling to her knees. “You were supposed to… You said the saints… You said the saints would protect us!”

A low laugh echoed behind her. A silhouette stood in the wreckage of the altar, tall and lean, half-shrouded in mist. I didn’t need to see his face to know what he was. Vampire Progenitor. One of the ancient ones. The kind who didn’t just drink blood, but rewrote people with it. His voice was like honey on a dagger. “Oh, little lamb… you should be thanking me. You’re free now. No more cages. No more prayers to deaf gods.”

Alice turned, mouth bloodied. “You made me a monster!”

He stepped closer. “No, dear. I gave you power. The Church would’ve let you die nameless. Now? You’ll be remembered.”

She hurled a chunk of debris at him with raw instinct. It missed. He laughed again and vanished.

The vision stilled. The dream slowed. I felt her rage bubble under my ribs, like magma. Her shame, her betrayal, and her terror. They swirled inside me like poison mixed with holy wine. And beneath it all… that aching, bitter thing:

Loss.

She hadn’t wanted this. She’d just wanted to leave. To be free.

And now she could never go back.

I moved slowly through the scene, feet skimming the blood-slick floor as I traced her steps. My Soulful Guiding Fire butterfly flickered again, and I followed it deeper, through a crumbled doorway into what remained of the chapel.

A mirror stood there, cracked down the middle, reflecting two versions of Alice.

One side showed her with holy light behind her: a robe mended, a staff of silver in her hand, and eyes full of hope.

The other side?

Crimson eyes. Fangs. A cloak of dusk and shadow. Power that made the air itself tremble.

Both were her.

Both were real.

I reached out, not with a hand, but with a presence, and touched the edge of the mirror. And in that instant, I felt her soul flinch. She knew I was there now. Her presence bloomed behind me like a gust of wind.

“…You’re seeing all of it, aren’t you?” she whispered.

I turned, or maybe just acknowledged her. Her dream-self was older now. The Alice I knew: fanged, beautiful, and dangerous. But also… tired. The kind of tired that sleep never fixes.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” I said, and meant it. “Divine Possession doesn’t exactly come with a consent form.”

She didn’t smile. Didn’t frown either. Just watched me for a moment. Then she said:

“You know… I used to pretend I was the hero in a story. Slaying evil. Saving people. Making them proud.”

“You were a hero,” I said gently. “You are.”

“No.” Her voice broke. “I was just… a scared girl who wanted out. And when I finally got what I wanted, it destroyed everything I loved.”

I didn’t have an answer for that.

Because she was right.

Sometimes freedom came with a cost so high, you couldn’t tell if it was still worth it. Sometimes, the door out of the cage led straight into the abyss. “I’m still here, though,” she whispered after a long silence. “I’m still me. Even if I don’t always feel like it.”

I nodded, my voice soft. “And that’s enough.”

She looked at me then. Really looked at me. And for the first time, she didn’t see a skill invading her soul. She saw me.

“…Thank you,” she said.

The dream began to fade again, slipping into that golden quiet where memories rest. But before I was pulled back, I heard her voice one last time. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

Neither did I.

The memory shifted.

The golden hues of the convent dissolved like dust scattered by wind, and for a second, I floated in nothingness: no sound, no sensation, just the faint flicker of consciousness tethering me to something deeper.

Then came the pulse.

It was soft at first, like a heartbeat in the distance. But with it came a presence. Not memory. Not reenactment. Aware. Real.

Alice.

I felt her now, not just as some echo of her former self but present. She was here with me. Her soul brushed against mine like the breeze before a storm, deliberate and warm. I turned, though I had no body to turn with, and there she stood. Not the girl from before. Not the fledgling vampire drenched in blood. This Alice was different. Something between then and now.

Her eyes met mine, and for the first time since I began using Divine Possession, the reenactment acknowledged me.

"I only wanted to know what happened in Sandthorn Village," I said softly. “There’s no need to go this far…”

She nodded, lips twitching like she might smile, but didn’t. "But I want you to see," she said. Her voice wavered like a candle’s flame. "I don’t want to be alone anymore."

That got me. I heard her once already, no need to say it again. I could’ve told her she wasn’t alone. That I was here now, watching. But she didn’t need promises. She needed presence. So I gave her that.

"Okay," I said. "I’ll stay."

And then it began.

A thousand scenes bloomed like flowers in fast-forward. Alice wandered the world: a drifter, a shadow, and a hunter wrapped in a pale girl’s skin. She searched for answers. For cures. For redemption. I walked with her. Or floated, or simply existed beside her. Divine Possession blurred the lines between observer and companion. I felt her pain, her hope, her bitter hatred for the blood that cursed her.

She hunted them. Vampires. Not out of loyalty to the Church that once abandoned her, but out of fury. Vengeance. A need to erase her reflection by destroying what had made her.

"Monster," they called her.

"Heretic."

"Traitor to your own kind."

"Cannibal."

She didn’t argue. She drank their blood not to thrive, but to spite them. With every progenitor she slew, her hair lightened, darkened, then shimmered with a strange rosiness… like crushed rose quartz in sunlight. It became her mark. Her myth. And still, I stayed. Decades turned into centuries. Centuries into millennia.

And I was there.

I watched her sleep in hidden crypts, tucked beneath church ruins. I watched her fight through snowy forests and desert wastelands, chased by those who feared her, revered her, or wanted her power.

But the moments that broke me weren’t the battles.

They were the pauses. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

A woman with kind eyes handed her a loaf of bread in a cold village where no one else would meet her gaze. A child with a scraped knee smiled when Alice healed him and whispered, “Are you an angel?” She didn’t answer.

She never stayed long. A day. A week. Then gone. But I saw her smile. Once, in a cottage lit only by firelight, when a man with broken teeth offered her a place at his table and called her “Miss.” Not “beast.” Not “witch.” Just Miss.

Those were the moments she lived for.

Not power. Not revenge.

Kindness.

Genuine, fleeting, human kindness.

And I understood, finally. Her love for humanity wasn’t a trick of the mind or a leftover habit from before the blood. It was real. The kind of love born from distance and longing, nurtured by small acts of grace in a world that gave her none.

She never wanted to be feared.

She wanted to be human again.

Not in body. But in heart.

I turned to her as the dreamscape quieted. The sky was a muted lavender now, stars blinking softly above a field of poppies.

She stood beside me, hair glinting pink under the starlight.

"I don’t hate them," she whispered. "Even when they ran from me. Even when they tried to kill me. I still loved them."

"I know," I said.

She looked up at me. Vulnerable. Small.

"I just didn’t want to be alone anymore."

"You’re not."

And this time, she smiled.

A real one.

Maybe that was the true miracle behind Divine Possession. Not the ability to see memories. Not the insights or stats or secrets. But the simple power to sit beside someone, soul to soul… and stay.