Old Witch

The Old Witch is a feared Borderland captor, body-modification researcher, and later defender of the Purity Wizard Tower. She begins by treating Saul and other prisoners as experimental material, but Saul's expertise turns that coercive arrangement into a fairy-contract partnership. Her apparent feud with Wind Sprite Pei'er is eventually revealed to be the product of deliberately blocked cognition: the Old Witch is a separated operational self created by Pei'er, not a name under which Pei'er knowingly acts throughout these chapters. (Chapters 514–529 and 602–604)

Biography

Captor and Perfect Body bargain

The Old Witch finds Saul and Marsh in the Borderland and confines them among captives whom she dissects for useful components. Her overriding aim is to construct a Perfect Body combining desirable traits from several races, both to escape the limitations of her existing form and to surpass the Borderland's dominant wizards. Saul persuades her that his knowledge of tissue compatibility, regeneration, and wizard-body modification can solve problems that have stalled her work. His rapid improvement of the formula makes him too valuable to dismantle, so she moves him from a cage into the laboratory alongside Oqili, while continuing to enforce obedience through disabling potions, suppressive cages, threats, and the flaying stick. (Chapters 514–521)

Her worsening urgency makes the laboratory even more lethal. She supplies Saul with a complete soul by dissecting a dwarf captive, limits the remaining trials, and allows use of the Baisec Magic Mirror to accelerate reactions. Oqili interprets the pressure as proof that escape is their only chance, but Saul keeps a different strategy: he finishes enough of the transformation to make the Old Witch choose between losing her sole batch of materials or testing the body herself. Oqili flees and is killed by her mirror, while Saul stays, knowing her dependence on his work gives him leverage that running cannot. (Chapters 521–528)

The Old Witch decapitates herself and places her head directly into the synthetic body material rather than submit to an ordinary operation. The result initially leaves her with an old woman's head on a deformed infant body, but it also gives Saul the opening he prepared: Black Tide pollution hidden in the new vessel. Unable to kill him without risking her own destruction, she accepts a fairy contract. Saul removes half the pollution, takes the mirror and flaying stick as compensation, and gains her Borderland knowledge; she gains continued treatment and refinement of the body. Their relationship therefore changes through mutual coercion into an explicit exchange, with Lake Rhine becoming the site of Saul's independent tower because of her guidance. (Chapters 528–529)

Purity Tower partner and restored identity

At the Purity Wizard Tower, the Old Witch remains abrasive and openly favors theft or force, yet she becomes a practical partner because Saul's survival, research, and growing patient network serve her own recovery. She warns him about Borderland threats, identifies useful locations and faction-linked artifacts, helps devise defenses, and captures attackers who test the tower. Her Perfect Body grows and adapts as she recovers strength, although Camus judges its design a failure and Saul recognizes that it improves agility and recovery more than magical capacity. Her irritation at being used as a negative example does not end the cooperation; she continues supplying local knowledge and physical protection while waiting for Saul to cleanse the remaining pollution. (Chapters 539–552)

The alliance becomes more reciprocal as stronger enemies gather around Rhine Lake. The Old Witch answers calls against Second Rank intruders, confronts wind specialists outside the tower, and uses air barriers, redirected attacks, wind blades, and the lake's defenses to keep the Purity Tower from being overrun. When the apparent Wind Sprite's agents seize Saul's Magic Reservoir, Saul frames a counterattack as both protection of his advancement and the Old Witch's chance to strike the ruler who has hunted her. She accepts because she sincerely experiences the Wind Sprite as an enemy, accompanies Saul and Brando into the cliff caverns, and carries the Baisec Magic Mirror while Saul removes the last of her internal Black Tide pollution. (Chapters 565–601)

The confrontation exposes why that hatred and ignorance could coexist. Kismet restores cognition that Pei'er had deliberately sealed, and the Old Witch realizes that she is the real Wind Sprite while Nerela has been impersonating her. Pei'er had split off most of her body and a cognitively blocked self after Clark began drawing her damaged consciousness into dreams; the separated self knew only that it had to build a Perfect Body, preventing Clark from learning the plan through her. Once the truth returns, the Old Witch's Perfect Body melts into Pei'er's injured original vessel and repairs it. This ends the Old Witch's independent operation rather than retroactively erasing her distinct motives, perceptions, and choices during the separation. (Chapters 602–604)

Pei'er later describes the Old Witch state as a transformation maintained to resist Clark's nightmare erosion. That retrospective explanation confirms the shared origin, but Pei'er thereafter acts with restored memories, factional authority, and goals that the Old Witch did not possess while cognitively blocked. The Old Witch should therefore remain distinct in treatment from Pei'er, with her status recorded as reintegrated rather than as an alias that was knowingly used by the Wind Sprite. (Chapter 647)

Appearance and personality

The Old Witch initially appears as a grotesque elderly woman with a deeply wrinkled face, sparse hair gathered into a braid, severed little fingers tied into that hair, sharp nails, a dark-purple tongue, and an unnaturally wide mouth. After the Perfect Body procedure, the same oversized aged head sits on a newborn-sized body with thin limbs and a swollen belly. The vessel subsequently grows rapidly and changes its proportions as it adapts to her returning power; she later hides the conspicuous face behind a large flesh-colored mask that blocks scrying. (Chapters 514–515, 521, 528–529, 539, and 590)

