Weber looked at Ariel and smirked, patting her shoulder.
Andrej stood next to her and nodded, "they'll try and go for the weak, so I'll protect you."
Ariel looked across the room and saw that Gabrielle was guarding Josh and Charlotte.
Ariel looked at Weber, "who will fight with you then?" she asked, and Weber jumped up into the air to dodge an incoming attack from Feign.
"There!" Weber pointed at corpses scattered in one corner, their screams and wailing heard by Weber.
The golden-white being looked at the corpses and then at Weber, staring at him intently.
"No fear of paranormal," it noted, seeing Weber running on the wall and landing on the floor amidst the dead bodies.
Weber stood up and whipped his head in the direction of the deity.
"I hear the cry of these poor souls, of how you feed off them to see the future to protect Vespera. That better not be the case," Weber said, clenching his fists and channeling the power of the Abyss into them.
"I owe you no answers," it said.
The Abyss appeared next to Weber, its form making Esther and Feign suffocate.
"Using the dead like this is unacceptable," the Abyss said.
Weber grimaced, "aren't you a hypocrite?"
The Abyss glared at Weber, and Weber looked away.
"Greed has caused you to make Vespera no longer have peace, Foresight."
"Foresight..." Ariel noted.
"The future is always being altered, and now I must do what I can to survive," it said, stepping back, Esther and Feign stepping forward.
Weber looked into the white hollow eyes of the Abyss, and they nodded at each other.
"Ask what you want, fast!" Weber said to the corpses, avoiding a punch from Esther that left a huge mark on the wall.
A ghost manifested from the corpses.
"To fight by your side," it said, which made Weber lose concentration in surprise at their request.
Ghosts usually asked for something of their own benefit in return for assisting Weber, but these ones just wanted to fight.
The thought distracted Weber, and he received a blow from Esther that sent him across the room.
More and more ghosts kept asking for the same thing, surrounding Weber, and he staggered to his feet, wiping blood off his mouth as Esther charged a blast that would have been enough to kill him.
"I can't shake all of you at once, so let's do something different," he said, slamming his palm to the ground.
Black flames erupted from his hand, spreading across the floor and consuming him and the ghosts who requested to fight with him, of which there were dozens.
Everyone began losing balance as the building shook, and the temperature dropped.
"You people have failed. And I won't be failing with you," Foresight said to Esther and Feign before vanishing.
Esther looked in the deity's direction and gasped, seeing it was gone.
Feign lost his cool and charged at the black flames after they settled. As he tried grabbing Weber by the throat, ghostly thin hands with sharp claws emerged from the floor, stabbing his organs, and he stopped moving.
Weber walked next to Feign as his life quickly drained, and Esther only watched in horror.
"Curse you," Weber whispered in Feign's ear and walked toward Esther.
She sent blasts toward him, but he went through them by becoming intangible.
Weber clicked his tongue, "you have the power to bring this town down in moments, but have to hold back because it'll ruin your reputation if you fight at full power."
Esther walked back, then smirked, "it'll be good if no one knows what happened here, so I'll be getting rid of all of you!"
She raised her hand and conjured a blast larger than all the others.
"You can protect yourself, but you can't save everyone," she said, sending the blast toward Ariel, Josh, and Charlotte.
Weber began running toward the blast as it quickly reached his friends but wasn't fast enough to do anything from his distance.
Weber's aura flared, and he fell to the ground, creating a sparkly field of gray with sparks of white.
The blast Esther sent vanished, and Esther looked up, only to be struck by it herself.
She crossed her arms and was consumed by her own attack.
Weber ran to the others and used his energy to make all his ghosts human for a few seconds to shield them from the blast. When it settled, Weber collapsed.
But Esther was fine, which made her look herself over, unsure how she had escaped unscathed.
"Most useful power I have as Captain," Captain Lewyin of Celestia said, holding up a cube glowing with energy that had almost harmed Esther.
"The sealing ability."
Esther grimaced, "I need your help. Besides, what is the Captain of Celestia doing in Vespera?"
Lewyin looked back and rolled his eyes, "that doesn't sound like a thank you," he said, then looked at Weber.
"And making sure that a user of a Great Enigma doesn't remain."
Weber staggered to his feet, "Great Enigma..." he repeated, and a memory returned, this time without a headache.
The Great Enigmas were powerful entities that neither existed nor were nonexistent.
They were existent because their power could be made useful with a human. Without them, they had no effect on the real world.
"He's clearly drained, so we get rid of him. I'll just seal them away," Lewyin said, making a transparent glowing blue crystal appear.
