Chương 104: Act 2, Chapter 56: Ghosts of the past

18th December (Thursday), past four in the morning. There are those rare, almost sacred moments in life when the world itself seems to exhale. When everything slows down just enough for you to breathe it all in. The quiet stretches out, timeless, and every detail becomes something greater than itself: the pale-green blades of grass pushing through the snow, the delicate lavender bells swaying in rhythm with the wind, singing their fragile song. You can almost feel the universe smiling in the stillness.

This was one of those moments, just— —completely reversed. Fuck!

"All… I wanted… was for things… to slow—" I gasped between dodges, twisting and ducking as the semi-transparent Native warrior swung his hatchet in wild, vicious arcs that could've turned me into more than one neatly sliced piece.

"—down," I finished, breathless, stretching into a backward bend that flowed into a cartwheel, then a desperate leap away. He had come out of the ground, just like Liora phasing through glass, or me through a hole. But unlike either of us, he'd done it without warning. No words. Just rage. Shouting in a language I couldn't even begin to recognize. His entire form shimmered with a greenish hue, almost see-through, and every move he made left a trail of freezing mist that I knew better than to touch.

I finally managed to put some space between us—barely a few feet—and that was all it took for him to throw his hatchet. I saw the flash of it slicing the air, felt the chill that followed, and vanished, teleporting to Liora's position behind him just in time. The world snapped back into place, and before I could even think, my hand was already in motion. A card. Flicked from my fingers. Authority surging through it. Fire and steel. It struck him square in the chest. Flame hissed. Shadowlight sparked.

And passed straight through. The spirit flinched, staggered even, but when I blinked, the hatchet was already back in his hand.

"Great," I muttered, lowering my stance, "just bloody great, wasn't it?" The ghost's translucent shape flickered as he sniffed the air, head tilting unnaturally far to one side before those hollow eyes found me again. His hatchet reformed in his grip like smoke solidifying, and before I could blink, it was already spinning toward me in a perfect arc, followed by the ghost himself, charging forward with a scream that chilled the marrow in my bones.

I dodged, just barely, the blade slicing through the air beside my head and leaving behind a trail of frost that burned cold against my cheek. My pivot from the dodge turned into a full sprint, straight toward the direction where the blood scent led. But before I even crossed ten steps, the ground ahead rippled and two more shapes clawed their way out of the frozen soil. They rose like smoke-filled figures, the mist curling from their backs as if their spines were made of ice.

Both turned toward me immediately, and one—because fate apparently had a sense of humor—had a bow. The arrow came faster than I expected, its flight silent, its trail a streak of green light that shimmered like northern frost. I ducked. Then vanished. Reappearing above them beside Liora, I could feel the Lóng's tension ripple through the air. Without a word, I hurled an escape card forward, let it spin ahead of me and summoned a fiery sheet from my Domain, dropping it directly over the archer.

Then I teleported again, grabbing the card midair and reappearing far ahead on the meadow, lungs burning, heart hammering, sprinting through the snow-covered ground. Behind me, I saw the sheet descend. The ghost hissed when the blue fire passed through him; it didn't stop, didn't catch, just melted his outline for a heartbeat before it pulled itself back together. So… physical things passed through, but the Authority effects still hurt them. The problem was, nothing I had could hold them and burn them at once.

"Unless…" I murmured, slowing for half a breath, feeling the pulse of my Domain deep inside.

"Unless I make something that's halfway real." Liora's horns flickered with shadowlight in response, curious.

"I know," I said through gritted teeth, eyes narrowing as I watched the spirits regroup behind me.

"But if they can touch the world enough to try to hurt me, then I can paint something that touches them." I knew how they looked so painting something like that wouldn't be difficult. Semi-translucent, green outline, a little mist, and voilà, I'd have myself a ghost weapon. The difficult part was finding the time to do it, and this battlefield was definitely not the place for it. So I did the only rational thing I could think of, grabbed Liora with my aura sense and teleported both of us into my Domain.

