Ch: 117.7 (Patreon)

They were coming from everywhere!

Grabbing Tabitha by her armor, I quickly dragged her to the center of the room as a spectral hand reached for her through the wall I had her propped up against.

“Gods!” Tabitha exclaims as multiple ethereal shapes phase through the walls and ceiling. They looked like featureless people made of silvery smoke, but Tabitha looked at them like they were the embodiment of death.

“Are these remnants?" I nervously asked, spinning around and counting over a dozen such figures surrounding us, with more slowly emerging around us.

“Worse,” Tabitha sounds defeated. “These are soul horrors, one of the strongest forms a ghost can manifest as.”

“That sounds bad,” I step forward and try kicking the closest one.

“Don’t!” Tabitha yells, but it is already too late. My foot passes through the silvery specter like it wasn’t even there, and at the same time, it reaches out lightning-fast and plunges its hand into my chest.

For a brief second, I feel like I'm dying again as the soul horror tries to rip my soul from my body. Too bad for it because I'm in no mood to die. Activating Soul Devourer, I pull a reverse card and devour the intrusive limb before it can damage my soul.

I’d never thought I’d ever hear a ghost scream before, and I don’t think I ever want to again. The ear-bleeding sound the soul horror makes when I tear its arm from it has me staggering back, desperately trying to cover my ears with my hands. At least my counterattack made it retreat, and the others pause their advance.

‘What did you do?” Tabitha exclaims once the ghost finally stops screeching. “You need special gear or skills to fight off a soul horror. Even Master must be careful around them because they can directly attack the soul."

“So, you’re saying I can’t touch them with normal attacks,” I purposely avoid Tabitha’s dumbfounded stare as I move back next to her.

“You shouldn’t be alive right now,” Tabitha’s astonished look says it all; this wasn't something she would just forget about or pretend not to notice.

“I think we have bigger problems at the moment,” I hiss. My hammer was still resting at the bottom of the shaft off to the side; I could reach it if I tried, but it was still covered in the winged serpent’s poison. I only glance at it briefly before ignoring it entirely; it wouldn't do anything anyways. "If physical attacks won't do anything, can you use magic to injure them?" I ask Tabitha, who was looking at me like I had sprouted a second head.

Thankfully, my question reminds her of what's happening around us, but she has no good news for me. "No, they're resistant to magic too. It would take a tier 4 spell or higher to harm them, and neither of us has the mana supply to cast such a spell even if we knew one,” she explains dejectedly.

Fuck, I guess there’s only one way out of this. I’ll need to openly use Soul Devourer in front of Tabitha without holding back.

“Leave me,” Tabitha again tries to sacrifice herself for me, but her voice sounds different this time. Maybe she finally realized that it was pointless to suggest such a thing and she was just going through the motions.

"Yeah, no," I bring my hand to my chest. I’m projecting an air of confidence, but in truth, I was worried. My soul felt off after absorbing the soul horror’s hand. The appendage contained a lot of experience, and it wasn't being absorbed as cleanly as it should.

“You have some sort of resistance against their attacks; I do not,” Tabitha pleads. “If you leave me behind, you can find a place to recover and maybe hide until Master arrives.”

“Or I can just kill them until they stop coming,” I boldly proclaim. Soul Devourer flares to life, and ten ghastly appendages sprout from my back. Two ghostly arms swing around and merge with my real arms, like astral gloves.

I look at Tabitha to gauge her response to my skill, but she doesn't react outwardly. She must not be able to see my skill’s manifestation without having Sense Soul. That's good; at least she won't look at me like I'm a monster.

“Don’t move, and don’t worry,” I tell Tabitha, ignoring the pain in my chest. The ghosts were still frozen in place after I injured the first one, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to strike first.

"What are you?" Tabitha's voice trails off as I step forward again toward the nearest specter.

I don’t know if they had any sense of self or were emotionless beings, but as soon as I approach the apparition, it jolts back to life and tries to shove its hand in my chest just like the first one did. Yeah, no, I wasn’t going to let that happen a second time.

Bringing my right hand up, I grab the ghost by its wrist before it can touch me.

Thanks to Soul Devourer, I can touch them.

I can hurt them.

I can kill them.

