Across the space of the night, I tried to understand what I had just seen. Philosophy and the Knights were natural enemies. That the Philosopher had died was one of the outcomes I expected. That the Knight killed him with treachery...

 That was wrong. Wrong.

 In the first place, a Philosopher shouldn't ever be amicable with a Knight. They worked at cross purposes - especially for those Philosophers that had transcended the mundane world. Crossing the rubicon of Heaven Severing would inevitably make the Knights one's enemy. It placed one firmly within their world - and that was merely the third step! The Philosopher I had seen last night had been of the fifth. Key Condensation. At that level, it wasn't just inside the knight's concern. The Realm of Key Condensation was as close to their natural enemy as existed anywhere.

 I wanted to know what the hell had happened to make that bastard of a Sage think that he was anything other than a danger to be annhilated, but I just didn't know enough! Damn it, why couldn't I ever reincarante as a mortal cultivator!? The closest I had ever been able to come was the sundamned Dragon thirty lifetimes back, and it had died in the first ten seconds!

...truly, the world is cruel. Oh, woe!

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I snorted internally. Woe indeed. That the Knights would one day find out that I had learned how to project a self beyond my imprisoned body, that, I knew. But everything else...

 Morning came without answers, and as the subtle enervation of the Sun roused Esorem, making his sleep restless, I felt a small change, and seemed to be pushed down, deeper into Esorem's soul.

 Not good. I could float on the surface indefinitely, but the deeper I fell, the more I'd have to pay to remain intact.

 --the sooner my incarnation's death would be.

 Esorem stretched, and patted himself down, before cleaning his camp and getting up to go look for food.

 The next nine months went more or less the same way. Only, every now and then, he would return to the clearing, walking a slow circle around the spot that the Worldslicer Sword had cut, occasionally probing at it, and once or twice, even muttering magical incantations that - while not especially lucid or coherent - were a step above what most hedge wizards knew of.

 They also had pretty much no relation to any of the so called "schools" of mortal magic in existence. He had probably worked them out himself, relying on his cheat-code like spiritual sense to figure out which formulas were more likely to produce results.

 Naturally, though, his efforts met with no success. In the first place, how could someone without even an awakened awareness cut through the world and find the path the Knight had traveled?

 Eventually, one day, in the midst of winter, he sighed.

 "I have to know," he said out loud. It was the first thing he had said since he last spoke, nine months ago.

 Those words... They began a long journey.