NOVEL NEXT Chapter 197: Spookophobia
The ghostly army trudges on, seemingly not caring at all that my sister is slashing away at their lines. They just keep walking at a steady pace, slowly closing in on us.
Sam and Nikki now start to get into business too. As they both have spells that are, in a way, holy because of me, their attacks also manage to get rid of the ghosts. And with my sister’s blessing on Max’s axe, she’s also doing rather well now.
That leaves me, Hilda, Carol and our wolves. As for me, the choice is rather obvious as I focus for a second and get into my white angel form.
“Try not to use spells that will give our position away too much. Like your skybeam.” Hilda stops me for a second. “If these are just ghosts from the people who lived here, or those who got disturbed by vile necromancy, it’s best to not completely give our position away.”
I nod. “And what will you do, don’t you have any holy skills because of me?”
“Not yet at least, or not that I know off, but I do have my wits still.” She looks at Carol. “Carol, could you create a perimeter with water and electrify that. That might not hurt the ghosts but it does look like we can keep them away from us like that.”
Carol nods and goes to work quickly casting water magic.
“Could you keep our rear safe from the ghosts, Ami? At least until we have set up.”
I nod as well. “I will.” And with a couple of flaps of my wings I go to the front line.
I try not to stay in the same area for too long as that will make the other flanks fold in on my friends. Every swing of my sword takes out at least a couple of ghosts. It is pretty hard for me to look at them though, especially when the ghosts are smaller than the others… But I steel myself knowing this is for the better. If there is truly anything of a soul left, even if it’s just a sliver, it’s best to just put them out of their misery.
While we are cutting down the ghosts en masse, it really doesn’t look like we are making a dent in them. I really start to feel hamstringed by the fact that I can’t use my beams of light at the moment. But like Hilda had said. If I start using them and it attracts unwanted attention, the situation might only get worse.
“Can everyone fall back for now?!” Hilda calls out to us, signalling that the prep for the electrified water has been completed and we all swiftly return to the confines of our camp after which Carol puts her hands in the water and starts electrifying it. The crackling of lightning shooting over the water’s surface.
“Will this actually work?” My sister asks, sword still at the ready.
“I do think it will.” Hilda says as the first ghost reaches the water’s perimeter. When it continues moving to hover the water, the ghost appears to be shocked and gets driven back just a little bit, before it tries again. The other ghosts also slowly start converging to the edge, but every single one of them also doesn’t manage to cross.
“Okay… That’s great.” Hilda nods happily. “Can you hold this up for long, Carol?”
Carol looks up at us with a smile. “Yes, this is actually quite pleasant. It tingles my hands.”
“Are we just going to spend the night like this?” My sister nonchalantly slashes up another ghost while it attempts to cross the water. “Or what exactly is the plan?”
“Ami, could you fly up and see if there is a source to these ghosts? If there is any I would presume them to be close to the graveyards we saw earlier.”
I give Hilda a nod. “I’ll go and take a look.” My wings spread themselves out once more and in no time I’m flying above the area. The fog does get denser the higher up I go so I need to fly somewhat close to the ground to be able to see anything. When I get close to the graveyard however, I do see that the pits we saw earlier give off a green light, similar to the color the ghosts are in. And now that I’m in this form I can also detect a corruption from the pits that I couldn’t detect earlier today. It appeared to be hidden away very carefully.
I fly back to our zone and report what I saw. “I probably need to cleanse that if we want the ghosts to disappear, but I don’t think I can do that while I’m fighting.”
“What if you try teleporting the entire group over. It’s not a very long range teleport, but you know exactly where we’ll need to be, right?” Sam proposes.
“That’s a pretty good idea.” Hilda nods. “Carol will need to set up again but that shouldn’t take too long and it hopefully won’t be necessary for that long either.”
“Mhmm!” Carol nods too. “I’ll make the circle smaller too.”
“Okay… I will try.” I get the group as close together as possible. Readying my teleport as I usually do. Concentrating on the pit that I had just seen before me and channeling my magic. I feel the wind starting to swirl around us until suddenly a pang of pain shoots through my head, with a clear purple swirl appearing in front of my eyes. The pain is so intense I almost couldn’t keep standing.
“Ami!?” Sam takes hold of my arm. “Are you alright?”
When I open my eyes I see that we are still in the same spot from earlier.
“What happened?” Nikki asks.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “When I tried to teleport like normal I suddenly got an immensely painful headache. I saw purple swirls as well…”
“That’s not good.” My sister comments. “So teleporting is out of the question for now.”
“It might be the corruption that’s somehow blocking your ability to teleport…” Hilda theorizes. I definitely hope she’s right because it’s a skill that we have started to depend on quite a lot recently.
“Well, alternatively, if you are strong enough to hold us, Max and I can keep you safe for a while if you carry us over.” My sister suggests.
“The both of us will weigh quite a lot though.”
“I can try.” I take hold of my sister and my friend and try out lifting them for a bit. While it definitely feels a bit taxing, the distance that I need to carry them is not too far.
“What do you say, Ami?” Max asks.
“It’s doable.” I give her a nod and then look over to my girlfriend who looks a bit annoyed. But when she sees me looking over her demeanor changes immediately.
“I’m not annoyed at you or anything.” She’s quick to defend herself. “I’m just a bit annoyed at myself that I can’t be of more help. Max and your sister are definitely the better option for the situation. The bow is not that good in situations like these.”
“I know how you feel, Sam.” Nikki nods. “Good AOE, not very good when I’m surrounded.
“At least you two can still hurt the ghosts.” Carol laughs, sitting back down on her knees with her hands in the water.
“We’ll do our best to create a distraction from over here, but the moment you start with the corruption, they might all turn their attention to you regardless.” My girlfriend leans in to give me a kiss. “Get out of there when it gets too frisky, okay?”
I kiss her back. “I will.” after which I grab hold of my sister and Max once more and lift them both off the ground. It really makes me appreciate the fact that my sister is currently not wearing her plate armor.
I fly towards the pit as fast as I can while Max and Lise have the scariest flight of their lives as I just barely sheer over the heads of the ghosts. Luckily it seems they are not paying attention to us yet. I swoop down into the first pit and set down my sister and Max who immediately take care to kill the ghosts that are lingering here.
“Ami, you better get to work before more show up. It will be hard to see the tide coming because of the high walls.”
I give my sister a nod and plant my sword into the ground, kneeling behind it and starting to feel out the corruption. Even though I have not really cleansed corruption like this before, it somewhat feels similar to how I removed the poison from my friend’s bodies back at the beach and in the settlement earlier, with the difference being that this is a lot more resilient than the aforementioned cases.
When I feel my magic wrap around the corruption deep down into the soil, a similar headache, yet a lot less intense, starts to hit me as I feel the corruption trying to fight back. And that’s also the moment when the ghosts start to spill back into the pit.
-This is not going to be easy…-