She is irritable, cruel, possessive, and accustomed to evaluating living beings as materials. Her humor often takes the form of threats, and she responds to defiance with dissection or flaying. At the same time, she is not merely reckless: she maintains a hidden lair, tests whether captives will flee, uses tools and preparations instead of exposing every ability, and retreats from risks that might reveal her location. Her willingness to decapitate herself for the Perfect Body shows exceptional nerve, while her later defense of the tower combines contractual self-interest, pride, and a gradually familiar working rhythm with Saul. (Chapters 514–529, 539–551, and 590–598)

Abilities

Perfect Body and bodily adaptation

The Old Witch's central project is a synthetic body intended to combine elven beauty, giant resilience, dwarven strength, barbarian adaptability, and exceptional elemental affinity. Saul's revised vessel permits wholesale transfer after she severs her own head, then grows and adapts as her strength returns. It offers rapid healing and resistance to hazards such as the Wind Sprite cavern's venomous spiders, but it is not flawless: Camus criticizes the construction, Saul finds its increased magical capacity inadequate, and Black Tide pollution placed in the material can destabilize it from within. (Chapters 515–518, 528–529, 539, 548, 551, and 598)

Wind and air manipulation

She can harden or immobilize the surrounding air strongly enough to trap Saul in place, restrain a flying wizard, and form shields that function as both defense and blunt-force weapons. In battle she produces wind blades and compact whirlwinds, redirects an opponent's large wind wave through a curved air barrier, detects movement through disturbances in the air, and carries herself and Saul through dangerous passages inside a protective wind shield. These techniques are powerful for a Second Rank combatant but can strain her, and concentrated venom or specialized magical tools can still erode or shatter her defenses. (Chapters 528, 550, 590–592, and 598)

Experimental craft and field methods

Although her theory is weaker than Saul's and Camus's, the Old Witch is an experienced experimental practitioner. She builds soul-extraction equipment from common components and miniature formations, prepares suppressive cages and disabling nourishment, performs complete-soul extraction without losing fragments, and harvests or preserves rare biological materials. Her methods are effective but brutally empirical: she compensates for limited theory through repeated captive trials, direct dissection, and close observation of bodily reactions. (Chapters 515–522 and 548)

Tracking, concealment, and survival

Years of hiding from major Borderland factions make her skilled at concealment and pursuit. Her underground residence appears externally as small animal holes and leaks almost no magic, while her tracking allows her to overtake Oqili before he can reach sanctuary. She also uses a scrying-blocking mask, recognizes faction artifacts, and exploits local terrain and rules rather than treating combat as a simple contest of power. These habits help her survive despite being hunted by the apparent Wind Sprite and the Lord of Fireflies. (Chapters 520, 526–527, 550–551, and 590)

Relationships

• Saul: She begins as his captor and intended dissector, but his superior body-modification knowledge makes him indispensable. Saul uses a deliberately preserved flaw and Black Tide pollution to force equal bargaining; afterward, she provides protection, intelligence, and combat support while he cleanses her and improves the Perfect Body. Their partnership remains sharp-edged and transactional, yet repeated cooperation makes each able to anticipate the other's tactics. (Chapters 514–529 and 539–601)

• Pei'er: Pei'er is the Old Witch's source identity, not simply another name she knowingly uses. Pei'er creates the Old Witch by separating most of her body and cognition, then blocks memories so Clark cannot discover the plan. The Old Witch consequently develops and acts under incomplete knowledge until cognition is restored; her Perfect Body then merges into Pei'er's original body, ending the separated identity's independent activity. (Chapters 602–604 and 647)

• Oqili: Oqili is first a long-term captive and experimental assistant whom she threatens with dissection. He conspires with Saul to escape and nearly reaches Wind Sprite territory, but the Old Witch tracks him down and kills him with the Baisec Magic Mirror before he can expose her lair. (Chapters 515–527)

• Camus: Camus's theoretical criticism of the Perfect Body repeatedly makes the Old Witch the example of an unsuccessful design. She resents the judgment and withdraws from their discussions, but leaves tissue for further study and remains at the tower rather than abandoning Saul's research. (Chapters 547–552)

• Nerela: Before recovering her memories, the Old Witch experiences Nerela's Wind Sprite persona as the enemy hunting her. Once Kismet restores her cognition, she recognizes Nerela as the subordinate who betrayed and impersonated Pei'er, overpowers her wind magic, and prevents her from alerting Clark long enough for Saul to intervene. (Chapters 590–603)

• Clark: Clark's attempt to consume the injured Pei'er through dreams is the reason the Old Witch exists with sealed cognition. The block conceals her purpose from him, while the Perfect Body preserves a route for repairing Pei'er's original vessel. The Old Witch does not understand this conflict until her memories return. (Chapters 541 and 602–604)

Items

• Baisec Magic Mirror: Originally the Old Witch's major magical tool, used to accelerate experimental reactions, defeat Oqili, and observe the Wind Sprite's caverns. Saul takes it as compensation under their contract; after the identity restoration, Pei'er entrusts a miniature mirror containing part of her main consciousness to him as insurance against Clark. (Chapters 522, 527, 529, 596, and 604)

• Flaying stick: A wooden implement that tears flesh from targets and enforces discipline among her prisoners. Saul confiscates it with the mirror after their contract. (Chapters 518, 525, and 529)

• Fairy contract: The agreement formalizes mutual nonaggression and cooperation after Saul contaminates the Perfect Body. It turns their unstable stalemate into a defined exchange of cleansing and research for protection, materials, and Borderland guidance. (Chapter 529)