We landed, and I summoned my Depths Flame Knife, setting it on my drawing desk. It rippled with my Authority, the surface cold and wet, a weapon designed solely to counteract the effects of flame. But that meant any other elemental effect would cancel it out. The Depths had to go. Besides, Ghostflame was a much cooler name for a weapon. First, I asked it to become a normal blade. It already looked like water, so making it seem translucent or at least see-through, wasn't hard.

I applied whites and greys where light would strike, then reached for a neon green spray, misting from a distance, just a few droplets at first. Then a vivid green outline, a touch of teal to blend it together. It was done.

"Become a ghost blade." My Authority sank into it, coiling through every ripple of color until the blade answered. When I moved it, something felt off, different in a way I couldn't quite name. It was as if the blade itself was negative, a void instead of a weapon. There was no frosty trail behind it, which I'd expected. Nothing besides the physical or metaphysical properties ever came out of the pictures before. The freezing mist was, in the end, entirely physical despite its magical origin.

I gripped the hilt tighter and drove the blade down into the surface of my worktable. Instead of sliding through as it should, it struck with a dull thud, like an ordinary piece of steel. No resistance, no otherworldly cut. Was I too weak to recreate it? Or did I miss something? I didn't have time to dwell on that question. I needed a solution for my ghost problem, and fast. The blade might still prove useful, but I'd need more than that.

In culture and myth, salt circles and holy water always worked and those would become my traps. What I lacked, however, were things to actually paint on. Paper was too thin, it would soak through and fall apart the moment it touched the snow. I hadn't any bed sheets left at home, though I still had four in the rooms here. I kind of didn't want to use them... but time wasn't on my side. I looked around, my gaze stopping where the doors outside would appear if I willed them to.

Would Ideworld's version of my room still exist? My Domain was anchored to the doors leading into it, but if someone could force normal, earthly doors to open into a Domain, maybe I could reverse the trick and step into my own Ideworld room? Nah. Too many maybes for something that needed speed. I rushed into the rooms and tore the sheets from all four beds, spreading them across the floor the moment I dropped them. Two for holy water, two for circles of salt.

White circles, speckled with silver to represent salt against pure black paint. Standard blues, whites, and greys for water, different hues layered and swirling around a radiant white cross at the center. The metaphysical representation was evident enough. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. When they were ready, I copied the symbols for both into my Spellbook and stored the actual traps within my gravity-free room.

Then I began working on the image of the meadow itself, along with the ghosts of the warriors. Only then did Liora circle back to me, hovering close, eyes bright and curious as he studied what I was creating in my special book. He drifted around me as my arms switched places, gliding to match my movements, adjusting his position in sync with each brushstroke.

"Are we ready to fight them, Lio? I don't have much time before sunrise, and I'd really like to reach wherever that blood scent was leading me." He flared his horns with green shadowlight in response.

"Good, good. Listen. When we appear, I want you to rush toward that spot in the distance, the one where the scent was coming from, okay?" Another flare. Confirmation.

"Fantastic." I wondered if he could fight those things in his shadowlight form, but I wasn't about to test that theory. I tightened my grip on the Ghostflame knife, found Liora through my aura sense, and reached for my Spellbook. My focus settled on the newest painting within. In an instant, the meadow unfolded around us again. Liora, just as instructed, shot off toward the far end where the scent led, and I followed close behind. No ghosts in sight, at least not yet.

I thought maybe they'd given up after we vanished for that half hour or so, but it took them no more than a minute of me running to reappear. Two of them sprouting from the ground like sudden shoots of green light, followed by three more rising to my flank. Five instead of three. Not good. Could be terrible, actually. Maybe I'd overestimated my ability to even fight them. They didn't care about that, of course. They rushed me without hesitation. I ducked under one arrow, then another, but kept sprinting.

