"Your here!" Giselle shouted as she pounced on me to the ground. "You've been gone for a whole week. Do you know how worried we all were?" Apparently, in this world, a week has six days. It was pretty confusing at first but I got the hang of it later.
"Sorry about that. Some things happened while I was there." Worried?
"We heard a few things about where you were going. None of them were good." Nirvana spoke.
"They say that hundreds of people who went there met a tragic fate for no explainable reason." Cassius said.
"I can't believe such a place existed without our knowledge." Nirvana added then looked at me. "Well, what happened?"
After a while, we were back at the palace meeting area. I had explained everything to them.
"Phantoms?" Nephilim asked then looked at Grendel. "You mean for almost thirty years there's been a place infested with so many phantoms right next to you and you didn't even notice it?"
"You're saying that like its a few steps away. You can fit dozens of large cities between were I spent most of my time and the border to that sector. How was I supposed to know?"
Here's how it all began, according to Uzzaran. About thirty years ago, right when she died, she became a phantom. It makes sense that souls of demons aren't allowed in heaven but if you ask me, I think its a little biased.
She became a bound spirit, meaning that she couldn't move far from where she died. While still alive, most demons are usually stronger than people. Once she became a phantom, that only made her even stronger.
Humans typically can't sense the presence of a phantom even though some monsters oddly can. Phantoms are no exceptions. They can sense each other from hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
Her strong presence of being a phantom demon attracted other phantoms from all around the continent. Even though they can't die, they always feel insecure, as if they're being hunted.
But when they felt her, they immediately thought that she is safe. Her strength as one of them made them believe that she can protect them. Its kind off like instinct since most of them are no different from wild animals.
The concentration of phantom mana, which is a thing, is what made the never ending fog appear and monsters disappear out of fear.
At first, she didn't care about them. Her death and the fact that she became a phantom came as a shock to her, making her not even care about her surroundings. This was the case for months.
Later on, humans noticed the weird activity that was happening close to the border of Sector D. So a group of adventurers were sent to investigate the area. That's when they came across a phantom that had the shape of a human but the limbs were much longer, sitting under a big dead tree. They came across her.
She looked at them for a while as they stared back in fear and realized they were humans. Out of instinct she became scared and was about to run away, but she stared closer to their faces and realized something. They were scared of her. That's never happened before. All her life, no one was ever scared of her. But those strong looking adventurers were.
Some feeling of satisfaction came on her. She moved her head away to know how they'll react when she moves and heard their screams as they ran. It made her, happy. When she chased them, that's when she realized that she's bound to that area. She literally got pushed back by some kind of invisible force until she went all the way back to the tree.
One time, she realized how other phantoms can do extraordinary things. Some can split themselves and multiply, teleport, grow or shrink, manipulate the minds of living beings, turn into disgusting monsters and such. But she couldn't do any of those.
She tried to learn by asking other phantoms but they're practically mindless creatures who, for some reason, like to stay around her. However, they picked up a habit of scaring humans by referencing to her as something even more scary than any of them and that she hunts down any who enter the area. But she didn't know if she could do the same things as them.
That's when a man showed up out of nowhere. He had pure black eyes and wore weird clothes. The man confronted her with no fear at all, even after she tried to scare him away. Instead, he offered to help her learn what she didn't know. An offer that she didn't refuse.
Like the man promised, she quickly learnt the ways of a phantom through him. However, even though she might not look like it, she still had the purity of a child. The man made her feel like she was indebted to him. When asked what he wanted, he said that he should listen to whatever advice he gives him from then on which she agreed to without a second thought or even asking for more details.
This was around the time when adventurers and other people who went in the area began to disappear and the area was labelled as a new sector, and since it appeared so recently, it was considered different from the others. Thus Sector F. It was him who managed to convince her to get payback for how they treated her when she was alive. Every time someone wondered there, they never came out. Instead, she sent them in a makeshift hell that she made underground.
