Eclipse of Shadow

Eclipse of Shadow is a Western fantasy web novel by the Yunnan Honghe writer Baikaishui, serialized on Qidian from June 2009 and completed in 2011, running to about 850,000 characters and 272 chapters. It has two protagonists: the undead (lich) Victor Shengsong and the demon Klein. Victor was originally the last member of a special lineage bearing the blood of the "Servant Priest"; after becoming undead, he serves as a priest of death, enters the middle world of humans on the Lich King's orders, and, while seeking the meaning of his own existence, is drawn into the coming war of light and darkness. Klein is of mixed dark-elf and human blood, transformed into a demon by receiving the blood of a demon god and made a crystal apostle directly under that god; he and Victor form a complex and fragile alliance of shared interest. The book uses a travelogue and episodic structure, linking relatively independent short stories of "commissions" and "adventures" across scenes such as Crystal City and the Sagron Desert, gradually laying out a world setting that includes pantheons, calendars, three major systems of magic, and a class system. The author describes it as "a pseudo-dark travelogue novel with a lich and a demon as protagonists," whose focus is not the old motif of species conflict or darkness eroding light but the cross-sections of human nature under power, desire, and the law of survival; the tone is gloomy and cold, incorporating elements such as puppets and divine descent, weakening the traditional epic framework and emphasizing fragmented stories and the situations of the characters.