"Weber," Josh said, stepping next to him.
"Apologize later," Weber said between breaths, not taking his eyes off Lewyin.
"I can't believe that monsters like you exist. Isn't darkness consuming you?" Lewyin asked Weber, walking forward as Weber's body shook from exhaustion.
"I don't know how you used your power to deflect Esther's attack back to herself, but clearly you can't do that again," Lewyin remarked as the cube grew larger by the second.
It was now a dozen meters wide.
Josh stepped forward.
"Why won't you Captains stop these wars! Why must there be endless conflict!" he yelled.
But it was just a distraction for Ariel.
Lewyin squinted at him and noticed that Ariel was gone. She was behind him and shot him with her shotgun.
Lewyin, barely feeling it, turned back.
"I think I'll be sealing you first," he said, making the large cube descend on Ariel, which consumed most of his mana, but Weber ran and pushed Ariel away.
Weber closed his eyes, about to be sealed, but when he opened them, he saw Josh had pushed him away.
"End this war," Josh said to Ariel and Weber before being incinerated and absorbed into the cube.
"Josh!" Charlotte, Ariel, and Weber shouted.
Lewyin gasped, "that's too bad," he said, seeing that Esther was gone. "How ungrateful," he said and walked away.
Then he started hearing whispers as the sky turned black, and this time it wasn't just the area—the entire world had its sky turn black, which made Lewyin freeze.
"Wail—" Weber was about to use his powers, but Ariel held his hand tightly.
"You'll die this time if you use your power anymore!" Ariel shouted.
Weber snapped his fingers, and Andrej and Gabrielle held Ariel back.
Lewyin looked back and saw that Weber was gone.
He emerged from the ground, wrapped his hand around Lewyin's neck, slammed him through the wall, and rushed him through several walls. Lewyin rolled his eyes.
Lewyin easily released Weber's grip and ducked, but Weber's palm touched his back.
"Grasp of the Unmourned!" Weber said, and Lewyin jumped back. His body started convulsing, and he fell to his knees.
"What... did you do..." Lewyin said, rolling on the floor as cold black flames engulfed him, causing every inch of his body to spasm.
"Make you feel the Abyss," Weber replied, walking forward.
Shinto appeared next to Lewyin.
"Bastard, I warned you to be careful, and now you're dying," Shinto said to Lewyin, sighing.
Shinto used his mana art of speed and appeared next to Ariel in a single step.
"Don't worry, I guess." Before Ariel could turn, she passed out from receiving a fast and powerful blow to the back from Shinto.
Weber gasped and ran toward Shinto, but Shinto was next to Lewyin, "my cousin sealed away your friend. You can't break it until he dies. And I crippled your lady—bite me," he said, and a shimmering blue circle appeared, teleporting Shinto away with Lewyin.
Weber's form returned to normal, and the sky returned to its normal state.
Weber fell to his knees and stared at the ground.
He pounded the ground with his fists and hissed.
"Gabrielle! Andrej!" he yelled, and they appeared at his side.
"Haunt anyone that tries to stop me. I don't want to be followed," he said and went to Ariel.
Andrej and Gabrielle looked at each other and floated outside.
Weber carried her slowly, a tear rolling down his eye.
"I failed you again. I failed Josh..."
He left the building, and seeing that no one was close by, he laid Ariel on the floor.
"My wraiths, take her to the hospital and don't let anyone see you take her."
As he finished speaking, several of his wraiths appeared, covered Ariel in a cloud, and floated away, unseen by human eyes.
Weber sat down on the floor and sighed.
Even with the sound of sirens, he didn't flinch.
Charlotte went to him and cleared her throat.
"You must be Weber—" Weber cut off Charlotte.
"How did you lead Josh all the way here?" he asked, glaring at her.
Charlotte held her arm, "I'd tell you, but you probably wouldn't believe me."
Weber hissed and clicked his tongue.
"He got robbed, then got lost some days ago. He told me something about trying to get a job, and I told him there was one in this place. But the owner of this place—Feign—turned out to be a cultist, who was about using us for a sacrifice."
Weber slowly got to his feet and took a deep breath, "he must have been desperate for work... I wish I was there for him."
"It's not your fault, because the day he left, I should have returned with him. But every time we tried, some bad luck would affect us," Charlotte said.
Weber held his chin, "such isn't a coincidence then," he remarked, starting to sense strong mana users approaching.
"I'm still learning who you are, but I think we can both help ourselves. So it's best we go," Weber said and brought out his hand.
When Charlotte took it, Weber sighed.
"The police are going to come after us anyway, so we need to leave quickly."