Being a demon is one thing but also being a phantom? That's why, with the kind of power she has, she was able to make a literal hell. One that I do not want to talk about. You'd wonder what kinds of things her head was filled up with by that man.
I obviously didn't tell them all of this and only said the good parts. But I did tell them how that phantom is currently possessing me right now. Lets just say they didn't take that last part lightly.
After a while of being bombarded with questions and exorcism attempts, I finally got them to calm down.
"I thought you said its a bound spirit." Giselle asked.
"The only way a bound spirit could be freed from where its bound is by possessing a compatible being." Nephilim explained. "I guess they're pretty compatible to each other." Giselle flinched after hearing that last part.
"Out of curiosity, can I see it?" Cassius asked.
I didn't get the chance to answer when suddenly a long arm wrapped itself around my stomach. The other from my shoulder. A terrifying face appeared beside mine looking affectionate. It was her. Her appearance shocked them. She came out of nowhere and couldn't be sensed. Of course they got a little scared.
"How did you feel when she possessed you?"
"Hmm. Aside from a burning sensation on my back, nothing really."
"Burning? Is that why you were wearing a cloak when you returned?"
"Mmhmm. There was a hole in my clothes and I needed to hide it. So I picked it up from a carriage that had crashed somewhere." I was just curious when I saw it.
"I see. A little disappointing."
"However, I did feel a different when she came into me." That sounded wrong. "Like I was more, energetic. Almost, stronger."
"What's her class?"
"I'm not sure. But she's definitely not weak... Anyway, enough about me. What happened since I left?" They looked at each other with worried faces. "What is it?"
"The city was attacked by an army of demons." Cassius started. "They were weak but something tells me we won't be seeing the last of them."
"Demons? What makes you think they'll return?"
"Because we have what they were looking for." Nirvana spoke. Then she signaled for a box to be brought in. It was placed on the table and opened. I immediately recognized something familiar when I looked inside. "They were after this sword."
I couldn't tell what about it felt so familiar. "What's so special about this that an entire army of demons would go for?"
"Well technically not all of them were after this... But it was their primary target. What you're looking at right now, is a blade made of Euracknium. A soldier from Farglade had it."
Euracknium? Where have I heard that name before? "Its the metal that makes up the Heaven's Tower." That was Clara's voice. "Typically, it can't be mined, nor can it be forged. When one comes into contact with it, it has a number of irreversible effects."
What about if I touch it? What will it do to me? "The same thing it does to everyone. However, you can make skills to negate its effects. Would you like to create skill?"
I have something else I need to ask you.
"Young master?" Nirvana called me.
"Nirvana, how did your plan go? Were you able to finish it? What did the aftermath look like?"
"W...Well, we didn't finish it because of the sword. But I believe that the end results were in our favor. As for the aftermath, you'd say that the city was devastated, most likely abandoned by now."
I looked down thoughtfully then spoke. "Spread word. for the next few weeks, no one is to go too far away from the city. I'll put up a modified barrier around the area."
"Why?"
"What's going on?" Giselle asked.
"This is going to sound like a bit of a stretch, but I believe we might have bitten off more than we can chew."
"What? Why would you say that?"
I didn't answer and only looked at the sword. My thoughts weren't about the sword itself, but about where it came from."
A few weeks later, the High Priest was preparing for something. He wore a golden white rob as he walked down the isle of a big temple. His heavy steps echoed around the whole building.
At the end of the isle, multiple other priest were kneeling down next to an alter. There was a space between them where the High Priest walked through. He then went to the front and proceeded to kneel down.
He joined the other priests in prayer, an activity that made golden mana particles shine as they left their bodies and floated to a majestic statue of the goddess. The priests began falling, one by one, until the High Priest was the only one left.
He continued praying for a while until a beautiful light shone on him from the sky. To others who watched from a far, the light was too blinding for them. But he slowly looked up into the light with a crazy looking face. Then a beautiful female voice was heard.
"Speak."