The soul horror is more than a little caught off-guard by my grabbing it. It tries to pull its hand back and flee, but I don’t let it. Instead, with my free left hand, I grab the angry ghost by the neck. Then I start pulling. The soul horror lets a soul-shaking wail of pain, but I don't stop trying to tear the thing apart.

The creature tries to swipe at me with its remaining hand, but too bad for it; I have eight more. It’s so easy to control Soul Devourer’s eight remaining limbs to reach out and grab the struggling spirit that it felt second nature to me. They wrap around the ghost like living chains, and as soon as the last one makes contact, I do what comes naturally.

All at once, each hand of Soul Devourer rips a chunk out of the ghost and channels the foreign experience toward my soul. The mass of experience hits me like a fist to the gut, but I don’t stop using my skill. As soon as a hand rips off a chunk of the ghost and absorbs it, I direct it to grab another, and in a few short seconds, the silvery form of the soul horror breaks down and crumbles. But as a last act of defiance, it lets out one last soul-turning scream, and all hell breaks loose.

The death wails of the soul horror did something to the others who seemed more than willing to stand by and not interfere until now. It was like a dinner bell was rung, or maybe they were out to avenge their ally; either way, all the soul horrors rushed to attack at once. Worse of all, they weren't only after me.

Jumping backward, I had just enough time to rip a chunk out of a soul horror that was about to attack Tabitha. No matter what, I couldn't let one of them touch her!

The pain in my soul was steadily growing with every chuck I absorbed. I try to rip the ghosts apart and not take in the experience, but when I do that, the experience takes on a life of its own and remerges with the soul horror I ripped it from. I had no choice but to absorb everything, so that's exactly what I do!

I wasn’t going to let them get Tabitha, I swear it! Ripping apart another soul horror, my soul feels like it’s about to burst.

I’ll kill them all!

Another falls by my hands.

Kill them all!

So much pain, but I must continue.

Kill them!

Don’t stop.

Kill!

**********

Tabitha’s Point of View:

I couldn’t move, and it was killing me that I had to leave everything to Aaliyah. She wasn’t even half my age, and she was giving everything she had to save me.

I’ve never felt so useless before in my life, but strangely at the same time, I’ve never been prouder. Aaliyah was my junior, facing a group of monsters that would give even Master pause; why wouldn't I feel proud of her? She used her Dancing skill to expertly doge and get close to the soul horrors while defending me. I couldn’t tell how she was hurting them, but whatever she was doing, the strong ghosts were evaporating in quick succession.

I hadn’t had the chance to explain to her how dangerous soul horrors were. When we camped outside the magic-dense region Aaliyah said it was the first time she came across remnants, so there was no way she understood the danger of the creatures she was fighting. Remnants were harmless, creepy to be around, but harmless; all the other forms of ghosts were less so.

When enough creatures die in a relatively small area, Remnants are formed, but if there are mass casualties, like in war zones, their stronger versions shades can appear. Unlike remnants, shades can influence the world around them and could physically attack people. They’re easy to kill if you can cast basic magic or have a decently enchanted weapon, but they are still considered dangerous to the average individual.

Remnants and shades are the most common form of ghosts, and most warriors go their entire lives without encountering anything stronger. Mainly because if a person is unfortunate to run into any other form of a ghost, they don't survive the encounter. I have never seen anything stronger than the two until now, having only been told stories of the more dangerous versions, such as revenants and soul horrors.

Unlike the primary two, who can form where a large amount of death mana acclimates, revenants and soul horrors needed more to manifest; they needed strong emotions. Because of this, revenants and soul horrors were exclusively found around where sentient creatures had died, mainly humans. You would think they would pop up everywhere during wars, but it was more complicated than that.

Every person dies differently; some curse their enemies, others laminate their misfortune, but most die so quickly they can’t feel anything. Revenants supposedly only form around areas of great tragedies like mass suicides or sacrificial acts where everyone is experiencing the same heightened emotions, whatever they may be. And it was a good thing because, unlike remnants and shades, revenants were quite deadly. They’re said to be as strong as a level 70 warier, but they were genuinely feared because they were tough to pin down, required specific gear to combat their soul attacks, and demanded strong magic to fight.

