Soul Departure Magic

**User(s)** | Reifune

**Soul Departure Magic** (死霊魔法, *Shirei Mahō*) is a form of Caster Magic that allows the user to project his "spiritual essence" which exists partially in a strangely configured combination with his physicality in the tangible reality but mostly co-exists at a different astral plane of existence.

## Overview

This magic allows the user to gain conscious control over their projected spiritual essence and travel out of their physical body; essentially, splitting their magical prowess and consciousness in two halves. While the spirit for all intents and purpose is intangible, it can interact with physical matter for a limited amount of time, as they are in a constant state of conflicted existence; since the spirit is not supposed to naturally exist outside of the physical body, unless the person in question is dead. Due to being in this torn existence where they belong to both the astral plane and the tangible reality, they [the spirit] are capable of temporary selective tangibility. However, this is also the reason as to why this magic is seen as the "corruption of the natural law".

The spirit form is able to levitate and traverse vast distances due to being independent of mass and thus not bound by any form of weight or gravity; making it a speedy aid in combat situations, where it is able to hit several enemies in a short amount of time. Due to the selective intangibility of this conscious spiritual essence, it can be used defensively to block and deflect incoming attacks, making it seem like the attacks simply bend away or change trajectory upon coming in close proximity with the user's body, thus tricking their opponent(s) into believing that they are using reflector magic. While the spirit has the memories, strength and skills of the original caster, they are unable to cast any form of magic themselves; however, this problem can be overcome with something as simple as the corpse of a recently deceased person. As long as the corpse belongs to a person who has died within six months, the spirit is able to enter and essentially "animate" their body. In this body, they are able to utilize the magic naturally possessed by the host body and could be of great assistance to the user, especially in terms of psychological warfare, as they are able to possibly possess the dead body of a loved one. However, due to the degradation faced by the physical body, the time of possession is significantly short and they are unable to fully utilize their strength as it naturally inferior (compared to the host body at its peak) due to the host being a decaying corpse.

An obvious weakness to this magic, is the inability of the spirit to exist simultaneously in both worlds and thus cannot be projected outside the physical body for an indefinite amount of time. After an interval of every five minutes, the spirit must be called back and merged with the user's body or both the user and the spirit will perish within a couple of minutes. At the same time, since this spiritual essence is invisible to the naked eye and cannot be perceived by any human senses including tactile senses (as in, a blow from them is not registered by the nervous system, causing nearly painless damage to the body), it becomes extremely hard to make note of this spirit form and trap it.