10 minutes earlier.
When Weber had left Josh to blend in, he made himself intangible and hid in boulders to avoid being seen by soldiers.
Weber's heart sank when he noticed the mounds of corpses.
Some burnt. Others fresh and bloodied. The air of rotten flesh inescapable.
Weber felt the need to vomit but held it in. It was so hard that he lost the focus to stay intangible. He gasped as he noticed he was now in plain sight.
Luckily for him, that side of the enemy camp was lonely. But something about the place spooked him.
He was hearing crying and screams that were deafening, and no matter how much he closed his ears, they wouldn't stop.
Weber gnashed his teeth and closed his eyes shut, but the screams only got louder.
Then Weber opened an eye and noticed the soldiers from afar had no reaction to the strange screams. As if they never heard them.
Having observed them for some time, it was clear: he was the only one hearing the screams.
Then he started hearing people begging, but it was incoherent.
"All this sorrow—" he said with a dull expression, then went pale when he noticed hands touching his feet. Nothing was there, but as he stepped back, hands he couldn't see were holding his arms.
Then he started hearing begging mixed with wailing.
"Please!"
"Please!"
"Please!"
Loud voices cried to Weber. He clenched his jaw and roared, his eyes going from hazel to white.
"What is this!—" he yelled, then froze when he saw dozens of people that were gray all over, with a faint hue of a white-gray aura.
Weber's heart started beating rapidly. Sweat drenched his head, and his breath stopped as his body began shaking.
"Ghosts..." Weber trailed off, his whole body trembling.
"Please, help us," a young woman on her knees said, her hands clasped in front of Weber.
"I don't know how..." Weber said lightly, then dozens of the other ghosts followed the young woman and dropped to their knees, clasping their hands together.
An erased memory from Weber's past flashed through his mind. He saw himself kneeling on the ground with one palm spread wide on the earth.
"If you people tell me how, then I'll help you," Weber said, mustering courage.
The young woman pointed at Weber's palm, and it had a black aura around it that wasn't there before.
"What is..." Weber trailed off, staring at his hand.
The closer you get to the Abyss, the more everything will align. A voice said in Weber's mind. He shuddered at the thought.
Then he looked at all the ghosts. "Are you all from the Abyss?" The young woman nodded.
"Then—" before Weber could ask another question, his heart began racing. But this time, it was different.
It wasn't his fear. It was another's. Concentrating, he realized it was Josh's.
Weber stiffened and looked at the ghosts. "If you want me to help you with revenge, you have to help my friend."
Then another memory quickly flashed through Weber's mind: he saw himself raising his hand to spectres.
Weber's eyes widened, then he raised his hand covered in the dark aura, and the ghosts started swirling around until they disappeared.
Weber's white irises turned bright gray.
---
10 minutes later.
Soldiers had surrounded Josh and caged him in an ice cave shaped like an ice spike.
They watched as Josh was shivering to death.
Then the sky turned black.
The soldiers turned and saw Weber running toward them. For some reason, their hearts dropped.
They couldn't sense mana from him, but an uncertain power.
His eyes, glowing bright silver, made them shiver.
"Blast him!" the soldiers yelled and sent mana blasts toward Weber.
Weber jumped high into the air. "I think it all makes a bit of sense now," he said, connecting his memory of touching the ground with another memory of his hands manipulating ghosts.
"Is he intangible?" one soldier asked as Weber soared. They weren't sure if the blasts were hitting or not.
"Wail of the Abyss!" Weber yelled as he slammed his palm into the ground. The ground shook, and everyone heard deafening cries and screams. A terrible cold spread.
Weber looked at his palms covered with black aura and instinctively stretched them toward a soldier charging at him with mana-imbued fists. Shadow claws from the chasms shot out, caught the soldier, and tore him to shreds.
Weber looked at his hands. He felt no fear or regret from what he did. More soldiers ran toward him, meeting the same fate as their comrade.
Then Weber looked over to the prison Josh was trapped in and walked toward it while soldiers battled ghosts they couldn't see.
Josh ashened when he saw Weber.
He thought he might have gotten used to Weber's ghostly nature, but Weber now carried an extra layer of dread that seemed foreign.
"Stuck in this ice cage? No problem," Weber said, placing one hand on the ice. It turned to blood but remained clear enough for him to see his reflection.
"Grasp of the Unmourned," Weber said. Josh saw reflections of dead civilians without their eyes. His legs shook as the cage collapsed into millions of bits.
Josh whipped his head around, his sanity slipping.
At one corner, soldiers ran from apparitions that flickered into sight for split seconds.
At another, soldiers rolled on the floor, crying, gnashing their teeth, and shutting their eyes tightly against screams beyond human pitch.
But what shook Josh most was Weber—motionless, staring into blank space.
"W-Weber, what's g-going on?" Josh stammered.
"They wanted my help, so I accepted," Weber said faintly, his gaze unmoving.
Josh looked at the pitch-black sky and around the chaos. "We have to leave! The soldiers might get reinforcements soon!"
Weber didn't reply. He walked past Josh, knelt on one knee, and observed the chaos, his irises glowing brighter as he smiled at the ghosts endlessly tormenting the soldiers.
It wasn't a grin of a madman, but a weak smile of a creator satisfied with the work of their hands.
Josh quickly walked to him and patted his shoulder. He recoiled instantly—the cold sensation made his hand feel an otherworldly chill no human body should survive.