I heard from Master it takes entire hunting parties to track down and slay a revenant, and soul horrors were considered a hundred times worse, mainly because of how they come into being. While it takes a group to form a revenant, soul horrors were the opposite, they formed from the death of a single being, somebody above level 140.

In this waning era, few people ever reach the level required to form a soul horror, and fewer suffer the kind of death it takes to form one. So why, in the gods’ names, are there so many of them here!?

When Aaliyah said she would handle them, I cursed her for her foolishness, but I was the fool. I've been training with her for months now, and it never occurred to me she was holding back against me. Against me, of all people! Whatever skill she was using was obviously strong, so why didn’t she practice using it against me?

The only thing I could think of was that it was too dangerous to do so, meaning she believed I wasn’t strong enough to handle it. And maybe she was right.

Aaliyah only needed to touch the soul horrors to utterly rip them to shreds. I've had little experience dealing with such skills, but I recognized a soul attack when I saw one. Scholl had few mages specializing in curses, but the ones we did have, were extremely dangerous. Master had me train against them a few times in the past, and I distinctly remember the feeling of having all my energy drained from me without being able to do anything about it. But even with their most potent spells, they couldn't do what Aaliyah was doing right now.

More soul horrors were emerging from the walls and rushing toward us, but Aaliyah wasn’t phased by their appearance. In fact, she looked happy to see them. Aaliyah was visibly sweating but grinning from ear to ear, much like I'd been told I do while fighting.

It was only a matter of time before Aaliyah subdued the remaining soul horrors, but it was odd; for some reason, my danger sense skills hadn't started to calm down despite the reduced danger. If anything, they were louder now than when the soul horrors first appeared. Why was that?

Aaliyah was winning, so there had to be another danger I wasn't seeing, but what was it? Either way, I needed to warn her about it. "Aaliyah, be careful; my skills still say we're still in danger,” I shout as she rips apart another soul horror with her seemingly bare hands.

She was too busy to acknowledge my warning, so I tried again to ensure she heard me. "Watch out; there might be something else nearby!”

This time she pauses, and I know she heard me. As long as she was aware of the hidden danger, she could-

Aaliyah’s head suddenly snaps in my direction unnaturally, and her killing intent washes over me. Her green eyes were glowing eerily like green fire, and despite her looking directly at me, it felt like she didn’t see me at all.

“I see, so that’s how it is," I sighed tiredly. Another soul horror tries to attack Aaliyah distracting her from me, but I’ve seen enough to know what’s happening. I bet that's why she’s never used this mysterious skill against me. She's lost her mind, and her body was moving on instinct alone. And my skills were still going off because once there were no more enemies to distract her, I would be her next target.

So, in the end, I am going to die here, just not how I expected.

I didn't feel mad at Aaliyah, I knew her well, and she'd never do this if she knew she would harm me. I was prepared to die to save her, and that hasn't changed.

I don’t blame her for what she’s about to do; my only wish is that my death snaps her out of whatever state she's fallen into, lest she tries to attack the winged serpent above us afterward. Aaliyah’s skill may be able to damage it, but chances were she’d die in the process.

Only a few more soul horrors to go, I note the three remaining. Two of them were the same as all the others, but the last was massive, easily three times the size of the other ghosts. And it was waiting, waiting for the last of its allies to disappear before it engaged Aaliyah.

I had no idea how strong it was, but either way, this was it. And I was okay with that. My only regret is that I can't move my arms and kill myself before either get their hands on me.

I wanted to save Aaliyah from the pain of killing me, and I didn't want to risk my soul being ripped out of my body by the soul horror. People say if a ghost eats your soul, you won't find peace in death, only torment. Of the two, I’d prefer to die for the sake of young Aaliyah, but life rarely goes as planned.

Aaliyah brutally rips apart the last two regular soul horrors, and the final battle commences.

Unable to move, I pray Aaliyah is victorious against the final soul horror. If she wins, I'll try to break through to her with my voice, but I wasn't holding my breath.

I wish her all the success in the world because if I’ve learned anything training her, she'll eventually become strong enough to help save Scholl.

What better reason to die for?

************

2,700 words.

Good news, my mom’s surgery went well, and with that no longer worrying me, I can get back to putting out chapters on time.

Speaking of which, what did you think of the chapter? Tell me below, and as always, stay safe.