Liora was almost at the treeline now, a flicker of shadowlight against the dark forest edge. I scrapped the plan to fight here and teleported to him, continuing my run further away from the warriors. They hesitated for a heartbeat, confused, but the archer spotted me again, and soon all five were charging once more. That's when I smelled it. The blood. Close now. Half a mile ahead, buried in the forest. Good. That meant I didn't have to worry about losing the trail. I could focus entirely on the ghosts.

"Liora," I said, infusing one of my cards with eyes and steel before embedding it into a nearby tree as an anchor, "I'm going back to the meadow to fight them. Try to stay above and to a side of one of them. Find one that's alone if you can, okay?" He answered with a brief flare of green. Confirmation. That was all I needed. I teleported back to the meadow and the moment my boots hit the ground, the warriors reformed their ranks. The hostility was immediate, instinctive.

It seemed like they didn't want anyone standing here. Maybe the ground itself made them its guardians. Or maybe this patch of meadow was sacred, and I was the intruder. Either way, if they'd keep chasing me across this place, I could turn that to my advantage. Five opponents. Four traps. And one knife. I summoned the salt circles first, dropping them one by one onto bare patches of earth where the grass had thinned. All the while, I kept moving, dodging the occasional arrow that hissed past.

The hatchet-wielding warriors sprinted at full tilt, but too close together. I needed them spread out if I wanted any chance of success. So I teleported to Liora hovering above the archer and dropped silently behind him. The moment my boots touched the ground, I unfurled the holy water sheet beneath his feet. He looked down, startled, examining the soles of his spectral boots, but otherwise unharmed. Didn't matter. I lunged forward and drove the Ghostflame knife straight into his skull.

The blade met resistance unlike the cards or sheets that simply passed through. It bit into the ghost's ephemeral flesh, twisting coldly as I turned it. Then I pulled it free. The warrior collapsed into the grass, lifeless once more. Holy water was a bust. But the knife worked. And the others still hadn't spotted where I landed. They were spreading out, searching for me at the far edge of the meadow. Perfect. As I dropped into the cold grass, I remembered something I once asked myself back when I faced Shiroi.

How does one hunt a ghost? Back then, I wouldn't have dared to imagine I'd ever face real ones, let alone exorcise them with cold steel, sending them back to the state of true unliving. Now it was time to get stealthy again. Deal with them one by one. Crouched low, I crept through the tall grass, my body brushing frost and shadow. My eyes were almost useless here; all I could see was the faint outline of the forest beyond my anchor card and the dim movement of stalks around me.

So I shifted focus onto my other senses. Hearing. Smell. Both sharpened by the Authority woven into my suit. It's strange, realizing how different the world feels when you stop relying on sight. While we humans live by our eyes, other creatures—rabbits, foxes, wolves—read the air, the vibrations, the faintest changes in scent and sound. The ghosts smelled. Of smoky sage and sweetgrass. Echoes of old ceremonies. Of wet soil after rain, pine resin, cedarwood, and the fading ash of a long-dead campfire.

Each scent blended in a different proportion, painting an invisible portrait of every warrior. Same palette. Different strokes. I followed the one that smelled most of sweetgrass. He was the first I had faced, the skilled one. Every movement he made was deliberate, silent to human ears. Step after step, he carried himself like wind through grass. In my mind's eye, new senses painted the world. Not in images but in sound and scent. The faint rustle of spectral feathers.

The shifting of the air as his form turned to test the wind. The soft whisper of ghostly cloth brushing against itself as he moved. I stopped about ten feet away. His head tilted toward me, breath sharp with the dry tang of smoked meat. Warm air puffed from his nostrils, so close I could almost feel it. I reached for the holy water trap within my aura. It was farther behind me, a bit to the left. I let its Authority dissipate in a brief puff of shadowlight. Immediately, his breath changed.

Distant now, head turning toward the false signal. Then he lunged in that direction, steps growing louder, unmeasured. Others soon joined him, drawn by the disturbance. He passed me no more than two feet away. I emerged from the darkness of grass and night like a panther on a prowl. Sprang. Pounced. Before he could even turn, my Ghostflame knife found his heart, still beating despite being a ghost. Beat. Beat. Rapture. Stop.