"Weber... What are you becoming..." Josh trailed off, stepping back.
Then Josh felt an invisible weight press on him. It wasn't the ghosts. Even without mana essence, he could sense someone in a league of their own.
A person clad in purple armor with a thick lavender aura approached. He knelt beside a soldier, inspected them with white eyes, then looked at Weber.
"So it's you," the Knight said.
Josh's heart dropped. The presence made sense.
An Executive Officer—the rank below Captains. The enemy country's Executive Officer.
"Bad timing!" Josh murmured through gritted teeth.
But Weber was devoid of fear. He just stared daggers at the Officer.
"Return," Weber commanded, and the ghosts stopped their torment.
The officer noticed the silence but, like everyone else, couldn't see the ghosts.
"Doesn't matter if you're friend or foe," the officer said, rushing toward Weber.
"You'll pay for ruining my soldiers!" He conjured a lance of purple fire.
Weber stood, his hair turning white. He stretched out his hand.
"Grasp of the Unmourned!" he said eloquently, making Josh gasp.
"Is he actually going to fight?" Josh thought, eyes darting.
Weber ducked just in time to avoid decapitation and brushed his black-aura hand over the enemy's lance. The flame didn't extinguish.
It turned black, the lance's tip dripping.
The officer swung again but saw his weapon weakened. He shuddered, gripping it tightly.
"That's not possible..." He looked up at Weber. He couldn't sense mana, but Weber's cold, emotionless eyes revealed one thing:
Malevolence.
Weber didn't care who stood before him. Only removal of his target.
The officer tossed the lance and conjured another, swinging at high speed. Weber dodged most, except one.
"Die!" the officer yelled as the lance passed through Weber's head.
But what he saw made his stomach drop.
The lance had gone through Weber—not from a slice, but because Weber's form had turned intangible.
"Surprised?" Weber said, rising quickly. The officer shuddered.
Weber slammed his palm into the floor. Wide cracks spread. "Come out and have your revenge," he said, locking eyes with the officer. "Wail of the Abyss!"
The officer furrowed his brows as unseen hands grabbed his legs, dragging him into the cracks. His mana flared and he kicked them away, conjuring a blast at Weber.
Then voices whispered:
"You're strong, so why are you struggling?"
"Maybe you're not so great."
"Or you've grown soft with your title."
The officer spun, blasting wildly at unseen tormentors.
Weber smiled, then frowned. The ghosts weren't enough.
"Whisper faster. Claw harder. This isn't over until the people that caused your deaths pay," he murmured. The ghosts intensified their torment.
Then a massive headache hit Weber. He dropped to one knee, feeling stabs and blasts he couldn't see.
"W-what is this?" His hair shifted from white to black.
His eyes dimmed to hazel, his gray aura died, and the ghosts vanished. The sky cleared to blue.
"Weber!" Josh rushed to him. Weber held his head, trembling.
The Executive Officer panted, relief washing over him. But then his eyes widened. Weber was vulnerable. He conjured a mana blade double the size of the others.
"My turn," he growled, charging. Josh gasped, tears almost spilling. Weber was too distracted by the pain to react.
Then a large white orb struck the officer, trapping him.
"This is ridiculous—" he was silenced as his mana drained rapidly until he fainted.
Josh turned toward the source. A masked woman in a black jumpsuit with armor held a sleek metallic gun. Transparent tubes along the side glowed bright green.
She walked past the fallen officer, each step closer to Weber and Josh making Josh shudder.
Weber opened his eyes and stiffened at the sight of the woman.
"Another threat?" he muttered to Josh.
"I'm not sure—" Josh started, but Weber staggered up.
"No matter," Weber said, his eyes flickering between white and hazel, his hair shifting black to white.
The woman halted at the anomaly.
"Wail of the Abyss!" Weber slammed his palm into the ground, but nothing happened. His headache worsened.
"This world never lacks mysteries, does it?" the woman said, approaching as Weber collapsed.
"What do you want?" Josh yelled, feigning confidence.
"Get in the car. We'll talk later. Weren't you heading to the next country?" she said as a car pulled up.
"You can't just show up and expect us to follow you," Josh shot back.
She shrugged. "Sure. But when reinforcements come and see your Executive Officer like this, I wonder who'll save you."
Josh was about to protest, but Weber placed a shaky hand on him. Josh turned—and his heart sank at the weariness in Weber's eyes.
Not the emotionless stare from before. The Weber he knew. Terribly strained.
Whatever this new power was, it was destroying him.
"We have... nowhere to go... so let's just..." Weber fainted. "...go."
Josh gasped, then glared at the woman. "Fine."
He carried Weber into the car.
The woman drove in silence.
"So, why'd you help us?" Josh asked after minutes of tension.
The woman removed her mask, revealing blonde hair. But her eyes terrified him.
Bright pink.
He wanted to dismiss them as lenses, but his gut said they were real.
"Because you two were going to lose. And you still have things to figure out, right?" she said, meeting Josh's eyes in the mirror.
Josh folded his hands. "No, there's more to it. Spill it."
"A curse has befallen this world," she said, stopping the
car and turning to him. Josh shuddered. "And only a Spectre can stop it."
She pointed at the unconscious Weber. Josh's expression grew solemn.
It was now clear—too many people, even those they'd never seen, already knew of the existence of a human Spectre.