I wrenched the blade free and let him fall, resisting the instinct to catch his dissolving form. His body exhaled one last breath of cold mist before stilling. The air shifted again. The others changed. Their arms raised, postures tense, their scents thickening with the sharp salt of sweat. I heard them closing in. Saw them too. But I didn't stay. I reached for my salt circles, teleported and removed any authority from both of them.

Reappearing above the circle's white outline, I watched as they stumbled, howling in confusion. Three of the initial five were still alive. Make Lio, stay away and low now, I instructed. Anansi obeyed, guiding my trusted sky serpent down from his high vantage point into the grass, where he melted into shadow. I straightened up, all tall and proud, and shouted:"Here!" They all turned toward me and began running. Fortunately, one was much closer than the others, and fast.

I stepped back a few feet, holding my Ghostflame knife high so that his focus would lock on the weapon. As his feet touched the sheet on the ground, I flooded it with shadowlight, infusing the authority of a salt circle. The momentum carried him straight into the invisible wall surrounding the circle. Bones cracked. Flesh gave way. His face contorted in a gruesome snap, and his arm shattered as the power of the trap fully activated. It worked better than I expected.

Not only did the circle stop him, it outright killed him. He collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut, heart stilled, mist rising faintly from his form. I made the trap move back into my Domain as I sprinted toward the remaining circle, positioning myself so the warrior would step on it in his path. I sprang into the air, barrel-rolling to dodge the hatchet he hurled at me, and in that maneuver, I solidified his trajectory.

As he stepped onto the sheet, he too was caught by the metaphysical properties of salt. His face slammed against the invisible wall, a knee taking most of the impact, his arm still raised in mid-throw. He collapsed, heart still beating. I rushed forward, withdrawing the authority from the sheet and thrust my Ghostflame knife straight through his eye socket as he slowly turned toward me.

I sent the sheet from beneath him back into my Domain and teleported toward Liora in the distance, leaving the sole survivor of this massacre confused yet again. As he turned toward the forest, searching for me, I rose to my full height and extended my arm pointing my pistol finger, letting the energy from the reactors—fed by my Authority—coalesce into the super-powered laser painted on the middle finger of my suit's glove.

The line of light formed briefly, vibrating the air with pure energy, before my Authority receded back into me. At the other end, the ghost froze, a perfect hole drilled through his chest where his heart had just been. He managed to turn his head downward, staring at the smoking wound, before collapsing in tandem with my exhaustion. He was dead, and I was drained, but I needed to confirm whether this light could reliably kill a creature like him. Just to be sure for the future.

"What do you think, Lio? Was I good?" I asked, standing slowly, finally letting myself take in the calm beauty of the meadow those warriors had protected. Lóng darted through the air around me, flaring a ghastly green, the same hue as the native ghost we had just felled, while I focused on the delicate dance of light in this world.

Blade-like grasses and flowers pushed through the snowcaps, mist and dew clinging to everything under the faint moonlight whenever the Moon decided to peek through the thick clouds with one of its faces. I blinked toward the eye card I had left, appearing there with it in my hand already. I removed it from the bark and stored it in its holder, releasing it from my Authority. We moved slowly, following the trail of blood through the trees, which on this side of the park felt more like wild woods.

Far from the paths those who had wrecked Victor's workshop would take, but the blood of one of them still led me forward. Liora rested his head gently on my shoulder, the rest of his body floating behind me on the invisible platform, as we neared a thicket. From the other side came lights, smells, and the low hum of voices. There was a camp.

Most of the trees had been felled to make way for it, their absence replaced by a rough wall, topped with a walkway patrolled by armored guards, reminiscent of soldiers from Edge of Tomorrow. In the center, one tree had been left standing, its vibrant green leaves defying the incoming winter. Its crown spread wide enough to shade nearly the entire camp, thick enough to make it impossible to see through, and shimmered with the light or perhaps shadowlight, of thousands of green fireflies.